Bill Passed by House and Senate to Declassify COVID Origins Documents May Be Attempt to ‘Frame’ China
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 13, 2023
Lawmakers and media misrepresented a bill requiring the declassification of documents related to the origins of COVID-19, according to several experts who warned that contrary to what the public was told, the legislation limits the types of documents the government must declassify — raising questions about the bill’s real intent.
According to the sponsors of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 — which sailed through the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and is awaiting President Biden’s signature — the bill requires the government to declassify all documents pertaining to COVID-19.
But experts interviewed by The Defender said the bill requires the declassification only of documents related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the “lab leak theory.”
They suggested the limitations may be intended to reduce the culpability of U.S. and private actors in the potential leak of — or development of — COVID-19, by placing full blame on China and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Bill’s backers made ‘false claims’
Independent journalist Sam Husseini said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the Senate’s co-sponsor of the COVID-19 Origin Act, made “claims about the bill which are false.”
Hawley, on March 1, tweeted:
Speaking to Fox News March 2, Hawley made similar claims, saying, “My bill … will declassify all of the information the federal government has on COVID origins.”
Hawley later followed up his statements with a letter addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping, informing him of the bill’s passage. This prompted a response from the Chinese government, according to The Gateway Pundit.
Another of the bill’s Senate co-sponsors, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), said in a statement:
“The American people deserve transparency, free from censorship or spin. It’s time to declassify everything we know about COVID’s origins and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now.”
Braun also tweeted:
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told the House:
“The American public deserves answers to every aspect of COVID-19 pandemic including how this virus was created, and specifically whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab related event.”
Statements like these led media outlets, including The Defender, to report that if passed, the will would trigger the release of all documents — not just those related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Bill ‘dubiously named’
On his blog, Husseini said the COVID-19 Origin Act is “dubiously named” and instructs Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines only to:
“Declassify any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), including (A) activities performed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army [of China].”
“This means that information not related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology is not being requested and would almost certainly therefore remain classified,” Husseini wrote.
The bill also states:
“There is reason to believe the COVID-19 pandemic may have originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology …
“… the Director of National Intelligence should declassify and make available to the public as much information as possible about the origin of COVID-19 so the United States and like-minded countries can —
“(A) identify the origin of COVID-19 as expeditiously as possible, and
“(B) use that information to take all appropriate measures to prevent a similar pandemic from occurring again.”
The bill requires Haines to turn over the declassified evidence “no later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act” and to submit to Congress an unclassified report containing all the documents requested in the bill, with “only such redactions as the Director determines necessary to protect sources and methods.”
Husseini noted that parts of the bill are unusually specific, focusing “on one strain of alleged evidence” by calling for Haines to turn over classified documents pertaining to “researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in autumn 2019.”
“Now, that could be very important,” Husseini wrote. “But why is this legislation limiting disclosures?”
A ‘classic Nixonian limited hangout’?
Husseini suggested some members of Congress may not have been fully aware that the bill they were voting for does not appear to, in fact, fully declassify all documents related to the origins of COVID-19.
“I have no idea if members of Congress have actually read the legislation and realize how limited it is,” wrote Husseini, who, in another post, called Hawley’s public rhetoric regarding the bill “false and misleading.”
Husseini told The Defender the bill may be acting as a “limited hangout” with the purpose of acknowledging the “lab leak theory” on the one hand, but via legislation that “makes us accept half of the truth.”
Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender, “I’m afraid this [bill] is going to be a classic Nixonian limited hangout” that “does not call for the declassification of all those sources [that] should be declassified and/or released.”
Boyle said any information that is declassified “is going to be helpful,” but that the bill’s provision allowing redactions raises concern.
“Who knows what Avril Haines is going to knock out of this report,” he said.
Husseini noted that the bill also makes no provisions for providing information that several groups, including U.S. Right to Know and some media organizations, have requested — but not yet received — via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) submissions. Husseini said this information “is not classified but is being withheld.”
Husseini cited Gary Ruskin, executive director and co-founder of U.S. Right to Know, who said:
“Much of the federal government’s information related to the origins of Covid-19 is not classified, or likely not classified. We just haven’t been able to access much of it yet via FOIA/FOIA litigation.
“The NIH’s [National Institutes of Health] conduct in stonewalling FOIAs is especially outrageous. It’s time for the Biden administration to tell NIH to comply with the FOIA.”
At a March 9 U.S. Department of State press conference, Ned Price, the agency’s spokesperson, appeared to stonewall Husseini when he asked why the government hasn’t responded to U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests related to government funding of bioweapons agents’ discovery research, including the funding of such research in China.
“We can respond in writing on a question that specific,” Price replied. When further pressed by Husseini, Price said, “I would ask that you be respectful of your colleagues.”
An attempt to blame the virus exclusively on China?
There has been a flurry of news reports in recent weeks originating from various branches of the U.S. government indicating broader acceptance of the “lab leak theory.”
The U.S. Department of Energy said it now believes COVID-19 most likely emerged from the Wuhan lab — a position subsequently adopted publicly by FBI Director Christopher Wray.
On March 8, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic heard the testimony of experts who also accepted the “lab leak theory.”
“All this — the recent hearings, the Hawley legislation, the WSJ piece — seem part of a coordinated effort on the part of the ‘intelligence community’ to own the pandemic story and use it for their purposes,” Husseini wrote.
Boyle shared similar concerns with The Defender :
“I am concerned that this [bill] is only going to get a part of the truth. Certainly not the full truth of what really happened here with COVID-19, which we need to get at.
“My concern is that all that’s going to get out of this report … will implicate the Wuhan BSL4 [biosafety level 4 lab] in COVID-19. Well, that’s fine with me. But what about the American involvement here?
“And this was funded by Tony Fauci and Francis Collins at NIAID [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] and NIH. Those should be in this legislation too, if we really wanted to get to the bottom of what happened here.”
Boyle and Husseini told The Defender there are numerous government and private entities whose classified documents should be declassified.
Boyle said these include the University of North Carolina, the National Center for Toxicological Research, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, the U.S. Agency for International Development, EcoHealth Alliance and the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick.
Husseini noted that state governments and private institutions also are likely to possess important information that the COVID-19 Origin Act does not cover. These include Scripps Research, Tulane University and the Wellcome Trust.”
The Wellcome Trust is headed by Jeremy Farrar, now chief scientist for the World Health Organization. “Farrar played a central role in disseminating the propaganda line that COVID could not have lab origins in early 2020,” Husseini said.
U.S. Right to Know sued the University of North Carolina, which is publicly owned, after it failed to respond to the watchdog group’s FOIA requests.
Husseini said the COVID-19 Origin Act “doesn’t even instruct the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] to declassify what it knows about other Chinese government institutions like the Chinese CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention].”
Husseini told The Defender :
“Since [Fauci] retired, the system has seemingly skillfully tried to put the deranged stance of the last three years into the rearview mirror hoping people will forget the massive propaganda.”
Boyle told The Defender that “from this legislation, it does appear they’re trying to pin it all on China.”
Husseini, noting that “China may well have major culpability,” said this is not the same as full or exclusive culpability, which is what the U.S. government may now be attempting to establish.
Husseini wrote that “a general anti-China agenda, has taken primacy and is part of a dynamic which ‘ultimately lets’ U.S. institutions and ‘U.S. biowarfare off the hook.’”
He told The Defender :
“There are two pillars of the U.S. establishment here — one wants to polarize at some level with China and the other wants to ensure the U.S. government continues its discovery of bioweapons agents.
“For the establishment to be maintained, both those strains need to be maintained.”
According to Husseini, this may explain why the bill passed both houses with seemingly little debate. It passed the Senate with “unanimous consent,” and subsequently passed the House in a unanimous vote.
Husseini noted that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a member of the House Rules Committee, even put forth a rule “to ensure passage of Hawley’s bill.”
Husseini said Biden, who hasn’t yet said if he will sign the bill, has a few options he may be considering, telling The Defender :
“I see no sign of actual opposition from the Biden administration and I suspect this is all being done in coordination with the director of National Intelligence, as were the reports in the Wall Street Journal that drove this narrative.
“It’s possible Biden wants to appear reluctant on this and I suppose Biden could veto it and get an override so he could pose as being conciliatory to the Chinese or the like.”
Husseini said that “with the collapse of the completely fictional Daszak narrative in the late Spring and Summer of 2021 … a backup narrative has been put forward, especially through the Wall Street Journal,” whose report on the Department of Energy pivoting toward the “lab leak theory” was co-written by Michael Gordon, “who with Judy Miller perpetrated the Iraq weapons of mass destruction fraud on the U.S. public.”
He also blamed wide swaths of the independent media, particularly left-leaning outlets, for going along with establishment efforts to discredit the theory that COVID-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“Much of ‘the Left’ has basically done everything to kill lab origin — and effectively made it a right-wing issue,” Husseini said.
According to Husseini, those who long promoted the Chinese response to COVID-19 and who now are supporting the push to frame China, are pushing for a world “that combines the worst aspects of the U.S. — corrupt corporate capitalism — with the worst aspects of Chinese society: explicit authoritarianism.”
“The pandemic, it can hardly be ignored, helped isolate people from one another, helped restrict borders, was an excuse for massive civil liberties restrictions — all things useful to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ agenda,” said Husseini. “This is another reason that intentional release should be seriously examined.”
Lab leak or lab origin?
Husseini said he prefers the term “lab origin theory” over “lab leak theory.”
“I see no good reason to make assumptions,” Husseini said. “‘Leak’ assumes a mistake. It could have been a mistake, but why presume it?”
Boyle adopted a similar view, although he noted that the language of the COVID-19 Origin Act does not mention either term.
“It does not refer to a lab leak,” he said. “It doesn’t say ‘leak’ at all. It says ‘originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.’ Obviously, there could be different interpretations of why it originated there. I still believe it was a leak, but this does leave open why it might have originated there.”
Boyle reiterated his longstanding belief that “COVID-19 is an offensive biological warfare weapon with gain-of-function properties” and called for the halting of gain-of-function research.
According to Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, Congress’ reluctance to declassify documents that may implicate U.S. government entities in the origins of COVID-19 is reflective of the massive amounts of federal money spent on biological weapons research.
“They’re not doing that because the U.S. government agencies and scientists involved in the development of COVID-19 [have received] massive sums of money,” Boyle said. “We’ve been devoted to developing offensive biological warfare programs since after Sept. 11, 2001 … I’ve been speaking out about this publicly for years.”
Husseini told The Defender :
“Biowarfare is a deniable weapon, which makes disclosure of documents key. Another reason why the Hawley bill limiting disclosure may well signal a massive coverup in plain sight.”
In a pair of tweets Sunday, British Member of Parliament Andrew Bridgen said he received information from U.S. government sources indicating that the U.S. Department of Defense and the Fort Detrick research facility “were responsible for both the virus and the vaccines” and that “criminal proceedings” may follow.
Bridgen did not clarify which sources provided him with this information or who might face such criminal proceedings. At the March 8 Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield said COVID-19 was “engineered” and blamed gain-of-function research for “the greatest pandemic our world has seen.”
However, Redfield stopped short of explicitly calling for a full ban on such activities, calling instead for a moratorium.
Boyle told The Defender “all this gain-of-function so-called ‘research’ has to be terminated immediately with legislation by Congress … The only way to protect ourselves is to terminate it immediately. No moratorium.”
“There was a moratorium” during the Barack Obama presidency, said Boyle, “and Fauci undermined the moratorium by outsourcing the work through the EcoHealth Alliance to the Wuhan BSL4 [laboratory]. So, a moratorium is worthless. We have to terminate all gain-of-function research everywhere. It has to be prohibited, to be made criminal.”
The Defender reached out to the offices of Hawley and Braun, Turner and Bridgen for comment, but did not receive a response as of press time.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
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.
Lula Is Lying: The NATO-Russian Proxy War Isn’t Being Fought “Over Small Things”

By Andrew Korybko | March 16, 2023
Brazilian President Lula proved that his recalibrated worldview in recent years is a lot more closely aligned with the US’ than ever after downplaying the causes of the NATO-Russian proxy war. According to him, “In the 21st century, it shouldn’t be possible that we have war over small things”, which he uttered after declaring that he won’t visit either Russia or Ukraine due to the special operation. This position serves as further proof that he endorses the US’ narrative about the conflict.
Lula previously condemned Russia in a joint statement with Biden during his trip to DC in early February, after which Brazil voted in support of a fiercely anti-Russian UN Resolution demanding Moscow’s full and immediate withdrawal without any preconditions from all the territory that Kiev claims as its own, which includes Crimea. Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia reacted to the passing of that motion by describing it as pushing a “militaristic Russophobic line”.
Removing any ambiguity about his government’s stance, Lula then called Zelensky shortly afterwards to reaffirm that “Brazil defends Ukraine’s territorial integrity”. Despite these objectively existing and easily verifiable pieces of evidence documenting his political support of Russia’s nemeses in Kiev, an intense information warfare campaign has been waged by forces allied with the ruling party to gaslight its base into falsely thinking that Lula isn’t aligned with the US on this issue or others like Nicaragua.
Elite members of the Workers’ Party (PT) fear that the rank and file might revolt upon becoming aware that their leader is moving Brazil closer to the US-led West’s Golden Billion than the Sino-Russo Entente or even the Global South of which it’s a part amidst the impending trifurcation of International Relations. With a view towards preemptively averting the scenario of them publicly pressuring him en masse to change this grand strategic trajectory, they sought to manipulate their perceptions about Lula’s policies.
This explains the intense information warfare campaign that’s being waged against their minds at this pivotal point in the global systemic transition, which he himself is directly participating in upon downplaying the causes of the NATO-Russian proxy war in an attempt to justify his political support of Kiev. Lula wants his supporters to discount the evidence before their eyes and ears in favor of agreeing with the US’ narrative that Russia supposedly “invaded” Ukraine for purely “imperialistic” purposes.
If the PT’s base was aware of the military-strategic dynamics that forced Russia to commence its special operation as a last resort for defending the integrity of its national security red lines in Ukraine after NATO clandestinely crossed them there, then they’d be against his political support of Kiev. It would thus be self-evident to them that Lula is placing Brazil on a US-aligned grand strategic trajectory in the New Cold War, which could lead to them publicly pressuring him en masse to change his policy.
The following analyses explain the larger context within which the special operation is being waged:
* 15 March 2022: “Why Did U.S. Prioritize Containing Russia Over China?”
* 26 March 2022: “Russia Is Waging an Existential Struggle in Defense of Its Independence & Sovereignty”
* 24 December 2022: “Putin Explained Why He Had No Choice But To Protect The Russian Population In Ukraine”
* 22 February 2023: “Putin Reminded Everyone That Russia Is Using Force To End The War That The West Started”
* 22 February 2023: “Russia Would Be Torn To Pieces Exactly As Medvedev Predicted If It Ended Its Special Operation”
A summary of the abovementioned insight will now follow for the reader’s convenience.
In brief, the US spent the preceding eight years between its successful Color Revolution in early 2014 and the start of the special operation in 2022 turning Ukraine into an anti-Russian bastion, the purpose of which was to degrade that targeted Great Power’s strategic capabilities to defend itself from the US. This was to be done through a combination of Hybrid War means related to Kiev’s support of information warfare- and terrorist-driven separatism as well as conventional ones connected to NATO.
The first half of this policy aimed to destabilize Russia from within through the cultivation of forces that could advance its “Balkanization” while the second intended to eventually employ biological weapons, clandestine NATO bases, and “missile defense” infrastructure to place it in a position of blackmail. The US envisaged forcing Russia into a never-ending series of unilateral concessions that would ultimately result in its geostrategic neutralization and thus facilitate the successful “containment” of China.
This plot to restore its declining unipolar hegemony was to begin with Kiev’s NATO-supported reconquest of Donbass, which threatened to genocide that region’s indigenous Russian population and ethically cleanse the survivors. That sequence of events was foiled by the special operation that was launched after President Putin realized that the West had no interest in discussing his country’s security guarantee requests from December 2021 for politically resolving their security dilemma.
While the US prepared for the possibility of some kinetic response to its support of Kiev’s imminent reconquest of Donbass, American policymakers hadn’t calculated that President Putin would launch a preventive campaign across all of Ukraine to avert the impending scenario of Russia’s strategic neutralization simultaneously with the preemptive one to stop the Donbass genocide. Had it been otherwise, then they’d have retooled the West’s military-industrial complex well in advance.
This major miscalculation explains why the NATO chief admitted last month that his bloc is in a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia, which wouldn’t be the case if it truly expected a protracted conflict of this scale, nor would Kiev’s forces be faring as badly as the Washington Post just revealed. President Putin regularly reminds everyone of the existential nature of this conflict, which places his decision to commence an interconnected preemptive-preventive campaign into context.
Returning to Lula’s latest remarks that inspired this analysis, there’s no doubt that he’s well aware of these military-strategic dynamics that forced President Putin’s hand, which thus means that he’s deliberately downplaying them in order to manipulate his base. He can’t claim ignorance after over a year of Russia explaining this at length, hence why it can now confidently be concluded that Lula politically aligned Brazil with the US in the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II.
Karl Lauterbach, in major reversal, says vaccine injuries are “dismaying,” complains of “exorbitant” pharmaceutical profits
Calls for vaccine manufacturers to fund an institute for those harmed
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | March 13, 2023
Things aren’t going very well for Germany’s foremost virus pest, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. His approval ratings have dwindled, and he hardly tweets anymore. Increasingly he avoids virological topics entirely, probably to escape the relentless mockery his every remark on this front brings. On Saturday, things got even worse for him, as Welt reported that he’d falsified his CV while applying for a professorship at Tübingen in 1997. From the coalition government, where he might’ve expected vigorous defence as late as last year, there is only deafening silence.
Under these gathering clouds, Lauterbach granted an interview yesterday to the state media programme ZDF Heute Journal, for a segment on vaccine injuries. In the course of the remarkable conversation, Lauterbach was confronted with and forced to disavow his earlier claims from 2021 that the vaccines are “side-effect free”; recognised that every injury is one injury too many and called these cases “dismaying”; likened the so-called “post-vaccination syndrome” (Post-Vac) to Long Covid; emphasised that he wasn’t responsible for negotiating the contracts which exclude pharmaceuticals from liability; and twice called pharmaceutical company profits “exorbitant,” agreeing that these firms should fund an institute to help those those who have been injured by their products.
This isn’t a total reversal: Lauterbach doesn’t denounce mass vaccination and doesn’t question massaged official estimates which put serious injuries at a rate of less than 1 in 10,000. We’re nearer the beginning than the end of a steady process of repudiation here. Still, this is a big deal.
Because the interview will be selectively clipped, I provide this full translation:
Christian Sievers of the ZDF Heute Journal (henceforth S): The Federal Minister of Health is with us. Many thanks and good evening, Mr Lauterbach.
Karl Lauterbach (hereafter L): Good evening, Mr Sievers.
S: What do you say to those who have been affected [by vaccine injuries]?
L: First of all, what’s happened to these people is absolutely dismaying, and every single case is one too many. I honestly feel very sorry for these people. There are severe disabilities, and some of them will be permanent. So it’s hard. What we do as a state is that the health insurance companies pay the treatment costs, and, well, the federal states bear the support costs, if support is necessary. But in fact we have problems on both sides, because we don’t yet have the drugs for treating them. These are being feverishly researched. The entitlement to benefits is also often very bureaucratically tied-up. So I really do understand the people who are complaining here.
S : Now you’re making it sound like everything is settled. But when you talk to these people, you hear exactly the opposite. A year of fighting, being turned away again and again – many officials simply don’t believe them, sometimes they never get an answer at all, and then after running the gauntlet to get their vaccine injuries recognised, all they receive is a small sum. That can’t be all the state has to offer these people right now, can it?
L: Absolutely not, and I don’t want to give that impression, because that’s not how I see things. These cases must be more quickly recognised, these vaccine injuries, and we’re now slowly getting a clearer picture. But I should also point out, just so I don’t leave a false impression: severe vaccine injuries happen in less than 1 in 10,000 vaccinations, according to the Paul Ehrlich Institute or the European licensing authorities. So it’s not that common. But because our understanding of these injuries is getting clearer and clearer, it should also be possible in future to identify those who are affected more quickly, so that we can get them quicker help.
S: Why did you, Mr Lauterbach, still claim in the summer of 2021 that the vaccines had no side effects?
L: Well, that was an exaggeration that I once made in a misguided tweet. But it wasn’t fundamentally my position. I had already commented very, very often on the side effects of vaccinations. For example, I …
S: But you often said afterwards that there were hardly any or practically no [side effects. You said this again on the [television talkshow] Anne Will. So, you’ve always given the impression that side effects aren’t really an issue at all.
L: Well, that’s not right, as I just said. I was aware of the figures at the time, and they’ve remained relatively stable. These vaccines have been used worldwide, 1 in 10,000 [are injured], so you can say it’s a lot, or you can say it’s not so many. But the vaccine really does protect against serious illness and, by the way, very often also reduces the risk of Long Covid. This is similar to what we’re talking about here, with the Post-Vac syndrome, so the vaccinations – there’s an outweighing benefit, but it’s true, 1 in 10,000 is the frequency of serious side effects.
S: Now the first lawsuits are pending against BioNTech, and also against other vaccine manufacturers. What do you think that’ll go?
L: I can’t speculate, that’s not my job. As minister I have to be careful. It’s true that within the framework of these EU contracts, the companies were largely exempted from liability and that the liability therefore lies with the German state, so to speak, as just described, with the federal states … but the most important thing is, looking ahead, we need treatments, and I’ll therefore set up a programme with the Ministry of Health, where we’ll investigate the consequences of Long Covid, and also Post-Vac syndrome, where we’ll look into this and improve care. That’s a contribution we can make.
S: When will this happen, in concrete terms? It’s precisely these affected people who are suffering all these delays, who want to know.
L: That’s true, but I’m negotiating with the budget committee, and indeed it’s a programme I’d like to launch as soon as possible, and I’m in budget negotiations for this money. So it’s something that we also have to bring to frutition, it’s an obligation, and it would network the experts in this field in such a way that the probability of good therapy in Germany would grow.
S: Now, you just mentioned the liability waiver for pharmaceutical companies. It means that the pharmaceuticals can, so to speak, relax in all these lawsuits, because the state has assumed the risk. So it’s the state – that is, you, the federal government – that has to answer for any damages claims that may arise. Does you feel good about that?
L: What does feeling good mean? First of all, I didn’t negotiate the contracts; as far as my office is concerned, I inherited them, and I believe that it was due to the situation at that time that people wanted to get the vaccines as quickly as possible, and so the state assumed liability. Maybe that was the right thing to do, because it’s better for the state to be liable than to have to go through long settlements or lawsuits with companies.
S: But we’ve just seen how difficult it is to actually get money from the state. What do you think will happen now? Do you think that in view of the situation, for example, pharmaceuticals could voluntarily put money into a foundation? Would that be an idea if they don’t have any liability?
L: It would definitely be a good idea if companies would show a willingness to help out here, because the profits have been exorbitant – exorbitant profits. So that wouldn’t just be a good gesture, we should expect it. But you ask me, what will next? I’d say the optimistic scenario is that we finally learn how to deal with Long Covid and Post-Vac, how we can manage that, and that we moreover recognise case fasterdo that people don’t have to wait so long to be recognised as having Post-Vac syndrome in the first place.
S: That’s a promise from the Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach. Thank you very much for the interview this evening.
L: Thank you.
China comments on ‘Ukrainian theory’ of Nord Stream sabotage

RT | March 15, 2023
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin found it unusual that major outlets in the West uncritically embraced the claim by unnamed US officials that a “pro-Ukrainian group” was responsible for the bombing of Nord Stream natural gas pipelines.
At the press briefing on Wednesday, Wang described the pipelines as “vital cross-border infrastructure projects,” whose destruction had a “serious impact on the global energy market and ecological environment.” China wants “an objective, impartial and professional investigation” into the bombing and those responsible held to account, the sooner the better, he added.
Asked to comment on the so-called “Ukrainian theory,” first put forth by anonymous US officials in the New York Times last week, Wang noted the sudden change of behavior by Western media, after they spent a month ignoring the report by journalist Seymour Hersh that blamed the US and Norway.
“We have noted that some Western media have been mysteriously quiet after Hersh reported that the US was behind the Nord Stream blast. But now these media are unusually simultaneous in making their voice heard. How would the US account for such abnormality? Is there anything hidden behind the scene?” Wang said.
Nord Stream 1 and 2, pipelines built under the Baltic Sea to carry Russian natural gas to Germany and onward to Western Europe, were damaged in a series of explosions in September 2022.
In early February, Hersh published a report detailing how Washington had the pipelines destroyed, describing how US divers planted the explosives and a Norwegian airplane sent the detonation signal. The US government denied all accusations, labeling Hersh’s report “utterly false and complete fiction,” while Russia and China called for an independent and transparent investigation.
The Times report quoted unnamed US officials who suggested that the saboteurs were “most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two,” citing unspecified new intelligence. The anonymous officials insisted no US or British nationals were involved, and that there was no evidence President Vladimir Zelensky or any other Ukrainian official directed the attack, either. Kiev has officially denied any responsibility for the Nord Stream blasts.
When he was shown the Times article during an interview, Hersh laughed and asked “Are they that stupid?” referring to the outlet’s anonymous sources. Nonetheless, the story was dutifully repeated by all major Western outlets.
Russian president Vladimir Putin was likewise unconvinced. During an interview with Rossiya-1 on Tuesday, he dismissed as “complete nonsense” the notion that non-state actors could be behind the complex act of sabotage. The attacks could have only been “carried out by specialists, and supported by the entire power of a state possessing certain technologies,” he said.
West blasts Balkan region’s plan to replicate US law
RT March 14, 2023
US and EU authorities have come out in opposition against a Bosnian Serb proposal to copy American legislation on foreign agents, by linking it to Russian influence. They have added claims that it endangers human rights and democracy.
Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska (RS) – the Serb half of Bosnia-Herzegovina – has proposed to copy the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, using “Republika Srpska” instead of the US. The “identical” law would protect the RS from meddling by foreign-funded organizations, including those of George Soros, Dodik told local media on Friday.
The US and EU reaction to Dodik’s proposal mirrored their opposition to a foreign agents registration bill in Georgia. Last week, thousands of protesters besieged the parliament for days, incited by accusations that the government had advanced a “Russian law” on foreign activity. Tbilisi officially backed down on Friday.
A foreign agents law would “significantly reduce the space for civic engagement” in Bosnia, the EU mission to Sarajevo said. “Any unfounded limitation of the effective exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right to association (and expression), is in itself contrary to the aspirations of Bosnia and Herzegovina to progress on the European path,” the mission’s spokesman Ferdinand Koenig told the CNN affiliate N1.
The US embassy in Sarajevo also chimed in, saying FARA “does not ban or restrict any activities, and it does not apply to independent media or civil society organizations,” merely allowing Americans “to be informed” about activities of foreign agents “without limiting freedom of speech or association in any way.”
“We have seen this movie before, and we know how it ends,” the embassy said, calling Dodik’s proposal a copy of the Russian “repressive legislation to suppress dissent, eviscerate civil society, and eradicate free media.”
USAID head Samantha Power joined the chorus, accusing Dodik of “trying to pass Kremlin-inspired draft laws that rob residents of their basic rights, silence dissent and allow corruption to flourish unchecked.”
Dodik responded to both claims over the weekend, tweeting that Republika Srpska is “copying the American model that made the US one of the world’s great powers,” which is inspired by “the highest standards in the protection of human rights and freedoms, among which is freedom of speech, which implies responsibility, which is the case in the most developed Western societies.”
He also noted it was “interesting” that Power was butting into the discussion, since so many “projects” in Bosnia are “financed through USAID.”
Under the 1995 peace treaty brokered by the US, Bosnia-Herzegovina consists of Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation. While it is technically independent, the ultimate authority in the country is a Western-appointed “high representative” who claims near-dictatorial powers.
FDA and CDC Assertions in Doubling Down on COVID-19 Vaccination
Letter to Florida Surgeon General Tells America to Expect More Tension Over Injuries, Disabilities, and Deaths
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | March 12, 2023
I am frequently asked: why are the government agencies still pushing COVID-19 vaccination after there have been calls in the US Senate and all around the world to pull them off the market for lack of safety and efficacy?
In a March 10, 2023 letter from FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, to Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD, the agencies give their rationale. While Walensky does not have a compelling academic track record, her FDA counterpart Califf has been considered a staunch advocate of randomized trials and a hawk on safety of cardiovascular drugs over his career which was notable for building the Duke Clinical Research Institute, one of the most impressive academic research organizations in the world.

Here are 10 assertions that Califf and Walensky make to Ladapo and Americans on why the COVID-19 vaccines should be “pushed.”
- “The claim that the increase of VAERS reports of life-threatening conditions reported from Florida and elsewhere represents an increase of risk caused by the COVID-19 vaccines is incorrect, misleading and could be harmful to the American public.” They are assuming unproven benefit at the start. The Bradford Hill criteria have been applied to VAERS and causality has been met. Autopsy studies have conclusively demonstrated causality for fatal syndromes. Doctors use the VAERS system when they believe COVID-19 vaccines caused the death, NOT when the death is unrelated to the vaccine in practice.
- “The FDA-approved and FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines have met FDA’s rigorous scientific and regulatory standards for safety and effectiveness and these vaccines continue to be recommended for use by CDC for all people six months of age and older.” The FDA has relied on the false surrogate of antibody elevations after injection eight times. This is neither rigorous nor valid. Large randomized, double blind placebo controlled trials with hospitalization/death as the primary endpoint are required to prove efficacy in all age groups.
- “Despite increased reports of these events, when the concern was examined in detail by cardiovascular experts, the risk of stroke and heart attack was actually lower in people who had been vaccinated, not higher.” They cite a nonrandomized study with inadequate control for the known determinants of cardiovascular disease. Both selection bias and confounding eliminate any valid claims of benefit. There is no mechanism by which COVID-19 vaccination would reduce cardiovascular events. There are >200 published manuscripts on COVID-19 vaccines mechanistically causing cardiovascular events including myocarditis, accelerated atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, aortic dissection, hypertensive crisis, etc.
- “FDA and CDC physicians continuously screen and analyze VAERS data for possible safety concerns related to the COVID-19 vaccines. For signals identified in VAERS, physicians from FDA and CDC screen individual reports, inclusive of comprehensive medical record review. Most reports do not represent adverse events caused by the vaccine and instead represent a pre-existing condition that preceded vaccination or an underlying medical condition that precipitated the event.” The agencies have not produced a report giving their analysis of what caused death after vaccination. Since many deaths occur on the day of the shot or in the next few days that follow, the public deserves to see regulatory evidence for cause of death.
- “In addition to VAERS, FDA and CDC utilize complementary active surveillance systems to monitor the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.” CDC V-safe is one of the active systems mentioned. The CDC refused to release to the public until ordered by the courts, demonstrated an unacceptable 7-8% rate of hospitalization, emergency care, or urgent office visit caused by vaccine side effects. So agency use of systems demonstrate lack of safety and are not reassuring to the public.
- “Based on available information for the COVID-19 vaccines that are authorized or approved in the United States, the known and potential benefits of these vaccines clearly outweigh their known and potential risks. Additionally, not only is there no evidence of increased risk of death following mRNA vaccines, but available data have shown quite the opposite: that being up to date on vaccinations saves lives compared to individuals who did not get vaccinated.” There are no randomized placebo controlled trials demonstrating hospitalization/death are reduced as primary endpoints. Thus the agencies cannot make an efficacy claim from a regulatory perspective. Nonrandomized studies have the following threats to validity: 1) selection bias—healthier more health conscious people take vaccines, 2) vaccinated are more likely to seek early treatment which reduces hospitalization/death, 3) no control over prior COVID-19 infection which greatly influences risk of hospitalization/death, 4) no adjudication of COVID-19 endpoints.
- “Another study using mathematical modeling estimated that the vaccines saved an estimated 14 million lives from COVID-19 in 185 countries and territories between December 8, 2020, and December 8, 2021.” Modeling studies start with the unproven assertion that vaccination reduces death which has not been demonstrated in proper randomized trials, hence extrapolations to large populations are invalid.
- “The most recent estimate is that those who are up to date on their vaccination status have a 9.8 fold lower risk of dying from COVID-19 than those who are unvaccinated and 2.4 fold lower risk of dying from Covid-19 than those who were vaccinated but had not received the updated, bivalent vaccine. Roughly 90% of deaths from COVID-19, as carefully classified by the CDC, in recent months have occurred among those who were not up to date on their vaccines.” This estimate did not account for the two known determinants of COVID-19 mortality: early treatment and natural immunity.
- “Over the course of the pandemic, FDA and CDC have held numerous public meetings to discuss the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines where detailed safety data are shared with outside experts and public comment is encouraged. Further, FDA publishes the full regulatory action package containing hundreds of pages summarizing clinical studies and review for each COVID-19 approval on FDA’s website (see “COVID-19 Vaccines Authorized for Emergency Use or FDA Approved”) and CDC publishes an extensive amount of information on their clinical use in Interim Clinical Considerations. Complete information about both benefits and risks helps health care providers better care for their patients.” The FDA/CDC have never reviewed or commented on the Pfizer 90-day post-marketing data which reported 1223 deaths shortly after the shot. The FDA attempted to block these data to the public for 55 years. The agencies have never conducted a symposium to review the >1000 peer-reviewed published papers on serious adverse events and death after COVID-19 vaccination.
- “Unfortunately, the misinformation about COVID-19 vaccine safety has caused some Americans to avoid getting the vaccines they need to be up to date.” The Rasmussen Report indicates 28% of Americans know someone who has died after the vaccine. Nothing in that report suggested “misinformation” was leading to hesitancy, moreover it was word of mouth on the horrifying outcomes Americans are witnessing among their family and friends that is leading to refusal rates of boosters.
There are easily another ten invalid assertions made by the agency that could be handled by experienced clinical investigators. Take a look at the letter yourself. Keep in mind the FDA/CDC deceived America by asserting that SARS-CoV-2 did not come out of the Wuhan Laboratory and just a few days ago the US House of Representatives voted to declassify our documents from the laboratory after multiple agencies and witnesses capitulated on the lab origin. This casts doubts on truthfulness of any agency public health assertions during the crisis.
The important message to Americans is that our agencies have no intention of carefully considering vaccine safety or changing course on their relentless pursuit of frequent, mass, indiscriminate COVID-19 vaccination down to 6-month old babies. It will be up to you to protect yourself and your family.
Califf R, Walensky R, letter to Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida Surgeon General, March 10, 2023
McCullough PA. US FDA Willfully Blind on the Safety of COVID-19 Vaccination
McCullough PA. Found Dead at Home after COVID-19 Vaccination
McCullough PA. Modeling Study Makes False Conclusions on COVID-19 Vaccination
McCullough PA. McCullough Protocol©: Risk Stratification
McCullough PA. Good News on Omicron Outcomes from Prison
Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency
National Survey Finds finds 28% Personally know of a Death Caused by COVID-19 Vaccines
Nord Stream blasts staged by a state-level actor – Putin
RT | March 14, 2023
Russian president Vladimir Putin has dismissed as “nonsense” recent claims that the attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines might have been carried by “Ukrainian activists.” The president made the remarks on Tuesday during his visit to an aircraft plant in the capital city of Russia’s Buryatia republic, Ulan-Ude.
“I’m sure this is complete nonsense. An explosion of this kind – of such power, at such depth, can only be carried out by specialists, and supported by the entire power of a state, posessing certain technologies,” Putin told reporters.
Media reports, suggesting that a shadowy “pro-Ukrainian group” might have been behind the blasts on the pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, emerged last week. The New York Times cited its anonymous sources saying that “no American or British nationals were involved” in the operation.
Separately, multiple German outlets reported that the country’s investigators probing the blasts had found a yacht, allegedly used for the attack, which belonged to a Polish-based firm but was “apparently owned by two Ukrainians.”
The yacht reports emerged shortly after a bombshell investigation by veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh, who said US President Joe Biden’s administration had staged the attack on the pipelines with assistance from Norway.
According to his sources, the explosives were planted by US Navy divers last June under the guise of a NATO exercise and detonated remotely in September. The White House was quick to dismiss the allegations by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, branding them “utterly false and complete fiction.”
German minister lied to advance career

RT | March 12, 2023
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach claimed to have led a government-funded breast cancer research project when he applied for a professorship at the University of Tubingen in 1995, Die Welt reported on Sunday. However, the study never existed, according to the outlet.
Lauterbach was 32 years old at the time, and had just received a Doctor of Science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. Back in Germany, he applied for the position in Tubingen, claiming that he was the head of a research project into breast cancer diagnostics and therapy at an oncology department in Aachen.
Lauterbach said that the project had received two million Deutschmarks (around $1.38 million at the time) from the German government, a portion of which he reportedly promised to transfer to the cash-strapped university if hired.
However, the government and the Aachen oncology center told Die Welt that the project – as described by Lauterbach – never existed. A similar cancer study did take place at Aachen, the paper noted, but Lauterbach was not listed as an author.
Lauterbach also claimed to have raised funding for a study at Princeton University in the US, which staff at the university deny, and to have received 20,000 Deutschmarks for a book project, which ultimately was never paid as he never finished the book.
The minister was offered the position at Tubingen, but turned it down in favor of a placement in Cologne. Questioned by Germany’s Merkur news outlet on Sunday, Lauterbach said that he “can no longer recall the specific case.”
According to Die Welt reporter Tim Rohn, Lauterbach turned down an invitation to speak to the newspaper.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Elephants

By Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D. | NewZealandDoc | March 9, 2023
You will forgive me if from time to time I find myself silent and stymied in the doldrums. The past three years, in our Corona Epoch, weigh heavily on us all, but there is more: these past three years have revealed to those with eyes to see and ears to hear the rank depths of corruption within virtually every institute of government and within virtually every formerly honorable profession.
To have witnessed Medicine undermine itself in such a way as to make itself unrecognizable – in, for example, its sudden enthusiasm for masks, it sudden forgetfulness about early treatment and natural immunity, its sudden acceptance of a novel therapeutic agent that had been inadequately tested, its mania to subject children to this agent, its sudden scorn for informed consent and its equally sudden disregard of the founding principle of the Hippocratic Oath, at first not to harm – is to recognize outright self-destruction. That so many so-called medical practitioners abandoned their fundamental duties to their patients and themselves is a disgrace for which I can find no adequate word except prostitution – bearing in mind that in using this word I am doing sex workers a disservice because their form of prostitution represents an honest exchange.
There is more to the weight of these three years of deception because these three years have carried the culminating weight of ages of hypocrisy, oppression and falsehood from the Powers that have ruled over the common man and woman.
A friend recently opined to me that he has begun to question the veracity of State utterances or, as is fashionable now to say, its ‘narratives’, and I responded by saying that I believed one should adopt the attitude that everything we are told by governmental authorities is a lie until proved otherwise.
They lied about the murders of JFK, RFK, MLK and Malcolm X. They lied about the war in Vietnam. They lied about 911. They lied about the Middle East invasions, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the various coups instigated by ‘intelligence’ agencies around the world and, naturally, they lied about covid in a way that would make Satan proud for the comprehensiveness and cleverness of the ruse. They are lying about the Ukraine and Russia at the moment too. The effect of these relentless and blatant falsehoods is to corrode the very tissue of legality and fairness that keeps societies together under an aegis of justice, and consequently to fashion a world whose only law is Power.
I’ve written about Power and its role and the sober expectations we must possess regarding those who wield it, yet the scale of sadistic and murderous campaigns throughout history pales in comparison to the war within which we find ourselves now: global, savage, ingeniously devious and, to date, fairly successful.
The ways and means of killing have assumed a sophistication that makes Nazi concentration camps appear cumbersome and inefficient. Is it not ‘cleaner’ and far more effective to render populations infertile, to accelerate cancers, to foster strokes and cardiomyopathy and autoimmune conditions in age groups hitherto unaccustomed to suffer such phenomena, and to create, even in these early years post-jab, what is euphemistically called ‘excess mortality’ – a term that sanitizes and obscures the calculated enfeeblement and killing that is unique and unprecedented?
And is it not a macabre form of genius to have persuaded so many many people to accept it all, to refute the evidence of their senses, and to attack those of us who challenge their perceptions with frightful vehemence, vehemence that overrides the bonds of friendship?
In a recent exchange with a friend of nearly five decades, I was told that he scorned my ‘alternative’ sources and that he was through with me. For the past year we had maintained our friendship – a friendship that included wonderful times together and frankly beautiful shared experiences – on condition that I not dare to speak about anything that contradicted his MSM conception of all things covid or Ukraine.
It was like sitting across from someone while the proverbial elephant in the room had placed its bulk right between us. We could exchange pleasantries and reminisce about anything and everything except the large creature with its imposing trunk and tusks and head and limbs that stood in our way, the immense pachyderm that was the bloated embodiment of historically accumulated falsehood.
Can friendships survive with such strictures?
Can friendships survive the chasm between those who have swallowed the propaganda of mainstream news outlets hook, line and sinker, and those who seek for truth from ordinary citizens not beholden to advertising revenue or governmental coercion?
Should friendships survive a chasm that separates those who condone mandates, lethal universal inoculations, outright kinetic war when it suits their purposes, climate change fanaticism, the suppression of debate, and a centralized global governing ‘order’ – from those who cherish free speech, individual responsibility, and human choice?
Well, however difficult and painful it may be to accept, there is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing …
Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand.
The Deception Over Climate is Even Worse Than the Deception Over Covid

BY ANDREW MONTFORD | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | MARCH 11, 2023
In the aftermath of the release of the Lockdown Files, the public is slowly coming to terms with some fairly shocking facts: that the Government was willing to lie and mislead, and to scaremonger and manipulate the media, in order to achieve its Covid policy objectives (or even just to garner a few headlines). The news is still sinking in, but a day of reckoning for those involved looks likely.
For those of us bearing the scars of long engagement in the climate and energy wars, however, none of this was a surprise. It has long been clear that the inhabitants of the Westminster village were happy to hype up fears of climate purgatory and to fib about the road to redemption – renewables – and the cost of taking it. Once the public understand the depth and extent of the deception, and the damage done to the economy and the prospects for our children, the trickery over Covid is going to look decidedly peripheral.
The latest report from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) is a case in point. On the surface it’s a roadmap to a decarbonised electricity grid, but in reality it’s merely a sales document, full of tricks, evasions and outright falsehoods that would make even the most cynical used car salesman blush.
For example, in a number of places, it says that decarbonisation of the grid will be ‘cost-effective’, but you will find next to no information on what it will cost. The game that is being played becomes a bit clearer when you read the reference to ‘carbon prices’. In normal usage, the carbon price is the estimate of the damage done by a ton of carbon dioxide, but in the CCC’s parlance it is an estimate of what it will cost to decarbonise. So, while it gives you the impression it has done a cost-benefit analysis and is going to be saving you money, in reality it is only saying that the bill to be paid will be the same as previously advised. It’s a trick.
Another trick is to assume that wind power costs will be only a quarter of what they actually are. For years, the industry has been pushing claims that they have brought about a cost-reduction revolution. The problem is that windfarms’ own financial accounts show that it isn’t true. And with new windfarms now saying they will not come on stream without further subsidies, the deception has been exposed.
I’m picking on the CCC here, simply because it is in the news today. But it’s not just the CCC. None of the bodies whom the public expect to tell the truth about the Net Zero project will do so: the Royal Academy of Engineering is silent. The Royal Society likewise. National Grid pretends the task is a cinch. The National Infrastructure Commission just repeats the Government line verbatim. Parliament asks how soon the job can be done, not whether it can be done or how much it will cost. Everywhere the tricks go unchallenged and the lies are swept under the carpet.
Such deceptions mean that we are storing up catastrophic harms for our economy, and for our children and grandchildren. Energy that was said to be as cheap as gas is actually going to cost three or four times as much. The costs of ensuring supply when the wind doesn’t blow are an order of magnitude larger.
And whether it was delivered on the back of a lie or not, you are going to have to pay for it. A huge pipeline of wind projects is in place already, each eligible for an astonishing array of hidden subsidies – the list is too long to give here. Once built, they will suck wealth from our economy and hope from our society. They will be hard, if not impossible, to close down – they have been made exempt from windfall taxes and the Government cannot simply switch them off without destroying investor confidence in the economy as a whole. If we do not reverse course soon, our children will never know the wealth we have enjoyed until now, just poverty and rationing and hardship. And all because everyone is too scared to challenge the lies. Just like Covid.
‘Almost Like You Want to Find Nothing’: Experts Slam Norfolk Southern ‘Air Tests’ in East Palestine
By Wyatt Reed – Sputnik – 12.03.2023
Public health experts are warning that the ‘air testing’ being carried out in East Palestine by a for-profit company hired by Norfolk Southern is “almost like smoke and mirrors.”
The ‘air testing’ recently conducted in East Palestine residents’ homes was deficient in a number of key ways and was actually carried out by a company contracted by the rail company Norfolk Southern, a new report has revealed.
East Palestine, Ohio was smothered in toxic fumes last month when the authorities intentionally burned off huge quantities of vinyl chloride following a train derailment in the village.
Residents fled the area in the immediate aftermath. However, after an evacuation order was lifted, many have returned, with some reportedly citing ‘air testing’ results which apparently determined that they could return home without danger.
But on Saturday, an explosive new report seemed to confirm what many have come to suspect: “the air testing results did not prove their homes were truly safe.”
According to a major British outlet, “the air tests were inadequate in two ways: they were not designed to detect the full range of dangerous chemicals the derailment may have unleashed, and they did not sample the air long enough to accurately capture the levels of chemicals they were testing for.”
As University of Kentucky environmental health professor Erin Haynes reportedly put it, “it’s almost like if you want to find nothing, you run in and run out.”
Making matters even worse, “CTEH, the contractor that provided them, was hired by Norfolk Southern, the operator of the freight train that derailed,” the report detailed.
As another outlet previously explained, “the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH) has a name that might sound like a state or federal agency, but in reality it is a private, for-profit corporation that has been present after hundreds of ecological disasters—from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to COVID-19.”
While the relevant section has since been deleted, the company previously explained on its website how the data it’s collecting now could be weaponized against the victims of the Norfolk Southern train derailment disaster in East Palestine:
“A carrier of chemicals may be subjected to legal claims as a result of a real or imagined release,” CTEH noted, adding, “should this happen, appropriate meteorological and chemical data, recorded and saved… may be presented as powerful evidence to assist in the litigation or potentially preclude litigation.”
But despite its alarming track record and apparent desire to go after those affected by the crisis, the company remains a major force in the campaign to assuage locals’ health fears.
“It was CTEH, not the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that designed the testing protocol for the indoor air tests,” explains the British report, adding, “and it is CTEH, not the government, that runs the hotline residents are directed to call with concerns about odors, fumes or health problems.”
In a recently-published video, the controversial company insists that their ‘testing’ shows there’s no danger to East Palestine residents.
“All of our air monitoring and sampling data collectively do not indicate any short- or long-term risks,” a CTEH toxicologist claimed.
But CTEH’s failure to register so-called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in its tests doesn’t necessarily mean that people’s homes are actually safe, a number of experts noted. As Haynes reportedly explained, “VOCs are not the only chemicals that could have been in the air.”
And even a week after the derailment, she said it’s likely the compounds would have dissipated already.
“To keep the focus on the air is almost smoke and mirrors,” Haynes added. “Like, ‘Hey, the air is fine!’ Of course it’s going to be fine. Now you should be looking for where those chemicals went. They did not disappear. They are still in the environment.”


