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THE DEATH KNELL FOR PHARMA ADS?

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | February 20, 2025

Banning pharmaceutical advertisements from television is just one of the many ways RFK Jr has planned to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry. Hear how new tech pharmacies are peddling compounded drugs like injectable weight loss medications without the personal care of a doctor.

February 23, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | | Leave a comment

THE KENDRICK COVID ENQUIRY (As I humbly call it)

By Dr. Malcolm Kendrick | February 18, 2025

Part One (a): Are the facts, facts?

‘The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate and contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.’ – John F. Kennedy

I do not think that anyone can write about Covid without first recognising that the facts, may not actually be ‘the facts.’

My trust in medical research has been gradually draining away for the past forty years or so. I am uncertain how much remains. I do not have a handy ACME ‘trustometer’ to slap on my forehead, but I sense my levels are certainly below fifty per cent – and falling. I shall let you know when they reach zero.

There was certainly a rapid drop during Covid. Accelerated by the emergence of ‘fact checkers.’ If a group of people could be more ironically named, then I would love to hear of them. The idea that someone can be an officially verified ‘checker of the facts’ is so inimical to science that they should have been laughed out of existence the moment they appeared. Sadly not. Soviet Union anyone?

Richard Feynman believed that the very definition of science is the process of questioning, and that scientists must be sceptical. Or, as he once said. ‘Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.’ I have regularly been ‘accused’ of being a professional sceptic. My reply is usually ‘thanks, I consider that a great compliment. You, on the other hand …’

As I delved into medical research papers over the years, one painful reality emerged. Which is that you need to be wary of the findings contained therein. I came to learn that, at least in certain cases, I only needed to look at which institution the research came from and who the authors were, to know which ‘camp’ they were in. At which point I could tell you everything the paper was going to say – to paraphrase. ‘We have found that everything we previously said was absolutely correct.’  No need to read it.

Of course, this only works for areas I have been studying for many years, where the terrain is very familiar. Give me a paper on quantum physics and I would have to read the whole damned thing. Then accept that I have not the slightest idea what they are talking about.

In the world of Covid research, two camps emerged very rapidly. There was ‘establishment’ camp, or the ‘accepted narrative’ camp and the ‘alternative’ camp’. Or, as I initially thought of them, the roundheads and the cavaliers [English civil war analogy – for my overseas readers]. As far I could tell, fact checkers were fully paid-up supporters of the roundheads.

Which meant that you could write an article wildly overestimating the infection fatality rate, and nothing would be said. The fact checkers would rouse themselves momentarily, then airily wave it through. However, dare to suggest the Infection fatality rate was lower than the mainstream view, and all hell would break loose. Or, at the beginning of the Covid sage, dare to suggest that the Sars-Cov-2 emerged from a biolab in Wuhan. ‘Off with his head’.

It didn’t take too long before I decided to rename the two camps the ‘Faucistas’, and the ‘Partisans.’ Although I know there should not be two sides in a scientific discussion. We are not at war. Those who question, and probe, have a vital role to play in science.

They, we, are trying to ensure that the accepted ideas are as robust as possible. If the mainstream facts are correct, they will resist all assaults. If they cannot resist, they should wither and die, to be replaced by something far stronger. Or at least that is how I hope it works.

This is a slightly long-winded way of saying that, when it comes to Covid the first thing you have to do with any ‘fact’ is to ask where it came from. A Faucista, or a partisan. Then apply the ‘Kendrick bias constant’ to determine its validity. A figure that only exists in my head, and even I am not sure what size it is, which way round it goes, or how to use it.

You also need to accept that research is often far from clear cut, and the findings may simply be … wrong. Twenty years ago, John Ioannidis published his seminal paper called: ‘Why most published research findings are false.’ It is one of the most widely read medical research papers, ever.1

‘There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false …  Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.’

The prevailing bias. I like that term. Perfectly polite yet still damning.

Was he correct, are most research findings false? Well, he has his own biases, as we all do. I still like to believe that the majority research can be relied on, at least to some extent. Boring, but reliable – yet still boring. However, there are areas where he is right about the influence of prevailing bias. Places where findings are more likely to be false than true.

I believe that Covid became one such area very quickly. Within a matter of weeks, you were a Faucista – the group which certainly had the support of the vast majority. Or you were a partisan. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

I believe the polarisation in this area was so rapid and intense in large part because of the huge amount of money that was getting burned, and the need to justify that cost. The UK spent around four hundred billion pounds (~$500Bn) on Covid measures. Maybe even more – I think it was more. Enough to fund the NHS, in its entirely, for three years. The figure from the US was ‘officially’ four point six trillion. Four …point …six …trillion … gasp, thud.2 

In addition to the money, there was the unprecedented disruption of everyday life. Far greater than anything seen outside a full-scale war. There was also the damage to children’s education and everyone’s mental health. The other diseases left undiagnosed and untreated, the massive debt and residual damage to public services, the clampdown on human freedoms …  The list is long. More harm than good? That is the question.

A huge amount was at stake. So many reputations, both scientific and political, became bound to the ‘accepted narrative’ camp. If the narrative went down, so did they, with all hands-on deck. Thus, all the measures taken had to be found worthwhile, or at the very at least, excusable. ‘It was all very difficult, no-one knew what was going on. We had to do something … A big boy made me do it.’

Very rapidly, the Faucistas built themselves a mighty citadel, bristling with armaments, and fact checkers. Everyone within that citadel became hair trigger sensitive to the slightest perceived ‘enemy’ touch. Ready to react with ruthless bombardment. Along with personal attacks on whoever stated them.

The Great Barrington Declaration for instance, which proposed focussing protection on the elderly, and allowing the virus to take its course in younger populations. Where the risk of death was exceedingly low. This was universally condemned. Along with its authors. Here is one press release, out of many, many…

20 public health organizations condemn herd immunity scheme for controlling spread of COVID-19.

‘If followed, the recommendations in the Great Barrington Declaration would haphazardly and unnecessarily sacrifice lives. The declaration is not a strategy, it is a political statement… What we do not need is wrong-headed proposals masquerading as science.’3  

‘Unnecessarily sacrifice lives… Wrong-headed proposals masquerading as science …’ Who dares pop their head over the parapet after such attacks? Only the brave, or foolhardy. As for debate … you must be joking. I was invited to talk at an anti-lockdown rally in September 2020, in Edinburgh. I gave a talk. The organiser was threatened with five years in jail. Luckily that has all gone very quiet.

Sweden, alone amongst European countries, decided not to lockdown, or perhaps you could call what they did lockdown ‘lite’. Schools, restaurants and bars remained open. People travelled on public transport. This approach, too, was universally condemned. It was stated that Dr Tegnell (chief epidemiologist) and Stefan Löfven (the prime minister), were…

‘… playing Russian roulette with the Swedish population,” Carlsson said. “At least if we’re going to do this as a people … lay the facts on the table so that we understand the reasons. The way I am feeling now is that we are being herded like a flock of sheep towards disaster…

… Leading experts last week were fiercely critical of the Swedish public health authority in an email thread seen by state broadcaster SVT, accusing it of incompetence and lack of medical expertise.’4

But the Swedes held out. Which took some nerve, whilst their own medical experts were screaming blue bloody murder in the background. Things changed. Now the accepted wisdom is that the Swedish people effectively locked themselves down, without being told to. Being such a great public-spirited people. ‘Oh yes, I think that fully explains their figures … ahem, don’t you?’

Why this change in outlook? From outrage to a widely accepted explanation, and a collective shrug. I suspect it may be that, in comparison to other European countries, Sweden ended up with a death rate below that of:

  • Bulgaria
  • Hungary
  • Bosnia Herzegovina
  • North Macedonia
  • Croatia
  • Montenegro
  • Georgia
  • Czechia
  • Slovakia
  • San Marino
  • Lithuania
  • Greece
  • Latvia
  • Romania
  • Slovenia
  • UK
  • Italy
  • Poland
  • Belgium
  • Portugal
  • Russia

They were within touching distance of Spain, Ukraine and France and – just to mention another Nordic country – Finland. Certainly, a long way below the US.

If lockdowns needed to be so harsh, or even instituted at all, why was Sweden not at the very top of this, and every other list? Answer, whisper it … Because lockdowns were ineffective? ‘Off with his head.’

No, don’t be silly, it is because the Swedes locked themselves down. And here is the evidence … [insert non-existent evidence here]. Memo to self. Just saying a thing does not make it true.

‘Overall, there’s no evidence that Sweden had a “voluntary lockdown”. Mobility changed far less there than in most other Western countries.’ 5

But what was it that drove the lockdowns around the world?

The Covid  Infection Fatality Rate?

The accepted narrative around Covid developed very rapidly. It is a highly contagious and deadly disease with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of close to three per cent – you may have forgotten that figure. Perhaps you were unaware it ever existed.

The WHO provided an early estimate that eleven million Americans may die, discussed as part of a masterful essay by Jay Bhattacharya. One of the authors of the Great Barrington declaration, and now director of the National Institutes of Health. Oh, the irony. 6

The worldwide population is approximately eight billion. Using the initial WHO figures we would have seen two hundred and fifty million deaths. Equivalent to the Spanish flu – which is where I suspect the 3% figure was initially plucked from. Hospitals around the world would be overwhelmed. Millions would die if we did not act fast and hard. Something had to be done.

That ‘something’ was lockdowns. It included the widespread use of masks, restriction on travel, closed borders, closed schools, closed entertainment venues and restaurants, workplace closures, social distancing, test and trace, the rush to bring out vaccines, and so on. These actions became unquestionable and inseparable. All of them had to be equally defended.

Trying to get a handle on the Infection fatality rate

The three per cent IFR figure was downgraded rapidly and ended up hovering at around one per cent – or thereabouts. An IFR of one per cent means that, if one hundred people become infected with the SarsCov2 virus, then one will die. Is this … was this, does this remain a fact? At the start of Covid I became obsessed with trying to work out what the Infection Fatality Rate might be. Does it really matter?

I believe it drove everything. The 1% IFR is, to quote from Lord of the Rings: the one ring that finds them, and in the darkness binds them. If the IFR was 1%, then I think everyone can just about manage to assure themselves that all their actions were justifiable.

An IFR of 1% would have meant nearly three million deaths in the US, and well over half a million in the UK. Yes, it might not have been the Spanish flu, but ‘things’ obviously had to be done?

What about half a per cent? At this level the argument begins to look pretty damned shaky. An IFR of half a per cent, or below, would be the iceberg that sank the great lockdown ship Titanic. This, the IFR, is probably the most important fact that we need to establish.

Can we ever know the infection fatality rate of Sars-Cov2?

I know that most people would love a concrete fact here. Confirmation that the IFR of Covid was 0.213, or 0.934, or whatever. But I don’t think that is possible. Concrete facts here are very difficult to find. Or at least, facts that you can rely on. Read journal A you get one figure. Read journal B, and you get another. I can give you a thousand figures.

It also does very much depend on the age you are looking at. In the age group, nought to nineteen, the IFR was 0.00003% – in the first scientific paper that comes up on a Google search. That is three per million.

In the UK there are approximately twelve million in that age group. Which means that Covid may have resulted in thirty-six deaths. If, that is, everyone of that age ended up infected.7 Almost the same number who drown yearly – in that age group.

Moving back to the overall fatality figure rate, Imperial College London (ICL) in late 2022 concluded that it was 1.15%. But we already know which camp Neil Fergusion and the ICL was in. They were the original Faucistas. In this study they found that everything they said previously was absolutely correct. By the authority of … them.8

A well-known, and reasonably reliable worldwide resource is Worldometer, which kept a running count of Covid cases and deaths from every country. It stopped counting in April 2024. The grand totals on Worldometer, now frozen in time, were that there had been seven hundred million coronavirus cases worldwide, with almost exactly seven million deaths. Which represents an IFR of precisely one per cent. 9

My goodness, independent verification that Neil Ferguson and Imperial College were bang on with their modelling. Well, Ferguson did predict an IFR of 0.9% but what’s 0.1% between friends. And if we look at China on Worldometer, it tells us we had almost exactly five hundred thousand cases, with five thousand deaths. Again, an IFR of one per cent, bang on.

Case closed? Hang on, you might wish to probe a little deeper into, for instance, the Chinese figures. According to Worldometer, the population of China is around one point four billion and there were five hundred thousand reported cases of Covid. Which means that one in three hundred people caught Covid [precise figure 0.36%].

In comparison, sixty per cent of the population in Greece caught Covid. Which is two hundred times greater. This seems a remarkably large difference. The sort of difference you may struggle to believe.

What of the death rates? China ended up with four deaths per million of the population. A figure very similar to DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), which had three deaths per million. Strange that.

In Greece, on the other hand, they had four thousand deaths per million. One thousand times higher than China.

As for total deaths.

  • Greece: with a population of ten million had 37,869 deaths.
  • China: with a population of one point four billion had 5,272 deaths.

Personally, I find one of these figures to be more believable than the other.

Turning back to the overall figures from Worldometer. There were just over seven hundred million reported cases of Covid in total. Which means that around 9% of the world’s population became infected. Seven hundred million out of eight billion.

This is a very long way off the ninety per cent figure that Neil Ferguson predicted in his model. He predicted 90%, Worldometer says 9%. Once again, a bit of an echoing gap.

If Worldometer is right, and only 9% of the population did become infected, and the IFR was 0.9%, the UK would never have seen five hundred thousand deaths – as predicted by Neil Fergusion in his hugely influential model.

His model was, essentially.

IFR 0.9%, percentage infected 90%. Population of the UK 69m:

69,000,000 x 0.9% x .9 = 558,900

However, if only 9% become infected, this figure falls by a factor of ten:

69,000,000 x 0.9% x .09 = 55,890

This is not a great deal more than a bad flu year.

Returning to the age group nought to nineteen, if only 9% of them became infected we would have seen four deaths instead of a possible thirty-six. Which would have made school closures and the social isolation of children virtually indefensible. Sorry, leave out the word virtually.

As you can gather, the overall rate of infection, and the IFR, are intimately linked when it comes to the overall impact of an infective disease. An issue little discussed. But do you think it might be important? Answer… yes.

Which facts are facts?

At this point I suppose I need to ask. Do you believe that the coronavirus figures collated by Worldometer are ‘facts?’ Or do you believe some of them are, and others are not. In which case, which ones would you like to believe. To quote the late, great, singer songwriter John Martyn. ‘Half the lies you tell me are not true.’

Wherever you look, there is uncertainly, and disagreement. Completely different facts and figures can be found everywhere. When it comes to IFR, John Ioannidis came up with an IFR figure of 0.23% for higher income countries.10

Nature published a figure ranging between 0.79 – 1.82% (for higher income countries). The average between 0.79 and 1.82 is 1.3%.11 As you have worked out for yourself, 1.3% is nearly six times more than 0.23%.

Which IFR is correct? Which is a fact? And why did the Nature study only look at higher income countries? Surely lower income countries should have fared worse – in that they could not afford to lockdown, and did not, and the standard of medical care would have been significantly lower, so more should have died?

I suspect lower income countries were ignored because, on paper, they all had very low death rates. Or very low reported death rates anyway. Just to choose a lower income African country at random … Chad. They reported one hundred and ninety-four covid deaths out of a population of seventeen million. Which is eleven deaths per million. In fact, according to Worldometer, Covid passed Africa by.

How could this be? In most higher income countries people of African origin were significantly more likely to die than the surrounding population. In the UK, Black British had a mortality rate of 273 per 100,000. Whereas those identifying as White, had a rate of 126. Less than half.12  [Figures from the office of national statistics, and as you may have noticed these figures demonstrate and IFR of 0.273% for Black British, and 0.126% for White British].

Given this, it is difficult to argue that Black Africans, in Africa, were genetically protected, in some way. Although, it has to be added that the average age in African countries is significantly lower than in, say, the UK – and that would have had an impact on Covid related deaths – although nothing that could remotely explain the reported figures.

I also lean towards Ioannidis because I believe him to be a well-established objective seeker of the truth. He has long been a thorn in the side of what I shall call, politely, ‘official narratives.’ Other researchers, and journals, have a strong tendency towards those twin curses of human thought. Confirmation bias and groupthink. As for the fact checkers, which figures do you think they prefer? The higher, the better.

Which leads us inevitably to the question who, or what facts, do you choose to believe … or not believe. In later articles I will tell you what I believe to be the most probable IFR for Covid. And I will tell you why this figure is reasonably accurate.

Before we reach that point, I want to highlight some more of the many issues that make it difficult to be certain about anything. There are so many of them. Just to list a few important ones:

  • PCR testing – how accurate is it/was it?
  • False positive, false negatives. Did they raise, or lower, the IFR?
  • How do you determine if someone died of Covid – or simply died with Covid?
  • How many times were people infected – and how much would this affect the IFR?
  • Could you be exposed to Covid, and brush it aside, without becoming ‘infected’ or raising detectable antibodies?
  • The impact of continuing to count Covid deaths for more than three years – over the lifespan of many different variants – did this create an artificially high IFR?
  • What protection did vaccination provide?
  • Financial benefits of diagnosing Covid, did this lead to overdiagnosis?
  • Could aggressive treatment have been damaging, and possibly fatal?
  • How many people reported they had Covid, when they did not?
  • Which countries may have been economical with the truth about their Covid statistics?
  • Does the Sarv-Cov2 virus exist?

Each of these issues represents a minefield, with conflicting ‘facts’ stretching to the far horizon. Each of them capable of shifting the IFR significantly – downwards.

Does this mean we can never really know what happened with Covid? Even to answer such a superficially straightforward a question as how many died is tricky. Indeed, most facts about Covid tend to crumble when you apply a little pressure. But I think we can navigate a course, or sorts.

Next. Starting with an easy one. Does the Sars-Cov-2 virus exist? Easy …?

1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1182327/

2: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106647

3: https://www.bigcitieshealth.org/newsroom-great-barrington-declaration/

4: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/swedish-pm-warned-russian-roulette-covid-19-strategy-herd-immunity

5: https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-myth-of-swedens-voluntary-lockdown/

6: https://www.jospi.org/article/88046-dr-jay-bhattacharya-reveals-stanford-university-s-attempts-to-derail-covid-studies?ref=truth11.com

7: https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+0.00003%25+per+million&oq=what+is+0.00003%25+per+million&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQBhhA0gEJMTUxNTlqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

8: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/207273/covid-19-deaths-infection-fatality-ratio-about/

9: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

10: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/340124/PMC7947934.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

11: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-022-00106-7

12: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-reported-sars-cov-2-deaths-in-england/covid-19-confirmed-deaths-in-england-to-31-december-2020-report

February 22, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Bird Flu Is a Rerun of the Covid Playbook

By Clayton J. Baker, MD | Brownstone Institute | February 18, 2025

Bird flu can be very confusing. This is true because, as is so often the case with our government, those who claim to be trying to solve the problem – our so-called “public health” and “pandemic preparedness” “experts” – are actually the ones who created the problem. What is worse, they are actively seeking to perpetuate it.

In this brief article, my goal is to explain what is happening with H5N1 Bird flu in the clearest, most fundamental terms. I hope to make it so clear that all our elected officials can understand what is going on, and therefore can take action to stop it.

The key to understanding the current Bird flu panic is this: Bird flu is a complete rerun of the Covid script. There is just one twist:

Last time, with Covid, the pandemic-planning bioterrorists directly blackmailed us by taking away our civil rights, in order to coerce us to accept their unsafe and ineffective vaccines.

This time, with Bird flu, the pandemic planning bioterrorists are indirectly blackmailing us by targeting our food, in order to coerce us to accept more of their unsafe and ineffective vaccines into our food supply and those who supply it.

Here is their playbook. Learn it, and you can understand how to put an end to it.

Let’s review. What happened during Covid?

  1. Over many years, bioweapons scientists, under the guise of “pandemic preparedness,” genetically manipulated a bat coronavirus to be both transmissible and virulent in humans. In other words, they created a bioweapon.
  2. Meanwhile, they also developed and patented technologies for vaccines against that same virus. In other words, they created the countermeasure to their bioweapon.
  3. In late 2019, the lab-manipulated coronavirus bioweapon, SARS CoV-2, was leaked from a lab.
  4. While the countermeasure vaccines were rushed into production, “public health” authorities took advantage of the lab leak by denying its occurrence, while simultaneously coercing governments to impose lockdowns and other civil rights violations on the human population.
  5. To perpetuate the lockdowns, “public health” authorities performed indiscriminate PCR testing for the virus among the population, knowing full well this would generate countless false positives.
  6. The authorities used this excessive testing along with media-generated fear-mongering and governmental abuse of power, to prolong the lockdowns and the civil rights abuses.
  7. The lockdowns and civil rights abuses were used to blackmail the population into mass acceptance of the vaccines into their own bodies, in exchange for a return to normal life.

What is happening now, with H5N1 Bird flu?

  1. Over many years, bioweapons scientists, under the guise of “pandemic preparedness,” have genetically manipulated the H5N1 avian influenza virus to cross classes of animals and even become more transmissible to humans. In other words, they created a bioweapon.
  2. Meanwhile, they also developed and patented technologies for vaccines against that same virus. In other words, they created the countermeasure to their bioweapon.
  3. In early 2022, a lab-manipulated Bird flu bioweapon leaked from the USDA Southeast Poultry Lab in Athens, GA. Multiple Bird flu leaks have also occurred from other labs.
  4. While the countermeasure vaccines are being rushed into production, “public health” authorities take advantage of these lab leaks by denying their occurrence, while simultaneously coercing our government to impose mass slaughter of farm animals, creating food shortages for the human population.
  5. To perpetuate the mass slaughter and worsen food shortages, “public health” authorities are performing indiscriminate PCR testing for the virus among the animal population and farmers, knowing full well this will generate countless false positives.
  6. Authorities are using this excessive testing along with media-generated fear-mongering and governmental abuse of power, to prolong the mass slaughter of farm animals and the food shortages.
  7. The mass slaughter of farm animals and resulting food shortages are being used to blackmail the population into mass acceptance of the vaccines in their food supply, in exchange for a return to normal life.

This is not conspiracy theory. This is basic pattern recognition.

The “pandemic planners” are operating just like a moderately competent, if unimaginative, high school football coach. If you run a play, and it works, run it again. Keep running it until they stop it.

How do we stop it?

Here’s how:

  1. End the brutal mass slaughter of poultry flocks immediately. This disgusting, death-wish practice is directly analogous to the deadly and unconstitutional human lockdowns during  Covid. It is also an act of biological terrorism. It traumatizes farmers, wastes resources, creates food shortages, is inhumane in the extreme to animals, and does nothing to stop the virus. Let the flocks develop natural immunity. Slaughtered flocks cannot develop natural immunity to a virus, just as locked-down human populations cannot either. Sound familiar?
  2. End the indiscriminate PCR testing for Bird flu in animals and humans immediately. A positive PCR test is like the proverbial grand jury indictment – you can get one on a ham sandwich if you try hard enough. Willy-nilly PCR testing creates innumerable false positives, which fuels the fear porn and hysteria, paralyzes decision-makers, and promotes population-wide blackmail.
  3. The USDA appears to be acting as a rogue agency. The USDA’s leadership needs to be thoroughly reviewed and, well, culled. All those attached to the pandemic preparedness industry, and all those perpetuating the fear-mongering, irresponsible mass PCR testing, mass slaughter of animals, etc. must be immediately removed from the agency. They represent not only a threat to animals and the food supply but to President Trump’s entire second term.
  4. The personnel at the CDC need a similar prompt and thorough overhaul. The CDC, while somewhat chastened by President Trump’s executive order silencing HHS agencies, and benefitting from the departure of former Director Mandy Cohen, is still led by Biden-era appointments whose past resumes raise serious doubt about their willingness to abandon the  Covid-era “pandemic planning” model of public health. For example, acting director Susan Monarez, PhD’s bio shows multiple Deep State connections to the pandemic preparedness industry. Should she remain at the CDC?
  5. The USDA Southeast Poultry Research Lab in Athens, Ga. should be shut down and thoroughly investigated.
  6. The Kawaoka Bird flu lab at the University of Wisconsin, which has been doing reckless gain-of-function research for decades, and which has had multiple lab leaks, should be shut down and investigated as well.
  7. Brooke Rollins, the new USDA Secretary, needs to be fully briefed on H5N1 Bird flu by honest experts who are not embedded in the pandemic preparedness industry. Individuals such as Meryl Nass, MD, and Peter McCullough, MD and his team would both be excellent choices.
  8. President Trump should follow through on his 2024 promise to disband the redundant, Biden-created Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR). Mr. Trump’s instinct was correct then, and it remains correct now.
  9. The $590 Million dollar Bird flu vaccine development contract to Moderna that the Biden administration approved a couple of days before President Trump’s inauguration should be cancelled. 
  10. The USDA’s reported “conditional approval” of a Bird flu vaccine with Zoetis should be cancelled. Bird flu vaccination in poultry flocks has been demonstrated in other countries to select for more virulent strains. Furthermore, the CEO of Zoetis has close ties to Pfizer, BlackRock, and the Gates Foundation, all well-established bad actors during the Covid era. Beware, Mr. President.

The “pandemic preparedness” racket isn’t as complicated as it seems. Once one comes to terms with the fact that the arsonists are running the fire department – as they have been demonstrated by DOGE to be doing in so many other areas of government as well – we can recognize what is actually happening and apply the necessary solutions.

C.J. Baker, M.D. is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.

February 22, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

The End of College Vaccine Mandates

By Lucia Sinatra | Brownstone Institute | February 18, 2025

With one stroke of his pen, President Trump accomplished what we have been fighting for over the last 4 years – an end to college and university Covid-19 vaccine mandates. He signed an executive order to halt federal funding to all schools, including colleges and universities, that still impose Covid-19 vaccine mandates on students. While there are only 15 colleges and universities left mandating these shots, the magnitude of his message to higher education leaders should not be underestimated.

Covid-19 vaccine mandates on healthy young adults were never based on scientific data or sound reasoning, but they were harshly implemented nonetheless. These policies coerced a captive population of students to choose between abandonment of their college programs and dreams for the future or complying with decisions over bodily autonomy made by the “experts.”

Beginning in the spring of 2021, colleges and universities mandated students to take shots that never protected against infection or transmission of Covid-19. These mandates were imposed with the mantra that injections were the best way to “protect our community” from severe illness and death – a claim that proved false by the summer of 2021 just prior to mandated compliance for fall 2021 enrollment.

In fact, colleges that never had Covid-19 vaccine mandates had less infections and have no recorded history of severe illnesses or death among their campus communities as compared to colleges that did. It was easy to analyze these data using the colleges’ own Covid infection and vaccination rate dashboards until most of them scrubbed the dashboards from their college websites.

Over 1,000 colleges announced Covid vaccine mandates by the summer of 2021. After a concerted campaign by No College Mandates and other advocacy groups, by the spring of 2022, colleges had slowly begun dropping them. By the summer of 2023, very few colleges imposed the mandates on faculty and staff, but students were still required to comply.

Until this executive order, which tasked our new Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to develop a plan to end these coercive policies, our nation’s entire academic apparatus seemed perfectly fine with the continued application of these mandates on students. For example, at CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Cal Poly Humboldt, only residential students are required to show proof of Covid vaccination prior to enrollment. At Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges only students are required to take Covid vaccines. No other members of the college community must comply.

Coercive and mandatory policies such as these alerted many of us to the fact that student health was not at the forefront of administrators’ concerns. Somehow, they perpetuated the draconian notion that only students were to blame for spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus and that only students must comply to put an end to the pandemic. College leaders knew such strategies were incoherent and illogical, yet they persisted almost entirely unchallenged.

From the very start, many of us lost trust in the hypocrisy of such inconsistencies. It was downright crazy for students to have to put up with such nonsense and risk injury from taking novel and needless medical treatments in the name of “protecting the community.” This is why we refused to stop shining a light on the injustice of it all.

It is with deep gratitude to President Trump and his team for keeping his promise and ending all federal funding to colleges and universities that continue these unnecessary and dangerous Covid-19 vaccine policies. There was zero science or reasoning to support them, and this new executive order might just prevent similar dictates from ever happening again.

But our work is far from done.

Healthcare students are still being forced to choose between their dreams and their autonomy to access hospitals and clinical facilities. To graduate, healthcare students must complete their clinical rotations, and hospitals and clinical facilities have required that these students take updated Covid vaccines even when faculty and staff no longer must comply. There is zero rationale for this patently retaliatory discrepancy.

In Florida, it is against the law for any “a business entity [to] require any person to provide any documentation certifying vaccination…or postinfection recovery from COVID-19, or require a COVID-19 test, to gain access to, entry upon, or service from the business operations in this state or as a condition of contracting, hiring, promotion, or continued employment with the business entity.”

When I called the University of Florida Nursing Program a few weeks ago, however, I was told students are required to receive updated Covid vaccines to complete clinical programs with some providers. Making matters worse, some colleges smugly refuse to disclose these requirements to prospective or even enrolled students, often leaving them to learn about them in the final year of their program.

Ironically, but perhaps not unexpectedly, UF Nursing posted on X just last week that there is a nationwide nursing shortage including in the State of Florida. It blows my mind that those who determine policies affecting the training of our nation’s nurses were somehow unaware that their coercive and nonsensical policies would likely lead to such shortages. After No College Mandates drew attention to this on X, UF Nursing deleted the post.

In Montana, there is a similar problem. Montana law prohibits discrimination based on Covid vaccine status yet the Emergency Medical Technician program at Helena College still requires students to take Covid vaccines to enroll.

I have reached out to representatives in both states to report the college programs that are not following state law because if there is anything I have learned over the past several years, colleges and universities will get away with these discriminatory and punitive policies for as long as they can until someone steps in to put an end to them.

It is uncertain what will happen to healthcare majors whose colleges and universities no longer require injections to enroll but whose clinical partner assignments are still requiring them to complete clinical rotations to graduate. So, while President Trump took a huge step forward to end federal funding to colleges and universities that perpetuate unscientific and unreasonable Covid vaccination, it is not nearly enough to end the coercive policies at partner facilities when the unreasonable and unconstitutional mandates remain for many healthcare students who need to complete clinical rotations at those facilities.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that there are legislative efforts in at least 9 states* to completely ban mRNA shots. Such efforts promise to stop remaining Covid vaccine mandates dead in their tracks. Until we see those efforts make more progress, we will keep pressuring healthcare programs to end partnerships with hospitals and clinics when those facilities require students to receive Covid injections, and we will keep working with state representatives to hold clinical partners accountable for refusing to follow state law.

It is long overdue that our nation’s healthcare academies leave our healthcare students alone to make their own private decisions over what medical measures to take so they can pursue their dreams and help heal our very sick nation.

*On February 15, 2024, the Idaho Senate blocked the vote to ban mRNA vaccines so as of right now Bill S1036 is dead, and Idaho should no longer be on the map of 9 states.

Lucia Sinatra is a recovering corporate securities attorney. After becoming a mother, Lucia turned her attention to fighting inequities in public schools in California for students with learning disabilities. She co-founded NoCollegeMandates.com to help fight college vaccine mandates.

February 21, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

New HHS Secretary Curtails US Government Role as Drug Promoter

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | February 21, 2025

It has been commonplace for so long that most Americans cannot remember a time before the United States government was out running public relations campaigns urging Americans to take this or that vaccine or other pharmaceutical industry product. Now, an early action by new US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suggests this practice may be coming to an end.

Helen Branswell reported Thursday at STAT News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “was ordered to shelve promotions it developed for a variety of vaccines, including a ‘Wild to Mild’ advertising campaign urging people to get vaccinated against flu” and that the CDC was informed that Kennedy “wanted advertisements that promote the idea of ‘informed consent’ in vaccine decision-making instead.”

What a major change — a transition from being a pharmaceutical company product promoter to being a promoter of, as Branswell describes informed consent in her article, “the principle that people should be notified of all the risks, as well as benefits, of any medical intervention they receive or any drug they are prescribed.”

This is a good early step by Kennedy. It clarifies a new orientation placing focus on advancing information and choice instead of pushing product. If Kennedy continues on this course, he can accomplish major advancement for health and freedom in America as his appointment suggested would be possible.

February 21, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

RFK Jr.: HHS Will Investigate All Possible Causes of Chronic Disease — Including Vaccines

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 18, 2025

In his first address to his staff, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to subject potential causes of chronic disease to “unbiased scientific investigation.”

“Nothing is going to be off limits,” including his personal past beliefs, Kennedy said at his welcome ceremony today.

On Feb. 13, the White House issued an executive order establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission, which Kennedy will lead.

Kennedy said today that as part of that agenda, he will direct HHS to investigate many possible causes of the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.

“Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formally taboo or insufficiently scrutinized,” he said. “Those who are unwilling to embrace those kinds of ideas can retire,” he said.

Before and during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy came under fire from Democrats and the mainstream media for raising questions about vaccine safety. Today, he included the childhood vaccine schedule as one of the formerly “taboo” areas he planned to investigate.

Other potential drivers of the chronic disease epidemic the agency will investigate will include electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate and other pesticides, ultraprocessed foods, artificial food additives, antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, a group of chemicals known as PFAS and microplastics.

Kennedy said he plans to convene stakeholders “of all viewpoints,” and to set study protocols in advance that won’t be changed when the results look like they will be “inconvenient.”

“Let’s all depoliticize these issues and reestablish a common ground or action and renew the search for existential truths with no political impediments and no preconceptions,” he said.

Kennedy also said he’ll work to remove “conflicts of interest” on HHS advisory committees in order to reestablish the public’s trust, Bloomberg Law reported.

Related articles in The Defender

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.

February 19, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Senator Mitch McConnell Sole Republican Who Didn’t Vote to Confirm RFK, Jr.

Cites his childhood polio experience as rationale

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | February 13, 2025

Senator Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican to vote against RFK, Jr.’s confirmation as HHS Secretary. As he explained in his statement.

I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles… a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.

A public heath report titled “Incidence of Poliomyelitis in the United States in 1944” reported an above average national incidence of polio that year, with a total of 19,053 cases. However, no outbreak in Alabama was noted, indicating that the two-year-old Mitch McConnell was an exceedingly unlucky isolated case.

Alone among infectious diseases, polio only became a serious problem in the 20th century. The conventional explanation is that—while every other infectious disease was dramatically reduced by improvements in public sanitation—the increasing availability of clean drinking water apparently resulted in fewer children being exposed to the polio virus during their early childhood years (between 6 months and 5 years) when the disease is typically very mild. This, in turn, resulted in fewer mothers acquiring immunity and passing it on to their nursing infants.

The experience of the American South seemed to support this theory. Without widespread electrification or water filtration systems, the South had poor sanitation, which led to mild infant infection and widespread adult immunity. This could explain why the region saw no major polio epidemics until the late 1940s.

As Senator McConnell described his case in his memoir: “The disease struck and weakened my left leg, the worst of it my quadriceps.”

Given that he was two years old at the time—when the disease is usually very mild—and given that it was apparently an isolated case in Alabama that year, his was an especially bad piece of luck.

I wonder how the local doctor in Five Points, Alabama—which currently has a population of 114— obtained a definitive diagnosis in 1944. Laboratory testing for polio was not widespread prior to 1958.

February 13, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

New Executive Order Leads America’s Health Revival as RFK Jr. Takes HHS Helm

By Jefferey Jaxen | February 13, 2025

America has just took the exit ramp off the long, failed highway of disease management towards a better direction to ensure our healthcare system actually promotes health.

How exactly?

We now see the first vestiges of a blueprint emerging in the form of President Trumps first Executive Order with Robert F. Kennedy Jr officially at the helm of U.S. Health and Human Service.

The order, titled Establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission is now the founding document outlining where we are at, where we need to go, and what directions need to be aimed at to get there.

What’s clear during the first read-through of the document is that the days of petty pot shots and baseless smears upon RFK Jr. the public endured for years, up through and during his confirmation process, are over.

The adults are in the room and are stating their intentions to go to work on the ideals that propelled both Trump and RFK Jr. to populist symbols of change.

The order directs all departments and agencies to “aggressively combat… reversing “… rising rates of mental health disorders, obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.”

Federal funding will now prioritize “gold-standard research on the root causes of why Americans are getting sick.”

The work extends beyond the medical space.

“… agencies shall work with farmers to ensure that United States food is the healthiest, most abundant, and most affordable in the world” states the order. A revolutionary act in and of itself.

The newly-formed council will advise the President on how best to exercise his authority to address the childhood chronic disease crisis.

In order to do this, the council and federal funds will “study the scope of the childhood chronic disease crisis and any potential contributing causes, including the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, Government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism”

Of particular note regarding the assessment and strategy of the council’s assessment and strategy will be the following:

(iii) assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs;

(iv) identify and report on best practices for preventing childhood health issues, including through proper nutrition and the promotion of healthy lifestyles;

(v) evaluate the effectiveness of existing educational programs with regard to nutrition, physical activity, and mental health for children;

(vi) identify and evaluate existing Federal programs and funding intended to prevent and treat childhood health issues for their scope and effectiveness;

(vii) ensure transparency of all current data and unpublished analyses related to the childhood chronic disease crisis, consistent with applicable law

The council will also tackle conflicts of interest that have long-hurt public trust – a herculean task in the shadow of the failed pandemic response.

To those ends, a framework for transparency and ethics will be created to review industry-funded projects. Enforcement of this process will be key for its success.

The hopeful work to shift the weary direction of American health is just starting.

Per this Executive Order, an official strategy shall be delivered in 180 days to “address appropriately restructuring the Federal Government’s response to the childhood chronic disease crisis, including by ending Federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis or unsuccessfully attempt to address it, and by adding powerful new solutions that will end childhood chronic disease.”

The public is watching every moment and at every step of this process. Action and accountability will be key.

February 13, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

BBC Rides to the Rescue as Scientists Inconveniently Find the Gulf Stream Isn’t Getting Weaker

By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | February 6, 2025

Last month a group of scientists published a paper in Nature stating that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) had shown no decline in strength since the 1960s. Helped by publicity in the Daily Sceptic, the story went viral on social media, although it was largely ignored in narrative-driven mainstream publications. The collapse of the Gulf Stream, a key component of the AMOC, is an important ‘tipping point’ story used to induce mass climate psychosis and make it easier to impose the Net Zero fantasy on increasingly resentful and questioning populations. Obviously, reinforcements to back up such an important weaponised scare needed to be rushed to the front and the BBC has risen to the challenge. The AMOC “appears to be getting weaker” state BBC activists Simon King and Mark Poynting. Their long article is a classic of its kind in trying to deflect scientific findings that blow holes in the ‘settled’ narrative.

In the Nature paper, three scientists working out of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution stated that they came to their conclusion showing the stability of the AMOC after examining heat transfers between the sea and the atmosphere. It was noted that the AMOC had not weakened from 1963 to 2017, “although substantial variability exists at all latitudes”. This variability is the basis for much of the Gulf Stream fear-mongering. The BBC notes that the presence of larger grains of sediment on the ocean floor suggests the existence of stronger currents, pointing to a “cold blob” in the Atlantic that appears to have cooled of late. Thin pickings, it might be thought, to run an article titled ‘Could the UK actually get colder with global warming?’ The Woods Hole scientists note that records “are not long enough to differentiate between low frequency variability and long-term trends”.

The Nature story is not the only recent scientific finding that suggests the Day After Tomorrow alarm about the AMOC is a tad overdone. In 2023, Georgina Rannard of the BBC reported that “scientists say” a weakening Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025. There was no later reporting, needless to say, of subsequent work from a group of scientists at the US weather service NOAA that discovered the huge flow of Gulf Stream tropical water through the Florida Straits had remained “remarkably stable” for over 40 years.

Of course the BBC, along with most of the legacy media, has form as long as your arm when it comes to producing deflective copy seemingly designed to head off inconvenient scientific findings. The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the largest and best observed collection of tropical coral in the world. Any sign of ill health is a boon for green propogandists who argue that warming measured in tenths of a degree centigrade will destroy an organism that has survived for millions of years in temperatures between 24-32°C. For the last three years, coral on the GBR has hit recent record levels with scarcely a mention in mainstream media. Days before last year’s record was announced, the places where journalism goes to die were full of stories from a paper that conveniently noted climate change posed an “existential threat” to the reef. “The science tells us that the GBR is in danger and we should be guided by the science,” Professor Helen McGregor from the University of Wollongong told Victoria Gill of BBC News. Professor McGregor’s statement was an opinion readily broadcast by the BBC, a courtesy that does not appear to have been extended to the fact that coral on the GBR was at its highest level since detailed observations began.

It beggars belief that the BBC and all its fellow alarmists can run this stuff with a straight face knowing that crucial scientific information is missing from their reports. Important findings from reputable sources emerge about the current stability of the Gulf Stream and the response is to blow more smoke around that raises wholly unnecessary fears.

The main concern is that the AMOC “could suddenly switch off”, state King and Poynting. To back up their statement and provide the inevitable political message they note the comment of Matthew England, Professor of Oceanography at the University of South Wales: “We’re playing a bit of a Russian roulette game. The more we stack up the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the more we warm the system, the more chance we have of an AMOC slowdown and collapse.” Now look what you plebs have done with your steak chomping, gas-guzzling central heating and naff holidays in Benidorm, is an unpleasant subtext here.

Of course, keen and dedicated followers of climate alarmists will note a master craftsman at work. In 2023, aided by 35 million computer hours and using an improbable rise in temperature of up to 4°C in less than 80 years, Professor Matthews suggested that there was a dramatic slowdown in deep Antarctica ocean currents. Melting Antarctica ice could lead to a 40% slowdown in just 30 years. The fact that Antarctica has barely warmed in 70 years is ignored.

Who needs Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters when we have the BBC.

February 11, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Soft Power, German-Style: What Does Germany’s GIZ Have in Common With USAID?

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – February 11, 2025

NATO countries’ ‘aid’ agencies are reeling amid Trump’s freeze on USAID and revelations on the agency’s record of global meddling and largesse. Sputnik has already explored the shady activities of USAID’s British and French cousins. Now it’s Germany’s turn.

The German Corporation for International Cooperation (German acronym GIZ) gets most of its €4 bln ($4.1 bln US) straight from the federal budget, plus EU ‘co-financing’, to support up to 1,700 projects in 120 countries.

Many of GIZ’s projects revolve around ‘climate action’ and ‘sustainability’. From organic farming in Africa to solar/wind power in Latin America, GIZ is involved in pushing countries trying to break out of poverty to adhere to development goals set by the West.

GIZ also supports things like the digitization of governance, local media, Africa’s film industry, and refugee reintegration. In Ukraine, they’ve provided over 1,100 microloans for small businesses from dance studios to fashion ateliers.

A damning 2024 Focus Magazine exposé uncovered tens of millions in questionable GIZ spending, from “vague” multi-million euro grants for “climate awareness” and monitoring projects in Thailand and Turkiye, to €5M spent to make mosques “green” in Morocco, to €44M for bike lanes in Lima as part of a €529M “climate and development partnership.”

In April 2023, the Federal Audit Office revealed, in Focus’s paraphrasing, that “nobody knows what GIZ actually does,” with lack of economic success criteria for projects, lavish salaries up to €240k, first-class flights and a fleet of luxury cars for top officials highlighting the agency’s extravagance.

Waste, combined with the increasingly sorry state of Germany’s own infrastructure amid an unprecedented economic crunch, has prompted opposition figures including the AfD’s Alice Weidel to blast the government for “squandering” millions in tax money on GIZ projects in developing nations “while the transport infrastructure in its own country is in ruins.”

GIZ-USAID cooperation has been extensive, ranging from “climate finance” projects in the developing world to small business development projects in Georgia for the EU’s Eastern Partnership (which aims to sway Russia’s neighbors toward eventual EU membership).

In Ukraine, GIZ has provided “advisory” assistance on the implementation of the EU-Ukraine association agreement – the fateful pact that triggered the 2014 coup and the present European crisis.

February 11, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

New Report Contradicts Telecom Industry Claim That Wireless Radiation Is Safe

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 6, 2025

The basis for the wireless industry’s claim that radiation is safe for humans is scientifically erroneous, according to the author of a new peer-reviewed scientific report.

Paul Héroux, Ph.D., authored the report, which was published Jan. 30 in Heliyon, one of Elsevier’s journals on its ScienceDirect platform.

Héroux, an associate professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a medical scientist in McGill University Health Center’s surgery department, has years of experience in physics and electrical engineering.

He is also vice chair of the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF), a “consortium of scientists, doctors and researchers” who study wireless radiation and make recommendations for wireless radiation exposure guidelines “based on the best peer-reviewed research publications.”

Héroux told The Defender :

“Industry’s most important argument to deny the health impacts of electromagnetic radiation has been that these health effects are impossible based on solid physics, specifically that the radiation is ‘non-ionizing.”

Héroux detailed the scientific faultiness of that argument:

“Ionization by the radiation itself is irrelevant because life processes produce ionization within the body itself.

“In fact, the basic laws of physics (Maxwell’s Equations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics) together with established biology confirm that health effects of electromagnetic radiation are in fact inevitable, and at levels much lower than those considered safe by industry.”

Dr. Robert Brown, a diagnostic radiologist with more than 30 years of experience and the vice president of Scientific Research and Clinical Affairs for the Environmental Health Trust (EHT), praised Héroux’s report.

Brown said the report “effectively outlines a mechanism by which non-ionizing radiation can disrupt the biology of living systems” — even at levels much lower than what’s needed to heat tissues.

Fariha Husain, manager of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program, called the report “groundbreaking.”

“Héroux’s report fundamentally challenges the flawed ‘thermal-only paradigm,’ which falsely claims that non-ionizing radiation — including radiofrequency (RF) radiation emitted by Wi-Fi routers, cell towers, smart meters and cellphones — can harm biological tissue only via excessive heating,” Husain said.

The report is novel in that it systematically breaks down the flawed industry arguments used to justify the thermal-only paradigm.

“But the truth of the matter is that the harm caused by RF radiation has been known for decades,” Husain said. “Unfortunately, this knowledge has been intentionally suppressed by industry.”

The wireless industry and regulatory agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), contend that harm can occur only at radiation levels high enough to cause tissue heating.

Lawyers with CHD and EHT in 2021 successfully showed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the FCC ignored massive scientific evidence suggesting that RF radiation has negative biological effects at levels currently allowed by the FCC.

CHD and EHT’s historic case alleged that the FCC failed to provide a reasoned explanation for its determination that its current RF exposure guidelines — which haven’t been updated since 1996 — adequately protect against the harmful effects of exposure to RF radiation.

The FCC has yet to comply with the court’s mandate to explain how the agency determined that its current guidelines adequately protect humans and the environment against the harmful effects of exposure to wireless radiation.

Studies on dead tissues can’t detect health effects

In the report, Héroux provides a scientific rationale for why biological harm occurs at non-thermal levels of RF radiation.

Brown summarized key parts of that rationale:

“Héroux initially explains the difference in physical distance between redox reactions occurring in inorganic matter and those occurring in living systems. The ongoing processes of glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation require electrons and protons to continually engage long pathways in mitochondria to produce chemical energy from the breakdown of sugars.

“He clearly details why it is this increased distance that makes living systems vulnerable to the effects of non-ionizing radiation.

“I believe Dr. Héroux has presented a compelling case that non-ionizing radiation can impact the path of these charged particles and affect not only the efficiency of energy production in the cell but also increase the production of reactive oxygen species, which can lead to cellular oxidative stress.”

Oxidative stress due to RF radiation exposure has been “clearly documented” in the scientific literature, Brown added.

Héroux said his report also shows that the FCC’s safety assessments of RF radiation failed to consider basic physics in addition to its biological effects.

The current regulatory limits “completely ignore” this science, Husain said. “The expansion of wireless technology is in direct conflict with protecting public health and the environment and it is long overdue for regulators to acknowledge the growing body of evidence and take immediate action to establish safety standards that protect both human health and the environment.”

The report also explains why health effects from non-ionizing radiation cannot be detected in experiments performed on dead tissue.

“No electron transport occurs in dead tissue, regardless of whether or not it is ‘fresh.’” Brown said. “Research performed on the effects of electromagnetic radiation on dead tissue has led to erroneous conclusions in many in vitro scientific studies.”

Scientists call out WHO-funded study for ‘serious flaws’

Héroux published his report just weeks after he and other scientists with ICBE-EMF published a scathing letter to the editor of Environmental International criticizing a recent systematic review funded by the World Health Organization (WHO) that claimed it found no link between cellphone use and brain cancer.

The study — part of a WHO-commissioned series of scientific reviews of the possible health risks of wireless radiation — was available online Aug. 30, 2024, in Environmental International.

In their letter, the IBCE-EMF scientists said the WHO’s study had “serious flaws” that undermined the validity of the study’s conclusions.

“It is dishonest to assure the public that cell phones and wireless radiation are safe based upon such a flawed review,” said Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D., in an ICBE-EMF press release.

Moskowitz is director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, and an ICBE-EMF member.

The WHO commissioned 10 systematic reviews on the evidence of the health risks from wireless radiation, according to the ICBE-EMF.

So far, nine have been published. All “suffer from serious methodological problems and seem biased to dismiss the substantial evidence of heart risk reported in the peer-reviewed scientific literature,” Moskowitz said in a Sept. 30, 2024, presentation.

Once all 10 are published, the WHO plans to use the reviews as the basis for updating its 1993 “Environmental Health Criteria Monograph” on RF-EMF, ICBE-EMF said.

“A monograph is a report which overviews the scientific evidence on biological effects, identifies gaps in knowledge to direct future research and provides information for health authorities and regulatory agencies regarding public health,” according to ICBE-EMF.

In a post on his Electromagnetic Radiation Safety website, Moskowitz noted that all of the WHO’s scientific review teams have one or more ICNIRP members.

ICNIRP, which Moskowitz called a “cartel,” is a German nonprofit that issues RF radiation exposure limits “produced by its own members, their former students and close colleagues.”

According to EHT, ICNIRP is an invite-only group with “deep industry ties” and no oversight.

Scientists in 2020 sent a letter to the WHO’s leadership asking how the research teams were selected but did not receive a response, according to EHT.

Related articles in The Defender

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.

February 9, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

No long-term trend in global hurricane activity

The 2024 Hurricane Season

By Paul Homewood | Global Warming Policy Foundation | January 28, 2025

London – The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has today published its periodic review of global hurricane activity. The review is based on the findings of key scientific bodies, comparing them to sensationalist news reporting and popular perceptions.

  • Trends in landfalling Atlantic/western Pacific hurricanes have been stable or decreasing since 1950.
  • There is also no global trend in overall hurricane frequency since reliable records began in the 1970s.
  • The apparent increase in the number of hurricanes since the 19th century has been due to changes in observation practices over the years, rather than an actual increase.
  • Data show no long-term trends in US landfalling hurricanes since the mid-19th century, when systematic records began, either in terms of frequency or intensity.
  • Similarly, after allowing for the fact that many storms were not spotted prior to the satellite era, there are no such trends in Atlantic hurricanes either.
  • There is growing evidence that wind speeds of the most powerful hurricanes may now be overestimated in comparison to pre-satellite era ones, because of changing methods of measurement.
  • The increase in Atlantic hurricanes in the last fifty years is not part of a long-term trend, but is linked to a recovery from a deep minimum in hurricane activity in the 1970s, associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

The author, climate researcher Paul Homewood, said:

“The observational findings of meteorological agencies in 2024 once again confound those who claim to see a ‘climate crisis’ in the hurricane data. It is clear that we have not seen an increase in hurricane frequency, even though the public have been scared into thinking that tropical storms are getting worse.”

GWPF Director, Dr Benny Peiser, said:

“The gap between media hype, popular perceptions and the reality of empirical data is becoming ever more evident. This report sets out the facts and is a welcome corrective to misleading news coverage of hurricanes.”

Read the full paper here: The 2024 Hurricane Season (pdf)

February 9, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

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