The 15 Most Devastating Truths About the PSA Screening Disaster
Lies are Unbekoming | October 26, 2025
The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has screened 30 million American men annually for over three decades. The man who discovered PSA in 1970, Richard Ablin, now calls mass screening “a public health disaster.” Two landmark 2012 studies found no survival benefit from radical surgery compared to watchful waiting. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded PSA screening does more harm than good. Yet the $3 billion annual industry continues largely unabated.
These revelations emerge from three insider accounts: Ablin’s The Great Prostate Hoax, urologist Anthony Horan’s The Rise and Fall of the Prostate Cancer Scam, and oncologist Mark Scholz’s Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers. Together they document how a test meant to monitor existing cancer patients became a screening juggernaut that has left millions of men incontinent, impotent, or dead from unnecessary treatment.
The numbers are staggering. Since 1987, when PSA screening exploded nationwide, over one million American men have undergone radical prostatectomies. Studies show 40 to 50 men must be diagnosed and treated to prevent one death from prostate cancer. The other 39 to 49 men receive no benefit but face permanent side effects. Medicare and the Veterans Administration fund most of this treatment, pouring billions into a system that prominent urologists privately acknowledge has failed.
What follows are the most damaging truths about how PSA screening became entrenched despite overwhelming evidence of harm, why it persists against scientific consensus, and what this reveals about American medicine’s inability to abandon lucrative practices even when they damage patients.
1. The Test’s Creator Calls It a “Public Health Disaster”
Richard Ablin discovered prostate-specific antigen in 1970 while researching cryosurgery’s effects on prostate tissue. He never intended PSA as a screening test for healthy men. The test cannot distinguish between the cancers that kill and those that remain harmless. Ablin has spent decades publicly denouncing mass screening, including a 2010 New York Times op-ed titled “The Great Prostate Mistake.”
Ablin compares PSA screening’s specificity to “a coin toss” – hardly the precision expected from a medical test that determines whether men undergo surgery or radiation. He testified before Congress, published papers, and gave countless lectures warning against screening’s misuse. The medical establishment ignored him. In his book, he writes that watching his discovery become “a hugely expensive public health disaster” has been “painful.” The man who found PSA receives angry emails from men whose lives were destroyed by unnecessary treatment triggered by elevated PSA levels.
2. 75% of Men with Elevated PSA Don’t Have Cancer
A PSA level above 4.0 triggers the treatment cascade, yet three-quarters of these men have no cancer. Infections, enlarged prostates, bicycle riding, and recent ejaculation all elevate PSA. The test measures inflammation as readily as malignancy. This 75% false positive rate means millions undergo invasive biopsies needlessly.
The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial found that 15% of men with PSA under 4.0 – the “normal” range – actually had prostate cancer, including aggressive forms. Meanwhile, only 25% with elevated PSA had cancer at all. No blood test with such poor specificity would gain approval today. Yet once PSA became standard practice, removing it from clinical use proved impossible despite its fundamental unreliability.
3. The $3 Billion Annual PSA Gold Rush
PSA screening generates at least $3 billion annually, with Medicare and the Veterans Administration covering most costs. Each abnormal PSA triggers a cascade: repeat tests, biopsies, imaging, surgery or radiation, plus years of follow-up. A single radical prostatectomy bills $15,000 to $30,000. Radiation therapy can exceed $50,000. These procedures require expensive equipment, specialized facilities, and teams of providers.
Hospital systems depend on this revenue stream. Urology practices built business models around screening and treatment. Medical device companies profit from surgical robots, radiation equipment, and biopsy tools. This economic ecosystem resists evidence showing most treatment is unnecessary. When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine screening in 2012, medical associations mobilized massive lobbying efforts to preserve the status quo. Money, not medicine, drives the screening machine.
4. 30 Million Tests, 1 Million Unnecessary Biopsies Per Year
Annual PSA screening of 30 million American men triggers approximately one million prostate biopsies. Since most elevated PSAs are false positives, at least 750,000 of these biopsies find no cancer. Each biopsy involves 12 to 18 needle cores punched through the rectal wall into the prostate. Serious infections requiring hospitalization occur in 1-4% of cases. Sepsis can be fatal.
Even negative biopsies don’t end the cascade. Urologists often recommend repeat biopsies for persistently elevated PSA, subjecting men to multiple rounds of needles, infection risk, and anxiety. Some undergo four, five, even six biopsies chasing ghost cancers that either don’t exist or would never threaten their lives. The psychological toll – months of fear between tests, the dread of results, the pressure to “do something” – devastates men and families. This suffering serves no medical purpose for the vast majority subjected to it.
5. The “Arbitrary” 4.0 Cutoff That Changed Everything
The PSA threshold of 4.0 ng/mL that triggers intervention was, according to New York Times reporting, chosen “just sort of arbitrarily.” William Catalona’s influential 1991 New England Journal of Medicine article established this cutoff without reporting false positive rates – a basic requirement for screening tests. The entire world adopted this number uncritically.
No scientific process determined that 4.0 represented a meaningful boundary between health and disease. The number could have been 3.0 or 5.0 or 6.5. Each choice would have swept millions more or fewer men into the treatment vortex. This arbitrary threshold, selected without rigorous validation, has determined the fate of millions. Men with 4.1 undergo biopsies while those with 3.9 are deemed safe, though this 0.2 difference has no biological significance. A random number became medical dogma, and challenging it meant confronting an entire industry built on its foundation.
6. 2,600 Post-Surgery Deaths at the 1992 Peak
Radical prostatectomy deaths peaked at 2,600 in 1992, five years after PSA screening exploded nationally. These men died from surgical complications – bleeding, infections, blood clots, anesthesia reactions. They underwent surgery for cancers that, in most cases, would never have threatened their lives. The operation killed them before their cancer could.
Anthony Horan documents how radical surgery was “revived without new evidence” in the 1980s after being largely abandoned. The combination of PSA screening and renewed surgical enthusiasm created a perfect storm. Thousands died on operating tables for a disease that grows so slowly most men die with it, not from it. These deaths represent only immediate surgical mortality – not the men who died months later from complications, or whose lives were shortened by surgical trauma. Each death was preventable had screening not detected their harmless cancers.
7. Radical Surgery Shows No Survival Benefit Over Watchful Waiting
Two randomized controlled trials reported in 2012 found no difference in cancer-specific mortality between radical surgery and watchful waiting. The Prostate Cancer Intervention Versus Observation Trial (PIVOT) followed 731 men for up to 15 years. The Scandinavian trial tracked men for over 20 years. Both reached the same conclusion: surgery doesn’t save lives compared to monitoring.
These studies destroyed the rationale for early detection. If removing the entire prostate doesn’t extend life compared to doing nothing, then finding cancer early serves no purpose except to subject men to treatment side effects. The medical establishment largely ignored these findings. Surgery rates declined modestly but remained far higher than evidence justified. Mark Scholz writes that these studies should have “removed the rationale for early diagnosis with PSA” entirely. Instead, the industry adapted its messaging while continuing essentially unchanged.
8. The FDA Approval Based on 3.8% Detection Rate
The FDA approved PSA for screening in 1994 based primarily on a study showing it could detect 3.8% more cancers than digital rectal examination. This marginal improvement became justification for testing millions annually. The agency relied heavily on this single statistic while downplaying false positive rates and overdiagnosis risks.
Alexander Baumgarten, one of FDA’s own expert advisers, warned officials: “Like Pontius Pilate, you cannot wash the guilt off your hands.” Susan Alpert, who directed FDA’s Office of Device Evaluation during approval, later acknowledged the decision’s problems. The agency never required studies showing screening actually saved lives or improved quality of life. This regulatory failure, approving a test based on detection rates rather than patient outcomes, enabled the disaster that followed. The FDA has never revisited its decision despite overwhelming evidence of harm.
9. Prostate Cancer Grows So Slowly Most Men Die WITH It, Not FROM It
Autopsy studies reveal that 30% of men in their 40s and 70% in their 70s have prostate cancer cells. Most never knew and were never affected. The cancer’s typical growth rate means decades pass between initial cellular changes and potential lethality. A 65-year-old diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer has less than 3% chance of dying from it within 15 years if left untreated.
Men diagnosed at 75 almost certainly will die of something else first – heart disease, stroke, other cancers. Yet screening doesn’t discriminate by age or life expectancy. Elderly men in nursing homes receive PSA tests and undergo biopsies. Some receive radiation or surgery in their 80s for cancers that could never outlive them. This fundamental biological reality – that most prostate cancers are clinically insignificant – undermines screening’s entire premise. Finding these cancers serves only to transform healthy men into cancer patients unnecessarily.
10. The Biopsy Train: 18-Gauge Needles and Serious Infections
Modern prostate biopsy involves 12 to 18 hollow-bore needles, each 18-gauge in diameter, fired through the rectal wall. The needles extract tissue cores while potentially spreading bacteria from the bowel into the prostate and bloodstream. Fluoroquinolone-resistant bacteria have made infections increasingly dangerous. Some men develop sepsis requiring intensive care.
Richard Ablin receives emails from men describing their biopsy experiences as “spinning out of control,” having “panic attacks,” and living in a “nightmare.” The procedure’s violence – needles punching through tissue, the sound of the spring-loaded gun, blood in urine and semen for weeks – traumatizes men regardless of results. Those with negative biopsies face pressure to repeat the procedure if PSA remains elevated. Some endure annual biopsies for years, each carrying infection risk, each failing to find cancer that likely isn’t there or doesn’t matter. The biopsy itself becomes a recurring assault that serves no medical purpose.
11. Incontinence and Impotence: The “Acceptable” Side Effects
Radical prostatectomy leaves 20-30% of men with permanent urinary incontinence requiring pads or diapers. Erectile dysfunction affects 60-80%, depending on age and surgical technique. These rates come from centers of excellence; community hospitals report worse outcomes. Surgeons routinely minimize these risks, calling them “acceptable” trade-offs for cancer treatment.
For men whose cancers would never have threatened them – the majority who undergo surgery – these side effects represent pure harm. They lose sexual function and bladder control to treat a disease that required no treatment. Their marriages suffer. Depression is common. Some become recluses, afraid to leave home without knowing bathroom locations. The medical profession’s casual acceptance of these devastating outcomes reflects a stunning disregard for quality of life. No other medical specialty would tolerate routinely destroying normal function to treat non-threatening conditions.
12. PSA Isn’t Even Prostate-Specific
Despite its name, prostate-specific antigen isn’t specific to the prostate. Breast tissue produces PSA – it’s a normal component of breast milk. Salivary glands make it. Some lymphomas produce PSA. Women have measurable PSA levels. This basic biological fact undermines the test’s fundamental premise.
Anthony Horan notes he personally reported PSA production in B-cell lymphomas. The protein’s presence throughout the body means elevated levels can reflect numerous non-prostatic processes. Yet the medical establishment treats PSA as if it were a precise prostate cancer marker. This scientific sloppiness – naming and using a test based on false assumptions about specificity – exemplifies the intellectual bankruptcy underlying mass screening. If PSA were discovered today with current knowledge, it would never be approved for screening healthy men.
13. The Veterans Administration’s Role in the Screening Epidemic
The Veterans Administration extensively promoted and funded PSA screening, making it routine for millions of veterans. The VA’s electronic medical records prompted doctors to order PSA tests, created quality metrics based on screening rates, and facilitated the treatment cascade. Veterans, trusting their government healthcare, underwent screening at higher rates than the general population.
The VA spent billions on screening, biopsies, and treatment. Veterans suffered disproportionately from overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Many underwent surgery or radiation at VA hospitals with limited experience in these procedures, likely experiencing higher complication rates. The government that sent these men to war later subjected them to medical harm through systematic overscreening. Only after the 2012 USPSTF recommendation did the VA begin moderating its approach, too late for hundreds of thousands of veterans already harmed.
14. Why Urologists Can’t Stop Screening Despite the Evidence
Urologists understand the evidence against screening yet continue promoting it. Professional self-interest explains this cognitive dissonance. Prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment represent major revenue sources for urology practices. Academic urologists depend on prostate cancer research grants. Professional status derives from surgical volume and technical expertise in procedures that shouldn’t be performed.
Mark Scholz describes the “surgeon personality” that sees every problem as requiring surgical solution. Urologists train for years to perform radical prostatectomies. Abandoning these procedures means acknowledging that much of their training and practice caused unnecessary harm. The psychological and economic barriers to accepting screening’s failure prove insurmountable. Even urologists who privately acknowledge the problem continue participating in the system. Professional conferences feature token debates about screening while exhibit halls showcase million-dollar surgical robots. The specialty cannot reform itself when its economic survival depends on perpetuating harm.
15. Active Surveillance Works for 99% of Low-Risk Cases
Multiple studies demonstrate that active surveillance – monitoring without immediate treatment – works for virtually all low-risk prostate cancers. Memorial Sloan Kettering reported that fewer than 1% of men on surveillance die from prostate cancer over 15 years. Johns Hopkins found similar results. These men avoid treatment side effects while maintaining the option to treat if their cancer progresses.
Despite this evidence, most men with low-risk disease still receive immediate treatment. Doctors present surveillance as “doing nothing” rather than an active management strategy. Patients fear leaving cancer untreated, not understanding their cancer’s indolent nature. The medical system’s financial incentives favor treatment over monitoring. Each patient choosing surveillance represents lost revenue. This proven alternative that could spare hundreds of thousands from unnecessary treatment remains underutilized because it threatens the economic foundation of prostate cancer care.
Conclusion
The PSA screening disaster exposes American medicine’s darkest impulses: the primacy of profit over patient welfare, the persistence of harmful practices despite overwhelming evidence, and the medical establishment’s inability to acknowledge error. Thirty years of mass screening has transformed millions of healthy men into cancer patients unnecessarily, subjecting them to treatments that left many incontinent, impotent, or dead.
The men who exposed this scandal from within – Richard Ablin who discovered PSA, Anthony Horan who practiced urology during screening’s rise, Mark Scholz who treats screening’s victims – deserve recognition for their courage in challenging their profession’s orthodoxy. Their accounts reveal not isolated mistakes but systematic failure: arbitrary thresholds adopted without validation, regulatory approval based on minimal evidence, and an entire medical specialty economically dependent on perpetuating harm. Until American medicine can abandon lucrative practices that damage patients, the PSA disaster will repeat in other forms, with other tests, harming other victims who trusted their doctors to first do no harm.
References
Ablin, Richard J., with Ronald Piana. The Great Prostate Hoax: How Big Medicine Hijacked the PSA Test and Caused a Public Health Disaster. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Horan, Anthony H. The Rise and Fall of the Prostate Cancer Scam. 3rd ed. Broomfield, CO: On the Write Path Publishing, 2019.
Scholz, Mark, and Ralph H. Blum. Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers: An Essential Guide to Managing Prostate Cancer for Patients and Their Families. Revised ed. New York: Other Press, 2021.
FLU FEAR VS. FLU FACTS
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | January 8, 2026
Alarmist media coverage and public health messaging have branded this season’s flu a so-called “super flu,” but surveillance data from both the U.K. and the U.S. tell a more measured story. While reports of influenza-like illness (ILI) have risen—as they typically do during winter—rates of laboratory-confirmed influenza remain within normal seasonal levels. The distinction is often blurred in headlines, with ILI frequently conflated with confirmed flu infections. Even public health officials acknowledge these limitations, along with the well-documented constraints of flu vaccine effectiveness, raising questions about whether the current narrative reflects the data.
Offshore wind turbines steal each other’s wind: yields greatly overestimated
By Bert Weteringe – clintel – December 30, 2025
The energy yields of offshore wind turbines are overestimated by up to 50% in national policy documents. This conclusion is based on an analysis of operational data from 72 wind farms.
In order to meet the net-zero targets set out in the European Green Deal, offshore wind turbines will have to make a significant contribution to Europe’s future energy supply – at least, that is the plan of European governments. However, these plans are facing setbacks due to high investment costs and uncertainty about returns, as demand is lower than expected. On October 30, outgoing Minister Hermans of the Dutch Ministry of Climate & Green Growth (KGG) announced in a letter to the House of Representatives that no applications for a permit had been received for the tender for the Nederwiek I-A wind farm, which has an installed capacity of 1–1.15 gigawatts. This is a trend that is not limited to the Netherlands. In August, for example, there were no bids for the ten gigawatts of tenders that the German government had put out for offshore wind projects. On top of that, there is now another setback: the energy yields of offshore wind turbines appear to be much lower than assumed in most national policy plans.
“National policy targets show expectations of energy production up to 50% higher than can realistically be achieved”, concludes Carlos Simao Ferreira, professor of Wind Energy Science at Delft University of Technology. He published, together with Danish colleagues Gunner Chr. Larsen and Jens Nørkær Sørensen from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), an article in the latest journal Cell Reports Sustainability, on November 21. “This study establishes a physically grounded upper limit on wind farm performance, demonstrating that aerodynamic constraints impose a fundamental ceiling on the energy extractable from the marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer”, the scientists continue.
According to the article, the ever-growing wind farms, which are also becoming increasingly denser, extract energy from the lower part of the atmospheric boundary layer, affecting this boundary layer up to several kilometres above the Earth’s surface. The energy extracted from the airflow must be replenished from the higher layers of the atmosphere, but this is only possible to a limited extent due to atmospheric limitations determined by physical principles known from meteorology and geophysics. This means that wind turbines literally steal each other’s wind, which means that the efficiency of wind turbines will decrease even further as their number increases. The scientists demonstrate this with a validated analytical model that defines the physical upper limit of offshore wind farm production.
They built their model based on the actual yields of 72 large wind farms in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and compared the actual yields of the wind farms with the theoretically expected yields set out in national policy documents in a number of case studies. In seven of the nine case studies, the national policy targets for offshore wind yields turned out to be way overestimated. Two German wind farms were slightly underestimated.
The limitations of offshore wind revealed in the publication are not new. Scientists from the Danish university and the German Max Planck Institute have previously warned that the expected yields from offshore wind energy could fall by a third or more if offshore wind is scaled up further. In a 2020 publication by the German organization Agora Energiewende, an interdisciplinary and international team that develops scientifically sound and politically feasible strategies for the transformation towards climate neutrality, they showed how the efficiency of wind turbines decreases as the use of wind energy increases in scale. In addition, Axel Kleidon, physicist and group leader at the Max Planck Institute, states in a 2021 publication in the ‘Meteorologische Zeitschrift’ that the energy yields of areas with wind turbines covering more than 100 square kilometres, are up to twelve times lower than those of small wind farms in prominent locations, regardless of the technological advances made in wind turbines. The Cell Reports publication now confirms these earlier findings with hard figures.
The Netherlands stands out most conspicuously: with an overestimation of revenues of 49%, the scientists have labelled the Dutch government’s policy as “internally inconsistent”. The North Sea Wind Energy Infrastructure Plan (WIN), published by the Dutch government in July, assumes a capacity factor of 51 to 56 percent—this is the ratio between the actual electricity production of a wind turbine and the maximum possible yield in the same period. This is despite figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) showing that the capacity factor of wind turbines in the Dutch part of the North Sea was 37% and 38% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. The Delft publication cites this as a striking example of how “changing targets, spatial planning, and assumed performance can become misaligned with physical constraints.”
“Such overestimation not only hides true energy costs but also underestimates power variability, integration, and curtailment risks, and it distorts policy pathways”, the scientists argue. They further note that the resulting shortfall in electricity revenues “could have a profound impact on society and the economy.” The effectiveness of large-scale investments in the flexibility of the power grid and in wind energy storage—such as batteries and hydrogen production—depends to a large extent on the actual capacity factor of offshore wind turbines. According to the scientists, the underutilization of these investments in the future will have an impact on several generations. “The heavy demands on society, the economy, and the environment mean that corrective paths may become costly or unfeasible for a country or region”, they state.
Simão Ferreira et al., A theoretical upper limit for offshore wind energy extraction, Cell Reports Sustainability (2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsus.2025.100573
Bert Weteringe is a Dutch aeronautical engineer and the author of the book Downwind (2023), in which he informs readers about the devastating effects of the climate agenda on society and nature, specifically the impact of large-scale energy generation using wind turbines. As an independent investigative journalist, his focus is primarily on the energy transition. Through his website, he publishes news about the energy transition and wind turbines in particular.
Is the Psychiatric Drugging of Children a Form of Child Abuse?
A case that becomes harder to dismiss the longer you look
By Dr. Roger McFillin | Radically Genuine | December 18, 2025
Let me be direct about something before we go any further.
We call them psychiatric “medications.” We say children are being “medicated” for their “conditions.” This language is a lie.
These are drugs. Chemical compounds made in a factory. They do not correct any known abnormality. They do not heal anything. They are not medicinal in any meaningful sense of the word. They are chemicals that alter brain function that numb, restrict, and sedate.
We need to stop hiding behind medical language that implies these interventions are “therapeutic” and healing. They are not. They are chemical management of behavior with the potential for severe health consequences. Once we are honest about what we are actually doing to children, the ethical questions become unavoidable.
The Question We Must Answer
I have spent fifteen years in private practice as a clinical psychologist. Before that, I worked in psychiatric hospitals, community mental health, public schools and the juvenile justice system. I have watched what we do to young people in the name of treatment, and it’s a moral and ethical failure.
Federal law defines child abuse as “any act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm” or “an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”
The question I want to pose is straightforward: Does the prescription of mind-altering and mood-altering drugs, which carry significant potential for harm and frequently cause it, meet this legal definition?
I believe it does. Here is why.
Rationale #1: No Identifiable or Measurable Biological Foundation for Mental Disorders Exists
If we could identify a biological abnormality that a drug effectively corrects, we would have reasonable justification for the risks involved. We could measure responses empirically and adjust treatment accordingly.
But no such abnormality has been identified. Not for ADHD. Not for depression. Not for anxiety. Not for any psychiatric diagnosis given to children.
Psychiatric diagnoses fail the most basic standards of scientific measurement. They lack both reliability and validity.
Reliability means consistency. If a diagnostic system is reliable, different clinicians evaluating the same child should arrive at the same diagnosis. This does not happen in psychiatry. Studies repeatedly demonstrate that clinicians disagree at alarming rates. One psychiatrist sees ADHD. Another sees anxiety. A third sees oppositional defiant disorder. The same child, the same behaviors, wildly different labels depending on who is in the room. Field trials for the DSM-5 found that many diagnoses failed to reach acceptable reliability thresholds. The system cannot even produce consistent results.
Validity means the diagnosis corresponds to something real and distinct in the world. A valid diagnosis identifies a specific condition with a known cause, predictable course, and targeted treatment. Psychiatric diagnoses meet none of these criteria. There are no biomarkers. No lab tests. No imaging findings. No way to confirm or disconfirm the diagnosis through objective measurement. These categories were created by committees of psychiatrists voting on clusters of behaviors. They are descriptive labels masquerading as medical diagnoses.
The honest history is this: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was developed primarily to facilitate insurance billing within the broader healthcare system. It provided codes so that psychiatrists could be reimbursed like other physicians. The appearance of medical legitimacy was the point. Scientific validity was never established because it was never the priority.
The chemical imbalance theory has been formally abandoned. The former director of the National Institute of Mental Health publicly stated that psychiatric diagnoses lack scientific validity. Yet physicians continue telling parents their children have brain disorders based on no objective test whatsoever.
Consider the psychological impact on a child who begins to identify with a psychiatric label. They internalize the message that something is fundamentally wrong with how they think and feel. They believe they are different from other children. They conclude they need drugs to be normal.
Is this not a form of emotional harm?
Any genuine medical disease underlying psychiatric symptoms would be reclassified as a medical condition. If obsessive-compulsive symptoms stem from a streptococcal infection, we treat the infection with antibiotics. If attention problems result from nutritional deficiencies, we address the deficiencies through diet and supplementation.
When we affix psychiatric labels to children without objective confirmation, we drug them with chemicals that cause significant adverse effects and health concerns.
Rationale #2: No Psychiatric Drug Has Been Proven to Objectively Improve the Assigned Mental Disorder
I have spent fifteen years studying psychiatric drug trials, the FDA approval process, and the mechanisms through which these chemicals reach the market. What I have learned disturbs me deeply.
These trials typically last six to twelve weeks. Researchers measure effectiveness through symptom checklists, quantifying whether reported symptoms decrease. The critical problem is that many of these drugs primarily induce emotional numbing or sedation. A person who feels disconnected from their emotions will report fewer symptoms on a checklist. This is not the same as improvement.
The objective is to create enough of a drug effect to generate a statistical difference compared to placebo. That statistical variance should not be mistaken for evidence that a drug treats depression or stabilizes mood. By the same logic, alcohol could be considered an approved treatment for social anxiety.
Pharmaceutical companies have encountered significant challenges demonstrating that antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs outperform placebos in meaningful ways. The illusion that we possess effective pharmacological treatments for childhood emotional and behavioral challenges must be dispelled.
If we are honest about what happens in clinical practice, the primary approach involves attempting to induce emotional numbness and detachment in developing children. This truth is rarely communicated to families.
I hear the same descriptions from young people in my practice over and over. “I feel like a zombie.” “I feel nothing.” “I cannot cry anymore.” “I do not feel like myself.”
This is not treatment. This is chemical suppression of the full range of human emotion in a developing brain. And we call it medicine.
Rationale #3: Psychiatric Drugs Are Proven to Create Harm
Every psychiatric drug approved for children carries a substantial list of side effects. Many are severe. Some are potentially fatal.
Do you want to know the long term effects? Well so do I! However, if you fail to study the long term problems of a drug you do not have to report on it.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, the most commonly prescribed class of drugs for childhood anxiety and mood disorders, carry a black box warning. This represents the most stringent cautionary label the FDA can issue. The purpose of black box warnings is to alert the public and healthcare providers to grave side effects, including risks of injury or death.
The FDA requires black box warnings when compelling evidence indicates a drug can trigger severe adverse reactions, when benefits do not outweigh risks, when the drug requires restricted usage to protect public safety, or when the drug poses heightened dangers to specific populations, including children.
The black box warning on SSRIs states that these drugs increase suicidality in children and adolescents.
I need you to fully absorb that statement. The drugs most commonly prescribed to treat depression in young people can increase their desire to end their own lives.
I have witnessed this pattern repeatedly in clinical practice. A teenager who was struggling but stable starts an antidepressant. Within weeks, they are engaging in self-harm. They are making suicide plans. They are hospitalized.
In the hospital, the response is often to adjust the drug or add another. The adverse reaction becomes evidence of how sick they truly were.
Within clinical settings, physicians frequently combine drugs in ways that have never been adequately studied. Polypharmacy in pediatric psychiatry is common practice, not the exception. The combinations given to children have often never been evaluated even in adult populations.
This is experimentation. It is conducted on those least able to advocate for themselves.
Rationale #4: Psychiatric Drug Reactions Are Misinterpreted as Mental Disorders, Leading to More Diagnoses and More Drugs
This is perhaps the most insidious aspect of the current system. It creates a self-perpetuating cycle that transforms episodic struggles into chronic disability.
The pattern begins when a physician attributes emotional or behavioral challenges to a simplistic chemical imbalance. Drugs are prescribed that alter brain chemistry and can create genuine neurological changes. When the child displays adverse reactions, these responses are interpreted as manifestations of mental illness.
The misinterpretation becomes justification for additional drugs, additional diagnoses, and further deterioration.
A child enters the system because her parents are divorcing and she is sad. Understandable. Her world has been disrupted. She is prescribed an antidepressant. It makes her agitated and unable to sleep. A second drug is added for the agitation. That causes weight gain and lethargy. A stimulant is added to counteract the lethargy. The stimulant triggers anxiety. A benzodiazepine is added for the anxiety.
Within a few years, this child is taking five psychiatric drugs. She has accumulated diagnoses of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and bipolar disorder. She has been hospitalized. She has dropped out of school. She believes she is fundamentally broken and will need psychiatric management for the rest of her life.
She did not have five psychiatric disorders. She had one: an adverse reaction to psychiatric drugs that was misinterpreted at every turn.
This system transforms episodic and even typical variations in behavior into chronic disabilities. It creates the very conditions it claims to treat.
This Is Child Abuse
I use this language deliberately.
When we label children with psychiatric disorders based on no objective biological evidence, we cause emotional harm.
When we prescribe drugs that carry black box warnings for suicidality, that cause neurological changes, sexual dysfunction, metabolic disruption, and emotional blunting, we cause physical harm.
When we interpret adverse drug reactions as evidence of worsening mental illness and respond with additional drugs, we perpetuate harm.
When we transform children experiencing normal human responses to difficult circumstances into lifelong psychiatric patients, we cause profound harm to their identity, their development, and their future.
The fact that this occurs in medical settings does not change what it is.
The fact that it is performed by credentialed professionals does not change what it is.
The fact that insurance covers it does not change what it is.
We are systematically harming children while calling it care. And until we name it clearly, nothing will change.
AWAKEN
I would not have dedicated my career to exposing these problems if I did not believe alternatives exist.
Children do not need to be diagnosed and drugged. They need to be understood.
Anxiety is not a disorder. It is information. A child’s nervous system communicates that something requires attention in their environment, their relationships, their nutrition, their sleep, their sense of safety and belonging. Many need to LEARN how to face and tolerate fear, uncertainty and anxiety provoking situations. It’s part of the journey.
Address the root causes. Create genuine safety. Build authentic connection. Teach skills for understanding and navigating difficult emotions. Support the family system. Examine what the child is eating, how they are sleeping, whether they are moving their bodies, whether they have purpose and meaning. If you are on your phone for 8 plus hours a day I guarantee you are going to be miserable. You do not have a genetic condition called “Major Depressive Disorder” and “ADHD”.
We have collectively lost our minds.
I have watched children labeled treatment-resistant transform when we stopped drugging their symptoms and started addressing their lives. Not occasionally. Repeatedly. Consistently.
The psychiatric system does not want families to know this is possible. Healthy children do not generate recurring revenue.
But it is possible. And families deserve to know.
A Challenge
If you are a prescriber who puts developing children on psychiatric drugs without exhausting other options, without providing genuine informed consent about the risks, without a clear plan for eventual discontinuation, I ask you to reconsider what you are participating in.
If you are a parent who was told your child has a brain disease requiring lifelong medication, please know that you were not given accurate information. Seek other opinions. Explore other approaches. Your child’s future may depend on it.
If you are a young person who was drugged into compliance and told there was something fundamentally wrong with you, I want you to hear this: There was not. There is not. You were a human being having a human experience within a system that profits from your suffering.
The psychiatric drugging of children is one of the defining moral failures of our era. I will continue saying so until something changes.
CDC SHRINKS ROUTINE CHILDHOOD VACCINE SCHEDULE BY ~55 DOSES
By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | FOCAL POINTS | January 5, 2026
Today, the CDC formally adopted a revised childhood and adolescent immunization schedule, following a Presidential Memorandum directing alignment with international best practices.
This marks the largest rollback of routine childhood vaccination in U.S. history.
After reviewing peer-country schedules and the scientific evidence underlying them, federal health leadership acknowledged that we are hyper-vaccinating our children.
The result is a dramatically smaller routine childhood vaccine schedule, cutting approximately 55 routine doses.
This is a major victory — even as serious safety concerns remain for the vaccines that continue to be recommended.
The Key Change: ~55 Routine Doses Eliminated
Previous U.S. routine schedule (2024)
-
- 84–88 routine vaccine doses
- Targeting 17 diseases
- (18 if RSV monoclonal antibody is included)
New CDC routine schedule (2026)
-
- ~30 routine doses
- Targeting 10–11 diseases
- Based on international consensus
Net change: approximately 54–58 routine doses removed, commonly summarized as ~55 routine doses.
Importantly, this reduction applies only to vaccines previously labeled “routine for all children.” No vaccines were banned or removed from availability.
What Was Removed from the Routine Schedule
The following vaccines are no longer recommended for all children by default:
- COVID-19
- Influenza
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B (including removal of the universal birth dose if the mother is HBsAg-negative)
- Rotavirus
- Meningococcal ACWY
- Meningococcal B
These vaccines account for nearly the entire ~55-dose reduction.
What Remains Routine
The CDC now limits routine childhood vaccination to the following vaccines:
- Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR)
- Diphtheria
- Tetanus
- Pertussis
- Polio
- Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib)
- Pneumococcal disease
- Varicella (chickenpox)
- Human Papillomavirus (HPV), reduced from two doses to one
This is still not “safe by default”
These vaccines remain:
- Insufficiently studied for long-term outcomes
- Untested in placebo-controlled trials
- Never evaluated as a cumulative schedule
- Inducers of over 20 chronic diseases
Adverse events such as febrile seizures, severe neurological injury including autism, ADHD, tics, autoimmune disease, asthma, allergies, skin and gut disorders, ear infections, and a long list of other chronic diseases have been documented across multiple vaccines on this list.
Reducing the schedule does not equal proving safety. It simply reduces exposure. Nonetheless, that reduction alone is quite meaningful.
Where Those Vaccines Went
Non-consensus vaccines were reclassified, not banned:
Shared Clinical Decision-Making
- COVID-19
- Influenza
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Rotavirus
- Meningococcal ACWY
- Meningococcal B
High-Risk Groups Only
- RSV monoclonal antibody
- Hepatitis A (travel, outbreaks, liver disease)
- Hepatitis B (HBsAg-positive or unknown maternal status)
- Dengue
- Meningococcal vaccines for defined risk groups
All remain available and fully covered by insurance. However, given entrenched institutional habits and ideological adherence to maximal vaccination, many clinicians are likely to continue promoting shared clinical decision-making vaccines as de facto routine unless families are informed and assertive.
Why This Is Still a Massive Win
For decades, the childhood vaccine schedule expanded without:
- Schedule-level safety trials
- Long-term outcome data
- Meaningful public debate
- Informed consent
This decision reverses that trajectory. It:
- Shrinks routine exposure dramatically
- Restores parental agency
- Forces future decisions to confront risk-benefit reality
Most importantly, it breaks the false premise that “more vaccines is always better.”
Conclusion
The CDC has eliminated every non-consensus vaccine from the routine childhood schedule, cutting routine exposure by approximately 55 doses—an implicit admission that the safety of the expanded schedule was never adequately established.
This decision does not end the problem. The vaccines that remain routinely recommended are still largely untested in long-term, placebo-controlled trials, are administered during critical periods of neurodevelopment, and continue to pose serious safety concerns. As a result, a substantial number of autism cases and other chronic conditions will continue to occur.
However, by sharply reducing cumulative exposure during early childhood, this change marks the first credible step toward reversing the trajectory. The burden of neurodevelopmental injury should begin to decline—not disappear, but diminish.
Even with its limitations, this action represents the most consequential course correction in U.S. pediatric vaccination policy in modern history. It breaks the assumption that an ever-expanding schedule is inherently safe, restores proportionality, and opens the door to long-overdue accountability, transparency, and real safety science.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
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How a 2019 NEJM Study Misled the World on Vitamin D: A Forensic Analysis
By James Lyons-Weiler, PhD | Popular Rationalism | December 29, 2025
In January 2019, The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that was immediately hailed as the final verdict on vitamin D: it doesn’t work. The study, known as the VITAL trial, was large, well-funded, and led by respected researchers from Harvard. Its conclusion—that vitamin D supplementation did not reduce the risk of invasive cancer or major cardiovascular events—rapidly diffused across headlines, textbooks, and clinical guidelines.
But the VITAL study didn’t fail because vitamin D failed. It failed because it was never designed to test the right question. This article walks through the anatomy of that failure, why it matters, and what we must fix if we are to take prevention seriously in modern medicine.
The Trial That Didn’t
On the surface, VITAL looked impeccable: over 25,000 participants, randomized and placebo-controlled, testing 2000 IU of vitamin D3 daily for a median of 5.3 years. The primary endpoints were the incidence of any invasive cancer and a composite of major cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke, or death from cardiovascular causes).
But there is a foundational problem: most participants weren’t vitamin D deficient to begin with. Only 12.7% had levels below 20 ng/mL, the threshold generally associated with increased risk. The mean baseline level was 30.8 ng/mL—already at or near sufficiency. It’s the equivalent of testing whether insulin helps people who don’t have diabetes.
Further eroding the study’s contrast, participants in the placebo arm were allowed to take up to 800 IU/day of vitamin D on their own. By year 5, more than 10% of the placebo group was exceeding that limit. The intervention, in effect, became a test of high-dose vitamin D versus medium-dose vitamin D, not against a true control.
Add to that the decision to use broad, bundled endpoints like “any invasive cancer” or “major cardiovascular events” without regard to mechanisms, latency, or stage-specific progression, and the trial becomes a precision instrument for finding nothing.
The Important Real Signal They Missed
The one glimmer of benefit appeared in cancer mortality. While incidence rates were similar between groups, the vitamin D arm showed a lower rate of cancer deaths. This effect emerged only after two years of follow-up and became statistically significant once early deaths were excluded. Even more telling, among participants whose cause of death could be adjudicated with medical records (rather than death certificate codes), the benefit was stronger.
This suggests a biologically plausible mechanism: vitamin D may not prevent cancer from starting, but it may slow its progression or reduce metastasis. That theory aligns with preclinical models showing vitamin D’s role in cellular differentiation, immune modulation, and suppression of angiogenesis.
And yet, VITAL buried this signal. The paper acknowledged a significant violation of the proportional hazards assumption in cancer mortality, a red flag that time-to-event models were inappropriate. Instead of adjusting with valid statistical models for non-proportional hazards, the authors sliced the data post hoc to generate a story and dismissed the result as exploratory. Meanwhile, they mentioned in passing that fewer advanced or metastatic cancers occurred in the vitamin D group—but offered no data.
How Design Choices Shape Public Understanding
The public interpretation of VITAL has been simple and sweeping: vitamin D doesn’t help. That perception has reshaped policy, funding, and clinical guidance. Combined with errant policy based on acknowledged errors, It is dangerous and a risk to public health.
But what the trial actually tested was much narrower: Does high-dose vitamin D provide additional benefit in a mostly vitamin D–sufficient, highly compliant, aging American cohort already permitted to take moderate doses on their own? And does it do so within 5 years?
Given those conditions, the null result was foreordained.
That’s not a failure of science. That’s a failure of trial design.
What Should Have Been Done
A rationally designed prevention trial would start with a population at risk. That means recruiting participants with confirmed vitamin D deficiency, ideally below 20 ng/mL. It would require tighter control of off-protocol supplement use. It would measure achieved serum levels in all participants, not just a 6% subsample. And it would follow participants for a decade or more to match the biological latency of cancer.
Equally critical, the endpoints would reflect mechanistic expectations. Rather than bundling all cancers or all cardiovascular events, researchers should examine site-specific incidence, grade at diagnosis, metastatic progression, and mortality—particularly among subgroups most likely to benefit, such as Black participants and those with low BMI.
Reform Is Not Optional
It is not enough to run large trials. They must be designed to answer the right questions. The failure of VITAL has less to do with vitamin D and more to do with how preventive science is conducted: Over-generalized endpoints, underpowered subgroups, and insufficient attention to biological realism.
We need new standards:
- Targeted enrollment of at-risk populations
- Serum level tracking
- Clear contrasts between intervention and control
- Biomarker tracking throughout
- Outcomes matched to mechanistic hypotheses
- Transparent reporting of all stage-specific and cause-specific outcomes
None of ts is controversial. It is merely rigorous.
This Isn’t Over
Several high-quality meta-analyses and smaller trials contradict the conclusions drawn from VITAL.
Several high-quality meta-analyses and randomized trials contradict the broad null interpretation drawn from the VITAL study. A 2014 Cochrane Review found that vitamin D supplementation, particularly with cholecalciferol (D3), was associated with a statistically significant 13% reduction in cancer mortality. The authors concluded that vitamin D likely reduces the risk of cancer death over a 5–7 year period, even though effects on incidence were not evident.
A randomized controlled trial in Nebraska by Lappe et al., involving postmenopausal women who received 2000 IU/day of vitamin D3 and 1500 mg/day of calcium, showed a non-significant 30% reduction in cancer incidence, with stronger effects emerging in secondary and stratified analyses. An earlier 2007 trial by the same group found a statistically significant reduction in cancer incidence with combined vitamin D and calcium supplementation.
Pooled data from 17 cohorts, as reported by McCullough et al., show a strong inverse association between circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels and colorectal cancer risk. Individuals in the highest quintile of serum 25(OH)D had a substantially lower risk of colorectal cancer compared to those in the lowest quintile, across diverse populations.
These findings converge on the possibility that vitamin D is more likely to influence cancer progression and lethality than initial incidence, particularly in populations with low baseline serum levels or in cancers like colorectal cancer that exhibit strong biological responsiveness.
Null trials can be useful. But when designed poorly, they become weapons of inference. The VITAL trial should be reinterpreted, not repeated.
If science is to regain public trust, it must show not just what it found, but what it never really asked.
References
- Bjelakovic G, Gluud LL, Nikolova D, et al. Vitamin D supplementation for prevention of mortality in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014;1:CD007470. https://www.cochrane.org/evidence/CD007470_vitamin-d-supplementation-prevention-mortality-adults
- Lappe JM, Watson P, Travers-Gustafson D, et al. Effect of vitamin D and calcium supplementation on cancer incidence in older women: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2017;317(12):1234-1243. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2613159
- Lappe JM, Travers-Gustafson D, Davies KM, Recker RR, Heaney RP. Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;85(6):1586-1591. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17556697/
- McCullough ML, Zoltick ES, Weinstein SJ, et al. Circulating vitamin D and colorectal cancer risk: an international pooling project of 17 cohorts. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2019;111(2):158-169. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6821324/
Welcome To 2026: Europe Laying Groundwork For Climate Science Censorship!
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | December 31, 2025
As EU narratives collapse, desparate leaders are planning more tyrannical measures to keep it all from sinking.
Currently, EU leaders are fuming that US officials would be so audacious as to accuse them of practicing censorship. Yet, when it comes to suppressing open discussions and differing viewpoints on major issues, things are in fact worse than most people think. And, it’s about to get even worse.
A recent (indirectly EU-funded) report released earlier this year shows how the EU is planning to broaden censorship to include the topics of climate and energy science.
In the “Harmful Environmental Agendas and Tactics” (HEAT) report, published by EU DisinfoLab and Logically, its authors investigate how climate-related misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM) are strategically used to undermine climate policy in Europe, specifically in Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
Climate science skeptics threaten democracy
The report argues that climate disinformation has moved beyond simple science denial and has become a tool for broader political and social polarization.
Outright denial of climate change, the authors claim, is being replaced by narratives focused on “climate delay.” These often acknowledge climate change but attack the feasibility, cost, and fairness of solutions, e.g., they claim green policies will bankrupt households or destroy industries.
The enemies
The report identifies four main pillars driving these agendas:
- The Conspiracy Milieu: Distrust of elites and “deep state” narratives (e.g., the “Great Reset”).
- Culture War/Partisan Discourse: Framing climate action as an authoritarian or elitist project.
- Hostile State Actors (HSAs): Significant involvement of Russian-linked networks (e.g., Portal Kombat) that use localized domains like Pravda DE to amplify divisive climate content.
- Big Oil Alignment: Narratives that align with fossil fuel interests, even if direct corporate attribution is often obscured.
In Germany, for example, there are attacks on the Energiewende (energy transition) and the Building Heating Act.
In France, there are links between climate policy and the “Yellow Vest” movement or anti-elitist sentiments.
Meanwhile, the “nitrogen crisis” has been reframed as “government land theft” in the Netherlands.
European leaders are convinced that their policies have nothing to do with all the failure going on. In their eyes, it’s all the fault of unruly citizens and their disinfoarmtion campaigns.
The report’s key recommendations
The authors call for decisive institutional and platform-level action to treat climate disinformation as a structural threat and a danger to democracy. This all needs to stop!
Platforms must act!
The primary recommendation is for the EU to explicitly recognize climate disinformation as a systemic risk under the Digital Services Act (a.k.a. by critics the Digital Censorship Act). This would force so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) to take proactive measures and conduct risk assessments.
The authors also call for mandating algorithm audits and public reporting on content moderation, specifically for climate content. It’s time to crack down on skeptics, they say.
“Independent” auditors
Moreover “independent researchers” are to be provided with access to disaggregated platform data to track how these narratives spread.
Another recommendation is calling for the labelling and limiting the reach of “ideological or sponsored” climate disinformation.
“Trusted flaggers”
The authors also are calling for greater monitoring of Russian-aligned and other hostile state operations that exploit climate debates to weaken EU democratic resilience.
Another step suggested to counter “climate disinformation” is the establishment of reporting channels for civil society organizations (so-called “trusted flaggers”) to flag coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) and harmful narratives to regulators.
“Prebunking”
Also “prebunking” campaigns aimed at proactively educating the public on disinformation tactics before they are exposed to them—especially in lower-educated rural and working-class areas that are frequently targeted.
WHO Instructs Governments to Track Online Anti-Vaccine Messaging in Real Time with AI: Journal ‘Vaccines’
Believe in vaccines or be targeted
By Jon Fleetwood | December 29, 2025
The World Health Organization (WHO) has demanded that governments surveil online information that questions the legitimacy of influenza vaccines and that they launch “countermeasures” against those who question the WHO’s vaccine dogma, in a November Vaccines journal publication.
The WHO’s largest funders are the U.S. government (taxpayers) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In the November publication, the WHO representatives do not argue for their beliefs in vaccines.
They do not attempt to interact with arguments against vaccines.
Instead, they call for governments to use artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor online opposition to injectable pharmaceuticals, and to develop ways to combat such opposition.
There is no persuasion, only doctrine.
The WHO paper reads:
“Vaccine effectiveness is contingent on public acceptance, making risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) an integral component of preparedness. The research agenda calls for the design of tailored communication strategies that address local sociocultural contexts, linguistic diversity, and trust dynamics.”
“Digital epidemiology tools, such as AI-driven infodemic monitoring systems like VaccineLies and CoVaxLies, offer real-time insight into misinformation trends, enabling proactive countermeasures.”
The WHO starts from the assumption that all vaccine skepticism is inherently false, pushing surveillance tools to track and catalog online dissent from those rejecting that creed.
The goal is not finding middle ground or even fostering dialogue.
It’s increasing vaccinations.
“The engagement of high-exposure occupational groups as trusted messengers is recommended to improve uptake.”
To accomplish this, governments “should” align “all” their messaging with the WHO’s denomination of vaccine faith.
“All messaging should align with WHO’s six communication principles, ensuring information is Accessible, Actionable, Credible, Relevant, Timely, and Understandable, to strengthen public trust in vaccination programmes.”
The WHO’s faith system requires not only that its own followers but also non-followers inject themselves with drugs linked to injuries, diseases, hospitalizations, and deaths.
If your posts online oppose that faith system, they are targeted and labeled as “misinformation.”
You require “behavioural intervention.”
You must be “counter[ed].”
“Beyond monitoring misinformation, participatory communication models that involve local leaders, healthcare workers, and veterinarians have shown measurable improvements in vaccine uptake and trust. Evidence-based behavioural interventions can complement these approaches to counter misinformation.”
The WHO is outlining an Orwellian control system where dissent is pathologized, belief is enforced by surveillance, and governments are instructed to algorithmically police thought in service of pharmaceutical compliance.
HHS/CDC Fund Online Game ‘Bad Vaxx’ to ‘Psychologically Inoculate’ Vaccine Resistance
Ironically, the game uses the very techniques it claims to train users to detect.
By Jon Fleetwood | December 27, 2025
U.S. taxpayer funds are being used by federal health agencies to develop and test online psychological games designed to condition how people—especially younger audiences—interpret and respond to vaccine skepticism.
An August Nature Scientific Reports study reveals that the project was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through a CDC award administered by the American Psychological Association.
The paper states that the funding totaled “$2,000,000 with 100% funded by CDC/HHS.”
The grant supporting the project is titled “COVID—INOCULATING AGAINST VACCINE MISINFORMATION,” award number 6NU87PS004366-03–02.
That award has already handed out over $4.3 million in taxpayer funds since its activation in 2018.
The project language mirrors the study’s conceptual framework: dissent is treated as exposure to a pathogen, and resistance to dissent is treated as immunity.
The government-funded study centers on the creation and evaluation of an online game called Bad Vaxx.
According to the authors, the purpose of the game is not to examine disputed vaccine claims or to compare competing evidence, but to reduce what they define as “vaccine misinformation” by shaping how players cognitively process vaccine-critical content.
This is despite the CDC’s own VAERS data confirming over 2.7 million injuries, hospitalizations, and deaths linked to vaccines since 1990.
The study authors explain their premise at the outset:
“Vaccine misinformation endangers public health by contributing to reduced vaccine uptake.”
From this premise, the study moves directly to intervention design.
“We developed a short online game to reduce people’s susceptibility to vaccine misinformation.”
The paper frames this approach as a form of psychological prevention, borrowing language from immunology rather than education or debate.
“Psychological inoculation posits that exposure to a weakened form of a deceptive attack… protects against future exposure to persuasive misinformation.”
The Bad Vaxx game operationalizes this concept by training players to recognize four specific “manipulation techniques”: what it refers to as emotional storytelling, fake expertise, the naturalistic fallacy, and conspiracy theories.
These techniques are treated as characteristic of vaccine misinformation as a category.
“The game trains people to spot four manipulation techniques, which previous studies have identified as being commonly used in the area of vaccine misinformation.”
The study does not include a corresponding examination of whether similar persuasive techniques may be used in vaccine-promoting messaging, government communications, or pharmaceutical advertising.
Ironically, the Bad Vaxx project itself relies on the same persuasive architecture it claims to neutralize—emotional framing, authority cues, and repetition—embedded in a gamified format designed to shape intuition rather than invite scrutiny.
The classification of “vaccine misinformation” is established in advance and applied only to information critical of injectable pharmaceutical products.
Throughout the paper, vaccine skepticism is framed as a behavioral and social risk rather than as a possible response to uncertainty, evolving evidence, or institutional error.
The taxpayer-funded authors write:
“Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 predicts lower compliance with public health regulations and lower willingness to get vaccinated.”
The choice of a game as the delivery mechanism is emphasized as a strength of the intervention.
The authors repeatedly describe the format as “entertaining,” “immers[ive],” and scalable, highlighting its ability to shape intuition rather than deliberation.
“A practical, entertaining intervention in the form of an online game can induce broad-scale resilience against manipulation techniques commonly used to spread false and misleading information about vaccines.”
Games function by rewarding correct pattern recognition, reinforcing desired responses, and reducing analytical friction.
The study’s outcome measures reflect this design: discernment scores, confidence ratings, and willingness to share content, rather than independent evaluation of claims or evidence comparison.
The researchers also emphasize the potential reach of such interventions.
“The Bad Vaxx game has the potential for adoption at scale.”
This matters because the funding source is not an academic foundation with no policy stake.
The CDC is the primary federal agency responsible for vaccine schedules, promotion, and uptake.
Yet the study does not address how this institutional role shapes the definition of misinformation used in the intervention, nor does it acknowledge the conflict inherent in a public health authority funding psychological tools aimed at managing disagreement with its own policies.
The dystopian nature of the project emerges from the structure itself: state funding, psychological conditioning, asymmetric definitions, and a delivery system designed to bypass debate in favor of intuition.
What the paper documents, in concrete terms, is the use of taxpayer funds to develop and validate a behavioral intervention—delivered through a medium optimized for psychological conditioning—that trains users to reflexively distrust a predefined category of speech, while exempting vaccine-promoting institutions from equivalent scrutiny.
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Tell Me Again, Who Made The Desert Bloom?
Lawrence of Cyberia | March 19, 2010
In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine, in support of the work of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The results were published in the Survey of Palestine, which has been scanned and made available online by Palestine Remembered; all 1300 pages can be read here.
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