FIGHT OVER FLUORIDE HEATING UP IN FLORIDA
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | April 17, 2025
The national conversation around fluoride in drinking water has shifted and Florida is currently the hotbed of this effort. Hear how the EPA is actively reviewing the recent studies on the dangers of fluoride and the legal changes moving forward on state and federal levels.
EU state’s PM issues Covid vaccine warning
RT | April 23, 2025
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has called for an immediate halt to government purchases of Covid-19 vaccines, citing a recent report that found mRNA jabs contain extremely high levels of DNA and substances that were not disclosed by the manufacturer.
Bratislava initially considered outright banning the vaccines when a commission led by Peter Kotlar, an orthopedic doctor and member of the ruling Slovak National Party, published a report in October claiming that the mRNA jabs alter human DNA, have been inadequately tested, and therefore should not be administered until they are proven safe.
Kotlar has also described the Covid-19 pandemic as an “act of bioterrorism” and a “fabricated operation,” and has accused vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer of turning vaccinated people into “genetically modified organisms.”
His report, however, was met with significant pushback from opposition parties, as well as former Slovak Health Minister Zuzana Dolinkova, who cast doubt on Kotlar’s qualifications with regard to the subject. She subsequently resigned from her position that same month, citing government backing for an anti-vaxxer and insufficient prioritization of health care.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Fico published a video in which he stated that ignoring the findings of the Kotlar-led commission on the quality of the Covid-19 vaccines would be “extremely irresponsible.”
Fico noted that in March, he instructed the Health Ministry to establish a working group to address the findings of the expert report submitted by Kotlar, but acknowledged that this may not produce results quickly enough.
The prime minister said he would try to resolve the issue in “a reasonable timeframe” and propose during an upcoming government meeting that apart from the working group, the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) would also be asked to conduct a quantitative analysis of the presence of DNA and other substances in the vaccines.
Fico also suggested that the government should inform the population about the “serious findings” regarding the jabs. “Although Covid-19 vaccination rates are extremely low, people deserve such a warning,” he said.
The prime minister went on to propose that Slovakia suspend the purchase of additional vaccines from the unspecified manufacturer, which it is obligated to do under a contract signed by the former government in 2023.
Bratislava is still expected to procure nearly 300,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in 2025 and 2026, which is estimated to cost around $6.6 million, Fico said, stressing that “until the results of the additional quantitative analysis are delivered, the government should not procure further vaccines from this manufacturer or pay for them.”
NSF terminates hundreds of “misinformation”-related grants, impacting research tied to online speech flagging
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 23, 2025
A large wave of funding cancellations from the National Science Foundation (NSF) has abruptly derailed hundreds of research projects, many of which were focused on so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
Late Friday, researchers across the country received emails notifying them that their grants, fellowships, or awards had been rescinded; an action that stunned many in the academic community and ignited conversations about the role of the government in regulating research into online speech.
Among those impacted was Kate Starbird, a prominent figure in the “disinformation” research sphere and former Director of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.
The Center, which collaborated with initiatives like the Election Integrity Partnership and the Virality Project, both known for coordinating content reporting to social media platforms, had ties to federal agencies and private moderation efforts.
Starbird expressed dismay over the NSF’s move, calling it “disruptive and disheartening,” and pointed to a wider rollback in efforts to police digital content, citing reduced platform transparency and the shrinking of “fact-checking” operations.
Grants that were cut included studies like one probing how to correct “false beliefs” and another testing intervention strategies for online misinformation. These projects, once backed by taxpayer dollars, were part of a growing field that often overlaps with content moderation and speech policing; a fact acknowledged by even Nieman Lab, which admitted such research helps journalists “flag false information.”
The timing of the cancellations raised eyebrows. The NSF’s action followed a report highlighting how the Trump administration was reevaluating $1.4 billion in federal funding tied to misinformation research. That investigation noted NSF’s involvement in these programs but did not indicate the impending revocations.
The NSF stated on its website that the grants were being terminated because they “are not aligned with NSF’s priorities,” naming projects centered on diversity, equity, inclusion, and misinformation among those affected.
A published FAQ further clarified the agency’s new direction, referencing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. It emphasized that NSF would no longer support efforts aimed at combating “misinformation” or similar topics if such work could be weaponized to suppress constitutionally protected speech or promote preferred narratives.
Some researchers, like Boston University’s Gianluca Stringhini, found multiple projects abruptly defunded. Stringhini, who had been exploring AI tools to offer users additional context about social media content; a method akin to the soft content warnings platforms deployed during the pandemic—was left unsure about the full scope of consequences for his lab.
Foundational to many early studies in this space, the NSF had long played a key role in launching initiatives that shaped how digital discourse was studied and potentially influenced. According to Starbird, about 90% of her early research was NSF-funded. She cited the agency’s vital support in forging cross-institutional collaborations and developing infrastructure for examining information integrity and technological design.
The mass termination of these grants signals a pivotal shift in the federal government’s stance on funding initiatives that blur the lines between research and regulation of public speech. What some see as necessary oversight to prevent narrative enforcement, others view as a dismantling of essential tools used to navigate complex digital environments. Either way, the message from Washington is clear: using federal dollars to police speech, even under the guise of scientific inquiry, is no longer a priority.
Unshrunk: Laura Delano’s breakaway from psychiatry
The powerful story of a psychiatric survivor turning pain into purpose
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | April 21, 2025
Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance is more than a memoir of Laura Delano’s journey through pain, survival, and recovery. It is a fearless, forensic examination of a psychiatric system that too often harms those it is meant to help.
Instead of merely recounting her own harrowing experience, Delano exposes an industry that, despite its claims of scientific rigour, frequently silences, dismisses, and pathologises those in distress.
What emerges is not just a personal reckoning, but a scathing indictment of modern psychiatry and a call for urgent reform.
As someone who has spent years reporting on the scientific shortcomings of psychiatric drugs—the flimsy trials, the regulatory capture, the financial conflicts—I’ve documented many of the system’s failures.
But I could never portray them with the visceral clarity of someone who’s lived it. Delano gives a voice to the silenced, puts flesh on the statistics, and brings coherence to the chaos so many feel when trapped inside the ‘prison’ of psychiatry.
Last September, I had the opportunity to meet Laura in Connecticut after she reached out in response to some of my investigative reporting.
In person, she was warm, grounded, and intelligent. She and her husband, Cooper Davis, radiated a quiet but unmistakable sense of hard-won purpose. It was clear they hadn’t merely survived the system—they were now working to help others navigate it, through the nonprofit Laura founded: Inner Compass Initiative.
Delano’s descent into psychiatry began at the tender age of 13. She describes a moment standing in front of a mirror, repeating to herself, “I am nothing. I am nothing. I am nothing.”
Instead of seeing this as a young girl’s profound cry for help, psychiatry interpreted it as a pathological symptom—one that demanded medication.
From there, her life became a procession of diagnostic labels and prescriptions. She was rapidly swept into a whirlwind of psychiatric disorders—depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder—each new label reinforcing the falsehood that she was fundamentally broken.
This, I believe, strikes at the heart of psychiatry’s core failure: it strips suffering of context and meaning, and replace it with abstract diagnostic codes.
Alongside the diagnoses came the inevitable avalanche of drugs: Seroquel, Zyprexa, Risperdal, Abilify, Depakote, lithium, Klonopin, Ativan, Ambien, Celexa, Cymbalta, Wellbutrin—the list goes on. But instead of healing her, psychiatry hijacked her identity.
Even I was stunned by the sheer volume and velocity at which she was prescribed drugs. What struck me most was the absence of curiosity from clinicians who should have known better – who never paused to consider whether the treatment itself might be causing harm.
The title Unshrunk captures this journey perfectly. It’s a nod to the profession of “shrinks” while also reclaiming one’s identity—undoing the diminishment that comes from being reduced to diagnoses and drug regimens.
“This book—these pages, this story, my story—is a record that has been unshrunk,” she writes.
Throughout, Delano explains how the system instilled in her the deepening belief that something was fundamentally wrong with her—a belief reinforced at every turn by diagnoses and medications. Her story lays bare a broader truth: psychiatry has a tendency to medicalise ordinary human suffering and pathologise natural responses to life’s challenges.
I know first-hand how taboo it remains to critique psychiatry. Years ago, while producing a two-part documentary series on antidepressants for ABC TV, I spent over a year interviewing patients, researchers, and whistleblowers. We sought to expose the overstated benefits and hidden harms of psychiatric drugs.
But just before broadcast, the series was pulled. Executives feared that telling the truth might prompt people to stop taking their medication. It was a sobering reminder of how tightly controlled this conversation remains—and why voices like Delano’s are so vital.
Predictably, Unshrunk has drawn criticism from legacy media outlets like The Washington Post, which characterised it as a “treatise against psychiatric medications” and lumped it into a “highly predictable” anti-psychiatry genre.
But this knee-jerk framing only highlights how resistant our culture has become to honest, nuanced conversations about mental health.
To be clear, Delano is not “anti-psychiatry” or “anti-medication.” She has explicitly acknowledged that some people find psychiatric drugs helpful. But she also knows many have not been helped—in fact, many have been harmed. Their stories matter too. And that’s exactly what Unshrunk offers – a voice to those erased from the dominant narrative.
This intolerance of dissent is reflected in politics too. When Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently questioned the safety of psychiatric drugs, Senator Tina Smith accused him of spreading “misinformation” that could discourage people from seeking treatment. But Kennedy wasn’t opposing treatment—he was calling for transparency, informed consent, and scientific accountability. As Delano’s memoir makes painfully clear, those are precisely the conversations we should be having.
Delano writes candidly about how psychiatry eroded her sense of self—how she became a “good” patient, internalising every label and obeying every directive.
“I took all of this as objective fact; who was I to question any of it?” she writes.
One especially crucial chapter confronts the now-debunked “chemical imbalance” myth—the idea that depression is caused by a deficiency in serotonin. Delano references the 2022 review in Molecular Psychiatry by Moncrieff et al., which found no convincing evidence to support the serotonin-deficiency theory.
She reflects on how the drugs impaired her capacity to think critically: “For nearly half my life, I’d been under the influence of drugs that had impaired the parts of my brain needed to process, comprehend, retain, and recall information.”
The darkest chapter in Unshrunk—and the one I found most difficult to read—is her suicide attempt. Delano recounts the moment with unflinching honesty. It hit me like a gut punch. But it’s that refusal to sanitise her pain that gives this memoir its extraordinary emotional weight.
And yet, Unshrunk is not without hope. Delano eventually emerges from the depths of despair, scarred but intact, with a renewed sense of purpose.
The pivotal moment came when Delano read Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a book that poses a confronting question: why, after decades of soaring psychiatric drug use, are rates of mental illness and disability still climbing?
Drawing on long-term research, Whitaker argues that while psychiatric drugs may offer short-term relief for some, they often lead to worse outcomes over time—and that, on balance, they may be causing more harm than good at a societal level.
The realisation hit Delano like a bolt of lightning: “Holy shit. It’s the fucking meds,” she writes. She wasn’t “treatment-resistant”—the treatment itself had become the source of her suffering, a case of iatrogenic injury.
Delano’s journey to withdraw from psychiatric drugs, however, is another ordeal. At first, she assumes a quick detox will bring quick relief—but she is disastrously wrong.
“The logic seemed simple at the time,” she writes. “I had no idea that I had it backward—that the fastest way to get off and stay off psychiatric drugs successfully… is to taper down slowly. And by ‘slowly’ I don’t mean over a few weeks or months. I mean potentially over years.”
It’s a lesson that remains dangerously absent from much of mainstream psychiatric care, where withdrawal symptoms are routinely mistaken for relapse.
“Coming off psychiatric drugs had been the hardest thing I’d ever done,” she recalls.
At its core, Unshrunk is about reclaiming bodily autonomy. “My body, my choice,” Delano writes—underscoring the way psychiatry frequently undermines consent and personal agency. The harm didn’t just come from the drugs, but from being denied fully informed consent regarding her treatment.
Ultimately, Delano’s message is both sobering and empowering: true healing begins when people are treated not as “broken brains,” but as whole human beings.
“I decided to live beyond labels and categorical boxes,” she writes, “and to reject the dominant role that the American mental health industry has come to play in shaping the way we make sense of what it means to be human.”
Unshrunk is a brave, unsparing account of Delano’s escape from a broken system. At times tormenting, sometimes funny, always courageous—it’s one hell of an emotional rollercoaster.
If you want to understand the lived experience behind psychiatry’s failures, this book is essential reading.
How Your Family Doc Became a Vaccine & Drug Enforcement Agent
The rise of pharmaceutical compliance officers in primary care
By Dr. Roger McFillin | Radically Genuine | Apr 3, 2025
Remember when your family doctor was actually your doctor? That quaint historical period when physicians made independent medical judgments instead of reading from pharmaceutical scripts? When they looked at you as a unique human being rather than a collection of compliance metrics needing correction?
Those days are fucking gone.
Today’s primary care physician is something entirely different—a pharmaceutical compliance officer with a prescription pad, a corporate protocol to follow, and overlords tracking their every move. They’ve transitioned from healers to hustlers, from medical professionals to medication pushers, from trusted advisors to glorified drug dealers with better parking.
I recently had a conversation with a pediatrician that exposed the naked truth of modern medicine. He confessed to me—with a mixture of resignation and discomfort—that he was “mandated” to administer the PHQ-9A (depression screening) to every adolescent, and if they scored above a certain threshold, he MUST offer an SSRI antidepressant.
“What if the teen is just going through a breakup or having normal adolescent mood swings?” I asked.
He shrugged helplessly. “Doesn’t matter. If they hit the number on the screening, protocol says I have to offer medication.”
“But you know these drugs more than double the risk of suicidal events in teenagers,” I pressed. “The black box warning exists for a reason.”
His response chilled me: “If something happened to the teen and I didn’t follow protocol—if I didn’t offer the medication—I could be held liable. My hands are tied.”
And there it was—the perfect analogy hiding in plain sight. This highly educated physician with years of training wasn’t making independent medical decisions. He was a street-level drug dealer who feared what would happen if he didn’t move enough product for his overlords. The corner pusher fears his supplier’s enforcers; the modern physician fears “liability” and “protocol violations.” Different vocabulary, identical dynamic.
Primary care has been transformed from a healing profession into a pharmaceutical distribution network with doctors serving as glorified vending machines in white coats. They’re the street-level dealers in the medical-industrial complex, pushing products with the ruthless efficiency of a cartel but with better branding and tax benefits.
The parallels between how primary care physicians push psychiatric drugs and vaccines are so perfect they deserve admiration from a purely marketing perspective. It’s the same hustle with different packaging—one comes in pill form, the other in a needle, but the script is identical.
The SSRI Hustle
God forbid you or a family member is unfortunate enough to schedule a routine checkup during a particularly bad week. Walk into that sterile exam room while grieving a loss, stressing about work, or just experiencing one of life’s inevitable rough patches, and you’ll walk out with a ‘mild to moderate depression’ diagnosis faster than you can say ‘pharmaceutical kickback.
Within minutes, you’re handed a questionnaire with loaded questions like: “Feeling bad about yourself or that you have let yourself or your family down or that you are a failure?” (You just watched your ex’s vacation photos on Instagram while eating ice cream for dinner in your unwashed sweatpants, so… is this a trick question?)
Answer honestly, and congratulations! You’ve just self-diagnosed with “mild to moderate depression.”
You mean what we used to call sad?
Your doctor spends approximately 90 seconds validating this with probing questions like “And how long have you felt this way?” before reaching for the prescription pad.
“I think Lexapro would really help take the edge off,” they say with practiced compassion, already halfway through writing the prescription. “It will balance your brain chemicals.”
But it’s when you express hesitation that the real sales pitch begins—fear. This is where doctors transform into pharmaceutical fear merchants:
“You know, untreated depression can be very serious,” they warn ominously. “It can worsen over time. It can affect your relationships, your work, your entire life. Depression is a serious medical condition—in fact, it’s the leading cause of disability worldwide.”
The implication hangs in the air like a guillotine blade: refuse this medication, and you’re gambling with your life. They may even pull out the suicide card: “Depression can lead to suicidal thoughts if left untreated.” The cosmic irony of using suicide as a scare tactic to prescribe drugs with black box warnings about increasing suicidal ideation seems lost on them.
For teenagers, the fear tactics are directed at parents. “You don’t want to take chances with your child’s mental health, do you?” they ask, making parents feel like monsters for questioning whether their teen’s temporary sadness requires a medication that doubles their risk of suicidal events.
This isn’t medical counseling. It’s emotional manipulation through fear—the same tactic used by predatory salespeople in every industry. “Better safe than sorry” becomes the catch-all dismissal of legitimate concerns about medications with profound risks and modest benefits.
What they don’t mention:
The “chemical imbalance” theory of depression was thoroughly debunked years ago, joining phrenology and bloodletting in medicine’s hall of shame. SSRIs have never proven to be clinically meaningful beyond placebo.
Complying with their prescription pad evangelism could result in permanent sexual dysfunction—as in forever, as in the rest of your life.
Withdrawal can be so brutal and protracted that patients often mistake it for “proof they need the medication” rather than recognizing it as drug dependence.
And here’s the cosmic punchline: in the 4-6 weeks it takes for these medications to supposedly “work,” most situational “depression” would have naturally improved anyway.
When that happens?
The doctor smugly nods and thinks, “See, the drugs I prescribed fixed them!” Never mind that time, human resilience, and your own natural healing did all the heavy lifting while the medication was just along for the expensive, side-effect-laden ride.
The Vaccine Hustle
Now let’s watch the vaccine version of the same performance:
You visit for a completely unrelated issue—perhaps a sprained ankle or a skin rash. Before addressing your actual concern, your doctor casually mentions, “I see you haven’t had your COVID or flu shot this year.”
The framing is already perfect—you’re “behind” on something, implying non-compliance with an expected standard. Your medical record has been flagged for a deficiency that needs correcting, like a car overdue for an oil change.
Express hesitation, and witness the same script unfold: “These vaccines are very safe and effective. Side effects are usually just a sore arm or mild fatigue for a day.” (Myocarditis? Menstrual disruptions? Neurological issues, complete hijacking of my immune system? Those are so rare they’re not worth mentioning, apparently.)
Ask about actual risk reduction—like how the flu vaccine isn’t efficacious and doesn’t prevent you from contracting the flu—and watch them shift uncomfortably.
Why would I even risk Guillain–Barré syndrome for this Doc? I am healthy and not that scared of the flu? Regardless of the low risk of complications… why even take that risk?
Dare to question whether a perfectly healthy 17-year-old who already recovered from COVID needs an experimental mRNA intervention that doesn’t prevent transmission—and has now been shown to actually INCREASE susceptibility to infection over time, not to mention the myocarditis risks, menstrual disruptions, and other “rare” side effects conveniently minimized in the sales pitch—and watch their face transform before your eyes.
First comes the reflexive smile-cramp, that frozen rictus of medical authority being questioned. Then the slightly widened eyes as they process your heretical departure from the script. Finally, that subtle hardening around the jaw as they shift from healthcare provider to pharmaceutical enforcement officer.
It’s like watching someone toggle between “friendly neighborhood doctor” and “COVID compliance commissar” in real-time, all because you had the audacity to weigh risks against benefits for your own child.
But regardless of whether they’re pushing pills or jabs, we see the identical sales pitch every time—a masterclass in pharmaceutical propaganda. They dramatically exaggerate even the most microscopic potential benefits while feverishly minimizing, dismissing, or flat-out denying any risks with the practiced ease of a seasoned con artist. Watch them transform a 1% absolute risk reduction into ‘90% effective!’ while simultaneously downgrading ‘known serious adverse events’ to ‘extremely rare side effects that aren’t worth discussing.’ It’s as if they’ve never read a single page of the actual scientific literature on the subject.
Spoiler alert: they haven’t.
Most haven’t ventured beyond industry-funded continuing education modules and pharmaceutical company press releases since medical school. The journal articles gathering dust in their mental libraries are pharmaceutical marketing materials disguised as science, cherry-picked datapoints that support the sales pitch while burying inconvenient truths beneath statistical sleight-of-hand. Their ‘expertise’ is just regurgitated talking points from the last drug rep who bought them lunch.
Your Doctor Now Reports to Corporate Masters
The corporate takeover of medicine didn’t happen overnight—it was systematically engineered, with the Affordable Care Act delivering the knockout blow to independent practice. While marketed as expanding “healthcare access,” Obamacare buried small practices under an avalanche of regulatory requirements, EHR mandates, and compliance costs that made independence financially impossible.
Before the ACA, over half of physicians owned their practices; today, that number has plummeted below 30%. The rest were forced to sell out to corporate healthcare systems where their compensation and job security now depend on following protocols—including pharmaceutical prescribing patterns and vaccination targets—established by administrators who’ve never touched a stethoscope.
Your family doctor didn’t willingly transform into a pharmaceutical enforcement agent; they were legislated into compliance, their medical autonomy sacrificed on the altar of corporatized healthcare while maintaining the illusion of independent judgment.
Primary care healthcare professionals are now following protocol with the unquestioning obedience of a first-grader desperate for a gold star sticker. It makes you wonder how many who flock to primary care medicine were those perfect little rule-followers their entire lives—the ones who color-coded their highlighters in medical school, memorized every algorithm without asking why, and spent their formative years as professional hoop-jumpers. The straight-A students who never risked a teacher’s disapproval, never colored outside the lines, never questioned authority figures even when those figures were demonstrably wrong. The ones whose entire identity became wrapped up in following instructions perfectly to achieve the next credential, the next white coat, the next professional validation.
Is it any surprise that these same personalities now cling to protocols like religious scripture, unable to exercise independent clinical judgment when a human being’s complex situation doesn’t fit neatly into their laminated flowchart? Critical thinking requires the courage to ask uncomfortable questions—a skill that was systematically extinguished in these pristine academic specimens long before they wrote their first prescription
Next time your primary care physician tries to prescribe you an SSRI for being human or jab you with the latest pharmaceutical subscription service, remember: you’re not a patient—you’re a customer they’re trying to upsell.
Their script may be polished, but your bullshit detector doesn’t need a medical degree to function properly. Ask the uncomfortable questions they’re afraid to answer. Demand actual data, not rehearsed talking points. Walk out if necessary.
Find the rare physicians who still practice medicine instead of pharmaceutical compliance. And if your doctor looks horrified when you decline their latest pill or shot, smile sweetly and say, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure my chart notes that YOU failed to convince ME—not the other way around.”
After all, the most rebellious act in modern healthcare isn’t refusing treatment—it’s insisting on informed consent in a system designed to eliminate it.
Your body, your mind, your choice. No prescription required.
RESIST
EXPERTS CONCEDE ‘VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM’ IS NOT SUPPORTED BY SCIENCE
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | April 17, 2025
Jefferey Jaxen exposes the myth that the science on vaccines and autism is “settled.” Despite repeated claims, the CDC and FDA have failed to produce credible long-term studies proving vaccines don’t contribute to autism, while top experts admit under oath that no such studies exist.
Wrong, ABC News, Climate Change Didn’t Cause 2025’s Severe Tornado Outbreak
By Linnea Lueken | ClimateREALISM | April 14, 2025
A recent story by ABC News, “Climate and environment updates: Tornado activity doubled March average: NOAA,” classifies recent severe tornado outbreaks under their “climate crisis” category, implying that these storms were caused by global warming. This is false. Climate change is not causing an increase in the number or severity of tornados, nor can it be connected to such a limited event.
ABC warns:
The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us.
According to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. tornado activity in March was more than twice the monthly average, with over 200 tornadoes recorded.
Although ABC doesn’t explicitly state that this tornado season has been caused by climate change, the story strongly implies it, and as such it cannot be left unchallenged, because it is wrong.
The United States did experience a destructive and violent tornado season in March 2025, but it was not a record breaker in terms of numbers or strength, nor does it reflect a long-term trend that would be necessary to prove the climate connection.
The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) disagree strongly with ABC’s claims. They report that tornado records in the past are spotty, because they are very short lived and aren’t always reported, especially as one moves further back into the past. NCEI reports “[m]any significant tornadoes may not make it into the historical record since Tornado Alley was very sparsely populated during the 20th century.”
Doppler weather radar did not become widespread until the 1990s. Because of the low coverage of weather radar before then, and much higher coverage in recent years, NCEI explains that “observation practices have led to an increase in the number of reported weaker tornadoes, and in recent years EF-0 tornadoes have become more prevalent in the total number of reported tornadoes.”
NCEI continues:
With increased National Doppler radar coverage, increasing population, and greater attention to tornado reporting, there has been an increase in the number of tornado reports over the past several decades. This can create a misleading appearance of an increasing trend in tornado frequency. To better understand the variability and trend in tornado frequency in the United States, the total number of EF-1 and stronger, as well as strong to violent tornadoes (EF-3 to EF-5 category on the Enhanced Fujita scale) can be analyzed. These tornadoes would have likely been reported even during the decades before Doppler radar use became widespread and practices resulted in increasing tornado reports. The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger tornadoes over the past 55 years.
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tornado count show no trend in the number of tornadoes since the introduction of widespread Doppler radar. (See figures below)
Figure 1: Trend of all tornadoes counted since 1950. Note that the trend stops increasing once the widespread coverage of Doppler weather radar is achieved in the 1990s. Red are preliminary estimates for this year.
When it comes to the strongest tornadoes, EF-3 and above, there appears to be a downwards trend. (see figure below)
Climate at a Glance: Tornadoes points out that as recently as 2017 through 2018, the United States set records for the longest period in history without a tornado death and the longest period in history without an F3 or stronger tornado. In fact, the two record-low years for number of tornadoes both occurred this past dozen years, in 2014 and 2018.
Moreover, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that “[t]here is low confidence in observed trends in small spatial-scale phenomena such as tornadoes.”
ABC’s alarming coverage of the 2025 tornado season is at odds with the data. There is no dangerous climate signal in the tornado data, there may even be evidence that the modest warming of the past century is related to the decline in severe tornado outbreaks in the United States. A single severe tornado season, or concentrated outbreak, is not evidence of catastrophic climate change, only a long-term sustained trend would suggest climate change might be a factor, and there is no such trend.
‘Genes Do Not Cause Epidemics’: Kennedy Lambastes Media for Denying Autism Epidemic, Vows to Research Environmental Triggers
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 16, 2025
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today criticized mainstream media for pushing the narrative that rising autism rates are just a result of better diagnosis.
“One of the things that I think we need to move away from today is this ideology that autism diagnosis, that the autism prevalence increases, are simply artifacts of better diagnosis, better recognition, or changing diagnostic criteria,” Kennedy said at his first press conference since taking office.
HHS called the press conference to share results of the latest study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on autism prevalence, published yesterday.
An estimated 1 in 31 (3.22%) 8-year-old children had an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis in 2022 — up from 1 in 36 (2.8%) in 2020, the CDC said in its latest report from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM), which is published every two years.
Overall, the prevalence of autism in U.S. children rose approximately 17% between 2020 and 2022, continuing a decades-long trend.
The mainstream media responded in lockstep to yesterday’s report by denying that autism is an epidemic and doubling down on the argument that rising rates are simply the outcome of better diagnosis. The Washington Post called the 17% increase “small,” and The Hill labeled it a “slight” increase.
Kennedy responded today, saying the rate increases “are real,” and that each year there has been “a steady, relentless increase.” Kennedy said that while some people may be genetically predisposed to autism, it takes an environmental exposure to trigger the condition.
He added:
“This epidemic denial has become a feature in the mainstream media, and it’s based on an industry canard. Obviously, there are people who don’t want us to look at environmental exposures.”
Kennedy shared data from other previous studies on autism prevalence, including a 1987 study from North Dakota, in which researchers attempted to identify every child with autism in the state. In 1987, 330 out of every 1 million kids were diagnosed with autism. “Today there are 27,777 for every million,” he said.
“If you accept the epidemic denier’s narrative, you have to believe that researchers in North Dakota missed 98.8% of the children with autism,” Kennedy added. “Thousands of profoundly disabled children were somehow invisible to doctors, teachers and parents.”
“Doctors and therapists in the past were not stupid,” Kennedy added. “They weren’t missing all these cases.”
Kennedy also underscored that a high and growing percentage of children diagnosed with autism were severe cases. In a press release Tuesday, HHS outlined specific numbers:
“The increase in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence cannot be solely attributed to the expansion of diagnoses to include higher functioning children. On the contrary, the percentage of ASD cases with higher IQs (> 85) has decreased steadily over the last six ADDM reports to 36.1% in the 2022 survey. Nearly two-thirds of children with ASD in the latest survey had either severe or borderline intellectual disability (ID).”
“So we know what the historic numbers are and we know what the numbers are today, and it’s time for everybody to stop attributing this to this ideology of epidemic denial,” Kennedy said today.
He called out the National Institutes of Health for spending 10 to 20 times more on research into genetic causes than into environmental ones, and pledged that under his leadership, that will change. He said HHS will make grants available to university scientists and others to research the environmental causes of autism.
“People will know they can research and they can follow the science no matter what it says, without any kind of fear that they’re going to be censored, that they’re going to be gaslighted, that they’re going to be silenced, or that they’re going to be delicensed.”
“This is a preventable disease,” Kennedy said. “We know it’s an environmental exposure. It has to be. Genes do not cause epidemics.”
One of the authors of the CDC study, and head researcher of the ADDM’s New Jersey site, Walter Zahorodny, Ph.D., from Rutgers Medical School, joined Kennedy at the press conference. Zahorodny said autism should be treated “as an urgent public health crisis.”
Zahorodny said:
“There is better awareness of autism, but better awareness of autism cannot be driving a disability like autism to increase by 300% in 20 years. That’s what we saw in New Jersey. That’s what the CDC report of yesterday indicates. And that’s what, in my opinion, future reports from epidemiologists will show.”
Zahorodny said a lot of data had been collected over 20 years, indicating that the “epidemic, tsunami, or a surge in autism” is significant. But no real progress had been made in understanding the environmental risk factors.
Children’s Health Defense Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker told The Defender he was “very encouraged” by Kennedy’s response to the latest autism prevalence report.
“The magnitude of the autism epidemic is staggering and the ‘better diagnosing’ reasoning for the increase in prevalence is utter nonsense and has been debunked ad infinitum.”
“Secretary Kennedy has demonstrated his commitment to address this issue directly. I look forward to not only answers but real solutions on how to clean up the mess created by a prior HHS that couldn’t care less about autistic children and adults,” he added.
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.
Fact-Checking Peter Marks’ ‘Face the Nation’ Interview on Autism, Vaccines and Measles
By Arthur Weinstein | The Defender | April 17, 2025
Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., hasn’t changed the opinions that put him at odds with U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and led to his recent resignation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Marks appeared April 13 on CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” in a wide-ranging interview covering vaccine safety, autism, the Texas measles cases and Kennedy.
When Marks resigned under pressure on March 28 from his role as director of the FDA department responsible for authorizing vaccines, he called out Kennedy in his resignation letter. “It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote.
While Marks avoided using such inflammatory language on “Face the Nation,” the former FDA vaccines regulator did criticize Kennedy, suggesting he had hired a research executive with insufficient credentials, made personnel cuts that would hurt public health and that the results of a landmark autism study announced by Kennedy had in effect already been predetermined.
“What I think we can expect is the expected: that there will be an association determined between vaccines and autism, because it’s already been determined,” Marks said.
During the interview, Marks made several misleading and/or factually inaccurate statements, which we outline here.
Marks and Brennan falsely attributed children’s deaths to measles
Brennan referred to the death of 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand on April 3 as “the death of a second unvaccinated child in Texas due to measles,” implying the disease caused both deaths.
Dr. Pierre Kory, who analyzed Daisy’s medical records for CHD.TV, disputed Texas health authorities’ statement that she died from “measles pulmonary failure.” He said records indicate she died from acute respiratory distress “secondary to hospital-acquired pneumonia,” which she likely developed during a previous hospital stay.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) chief scientific officer, also reviewed the records and spoke with both of Daisy’s parents. He noted Daisy’s illness and treatment history were complicated during the weeks before her death.
Daisy’s father, Peter Hildebrand, told CHD.TV this week that measles is “absolutely not” what caused his daughter’s death.
“That last doctor we had, he just kept going on and on about measles this and measles that. He was trying to blame everything on the measles … They were so focused on the measles that they didn’t think about testing for anything else, and that is why my daughter is dead today.”
In March, a 6-year-old child in West Texas died after developing pneumonia while recovering from measles. The two deaths have fueled media coverage of a “deadly measles outbreak” in Texas and New Mexico, even though both deaths were attributable to other causes.
Marks cited questionable measles death rate
Marks talked at length about vaccine safety and efficacy, especially the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.
“You want to get your child vaccinated against measles so that they don’t have a one-in-a-thousand chance of dying from measles if they contract it,” Marks said.
That oft-cited 1-in-1,000 statistic for measles deaths comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A CDC webpage updated in May 2024 claims “1 to 3 of every 1,000 children infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications.”
However, other research and media reports — and even the CDC itself — contradict that figure. On its website, the CDC reports that before the first measles vaccine was developed in 1963, “It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year,” resulting in 400 to 500 deaths.
Depending on which figures one uses, that results in a death rate of somewhere between 1 in 6,000 and 1 in 10,000 cases.
A 1994 study by the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) that reviewed pre-vaccine era data in industrialized countries also found the death rate for measles to be just over 1 per 10,000 cases.
Marks understated MMR vaccine risks
Marks said that unvaccinated children are at serious risk from measles, and he endorsed vaccine safety. He said:
“There’s no reason to put your child at that risk, because the vaccine does not cause death, it does not cause encephalitis and it does not cause autism. So a vaccine that is safe, yes, occasionally kids get fevers. If you don’t keep the fevers down, about 15 in 100,000 will get a convulsion that happens once it goes away. … So, very safe vaccine that is going to potentially protect your child and save its life.”
That statement ignores evidence of the risks associated with the measles vaccine. Between 2000 and 2024, nine measles-related deaths were reported to the CDC. During the same period, 141 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccination in the U.S. were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). That suggests the MMR vaccine can be deadlier than measles.
The MMR vaccine is also associated with serious health risks. The package insert for Merck’s MMRII states, “M-M-R II vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment of fertility.”
Marks mischaracterized status and credentials of experienced vaccine researcher
Brennan mentioned a recent report by The Washington Post that researcher David Geier has been hired to lead Kennedy’s autism study. Geier’s appointment has not been confirmed. Yet the media questioned his credentials.
Marks repeated the Post’s mischaracterization of Geier’s credentials.
“He’s to the best of my knowledge, he’s not had any training after college in any of the sciences that we value here,” Marks said.
Geier is an expert on thimerosal — a mercury-based preservative used as an adjuvant in vaccines — and on the connections between toxic exposures and autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
The researcher is also the lead or second author of hundreds of peer-reviewed articles on vaccine safety.
Marks muddled research on environment versus genetics autism debate
As Brennan asked Marks about Kennedy’s autism study, she touched on the HHS secretary’s belief that environmental factors, not genetics, have sparked the rise of the condition.
Kennedy again voiced that opinion on Wednesday during a news conference, saying, “Genes do not cause epidemics.”
“Is there scientific evidence ruling out genetics as a cause of ASD?” Brennan asked Marks, referring to autism spectrum disorder.
”There’s no scientific evidence ruling out genetics. In fact, there’s data that have been published that say that genetics may contribute to autism. There are obviously data … that suggest that perhaps environmental factors may, but one has to be incredibly careful … about making associations between environmental factors and autism.”
The converse of Marks’ statement is also true; there’s no scientific evidence ruling out environmental factors. Kennedy said Wednesday that while some people may be genetically more susceptible to autism, it takes an environmental exposure to trigger the condition.
“This epidemic denial has become a feature in the mainstream media, and it’s based on an industry canard,” Kennedy said. “Obviously, there are people who don’t want us to look at environmental exposures.”
Brennan also pointed out to Marks that Kennedy appeared on Fox News Wednesday, “and dismissed 14 studies that have shown no link between autism and vaccines.”
A scientific review published Jan. 10 on Preprints.org found the CDC’s “vaccines do not cause autism” stance is based on limited evidence that insufficiently supports that broad claim.
Hooker, one of the co-authors of the review, told The Defender about the limited research on the topic.
“The truth is that CDC has never studied the connection between vaccines and autism except for one vaccine, MMR, and one vaccine component, thimerosal,” Hooker said.
Kennedy’s stance on the environment versus genetics debate has been clear, and he reiterated it Wednesday: He questioned why the National Institutes of Health spends 10 to 20 times more researching genetic causes instead of possible environmental triggers.
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.
MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) – Vaccine Risk Statement
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) Is It Safer Than Measles, Mumps and Rubella?
Physicians for Informed Consent | December 2024
What Is the MMR Vaccine?
The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is a live virus vaccine that was introduced in 1963. It has significantly reduced the incidence of reported cases of measles, mumps, and rubella infections; however, vaccine immunity wanes over time.1-3
What Are Side Effect of the MMR Vaccine?
Common side effects of the MMR vaccine include fever, mild rash, and swelling of glands in the cheeks or neck.4 A more serious side effect is seizure, which occurs in about 1 in 640 children vaccinated with MMR5 — about five times more often than seizure from measles infection.6
Although severe potential side effects have been observed following MMR vaccination, including neurological disorders (e.g., encephalopathy, meningitis, ataxia, transverse myelitis, optic neuritis, multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, brachial neuritis, and hearing loss), autoimmune diseases (e.g., chronic arthritis), fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) states that “the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between MMR vaccine” and those conditions.7 Additionally, the manufacturer’s package insert states, “M-M-R II vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment of fertility.”8
How Are Risks of Vaccine Side Effects Measured?
Methods to measure vaccine risks include surveillance systems, clinical studies, and epidemiological studies.
How Accurate Is Surveillance of Adverse Events from the MMR Vaccine?
The government tracks reported cases of vaccine side effects through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Approximately 40 cases of death and permanent injury from the MMR vaccine are reported to VAERS annually.9 However, VAERS is a passive reporting system — authorities do not actively search for cases and do not actively remind doctors and the public to report cases. These limitations can lead to significant underreporting.10 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states, “VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events.”11 Indeed, as few as 1% of serious side effects from medical products are reported to passive surveillance systems,12 and as few as 1.6% of MMR-related seizures are reported to VAERS.13 In addition, VAERS reports are not proof that a side effect occurred, as the system is not designed to thoroughly investigate all cases.14 As a result, VAERS does not provide an accurate count of MMR vaccine side effects.
How Accurate Are Clinical Trials of the MMR Vaccine?
The CDC states, “Prelicensure trials are relatively small — usually limited to a few thousand subjects — and usually last no longer than a few years… Prelicensure trials usually do not have the ability to detect rare adverse events or adverse events with delayed onset.”10 For children under age 10 at normal risk (i.e., with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth), the pre-vaccine annual risk of death or permanent disability from measles, mumps, and rubella respectively was 1 in 1 million, 1 in 1.6 million, and 1 in 2.1 million.6,15-17 Therefore, the cumulative annual risk of a fatal or permanently disabling case of any of those diseases was about 1 in 500,000, and the risk over a 10-year span was 1 in 50,000. A few thousand subjects in clinical trials are not enough to prove that the MMR vaccine causes less permanent disability or death than measles, mumps, and rubella (Fig. 1). In addition, the lack of adequate clinical trials of the MMR vaccine resulted in the manufacturer’s package insert data to be reliant on passive surveillance for rates of MMR-related neurological adverse reactions, permanent disability, and death.8
How Accurate Are Epidemiological Studies of the MMR Vaccine?
Epidemiological studies are hindered by the effects of chance and possible confounders — additional factors that could conceivably affect the groups being studied. For example, there is a well-known 2002 Danish study published in the New England Journal of Medicine involving about 537,000 children that looked for an association between the MMR vaccine and certain adverse events.18 The raw data in the study was adjusted, in an attempt to account for potential confounders, and the study found no association between the MMR vaccine and the adverse events. However, because there is no evidence that the estimated confounders used to adjust the raw data were actually confounders, the study did not rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine increases the risk of an adverse event that leads to permanent injury by up to 77%. Consequently, the study did not rule out the possibility that such adverse events might occur up to 21 times more often than death or permanent disability from measles, mumps, and rubella in children at normal risk (i.e., with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth): 1 in 2,400 compared to 1 in 50,000 (Fig. 2 and Table 1). The range of possibilities found in the study, between the adjusted data and the raw data, makes the result inconclusive; even large epidemiological studies are not accurate enough to prove that the MMR vaccine causes less death or permanent injury than measles, mumps, and rubella.
Is the MMR Vaccine Safer Than Measles, Mumps, and Rubella?
It has not been proven that the MMR vaccine is safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. The vaccine package insert raises questions about safety testing for cancer, genetic mutations, and impaired fertility. Although VAERS tracks some adverse events, it is too inaccurate to measure against the risk of measles, mumps, and rubella. Clinical trials do not have the ability to detect less common adverse reactions, and epidemiological studies are limited by the effects of chance and possible confounders. Safety studies of the MMR vaccine are particularly lacking in statistical power. A review of more than 60 MMR vaccine studies conducted for the Cochrane Library states, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”19 Because permanent sequelae (aftereffects) from measles, mumps, and rubella are so rare (especially in children with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth),6,15-17 the level of accuracy of the research studies available is insufficient to rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine causes greater death or permanent disability than measles, mumps, and rubella.
References
- LeBaron CW, Beeler J, Sullivan BJ, Forghani B, Bi D, Beck C, Audet S, Gargiullo P. Persistence of measles antibodies after 2 doses of measles vaccine in a postelimination environment. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007 Mar;161(3):294-301. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17339511/.
- Lewnard JA, Grad YH. Vaccine waning and mumps re-emergence in the United States. Sci Transl Med. 2018 Mar 21;10(433):2. http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/433/eaao5945.
- Davidkin I, Jokinen S, Broman M, Leinikki P, Peltola H. Persistence of measles, mumps, and rubella antibodies in an MMR-vaccinated cohort: a 20-year follow-up. J Infect Dis. 2008 Apr 1;197(7):955. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18419470/.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Vaccines and immunizations: possible side effects from vaccines; [cited 2023 Dec 28]. https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/cdc-vaccines-and-immunizations-possible-side-effects-from-vaccines/.
- Vestergaard M, Hviid A, Madsen KM, Wohlfahrt J, Thorsen P, Schendel D, Melbye M, Olsen J. MMR vaccination and febrile seizures: evaluation of susceptible subgroups and long-term prognosis. JAMA. 2004 Jul 21;292(3):356. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/199117.
- Physicians for Informed Consent. Newport Beach (CA): Physicians for Informed Consent. Measles – disease information statement (DIS). 2017 Oct; updated 2024 Aug. https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/measles.
- Institute of Medicine (IOM). Adverse effects of vaccines: evidence and causality. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press; 2012. 119-217. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK190024/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK190024.pdf.
- Merck. Rahway (NJ): Merck and Co., Inc. M-M-R II (measles, mumps, and rubella virus vaccine live); revised 2023 Oct [cited 2024 Jan 27]. 8. https://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC wonder: about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS); [cited 2024 Feb 12]. https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html. Query for death and permanent disability involving all measles-containing vaccines, 2011-2015.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Manual for the surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases. 5th ed. Miller ER, Haber P, Hibbs B, Broder Chapter 21: surveillance for adverse events following immunization using the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2011. 1,2,8. https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/cdc-manual-for-the-surveillance-of-vaccine-preventable-diseases-5th-ed-chpt21-surv-adverse-events-2011.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Guide to interpreting VAERS data; [cited 2022 May 28]. https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html.
- Kessler DA. Introducing MEDWatch. A new approach to reporting medication and device adverse effects and product problems. JAMA. 1993 Jun 2;269(21):2765- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0163834394900515?via%3Dihub.
- Doshi P. The unofficial vaccine educators: are CDC funded non-profits sufficiently independent? [letter]. BMJ. 2017 Nov 7 [cited 2017 Nov 20];359:j5104. http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj. j5104/rr-13.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC wonder: about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS); [cited 2022 May 28]. https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html.
- Magno H, Golomb B. Measuring the benefits of mass vaccination programs in the United States. Vaccines. 2020 Sep 29;8(4):4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33003480/.
- Physicians for Informed Consent. Newport Beach (CA): Physicians for Informed Consent. Mumps – disease information statement (DIS). Mumps: what parents need to know. 2024 Aug. https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/mumps.
- Physicians for Informed Consent. Newport Beach (CA): Physicians for Informed Consent. Rubella – disease information statement (DIS). Rubella: what parents need to know. 2024 Aug. https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/rubella.
- Madsen KM, Hviid A, Vestergaard M, Schendel D, WohlFahrt J, Thorsen P, Olsen J, Melbye M. A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism. N Engl J Med. 2002 Nov 7;347(19):1477,1480. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed.
- Demicheli V, Rivetti A, Debalini MG, Di Pietrantonj C. Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children. Cochrane Database of Syst Rev. 2012 Feb 15;(2). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22336803/.
The silencing of scientific curiosity
Medical journals have became enforcers of orthodoxy—retracting genuine hypotheses while protecting proven fraud
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | April 14, 2025
As a scientific writer and researcher, I’ve witnessed the decline of medical journals firsthand. Once forums for open debate and intellectual rigour, they’ve morphed into gatekeepers, more concerned with preserving a narrow orthodoxy than pursuing truth.
My previous work has exposed how journals suppress uncomfortable questions, avoid studies that challenge dominant narratives, and operate under a peer-review system distorted by bias and external influence.
But never have I seen a more absurd example of this decay than the retraction of a hypothesis paper—yes, a hypothesis—authored by Dr. Sabine Hazan in Frontiers in Microbiology.
Her 2022 article hypothesised that ivermectin might mitigate Covid-19 severity by promoting the growth of Bifidobacterium, reducing inflammation via the gut-lung axis.
She cited preliminary observations in 24 hypoxic patients who recovered without hospitalisation after combination therapy including ivermectin.
Dr Sabine Hazan, ProgenaBiome, Ventura, CA
She made no claims of definitive proof. Instead, she proposed a mechanism worth investigating. That’s the point of a scientific hypothesis.
But in May 2023—more than a year after the article was peer-reviewed and published—the journal retracted the paper following a series of complaints on PubPeer, offering only a vague explanation about “scientific soundness.”
Seeking clarity, I contacted both the journal’s editorial office and the editor who handled the paper, Professor Mohammad Alikhani at Hamadan University.
Prof Mohammad Alikhani, Department of Microbiology, Hamadan University
Specifically, I sought an explanation for retracting a ‘hypothesis’, but I did not receive a response.
This silence is damning.
Retraction is a serious step, historically reserved for cases of fraud or clear ethical misconduct. But here, no such claim was made—nor could one be substantiated.
The journal simply erased the paper, offering no transparent justification, no engagement with the scientific process, and no accountability.
In fact, it violated the very guidelines that journals are supposed to follow.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) advises that publications should only be retracted if they contain seriously flawed or fabricated data, or plagiarism that cannot be addressed through a correction.
Hazan’s paper was transparent about its speculative nature. In a January 2023 tweet, Hazan challenged her critics.
“It’s a hypothesis. PROVE ME WRONG,” she wrote.
After all, that’s the essence of science. But the journal’s decision to retract sends a message that even theoretical propositions are now intolerable.
Having tasted blood, Hazan’s critics kept digging. In January 2025, Future Microbiology retracted another of her studies—this one examining ivermectin-based multidrug therapy.
Hazan, her co-author Australian immunologist Dr. Robert L. Clancy, and others strongly disputed the decision after the journal failed to conduct a meaningful investigation into the alleged data integrity issues.
The irony is palpable.
While pundits argued over ivermectin’s efficacy during the pandemic, Hazan was one of the few actually doing the hard work to test its effects—collecting data, proposing mechanisms, engaging with the science. And yet she’s the one being silenced!
Which begs the question – why?
Is there professional jealousy in the microbiome space? Are pharmaceutical companies, threatened by low-cost alternatives like ivermectin, pressuring journals to kill competing narratives?
If so, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should investigate. Suppressing research that could affect investor decisions—by inflating the perceived value of antivirals or vaccines—could amount to securities fraud.
While there’s no definitive evidence, the pattern is hard to ignore: two retractions, no clear misconduct, and a growing campaign to discredit a scientist whose work challenges a profitable status quo.
Whether coordinated or not, the outcome is the same – the erasure of inconvenient data.
The spinelessness of journals in these episodes is unmistakable. Why do they capitulate so readily?
Just follow the money.
Many journals are financially entangled with the pharmaceutical industry—relying on drug ads, sponsorships, and profitable reprint sales. That financial tether distorts editorial independence.
Editors, often underpaid and overstretched, are understandably risk-averse. They fear litigation. They fear social media outrage. They fear becoming the next target.
Pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, don’t hesitate to use legal threats to silence dissent because their pockets are deep—as in the case of Covaxin.
In July 2024, Bharat Biotech International Limited sued 11 authors—six of them students—and the editor of Drug Safety, Nitin Joshi, over a peer-reviewed article questioning the safety of their Covaxin vaccine.
The journal, under legal duress, retracted the paper. The authors were left to fend for themselves.
Journals are supposed to stand on principle. But, increasingly, they serve as enforcers of orthodoxy—vulnerable to financial pressure and online activists.
Let’s be honest, the trolls are part of the strategy. Anonymous complaints, often from individuals with no expertise, are weaponised to trigger retractions and smear reputations.
That’s not peer review. That’s mob rule.
The SEC must take a closer look at this ecosystem. If research is being suppressed to protect corporate revenue or manipulate investor confidence, that’s not just unethical—it’s illegal.
During his presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed this very issue, declaring that journals colluding with pharmaceutical companies might be subject to charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
“We’re gonna… file some racketeering lawsuits if you don’t start telling the truth in your journals,” he warned in 2023. It was provocative, yes—but it struck a chord with those of us watching the machinery of science betray its mission.
Retractions have become so casually executed, they’ve lost all meaning. What was once a mark of serious fraud is now a tool of reputational management.
Today, many papers are retracted not because they’re wrong, but because they’re inconvenient.
How else can one explain the demonstrably fraudulent studies funded by industry that remain published?
Whistleblower Dr. Peter Wilmshurst has spent years trying to get the MIST trial retracted—published in Circulation. It’s riddled with false claims, undeclared conflicts, and unreported adverse events, yet the journal continues to protect it.
This exposes the rot. These decisions have nothing to do with science.
They are political, financial, and reputational tools—used selectively to punish dissent.
There’s a growing list of researchers penalised—not for bad science, but for exploring uncomfortable truths.
Journals must reclaim their role as platforms for robust scientific debate. COPE must enforce its standards, not just cite them. Editors must be held accountable for vague or retaliatory retractions. And if corporate suppression of research is distorting public markets, then the SEC must act.
Because what I’m witnessing isn’t scientific curiosity—it’s narrative control. And the death of curiosity is the death of science itself.
Pregnant women deserve better than “trust us” science
A major study has been used to reassure pregnant women that Covid-19 vaccines are safe. But the data behind the claim are fatally flawed.
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | April 12, 2025
In medicine, few assurances carry more emotional weight—or greater responsibility—than the claim that something is “safe during pregnancy.”
Pregnant women are justifiably cautious about what they expose themselves to during this vulnerable time, and history has given them every reason to be.
The thalidomide disaster, diethylstilboestrol (DES), and other cautionary tales have shown what can happen when scientific rigour is sidelined in favour of commercial interests.
So, when a new study published in Pediatrics – the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics – claimed that Covid-19 vaccination in early pregnancy was safe, it came with an air of authority and reassurance.
News headlines followed suit, and public health recommendations continued to promote the vaccine’s safety in pregnancy.
But scratch the surface of this study, and something starts to unravel.
Not only are the data unverifiable and privately sourced, but the study contains a fatal flaw that renders its conclusions virtually meaningless.
The fatal flaw
The study analyzed 78,052 pregnancies that ended in a live birth—but left out 20,341 pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or other non-live outcomes.
That’s not a minor oversight.
The very purpose of studying vaccine safety in pregnancy is to assess whether exposure in utero leads to adverse outcomes—like miscarriage, birth defects, or foetal death. Yet one-fifth of the pregnancies were excluded from the analysis, removing exactly the kind of outcomes the study was supposed to detect.
This introduces what’s known as live-birth bias—a selection bias that arises when research includes only live births, disregarding the possibility that harmful effects may have caused some pregnancies to end prematurely.
Put plainly, if you only study babies who made it to birth, you’re ignoring the ones who didn’t—and any harm that may have played a role.
Even the study’s authors acknowledge this limitation, conceding that the exclusion “could lead to an underestimation of identified outcomes.” Still, they move forward to conclude there’s no association between the vaccine and birth defects.
Omitting over 20,000 pregnancies isn’t just a technicality – it’s a fatal flaw.
If even a small fraction of those pregnancies ended in miscarriage or birth defects linked to vaccination, the entire outcome could tip the other way.
Commercial data with no accountability
Then there’s the source of the data itself—a point entirely overlooked.
Rather than using clinical records from hospitals or national birth registries, the study relied entirely on a commercial database from Merative® MarketScan® Research Databases.
These databases are vast, aggregating de-identified insurance claims, prescriptions, lab results, and hospital records from more than 263 million Americans. But they are also privately owned, and their inner workings are entirely opaque.
Researchers using MarketScan data cannot verify whether the patients are real or theoretical, whether records have been altered, or how the data has been cleaned or processed before delivery.
In essence, they are working with a black box, one that comes with no guarantee of integrity.
Experts have already noted that the data from this unverified source shows signs of being unreliable.
The authors ran 93 separate statistical tests to look for differences in outcomes like birth defects. By chance alone, you’d expect a handful to be statistically significant. But none were.
The probability of that happening randomly is just 0.8%—a sign that the dataset may have been fabricated, or that its integrity is in question.
When two of the study authors – Dr Stacey Rowe and Dr Annette Regan – were asked if they had verified the authenticity of the MarketScan database—that is, if they could confirm these were ‘real’ patient data—they did not respond.
L: Dr Stacey Rowe, R: Dr Annette Regan
This isn’t a hypothetical problem.
The medical literature has already been rocked by the Surgisphere scandal, where fraudulent hospital datasets were used to produce papers in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine.
Those papers were eventually retracted, but only after independent researchers demanded to see the raw data and were denied – the data were likely fabricated.
Reassurance without evidence
Despite these glaring problems, the study’s conclusions are being used to reassure pregnant women.
In Australia, for example, the government’s official guidance recommends Covid-19 vaccination in pregnancy, stating that the “recommendations for pregnant women are the same as the general population.”
This, despite the fact that pregnant women were excluded from the pivotal clinical trials and no randomised studies have ever been completed to assess the vaccine’s safety in early-pregnancy.
The result is a landscape where pregnant women are asked to make a “shared decision” with their doctors—based on scientific literature that’s increasingly built on unverifiable data, flawed assumptions, and little to no independent scrutiny.
We are drifting into a new era where conclusions are based on data that sit behind corporate firewalls. An era where trust is expected, but no longer earned.
The Pediatrics study is a case in point.
It carries the imprimatur of authority, published in the flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But, in reality, the analysis was based on commercial datasets that cannot be independently verified, and a methodology that systematically excludes the very outcomes it was supposed to assess.
This isn’t just bad science—it’s misleading by design.
And when it comes to pregnancy, where the stakes are literally life and death, that kind of scientific chicanery is a betrayal.
Pregnant women deserve better than a “trust us” approach to medicine.
They need full access to the data, honest communication about uncertainties, and above all, respect for their right to make informed decisions based on real evidence, not selective reporting.
Until that happens, we should remain sceptical of any study that asks us to believe in the evidence without seeing it.
Featured Video
Daniel Davis: China & Russia Will Defend Iran
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Sugar: Killing us Sweetly
Staggering Health Consequences of Sugar on Health of Americans
By Dr. Gary Null | Global Research | February 3, 2014
In September 2013, a bombshell report from Credit Suisse’s Research Institute brought into sharp focus the staggering health consequences of sugar on the health of Americans. The group revealed that approximately “30%–40% of healthcare expenditures in the USA go to help address issues that are closely tied to the excess consumption of sugar.”[1]The figures suggest that our national addiction to sugar runs us an incredible $1 trillion in healthcare costs each year. The Credit Suisse report highlighted several health conditions including coronary heart diseases, type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome, which numerous studies have linked to excessive sugar intake.[2]
Just a year earlier in 2012, a report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta appearing on 60 Minutes featured the work of Dr. Robert Lustig, an endocrinologist from California who gained national attention after a lecture he gave titled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” went viral in 2009. Lustig’s research has investigated the connection between sugar consumption and the poor health of the American people. He has published twelve articles in peer-reviewed journals identifying sugar as a major factor in the epidemic of degenerative disease that now afflicts our country. The data compiled by Lustig clearly show how excessive sugar consumption plays a key role in the development of many types of cancer, obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. His research has led him to conclude that 75% of all diseases in America today are brought on by the American lifestyle and are entirely preventable.[3]
Until the airing of this program, no one in the “official” world acknowledged anything wrong with sugar, here is a sampling of some the latest research available to them if they chose to look… continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Lebanon: Between sovereignty and the mirage of normalization
- Ukraine Given $43Bln in Proceeds From Russian Assets Frozen by G7 Since 2024 – Estimates
- The military is babying F-35s to hide their true cost to taxpayers
- Ukrainian military analyst praises use of drones against ‘Russian-Hungarian-Slovak friendship’
- Von der Leyen warns Hungary: We have ways of making you talk
- EU manipulating polls in bid to oust Orban – German opposition leader
- Daniel Davis: China & Russia Will Defend Iran
- The US’ self-directed ‘China nuclear threat’ will only be a waste of effort: Global Times editorial
- Female Iranian academic sentenced to 4 years in prison in France over protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza
- US university cancels Palestine conference citing sanctions concerns
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli leaders want to buy global legitimacy – Not a ceasefire Day 140
- Israel warns of a Ramadan escalation — while doing everything to provoke one
- Democrats Should Release Their 2024 Election Autopsy – and Stop the Gaza Denial
- Israel responsible for 2/3 of press killings worldwide – Not a ceasefire Day 139
- Are the Jews indigenous to Palestine?
- AIPAC Wants to Kill a Bill that would Ensure Israel Complies with Ceasefire
- Former Israeli PM, in Epstein Files, Dreamed of Israeli Eugenics and Pretty Converts
- Israeli settlers join ‘safari’ tour of Palestinian prisoners
- Flooding in Gaza amid rumors of war; fire in West Bank – Not a ceasefire Day 138
- Fourteen Countries Condemn Huckabee’s Support for Israel Taking Over Most of the Middle East
- No Tricks Zone
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
- New Research Reaffirms Clouds, Aerosols, And Surface Solar Radiation Are ‘Driving The Climate System’
- Germany: Electric Car Catches Fire At Charging Station, Sets Off Local “Inferno”, Widespread Damage
- New Study: Canada’s New Brunswick Was 1°C Warmer Than Today During The Medieval Warm Period
- Coal Power Back In Trend As Globe Tries To Keep Pace With Growing Demand For Power
- New Study: A 4°C Warmer Beaufort Sea Had ‘No Sea Ice’ 11,700 – 8200 Years Ago
- Unfudging The Data: Dutch Meteorological Institute Reinstates Early 20th Centruy Heat Waves It Had Erased Earlier
- German Gas Crisis…Chancellor Merz Allegedly Bans Gas Debate Ahead of Elections!
- Pollen Reconstructions Show The Last Glacial’s Warming Events Were Global, 10x Greater Than Modern
- Germany’s Natural Gas Storage Level Dwindles To Just 28%… Increasingly Critical
Aletho News 