The OPCW Douma Investigation: Manipulation of Key Toxicology and Related Information Regarding Alleged Victims between the Original Interim Report and the Final Report
Dr Piers Robinson, Convenor, Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media | December 2021
This report, reviewed by three experts, has been extracted from a larger report analysing the OPCW Douma investigation and which will be published in full at a later date. For comments, further information and corrections please contact Dr Piers Robinson at piers.robinson@propagandastudies.org, piers.robinson@propagandastudies.ac.uk or piers.robinson@me.com
Table of Contents
1. Overview
2. Redaction of Key Toxicology Finding Ruling Out Chlorine Gas as Cause of Death
3. Redaction of Information Concerning Gas Dispersion and Build Up
4. Deletion of Contradictory Information Regarding Location of Deceased in Basements
4.1 Deceased in Basement
4.2 Inconsistencies with Respect to Death Toll and Burial of Victims
5. Obfuscation and Failure to Resolve Unexplained ‘Country X’ Witness Testimony Regarding Nerve Agent Symptoms
6. Unresolved Questions Regarding the Authenticity of Events at Location 2
7. Discussion and Recommendations for Next Steps
1. Overview
This report is extracted from a larger report, in progress, which systematically documents the alterations and redactions observed across the OPCW Fact Finding Mission reports- The Original Interim Report, the Secretly Redacted Interim Report, the Published Interim Report and the Final Report.[1] The focus of this report is on critical information regarding the 43 victims at Douma who are reported to have been killed as a result of the alleged chemical weapon attack in Douma, 7 April 2018. No traces of any nerve agent such as sarin were found. As is now known, the Final OPCW report, which reported there were reasonable grounds to conclude chlorine gas was used as a weapon, has been challenged by a significant number of experts whilst two former OPCW scientists involved with the investigation have reported what amounts to malpractice and fraud during the OPCW investigation.
This report shows how significant information relating to the Douma victims has been manipulated, with no apparent justification, through alterations or redactions between the Original Interim Report and the Final Report. At the very least this manipulation of information indicates that the circumstances surrounding the deaths are far from clear. At worst the manipulations indicate an attempt to conceal the truth about what happened to the civilians. Key findings are as follows:
- A toxicology assessment by four NATO toxicologists/pharmacologists from Germany with expertise in chemical weapons poisoning which ruled out chlorine gas as a cause of death was reported in the Original Interim Report but omitted from the Final Report.
- Information questioning the feasibility of a fatal build-up of gas, especially in the basement of the alleged attack site at Location 2, although clearly set out in the Original Interim Report, was omitted from the Final Report.
- Contradicting witness testimonies regarding deceased victims at the alleged attack site ‘Location 2’, although detailed in the Original Interim Report, are excluded from or obfuscated in the Final Report.
- Witness accounts indicating contradictory information regarding casualty numbers and who was responsible for burying them have been obfuscated come the Final Report.
- Divergent witness testimony between ‘Damascus’ witnesses and ‘Country X’ witnesses, with only the latter reporting symptoms associated with a chemical attack, is clearly demarcated in the Original Interim Report but obfuscated and unresolved in the Final Report.
- Information regarding the ‘repositioning’ of bodies through the course of the night 7-8 April 2018, evident in open-source images circulated by activists, is clearly stated in the Original Interim Report but downplayed in the Final Report.
- Information raising question marks over the authenticity of foam-like material observed on some of the victims, whilst mentioned in the Final Report, is left unexplored and unresolved.
The implications of these manipulations are discussed more fully in Section 7. Briefly, the exclusion of the key toxicology assessment ruling out chlorine gas, which indicates that the victims were not killed by chlorine gas at Location 2, is significant because it obfuscates the fact that no clear explanation for cause of death could be established. As such, the deaths of 43 civilians remains unexplained. Conflicting and inconsistent statements from alleged witnesses in ‘Country X’ – numbers and whereabouts of the deceased at Location 2 and nerve agent symptoms – is concerning and, when combined with the downplaying of information relating to the ‘re-positioning’ of bodies and possibly inauthentic foam-like material observed on some of the decedents, indicates that the Final Report elided information potentially relevant to a finding that at least some of the events at Location 2 were manipulated or staged. Finally, the significant discrepancies in witness accounts regarding the number of deceased, their burial in a mass grave along with other victims, as well as obfuscation of exactly who buried the deceased, reinforces the concern that the circumstances surrounding the civilian deaths in Douma on 7 April 2018 have been obfuscated in the Final Report.
2. Redaction of Key Toxicology Finding Ruling Out Chlorine Gas as Cause of Death
The finding that no nerve agents, such as sarin, or their degradation products were present in the environmental and biological samples, together with the fact that chemical analysis showed samples had apparently been in contact with a substance or substances containing a reactive chlorine atom, was puzzling; the signs and symptoms exhibited by the victims was, the investigators argued, inconsistent with poisoning from a choking agent such as chlorine gas. The Original Interim Report proceeds to identify the principal incongruencies – the almost instantaneous occurrence of pulmonary oedema and associated copious frothing at the mouth and nose, and the apparent immediate collapse and death of the victims who were within meters of an escape route – which according to the investigators rule out chlorine gas being the cause of death at Location 2 (see Image 1).
Image1: Photograph taken of some of the victims at Location 2 and distributed via Opposition Media
These principal inconsistencies were confirmed at a meeting held with chemical warfare toxicologists/pharmacologists in early June 2018).[2] Minutes written up for toxicology meeting conclude by stating ‘that the key “take-away message” from the meeting was that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine, and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified’. These minutes were confirmed[3] by the other OPCW officials who had attended, including the Head of OPCW Laboratory. These principal inconsistencies are set out clearly in the opening summary section of the Original Interim Report as follows:
‘Some of the signs and symptoms described by witnesses and noted in photos and video recordings taken by witnesses, of the alleged victims are not consistent with exposure to chlorine-containing choking or blood agents such as chlorine gas, phosgene or cyanogen chloride. Specifically, the rapid onset of heavy buccal and nasal frothing in many victims, as well as the colour of the secretions, is not indicative of intoxification from such chemicals.
The large number of decedents in the one location (allegedly 40 to 50), most of whom were seen in videos and photos strewn on the floor of the apartments away from open windows, and within a few meters of an escape to un-poisoned or less toxic air, is at odds with intoxication by chlorine-based choking or blood agents, even at high concentrations.’ (Original Interim Report [Summary]; paras 1.10-1.11, p. 3)
In the ‘Epidemiology’ section of the same report (paras 7.70-7.91; pp: 26-29) it is first noted that the apparent rapid onset of symptoms and death are consistent with a fast-acting nerve agent such as sarin:
‘A highly debilitating agent, in the opinion of the FFM team, would have to have been released in order to cause the rapid onset of symptoms described by witnesses and observed in the videos where large numbers of decedents are concentrated in different apartments at Location 2. The rapid onset of heavy salivation and frothing from the mouth would be more consistent with exposure to a highly toxic nerve agent than a chocking (sic) agent such as chlorine or phosgene. However, analytical results showed no indication of organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products present in samples collected at the scene of the alleged attack or in biomedical samples from victims’. (Original Interim Report: para 7.81; p. 27)
Before then identifying the principal inconsistencies with respect to chlorine gas:
a) Pulmonary edema [sic] and excessive frothing from the mouth have been reported in cases of exposure to lethal doses of chlorine gas or other toxic chlorine-based agents such as phosgene or cyanogen chloride [7] [8] [9]. However, indications are that pulmonary edema, particularly in the case of phosgene, is a late pathological effect of exposure and in cases of high exposure levels death can result before pulmonary edema develops [8] [9]. The white of [sic] light-cream colour of the froth presented by victims is not in keeping with exposure to choking agents, where secretions are characteristically pinkish in colour when frothing does occur,
‘The rapid, and in some reported cases, immediate onset of frothing described by victims is not considered consistent with exposure to chlorine-based choking or blood agents. The opinion of a number of toxicologists, specialists in chemical-weapons-related intoxication supported this assessment’. (Original Interim Report: para 7.82; pp. 26- 27)
b) In order to produce such rapid incapacitation that victims would be unable to escape the toxic gas from the location of the alleged chemical attack (see 3D layout of the building and description), a respiratory irritant such as chlorine or phosgene would almost certainly need to have rapidly accumulated to very high concentrations. It is considered unlikely, given the location of the suspected source of the toxic chemical as well as the configuration and condition of the building, that such concentrations would not[sic] have been attained, particularly in the basement. Moreover, if such high concentrations had developed, as mentioned above, reports suggest that asphyxiation would have been the likely cause of death before pulmonary edema and frothing could develop [10]. (Original Interim Report: para 7.83; p. 27)
c) ‘It should be expected that on encountering the irritant gas, victims would instinctively have retreated and exited the building, which was within a few metres away.’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.84; p. 27)
d) ‘Based on the above observations, expert opinions of toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons exposure, and published scientific knowledge in this area, the FFM team considers that chlorine gas or other reactive chlorine-containing toxic agents such a phosgene or cyanogen chloride would not have resulted in the severe and rapid frothing symptoms reported by witnesses and observed in video footage and photos.’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.85; p. 27)
However, whilst the Original Interim Report communicates clearly the findings that both the arrangement of bodies and the observed symptoms are not compatible with chlorine poisoning, the Final Report obfuscates this finding as follows.
The Summary section of the Final Report contains no reference to the principal inconsistencies and the ruling out of chlorine gas. Instead, the summary section makes reference to both (a) witness observations alleging 43 decedents at Location 2 and that the FFM did not examine the bodies (Final Report [Summary]: para 2.10; p. 3) and (b) that ‘many of the signs and symptoms reported … indicate exposure to an inhalant irritant or toxic substance’ (Final Report [Summary]: para 2.11; p. 4). It then concludes: … based on the information reviewed and with the absence of biomedical samples from the dead bodies or any autopsy records, it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical’ (Final Report [Summary]: para 2.11; p. 4). The formulation of words used avoids making any explicit statement ruling out chlorine, thus leaving the possibility that chlorine might have been a cause. As such, the key conclusion that chlorine gas was not likely to have been the cause of death, confirmed during the June 2018 consultation with NATO toxicologists, is absent from the Final Report summary.
Furthermore, in an apparent attempt to strengthen the suggestion that the victims were killed in a chemical attack, the Final Report summary (para 2.10; p. 3) claims that ‘[a] United Nations agency also reported cases of death by exposure to a toxic chemical’ and references two UN (Human Rights Council [HRC]) reports[4]. This claim is misleading in that neither of the UN reports, both written while the OPCW’s Douma investigation was still ongoing and which rely primarily on witness testimony, state any firm conclusions regarding cause of death:
The Commission of Inquiry has been investigating this incident. The available evidence is largely consistent with the use of chlorine, but this in and of itself does not explain other reported symptoms, which are more consistent with the use of another chemical agent, most likely a nerve gas. The Commission’s investigations are on-going. (Report A: p. 14).
And in a section of the HRC report headed ‘Ongoing Investigations’:
‘… the Commission cannot make yet any conclusions concerning the exact cause of death, in particular on whether another agent was used in addition to chlorine that may have caused or contributed to deaths and injuries’ (Report B: p. 17).
As such, nothing substantive can be drawn from the cited UN reports as they, in fact, cite clear reservations about the cause of death that undermine the Final Report’s conclusion of chlorine being the likely cause of death.[5] This is a misleading move and one that is reinforced by repeated referencing of the two UN reports in the conclusion section of the Final Report (para 9.5: p. 30-31). Furthermore, it is notable that the latest report from the UN HRC on this issue does not include Douma as one of its 38 cases of chemical weapons use in Syria, because it did not meet the evidentiary threshold necessary to conclude an attack had occurred.[6]
The principal inconsistencies and ruling out of chlorine gas are also expunged from the body of the Final Report. Specifically, the Epidemiology section does at least include the important observation that only a fast-acting agent (which chlorine gas is not) would readily explain the apparently immediate collapse and death of victims at Location 2:
‘The victims do not appear to have been in the midst of attempting self-extrication or respiratory protection when they collapsed, indicating a very rapid or instant onset. This type of rapid collapse is indicative of an agent capable of quickly killing or immobilizing’ (Final Report: para 8.96; p. 29).
However, the principal inconsistencies identified in the Original Interim Report that lead to the conclusion that chlorine gas was inconsistent with the cause of death at Location 2 – immediate appearance of pulmonary oedema and copious visible frothing plus the rapid collapse of victims in piles – are absent. Instead, the ‘Epidemiology Analysis’ spends several paragraphs describing, amongst other things, the various symptoms observed in media and reported by witnesses before concluding that ‘it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical’ (Final Report: paras 8.70-8.103; pp: 25-30). Again, as with the summary section, the formulation of words used avoids committing to any explicit statement either ruling out or affirming chlorine use, thus leaving the possibility that chlorine might have been a cause. Via this apparent linguistic sleight of hand, the original finding, that ‘symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine’[7], is elided.
No explanation or justification for this expunging of an unequivocal expert opinion can be identified in the Final Report. Whilst the report does refer to later consultations with toxicologists in September and October 2018, it provides no information about what they said that might help to explain or justify the suppression. It is also notable and concerning that the Final Report makes no mention of the original consultation with the NATO toxicologists; the only consultations shown in the report timeline are those obtained during the Autumn of 2018 (Final Report: Annex 3; pp; 40-41).
3. Redaction of Information Concerning Gas Dispersion and Build Up
Regarding the feasibility of gas concentration reaching lethal levels, a section titled ‘Analysis of the possible route of dispersion of the alleged toxic chemicals or chemicals in Location 2’, included discussion of likely dispersion routes for gas at Location 2 (Original Interim Report: paras 7.24-7.26; pp. 15-16, including Images 2 and 3). In this section the report noted that each level on the staircase had a ‘tall glass-shattered window’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.19; p. 13) which provided routes ‘for horizontal dissipation of the toxic gas towards the exterior’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.25; p. 15). It is also noted that no direct route could be identified through which chlorine gas from the cylinder, which had landed on a balcony several floors up from ground-level, could directly reach the basement: ‘It would also appear that for chlorine to reach lethal concentration in the basement, the gas dispersion would almost certainly need to have come from the exterior, given the absence of a clear dispersion path from within the building’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.25; p. 15).
Images 2 & 3: Sample of diagrams from Original Interim Report relating to building layout and dispersion routes.
Drawing upon this analysis, the Original Interim Report then notes in the Epidemiology Section that:
In order to produce such rapid incapacitation that victims would be unable to escape the toxic gas from the location of the alleged chemical attack (see 3D layout of the building and description), a respiratory irritant such as chlorine or phosgene would almost certainly need to have rapidly accumulated to very high concentrations. It is considered unlikely, given the location of the suspected source of the toxic chemical as well as the configuration and condition of the building, that such concentrations would not [sic] have been attained, particularly in the basement. (Original Interim Report: para 7.83; p. 28)
Unlike the Original Interim Report, the Final Report contains no discussion of possible dispersion routes and the feasibility of dangerous concentrations of gas having built up so rapidly. The existence of glass-shattered windows on the staircase at each level plus the absence of any direct route for gas to pass into the basement are mentioned (Final Report: paras 8.24 and 8.25; pp. 15-16), but no analysis is provided, unlike in the Original Interim Report, as to what these facts mean with respect to the likely dispersion of any chlorine gas. Also of relevance here is the fact that the Original Interim Report documents significant inconsistencies in witness testimony regarding reports of victims in the basement at Location 2 and elsewhere.
4. Deletion of Contradictory Information Regarding Location of Deceased in Basements
Witness testimony regarding the presence of deceased in the basement at Location 2, and information regarding the number of deceased and their burial, are facts present in the Original Interim Report but removed from the Final Report.
4.1 Deceased in Basement
The Original Interim Report noted significant variations in witness testimony relating to the finding of deceased in basements. Specifically:
there were variations … in the numbers of bodies and their distributions throughout location 2 as observed in video footage and photos, compared to the numbers provided by witnesses who were interviewed. According to statements from witnesses, “many people they presumed dead, were lying on the floor of the basement”. (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 23).
The Original Interim Report sets out these discrepancies in a table identifying four witnesses (Witnesses 1919, 1742, 1753 and 1920) who claim to have seen between ‘some’ and ’40-50’ decedents in the basement at Location 2 (Original Interim Report: p. 24 and see Image 4).
Image 4: Table detailing ‘Country X’ witness reports regarding location of mortal victims (Original Interim Report: p. 24)
However, no evidence could be found to corroborate the claims bodies had been found in any basements:
The FFM did not obtain any video footage or photos of dead casualties lying in the basement of location 2 or being removed from there. There were also no photos or video footage available to the FFM team of the other two basements or of decedents, where three witnesses interviewed claimed to have been exposed to chlorine’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; pp. 23- 24)
This information is important[8] because it highlights the question of how the victims could have been poisoned and killed in the basement of the building at Location 2 by gas from a cylinder that had landed on a balcony four floors above. As noted above in Section 3 – Redaction of Information Concerning Gas Dispersion and Build Up – the basement only had an entrance from the street. This implied that the chlorine would need to have descended inside the building gone out on to the street and re-entered the basement in lethal concentrations, an unproven and unlikely scenario.
Notably, the Secretly Redacted Interim Report redacts information concerning the lack of evidence for witness claims regarding observing deceased in the basement at location 2. The paragraph cited immediately above is altered in the Secretly Redacted Interim Report to read:
Three of the seven casualties were purportedly exposed at two buildings, the exact locations of which were not known or visited by the FFM team. No photographs or videos of the locations or victims of the alleged attacks at these locations were available to the FFM team. (Secretly Redacted Interim Report: para 7.29; p. 15)
As such, the Secretly Redacted Interim Report obfuscates the key discrepancy noted in the Original Interim Report about the contradiction between witness claims that deceased had been seen in the basement at Location 2 and there being no obvious explanation for how chlorine gas could have entered that basement and reached lethal concentrations. The wording is also deceptive in that, by noting the absence of photographs or videos at the two other buildings, it implies there were video and films available for the Location 2 basement. No mention of this issue is made in the Published Interim Report which states only that ‘[a]nalysis of the testimonies is ongoing’ (para 8.17; p. 11).
The issues raised by these particular witness claims remain unresolved in the Final Report which continues to exclude the detailed table (see Image 4) that appeared in the Original Interim Report. In particular, the problematic claim made by four witnesses that bodies were seen in the basement at Location 2 is obfuscated in the Final Report: Whilst the Final Report refers to some witnesses ‘seeing decedents in the basement of the building’ [at location 2] (Final Report: para 2.10 p. 3 and para 9.5; p. 30), at another point it makes no mention of deceased in the basement at Location 2: ‘Witness accounts place the deceased lying on the stairs, inside apartments on multiple levels of Location 2, inside basements of neighbouring buildings across the area, on rooftops and on the streets’ (Final Report: para 8.62; p. 24). As with the Secretly Redacted Interim Report and Published Interim Report, no mention is made of the fact that the FFM ‘did not obtain any video footage or photos of dead casualties lying in the basement of Location 2 or being removed from there’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 23-24).
These obfuscations are not trivial. As already explained, there was no plausible explanation established for how chlorine gas could have travelled down several flights of stairs at location 2, to then move out onto a street and then re-enter the building to enter the basement, and then build up sufficient concentration to cause multiple deaths. A possibility raised by these inconsistencies is that witness reports of there having been deceased in the basement are untrue.
4.2 Inconsistencies with Respect to Death Toll and Burial of Victims
In the Original Interim Report two witnesses (1787 & 1780) report 150-300 total dead (Original Interim Report: p. 24 and see Image 4). In addition, the report also states that the ‘SCD’ [‘Syrian Civil Defence’/White Helmets] were in charge of burying the deceased in co-ordination with the local council. Most of the witnesses reported to be unaware of the location of the burial sites’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.50; p. 21). The Original Interim Report also notes that ‘Witnesses who were involved in burial preparations recounted that the victims of the alleged chemical attack were buried in a mass grave with other casualties’ (para 7.66; p. 23). Additionally, in a 2019 interview with ‘civil society leaders’ from Douma it is claimed, according to the translation, that there were 187 bodies found in ‘bunkers’. As pointed out by Adam Larson, one of the individuals in the 2019 interview was also recorded during the 2013 alleged sarin attack in East Ghouta:
In the subsequent reports there appears to be no further mention of either the higher death toll claims or the reference to burial in a mass grave alongside other victims[9]. The Final Report states:
The FFM could not establish the precise number of casualties; however some sources reported that it ranged between 50 and 500. Other sources denied the presence of chemically -related casualties. (Final Report: para 8.73; p. 26)
In the Final Report it is no longer clarified who was responsible for burying the victims and says instead:
Prior to the military campaign, the SCD was in charge of burying the deceased in coordination with the local council. A number of witnesses reported that they were unaware of the location of the burial sites. (Final Report: para 8.47; p. 22)
This alteration obfuscates whether or not the SCD were responsible for burying the deceased. At the time of the alleged attack in Douma, a British journalist, Jose Ensor, reported that those responsible for the burial were ‘local residents and members of Jaish al-Islam [the militant opposition group in Douma]’ and that the intent was to preserve evidence. Recently, Raed Saleh (Head of the ‘SCD’/White Helmets) was interviewed by the BBC and he stated [according to the BBC translation]:
The dead were buried in one place. It was a mass grave. It wasn’t the first time we buried people like that. Because when these attacks happen, we don’t have enough cemeteries all the time. There are too many dead. We didn’t gather evidence from the bodies themselves. We took samples from things like animal corpse and clothes and other effects. We told investigators location of the grave and met with investigators at the Turkish border to hand over the evidence we had gathered. (BBC ‘Mayday’, Episode ‘The Cylinder on the Bed’).
Overall, alterations and inconsistent claims as to the total number of deceased and who was responsible for burying the civilians inevitably means that key events surrounding the deaths in Douma remain left unclear in the Final Report.
5. Obfuscation and Failure to Resolve Unexplained ‘Country X’ Witness Testimony Regarding Nerve Agent Symptoms
The Original Interim Report states in its Epidemiology section that:
Witnesses interviewed in Damascus present a narrative whereby, on April 7 around the time of the alleged chemical attacks, casualties arrived at Location 1 displaying symptoms commensurate with asphyxiation from dust and fumes as a result of bombing. The symptoms included dysponea [sic], cough and asthmatic exacerbation secondary to exposure to smoke and dust. Witnesses and victims interviewed in Country X describe symptoms that included shortness of breath, a burning sensation in the chest, oral hypersecretion, ocular irritation, visual disturbances, lacrimation, dysphonia, nausea, vomiting, pruritus, and in the case of some surviving victims, constricted pupils. (Original Interim Report: para 7.77; p: 26-27)
The Original Interim Report also notes that hallucinations, which are not a symptom of chlorine poisoning (Original Interim Report: para 7.60; p: 23, were reported. ‘Country X’ witnesses are witnesses interviewed in Turkey, believed to have been arranged via the ‘SCD’/White Helmets, whilst ‘Damascus’ (including Douma) witnesses were interviewed in Syria and had been provided via Syrian government authorities.
The symptoms reported by Country X witnesses include those indicative of both chlorine poisoning and nerve agent poisoning (especially ‘constricted pupils’ and [immediate/rapid] oral hypersecretion) whilst those from Damascus indicate symptoms consistent only with dust and fumes. The Final Report, however, does not clearly delineate the reports from Damascus and Country X witnesses and thus obfuscates this important divergence:
Broadly, patients were reported to display shortness of breath, burning sensation in the chest, oral hypersecretion or foaming, and occular [sic] irritation. Additional complaints were visual disturbance, lacrimation, dysohonia [sic], nausea, vomiting and pruritus. A non-specific number of patients classified as severe manifested with seizure activity described as flexion of arms and wrists. Medical personnel reported the absence of any signs of external trauma. (Final Report, para 8.79; p. 26)
The Final Report also obfuscates the fact that Country X witnesses reported constricted pupils, again a key sarin/nerve agent indicator, by removing it from the list in paragraph 8.79 and instead discussing the reporting of both constricted pupils miosis (constricted pupils) and mydriasis (dilated pupils) in the following paragraph: ‘An unknown number of patients were reported to have manifested miosis or mydriasis. Although interviewed medical staff or physicians did not directly observe miosis, one support staff stated that four casualties who were classified as severe were directly observed to be presenting mydriasis’. (Final Report: para 8.80; p. 27). The fact that hallucinations had been reported, which are not a symptom of chlorine poisoning, was removed from the Final Report.
These important inconsistencies – reporting of a symptom not associated with chlorine poisoning (hallucinations) and symptoms associated with nerve agent poisoning (constricted pupils and [immediate/rapid] oral hypersecretion) – coming from Country X witnesses are unresolved in the Final Report.
6. Unresolved Questions Regarding the Authenticity of Events at Location 2
It is noted in the Epidemiology section of the Original Interim Report that: ‘[t]he white or light-cream colour of the froth presented by victims is not in keeping with exposure to choking agents, where secretions are characteristically pinkish in colour when frothing does occur’ (Para 7.82; p. 27). A related issue regarding the authenticity of events at Location 2 concerns the finding that, based on analysis of media, ‘it is apparent that some of the victims have been moved and re-positioned between video recordings’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 24). According to Stephen MacIntyre, at least one of the re-positioned victims, indicated by analysis of publicly available video footage,[10] appears to show profuse white foaming only after repositioning:
In another film placed online a boy with profuse foaming from the mouth is shown being moved the following day and here the foam-like material has clearly persisted and is semi-rigid (See here tt 1.13-1.36):
The Final Report does appear to reflect some doubt about the authenticity of the white foam seen on some of the victims noting that ‘[m]any of the victims present with white, foam-like oral and nasal secretions, similar in appearance to fulminate pulmonary oedema but in multiple cases much more profound and seemingly persistent’ (Final Report: para 8.90; p. 28). It also notes that ‘[w]hen comparing adult and paediatric groups, there does not appear to be any correlation in secretion presence, absence or amount’ (Final Report: para 8.70; p. 28). In paragraph 8.98 the Final Report states that:
The airways secretions seen in many cases are similar to those seen with exposure to some chemical weapons, toxic industrial chemicals and toxic does of pharmaceutical agents but are more profound and seem to have a consistency more like viscous foam than secretions typically originating from the upper or lower airways. Notably, there are casualties both with and without secretions that are in very close proximity to one another. (Final Report: para 8.98; p. 29)
However, no analysis of these inconsistencies is offered and the matter is seemingly dismissed by the vague assertion that ‘[i]n general, the presence and context of the airways secretions indicate exposure to a chemical substance’ (Final Report: para 8.98; p. 8.98).
In addition, the media evidence showing that bodies were reposition during the course of the night of 7-8 April 2018, whilst clearly referenced in the body of the Original Interim Report (‘it is apparent that some of the victims have been moved and re-positioned between video recordings’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 24), is relegated to the annex of the Final Report and with the wording altered to: ‘[f]rom the various videos showing the deceased victims throughout the interior of Location 2 some of the victims had been moved between video recordings’ (Final Report: Annex 11; p. 103). As noted above, at least one of the victims, shown in the publicly available video footage,[11] does not show the appearance of white foaming until after the body had been re-positioned. As such the Final Report, through deletions and obfuscations, suppresses information which indicates that certain aspects of events at Location 2 were questionable.
7. Discussion and Recommendations for Next Steps
A scenario in which up to forty-three civilians are supposed to have died almost immediately from chlorine gas poisoning at Location 2 was clearly questioned by the FFM Douma team and then corroborated via a consultation with NATO toxicology experts. The fact that the toxicological assessment ruling out chlorine gas at Location 2 as a possible cause of death was expunged from the Final Report, without any explanation or justification, is of serious concern and indicates that there was an attempt within the OPCW to censor doubts, based on scientific analysis, that the civilians were killed by chlorine gas at Location 2. As detailed in Section 1, it is notable that UN (HCR) reports from 2018 also raised question marks over the cause of death and their recent 2021 report has not included Douma as one of its established cases of chemical attack.
This unexplained redaction is made more worrying by the absence of detailed discussion regarding the likelihood of lethal gas concentrations particularly in the basement at Location 2 – a discussion present in the Original Interim Report but absent from the Final Report – and inconsistent and uncorroborated witness testimony relating to the finding of deceased in the basement at Location 2 and in other basements. Furthermore, witness testimony reporting a much higher death toll and the burying of civilians in a mass grave along with other decedents is absent from the Final Report. At the same time, identification of who was responsible for burial of the deceased is obfuscated in the Final Report. Inexplicable reports of nerve agent symptoms, de-emphasizing information regarding the ‘repositioning’ of some of the deceased, and failing to evaluate fully the questionable white, foam-like material on victims, further contribute to a pattern in which contradictory or ‘inconvenient’ information is being redacted, obfuscated or left unresolved come the Final Report.
In summary, important information which casts doubt on the plausibility of the scenario in which chlorine gas killed 43 civilians at Location 2 – a toxicology report ruling out chlorine gas as a cause of death, analysis of gas dispersion routes questioning the likelihood of a lethal concentration of gas – have been removed from the Final Report with no obvious justification. At the same time, information indicating unreliable or inconsistent witness testimony – reporting of deceased in basements and nerve agent-like symptoms – has been removed and/or obfuscated whilst information indicating possible fabrication – ‘re-positioning’ of bodies and questionable white foam-like material appearing on some of the victims – is downplayed. As such, information that might have contributed to a finding that no attack had occurred – stated in the Original Interim Report as the possibility that ‘b. The fatalities resulted from a non-chemical-related incident’, has been sidelined or is absent from the Final Report, with no supporting scientific justification. At the same time, this apparently selective use of evidence does appear to be consistent with the following claim made in the Final Report:
The FFM team based its findings on whether there were reasonable grounds to believe that chemical weapons were used, based on a reliable body of evidence consistent with other information tending to show that an incident or event happened (Final Report: Footnote 9; p. 8)
This statement suggests that the drafters of the Final FFM report were primarily interested in gathering evidence which supported the allegation that a chemical weapon attack occurred. Such an approach would likely lead to the sidelining counter-evidence and, therefore, is neither objective nor robust and falls short of basic investigative and scientific standards.
With these points in mind, the following steps should now be taken:
1. The OPCW must explain the grounds for removing the original assessment, offered by four NATO toxicologists, that the death of the victims at Location 2 was inconsistent with poisoning by chlorine gas. If it cannot do so, an updated Douma Report needs to reinstate this important conclusion.
2. The mechanism by which there could ever have been sufficient build-up of chlorine gas to kill the victims, apparently immediately, in any part of Location 2, needs to be fully evaluated and then reported.
3. Inconsistent and uncorroborated witness testimony pertaining to the presence of large numbers of deceased in basement areas and the reporting of nerve agent symptoms needs to be revisited and a determination made as to whether these witnesses can be considered reliable.
4. Evidence of ‘re-positioning’ of bodies and the questionable white foam like material needs to be evaluated in detail via an expert-led systematic review of the available photographic images and video footage.
5. More generally, the methodology employed by the team drafting the Douma Final FFM Report needs to be critically evaluated in order to determine the extent to which a pre-determined objective – finding of reasonable grounds to conclude the alleged attack occurred- was obtained through systematic selective use of evidence.
6. In addition, and given the uncertainty regarding the numbers of deceased and their burial, clarification is necessary as to both who was responsible for burying the deceased and the numbers buried. The location of the mass grave(s) should be identified with a view to possible exhumation as part of a war crime investigation. It can be noted that the OPCW, the leadership of the ‘SCD’/White Helmets, Syrian government authorities and Local Leaders from Douma, amongst possible others, would all be expected to assist with these important clarifications. Both the International Criminal Court and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (UNHRC) should be kept updated on all these issues.
[1] The reports are available at https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/FirstdraftInterimReport/, https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/RedactedInterimReport/, https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/S_series/2018/en/s-1645-2018_e_.pdf, and https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019/03/s-1731-2019%28e%29.pdf. Download date 3 June 2021.
[2]Minutes of the meeting, written three months after the consultation, are available here: https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/actual_toxicology_meeting_redacted/. Download date 14 September 2020.
[3] See https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/correctly_redacted_emails_re_toxicology_minutes/page-3/#pagination. Download date 15 September 2020.
[4] REPORT A: United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) – Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic – report, 38th Session, 20 June 2018 (A/HRC/38/CRP.3) and REPORT B: HRC – Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic report to the General Assembly, – 39th Session, 10 – 28 September 2018 (A/HRC/39/65).
[5] It is notable that a New York Times article published on 20 June 2018 reported that the Commission had doubts about the cause of death and withheld information from the official report issued the same day. It quotes an official as saying “with the April 7 attack in particular, more information was needed, including precisely what killed the 49 people. If we’re not sure what the cause of death was, we may be looking in the wrong place”. See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/world/middleeast/un-syria-eastern-ghouta.html.
[6] See A/HRC/46/54, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G21/014/36/PDF/G2101436.pdf?OpenElement. Download date 3 June 2021.
[7] https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/actual_toxicology_meeting_redacted/page-2/#pagination.
[8] It is also important in that it is entirely inconsistent with the video evidence and other witness accounts. No videos were seen (or no witnesses claimed) of bodies in or being moved from the basement.
[9] The Final Report does mention mass burial in paragraph 7.8, p. 10, but excludes information claiming that the deceased were buried alongside other decedents.
[10] https://climateaudit.org/2018/04/24/douma-videos-and-photos/. Download date 2 May 2021.
[11] https://climateaudit.org/2018/04/24/douma-videos-and-photos/. Download date 2 May 2021.
Michael Mann Says 64F At Penn State Is “Ridiculous”
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | December 19, 2021
More misinformation from Michael Mann:
In fact December temperatures of 64F are perfectly normal at Penn State.
The highest December temperature was 71F In 1998:
http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/
Ivermectin and the Price of Life
By Justus R. Hope, MD | The Desert Review | December 13, 2021
What is your life worth? More to the point, what is your loved one’s life worth? What value would you place on your child, your mother, father, or spouse?
When the world experienced an average of nearly 15,000 COVID deaths per day, Dr. Andrew Hill decided on the price of a human life. Dr. Hill made that calculation during a conversation with Dr. Tess Lawrie, in January of 2021, during the peak of the Winter Surge.
In a zoom conversation between Dr. Tess Lawrie, nicknamed the “Conscience of Medicine,” and Dr. Andrew Hill, then the most influential Ivermectin advocate in the world, Dr. Hill chose dollars over human lives.
Hill’s parent institution, the University of Liverpool, had just received a 40 million dollar donation from UNITAID four days before Hill’s Ivermectin paper was published, and Dr. Hill’s conclusion was changed 180 degrees from his position just a few weeks earlier.
Andrew Hill admitted that his sponsors (UNITAID) pressured him to alter his conclusion. Hill explained, “I think I’m in a very sensitive position here.”
Dr. Lawrie called Hill out. She stated, “Lots of people are in sensitive positions; they’re in hospital, in ICUs dying, and they need this medicine.”
Lawrie criticized Hill, “This is what I don’t get, you know, because you’re not a clinician. You’re not seeing people dying every day. And this medicine prevents deaths by 80%. So 80 percent of those people who are dying today don’t need to die because there’s Ivermectin.”
Hill responded that the NIH would not agree to recommend IVM.
Dr. Tess Lawrie fired back, “Yeah, because the NIH is owned by the vaccine lobby…This is bad research. So at this point, I am really, really worried about you.”
Hill answered, “Okay. Yeah. I mean, it’s a difficult situation.”
Lawrie responded, “No, you might be in a difficult situation. I’m not because I have no paymaster. I can tell the truth… How can you deliberately try and mess up…you know? So, how long are you going to let people carry on dying unnecessarily – up to you? What is the timeline you’ve allowed for this, then?”
Andrew Hill reacted, “Well, I think… I think that it goes to WHO and the NIH, and the FDA, and the EMEA. And they’ve got to decide when they think enough is enough.”
Dr. Lawrie pointed out the obvious, “You’d rather… risk loads of people’s lives. Do you know if you and I stood together on this, we could present a united front and we could get this thing. We could make it happen. We could save lives; we could prevent people from getting infected. We could prevent the elderly from dying…
I’m a doctor, and I’m going to save as many lives as I can. And I’m going to do that through getting the message [out] on Ivermectin…Okay. Unfortunately, your work is going to impair that, and you seem to be able to bear the burden of many, many deaths, which I cannot do.”
Dr. Lawrie demanded to know the identity of the unknown UNITAID author who changed Dr. Hill’s conclusions, the person whose influence was to cause so many preventable deaths.
“So who is it in UNITAID, then? Who is giving you opinions on your evidence?”
Hill answered, “Well, it’s just the people there. I don’t…”
Dr. Lawrie pressed Hill, “Could you please give me a name of someone in UNITAID I could speak to, so that I can share my evidence and hope to try and persuade them to understand it?
Dr. Hill evaded, “Oh, I’ll have to think about who to, to offer you with a name… But I mean this is very difficult because I’m, you know, I’ve got this role where I’m supposed to produce this paper and we’re in a very difficult, delicate balance… Yeah, it’s a very strong lobby…”
The conversation concludes with Dr. Hill promising to do everything in his power to get Ivermectin approved if she could give him six more weeks.
Dr. Lawrie, “So, how long do you think the stalemate will go on for?”
Dr. Hill, “From my side. Okay… I think end of February, we will be there in six weeks.”
Dr. Tess Lawrie, “How many people die every day?”
Dr. Andrew Hill, “Oh, sure. I mean, you know, 15,000 people a day.”
Dr. Tess Lawrie, “Fifteen thousand people a day times six weeks… Because at this rate, all other countries are getting Ivermectin except the UK and the USA, because the UK and the USA and Europe are owned by the vaccine lobby.”
Dr. Andrew Hill, “My goal is to get the drug approved and to do everything I can to get it approved so that it reaches the maximum…”
Dr. Tess Lawrie, The Conscience of Medicine, concluded with this, “You’re not doing everything you can, because everything you can would involve saying to those people who are paying you, ‘I can see this prevents deaths. So I’m not going to support this conclusion anymore, and I’m going to tell the truth.’”
Finally, Dr. Lawrie added, “Well, you’re not going to get it approved the way you’ve written that conclusion. You’ve actually shot yourself in the foot, and you’ve shot us all in the foot. All of… everybody trying to do something good. You have actually completely destroyed it… I don’t know how you sleep at night, honestly.”
The fact that Dr. Andrew Hill allowed another person to change his paper’s conclusion has been known for more than six months and was published in the book, Ivermectin for the World.
“However, he [Dr. Andrew Hill] was reigned in before more damage [to the vaccine lobby] was done:
- He was invited to the NIH, along with Dr. Marik, probably to give the appearance of propriety.
- He was given a gag order and told not to speak to any more press until The WHO made an official decision on Ivermectin. It turned out that this decision would go against the drug despite Dr. Hill’s findings.
- Dr. Hill’s conclusion would be changed by someone else, and the rest is history.”
What was not known, until the transcript of the zoom conference between Dr. Hill and Dr. Lawrie was leaked, were the specifics of the quid pro quo. It turns out that the height of the COVID-19 Winter surge, when about 15,000 people per day were dying, was precisely the same time as the zoom conference, held on January 18, 2021. Moreover, it was days after Andrew Hill’s University of Liverpool took the $40 million payoff.
The transcript of this conference call appeared in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s’ book, The Real Anthony Fauci, and in this article published by The Defender newsletter:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/ivermectin-big-pharma-rfk-jr-the-real-anthony-fauci/
World daily COVID deaths were averaging around 15,000 per day on January 18, 2021, and six weeks later were averaging some 9,700. Currently, the world is seeing about 7,500 per day die.
80% of these or more could have been prevented with Ivermectin, a statement with which Dr. Hill would likely agree.
Overall, since that fateful decision of Andy Hill to allow his sponsor to “change” his paper’s conclusion, 2.475 million people [11 months x 30 days per month x 7500 deaths per day] have died, 80% of them could have been saved had Ivermectin been approved. So precisely 1.98 million lives were lost as a result of the betrayal.
The price per life?
Forty million dollars was the value of the donation made to the University of Liverpool by UNITAID. This sum comes out to 20 dollars and 20 cents per life. That is what we are all worth in the calculus of the vaccine lobby.
UNITAID bills itself as a “global health agency” hosted by the World Health Organization and supported by the vaccine lobby.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed hundreds of millions to UNITAID. In October, they committed $120 million more to the new expensive Merck drug molnupiravir, a costly and genotoxic competitor of Ivermectin.
Some experts say it will stimulate the emergence of viral mutants and worsen the pandemic.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/covid-pill-being-rolled-among-121237206.html
If that prospect is not concerning enough, consider this: One dose of Remdesivir, a drug that does not save lives, but one that is widely used on most United States ICU COVID cases, costs $3,100 per dose, or to put it bluntly, one dose of Remdesivir is worth roughly 153 lives. Yet, the worst drug earned the FDA’s approval while the best one, Ivermectin, was suppressed for money.
Ivermectin, a drug that has nearly eradicated River Blindness in much of the world, a safe drug already given to humans in over 4 billion doses, can be purchased mail-order from India at 1,000 12mg tablets for $163. That comes out to 16.3 cents per dose.
Dr. Alan Bain recently saved the life of 71-year-old Sun Ng thanks to a court order issued by Judge Paul Fullerton. Following the hospital’s initial refusal, Ng’s family sued Edward-Elmhurst Health and Sun Ng was administered the Ivermectin for five days. After the treatment, Ng “removed his breathing tube” and was taken out of ICU.
Sun Ng’s Recovery with Ivermectin
Dr. Bain, unable to get a local pharmacy to fill the prescription for Ivermectin, obtained the mail-order version and saved Ng’s life.
https://patch.com/illinois/naperville/covid-patient-given-ivermectin-edward-improving-report
Thus, five 12 mg doses cost about 82 cents but are worth more than the 20 dollar value placed by the vaccine lobby and Andrew Hill on a human life because pennies were all it took to purchase the Ivermectin that saved Sun Ng.
Ivermectin has 27 randomized controlled studies involving tens of thousands of patients showing reduced time to viral clearance, hastened recovery time, and reduced mortality. On the other hand, the vaccine lobby’s choice, Remdesivir, was rejected by the WHO as a drug that failed to improve survival and other outcomes.
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/SUMMARY-OF-THE-EVIDENCE-BASE-FINAL.pdf
One thousand doses of Ivermectin can be purchased online for $163. Yet, UNITAID paid $40 million to change Dr. Hill’s conclusions to call for more studies [delaying Ivermectin approval], essentially condemning millions of human beings to death from COVID-19. So while 82 cents may be the price of life, it seems that twenty pieces of silver remains the price of death.
Dr. Justus R. Hope, writer’s pseudonym, graduated summa cum laude from Wabash College where he was named a Lilly Scholar. He attended Baylor College of Medicine where he was awarded the M.D. degree. He completed a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at The University of California Irvine Medical Center. He is board-certified and has taught at The University of California Davis Medical Center in the departments of Family Practice and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. He has practiced medicine for over 35 years and maintains a private practice in Northern California.
FDA Should Need Only ‘12 Weeks’ to Release Pfizer Data, Not 75 Years, Plaintiff Calculates
By Seth Hancock | The Defender | December 17, 2021
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials skipped the start of oral arguments Tuesday as a federal district court weighed whether the agency can take 75 years to fully release documents on Pfizer’s Comirnaty COVID vaccine, according to a lawyer representing plaintiffs who sued the FDA for the documents.
A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas the agency will produce more than 329,000 related documents as fast as it can, while safeguarding personally identifiable information and Pfizer trade secrets.
Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT), the group behind the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent lawsuit, is seeking safety and effectiveness data, adverse reaction reports and a list of active and inactive vaccine ingredients.
PHMPT is a group of more than 30 scientists, medical professionals, international public health professionals and journalists. The group’s lawsuit argues the FDA is overestimating the time needed and understaffing the job.
“Assuming a low average of 50 pages per hour per person, even to review the hundreds of thousands of pages the FDA estimates, the agency would need just 19 reviewers to work full-time for 12 weeks to review and produce these documents — which is a tiny fraction of its approximately 18,000 employees,” said PHMPT in a legal brief filed Monday.
The day before oral arguments, the FDA released 14 document files, the largest file including 2,030 pages. PHMPT posted an updated list which shows documents released since Nov. 17.
FOIA does not mandate any particular processing schedule, only that the agency process requests “as soon as practicable,” the FDA said in a legal brief filed Monday.
“The bottom-line issue still remains what processing schedule is ‘practicable’ for the agency,” the FDA said.
At the agency’s proposed rate of 500 documents per month, the last documents would be released in 2096.
A quote from Business Intelligence Associates, an e-discovery company, estimated 400,000 pages could be produced within six to eight weeks at a cost of $132,000, according to PHMPT.
PHMPT wants the FDA documents released within 108 days. That’s the same amount of time the FDA spent reviewing the responsive documents for “the far more intricate task” of licensing Pfizer’s vaccine, the group said in its lawsuit.
Attorney Aaron Siri, who represents PHMPT, said:
“Americans must routinely produce documents, pay fines, and otherwise expend resources to comply with the law. Courts don’t inquire as to the ability or financial resources to comply with the law — they must comply.
“In fact, it would be laughable if a billionaire defendant came before a court and claimed poverty to escape making a document production, but that is the FDA’s position.”
The FDA budget for fiscal year 2019 was $6.1 billion.
In the FDA’s 64-page briefing, the agency argued it needed the full 75 years to redact and release the documents out of “fairness” to other FOIA requesters.
PHMPT defined fairness differently in its responding brief:
“Fairness would be giving millions of Americans who are mandated to receive this liability-free vaccine today assurance regarding the FDA’s review by allowing independent scientists access to the same data the FDA reviewed, without making them wait decades.
“Fairness would be allowing Americans injured by the vaccine today, who cannot sue Pfizer or anyone else for the harm, hope that independent scientists with access to that data can more readily develop treatments for their ailments.
“Fairness would be our federal health authorities allocating more than one person spending a few hours each month to review Pfizer’s documents for public disclosure after having given Pfizer over $17 billion of taxpayer money to develop and market the product.
“That would be fair to the American people.”
Siri noted that no decision has been made by the court and that a transcript of this week’s hearing should be released soon.
U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) earlier this month introduced a bill that would force the FDA to release them in 100 days.
© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Washington ‘hunts’ Russian citizens in third countries – Moscow
RT | December 19, 2021
Moscow has condemned the extradition of a Russian IT firm owner from Switzerland to the US. His lawyer said Washington wants to tie the man to alleged meddling by Moscow in the 2016 American presidential election.
The extradition of businessman Vladislav Klyushin is “another episode of Washington’s continuing ‘hunt’ for Russian nationals in third countries,” the Russian Embassy in Switzerland, told TASS on Sunday.
Spokesperson Vladimir Khokhlov said Moscow was “deeply disappointed” by the decision of a Swiss court to reject Klyushin’s appeal to block his extradition on Friday. The man was handed over to American police officers in Zurich on Saturday, who escorted him on a flight, according to Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice.
The software developed by Klyushin’s media monitoring and analytics company, M13, is used by Russian state agencies, including the federal government and Presidential Executive Office, according to the firm’s website. The businessman was detained by Swiss police in March during a family skiing trip, his lawyer, Oliver Ciric, told the media.
Swiss justice officials said the US accused Klyushin of insider trading that involved “tens of millions of dollars.”
Ciric believes the persecution of the businessman is politically motivated, and that he will face “inhuman and degrading treatment” when extradited to the US.
He told The Times in September that the charges of insider trading were being used as a pretext to transport Klyushin to the US. The lawyer said his client would likely be charged with heading an alleged Russian covert operation to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election and hack the server of the Democratic Party.
In the same interview, Ciric claimed that Klyushin had access to “certain security information” related to the Russian government, and rebuffed recruitment attempts by US and British intelligence agents in the past.
The lawyer said that Klyushin’s criminal case file has been sealed by a Massachusetts court, which is “quite unusual” for financial charges that are typically publicized by a US financial regulator.
US officials accused the Kremlin of seeking to influence the vote and hacking the server of the Democratic National Committee and an email account of John Podesta, who led Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump. Russia consistently denied these allegations. Klyushin has denied any involvement in insider trading and hacking.
A week of life under the Ministry of Fear. This time, we locked ourselves down.
By Laura Dodsworth | December 18, 2021
Last Sunday evening, Boris Johnson interrupted the nation’s TV viewing with an announcement about the new Covid-19 variant. “Fighting Omicron is the most important thing we can do,” he said. It’s early days, and in the absence of clinical data or indeed any rise in hospitalisations and deaths, it remains to be seen if this is true.
We were left in no doubt about how to fight – get boosted. In retrospect, the triadic structure of previous press briefings (“Hands, Face, Space” and “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives”) was the ultimate in sophistication compared to the frequent repetition of “boosted” (eight times), “booster” (eight times) and “vaccination” (four times) in one short speech.
This past week exemplifies nearly two years of life under the “Ministry of Fear”, as Sir Desmond Swayne MP termed it. Amid a Tory rebellion, he delivered a tirade in the House of Commons on the day that MPs voted on Covid Passes, the expansion of mask mandates and compulsory jabs for NHS workers. He accused the UK government of “twisting the fear lever” and unleashing “the dogs of war”.
He is not alone. Andrew Bridgen MP said that, in his opinion, “the most dangerous epidemic sweeping the world and sweeping our country is an epidemic of fear”. I agree Pandemics come and eventually go, but our basic psychology is here to stay. The UK government has relied upon the use of fear, nudges, behavioural science techniques and propaganda to subliminally encourage people to comply with the regulations, as I set out in my book A State of Fear: how the UK government weaponised fear in the Covid-19 pandemic.
These techniques work so well that, this time, we have essentially locked ourselves down. Without so much as a new law, statutory instrument, or prime ministerial request, Nativity plays, office Christmas parties and pub bookings are cancelled. Stocks of lateral flow test ran dry. People queued for eight hours for their boosters. The media enthusiastically obliged with a new “tidal wave” of articles and programmes prophesying catastrophic cases and demonising the “selfish” unjabbed. Journalists asked for more restrictions, sooner.
I spoke to Swayne who told me he believes the fear is driven very much by the doom-mongering scientists on SAGE and Independent SAGE whose worst case scenarios necessitate action, and then “the media hams it up”.
One of the government’s early concerns was that some people actually understood that the risk from Covid-19 to their demographic is low, hence fear was leveraged to ensure everyone feel at risk so that they would follow the rules. Similarly, last Sunday, Johnson acknowledged that “some people” would believe Omicron to be less severe than previous variants – and at this point there is little clinical data to prove Omicron will be more serious or able to evade our natural immunity and vaccine-derived antibodies – but he warned “scientists cannot say that Omicron is less severe”. Essentially we were told to ignore the lack of scientific evidence and instead embrace fear and follow instructions.
So, how to convince us of a threat, before the threat has actually manifested? By using the same methods they have honed throughout the pandemic, including the use of big scary numbers, advertising, subtle messaging, alarmist language and the most punitive fines since the Dark Ages.
I dedicated a chapter of my book to the metrics of fear – daily death tolls, the reproduction number, cases and worst case modelling. This week’s numbers have crumbled like icing sugar.
Sajid Javid estimated that there were 200,000 infections, which appears to have been a back of the envelope calculation, based upon assumptions and extrapolations. Dominic Raab said there were 250 people in hospital with Omicron, when there were 10. Dr Jenny Harries, head of the UKHSA, warned the Omicron variant is “probably the most significant threat” of the pandemic and we should expect a “staggering” growth rate, but her dire warning was juxtaposed with acknowledging it’s too early a stage to be clear about the clinical severity.
These speed-generated pessimistic numbers and contradictions give the rational mind whiplash and leave you vulnerable to fear. As Swayne put it, “It’s designed to make your flesh creep. Even if you then ameliorate it, the first scary bit is out there.”
To lay the groundwork, masks were re-introduced as a “softening up exercise for Plan B,” according to a government advisor who sits on a government Covid taskforce. He anonymously confided that, “Masks are a behavioural psychology policy. We need to stop pretending that it’s about public health. Nudge is a big thing in government.” Masks turn us into walking billboards advertising danger.
I have already argued that the whole point of the Winter Plan was Plan B and Covid Passes. The government has not provided convincing scientific evidence for vaccine passports, but they are widely understood to be a ‘tool’ to drive take-up. Now, fines of up to £10,000 can be imposed for falsifying Covid Passports – a life-destroying amount designed to strike fear into your heart.
The advisor shared internal documents with me that show Covid Passes were ready to go in early November. Worryingly, they also show that government is also working with analysts to see whether “mandatory vaccination would hit the right target or not”.
The government has launched new advertising campaigns. One TV advertisement, intended to encourage ventilation has frightened children. One father wrote to tell he had complained to his MP and the Advertising Standards Authority because the “sinister black mist” snaking out of people’s mouths terrified his four and six year old in the ad break of a Christmas film. His daughter had nightmares and was still crying about “germs” the next day. He is angry about the “intentionally fear-inducing piece of Gov media forced in their face”.
Martin Kemp played the part of Santa Claus preparing for Christmas by getting his booster jab in a government advertisement. Santa has a long history of being enlisted for propaganda purposes from Soviet space missions to selling World War Two US government bonds. Even Tesco got in on the act this year in their festive ad, making Santa brandish a Covid Pass QR code to enter the country. However, this badly misjudged public mood and #BoycottTesco trended on Twitter.
Press and social media ads have returned to the red and yellow ‘danger’ style chevons, although they feature smiling younger people presumably boosted against Omicron. The “O” in boosted is golden and enlarged, presumably to echo “O-micron” and also evoke the circle of protection Johnson wants the booster to deliver. The people are surrounded with a warming Ready Brek-style glow.
I warned in The Telegraph in October that I would not be surprised to see ministers on television, urging us to follow restrictions in order or to “save Christmas”, once again. I’ll be on Santa’s ‘Nice List’ for getting that right.
Some polls are used as both a nudge and a spoiler of public policy. When you see a result such as 76% of Britons want to see the return of compulsory face masks in shops and on public transport (Yougov) you are meant to identify with the group and imagine yourself in the majority – “ah yes, that is what I think too!” The poll was also a signal to seed the idea of the ensuing policy change. This mutually influential relationship between polls and policy is especially clear in the case of questions such as “If someone has had two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, but it has been over six months since their second dose, would you consider that person to be ‘fully vaccinated’?” (also Yougov) which should have nothing to do with public opinion.
Polls don’t always go the ‘right way’ though. Good Morning Britain ran a Twitter poll which asked “With Omicrom cases doubling every two days, is it time to make vaccines mandatory?” After 89% of 44,533 respondents voted no, the Twitter poll was pulled. Presumably it was not the answer that GMB wanted and, curtain pulled back, they knew that we knew it.
There is less fear in the air this time despite the “tidal wave” of fear-mongering. Redfield and Wilton Strategies latest research into public attitudes found that 81% of people plan to have a normal Christmas and New Year and feelings of safety in public have only marginally declined. Once you have seen the nudges you cannot un-see them, and fear cannot be sustained indefinitely.
When the government resorts to fear and hyperbole to gain compliance, it shows what they think of us. We are emotionally kettled rather than treated as responsible individuals with agency. As a Nudge Unit report said, we have a “powerful tendency to conform” and the government relentlessly exploits this human feature. I suspect that this time, the government is keen to address concerns that it has not acted swiftly enough in the past, and believes the strong warnings are in our best interests. Perhaps Ministers are themselves in thrall to the anxiety-inducing steep-lined graphs.
10 Downing Street released a nugget sized version of Johnson’s Omicron announcement on Youtube, with a tight crop and dramatic music. The selected few dramatic sentences could have been borrowed from a disaster genre ‘B’ movie. I’m not sure if Youtube comments are more or less valid than Yougov, but they are certainly revealingly scathing about “fear inducing language”, “Orwellian passports” and NHS queues.
I think there is a sense that people will do quite a lot to have a normal Christmas and get life back to normal, but fear of Covid and trust in the messaging are running out, just like those lateral flow tests.
Omicron scare tactics
By Joel S Hirschhorn | December 17, 2021
What is the public to believe about omicron variant? The usual nutty pro-vaccine media are making a lot of fear-mongering noise about omicron.
Here are some things to keep in mind.
A very new medical research article provided compelling information that COVID vaccines are not effective against omicron. The article concluded: “The Omicron variant presents a serious threat to many existing COVID-19 vaccines and therapies.” The only data coming out is on the ineffectiveness of the vaccines. There are no data on whether ivermectin and natural immunity are equally ineffective.
This too was said: “The scientific community has chased after SARS-CoV-2 variants for a year. As more and more of them appeared, our interventions directed to the spike became increasingly ineffective. The Omicron variant has now put an exclamation mark on this point.”
Here is a really important point to keep in mind. Omicron may look like it has high transmissibility, but this may have much more to do with the ineffectiveness of vaccines than with the intrinsic nature of this variant!
See my previous article on omicron that showed research indicating intrinsic low transmissibility relative to delta, and similar to other variants:
Consider these relevant omicron facts.
In South Africa, with only 26% vaccinated, despite omicron, not only has there been no surge in COVID deaths, they are the lowest they’ve been in 18 months. This, after more than three weeks into omicron in South Africa. If screams about a surge were accurate, it would have started by now. And doctors there say the omicron cases are far less severe than presumably delta.
Fewer than 1 in 50 people with confirmed omicron cases are being hospitalized in South Africa – which suggests that the actual hospitalization to infection rate is far lower still. Why? Because so many people with omicron have such mild cases they don’t bother getting tested.
South African scientists announced the discovery of the Omicron variant on November 25. Since then, the country has had more than 230,000 Covid-19 cases, but just 377 deaths. And as of this writing, none of those deaths are confirmed to have resulted from Omicron.
The UK as of now has reported 1 (1!) omicron death, and it was “with” the virus, not necessarily from it. If there have been deaths globally from omicron, they have not been reported
When you read about mounting COVID cases in the US just remember that there normally has been a winter surge in cases. Cases can also be easily manipulated by public health agencies by running PCR tests at high cycles, creating false positive. Keep your attention on deaths in people where there has been gene sequencing to confirm omicron. Ugly and corrupt political forces controlling public health agencies have every reason to create a surge in cases so that fear can be maintained and the public made receptive to getting vaccine and booster shots.
Be patient, do not go crazy over omicron. Keep doing the many good things to maintain a healthy immune system, such as taking vitamins D and C, zinc and quercetin.
Plus, a new medical research article on ivermectin concluded that it really is very effective as a prophylactic, a genuine alternative to COVID vaccines.
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From the Archives
Jewish Guilt is the Discourse of The Goyim
By Gilad Atzmon | April 24, 2018
For quite some time the British have accepted that British Jewish organizations have hijacked the political discourse. As has happened in other Western countries, the British political establishment has engaged is a relentless rant against antisemitsm. Sometime the focus drifts for a day or two. An alleged ‘Russian nerve gas attack’ provided a 48 hour pause. Occasionally we bomb Arabs in the name of ‘human intervention’ only to realize a day or two later that we have, once again, followed a premeditated foreign agenda. But, somehow, we always return to the antisemitism debate, as if our media and politicians are a herd of flies gravitating to a pile of poop. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- BEN-GVIR: “ALL OF LEBANON MUST BURN” — w/ Mouin Rabbani
- There Are No Budget Constraints In New York City: “Coastal Resiliency” Edition
- The UN’s plan to levy taxes on global trade is a sinister power grab
- Is there a future for the U.S. strategy in the Arctic?
- UN inquiry finds Israel ‘intentionally’ targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, occupied West Bank
- Citizens Around the World Demand Israel’s Expulsion From the United Nations
- ‘Israel not party to US-Iran talks, will continue full operations in Lebanon,’ Israeli far-right minister says
- Two killed in brazen Israeli ceasefire violation in southern Lebanon
- Which Country Is the Big Loser from the Ramadan War?
- Israeli Intel Whistleblower: Israel Ended Clinton Iran Deal With Epstein Blackmail
- If Americans Knew
- UN: Israel Continues to Commit Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes by Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children
- Bari Weiss, Free-Speech Fraud & Zionism Promoter, Would Rather Deport Than Debate
- ‘Doctor of the Poor’: Israeli Occupation Arrests Prominent Palestinian Physician
- Search for Your Church (and see if it has been targeted by the Israeli gov’t)
- Mark Levin Flying to Israel as Netanyahu Reportedly Seeks to ‘Leverage’ Levin to Trash Trump’s Iran Deal
- Watch: Zionist Brags about Israel’s Power to Get the World to Do What Israel Wants
- In Gaza, another senseless death on what should have been a joyous day – Daily Update
- The Republican & Democratic Politicians Trying to Scuttle Iran Agreement
- Israel’s continued targeting of civilians in Lebanon renders ceasefire meaningless
- U.S. intelligence warns Israel is likely to undermine Iran peace deal, officials say
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
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