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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon – MM2

Bart Sibrel | April 14, 2013

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Bart’s Book “MOON MAN”

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

A History of H5N1 Lab Accidents

A disturbing report by investigative journalist and author Alison Young

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | April 12, 2024

Exactly one year ago, the investigative journalist and author, Alison Young, published a report in USA Today on an accident that occurred on December 9, 2019 at the University of Wisconsin’s Influenza Research Institute.

The accident involved experiments with an H5N1 influenza virus that had been modified through GoF to make it transmissible among ferrets. The research team leader—a renowned virologist named Yoshihiro Kawaoka—had gained international attention (or notoriety) for his controversial GoF research on H5N1. As Alison Young reported:

… in late 2011 the world learned that two scientific teams – one in Wisconsin, led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, and another in the Netherlands, led by virologist Ron Fouchier – had potentially pushed the virus in that direction. Each of these labs had created H5N1 viruses that had gained the ability to spread through the air between ferrets, the animal model used to study how flu viruses might behave in humans.

The ultimate goal of this work was to help protect the world from future pandemics, and the research was supported with words and funding by two of the most prominent scientists in the United States: Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Kawaoka contended it would be “irresponsible not to study” how the virus might evolve in nature. “Some people have argued that the risks of such studies – misuse and accidental release, for example – outweigh the benefits. I counter that H5N1 viruses circulating in nature already pose a threat,” he said at the time.

In Nov. 2013, a needlestick accident happened on Kawaoka’s research team, followed by failure to adhere to the established quarantine rules. Though no human infection resulted from this accident, it was nevertheless alarming. Young’s report continues:

By 2014, there was a growing discomfort at the highest levels of the U.S. government about the risk of an accident with an engineered virus.

Wisconsin’s needlestick incident, which drew questions within NIH but wasn’t publicly known, was soon followed by a series of high-profile accidents at federal labs in 2014 – from safety breaches with anthrax and avian influenza at the CDC to the discovery of forgotten vials of smallpox that had been kept for decades in a storage room on the NIH campus.

In October 2014, citing these federal lab incidents, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a moratorium on new federal funding for certain gain-of-function research while the risks and benefits of the controversial experiments were studied.

The funding pause remained in place for three years until it was finally lifted in December 2017. But it was only in 2019 that some of the halted experiments were quietly allowed to begin again under a revised federal oversight process, which was criticized for keeping secret the details of the new experiments and the basis for the government approvals.

The second accident on Kawaoka’s team occurred less than a year after GoF experiments were allowed to resume. This time, a lab researcher in training was working with ferrets infected with the GoF-modified H5N1 when his respirator hose was discovered to have detached from his hood, allowing him to breathe the possibly contaminated air in the cabinet. Again the quarantine rules were not properly followed, and nor was the incident promptly reported to the NIH.

Though the accident purportedly did not result in a human infection, it nevertheless raises many questions about the prudence of manipulating the H5N1 virus in a lab in order to make it infectious and transmissible among mammals.

Alison Young’s report prompted me to start reading her book, Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk, published on April 25, 2023. Young has a long history of researching and reporting on Bio-labs and their checkered past. Most lab manipulation of pathogens is purportedly done to develop vaccines against them in the event that their natural iterations should ever evolve to infect humans, but this rationale is highly questionable if not downright mendacious.

Indeed, on December 18, 2013, the Foundation for Vaccine Research wrote a letter to the European Commission, signed by 56 scientists (including Nobel Laureates) in which they sharply criticized the GoF experiments on H5N1 by virologist, Ron Fouchier.

The 56 scientists vehemently express their opinion that naturally-occurring H5N1 does NOT efficiently transmit to humans and therefore poses little risk to humans.

Far more dangerous, they claim, is the possibility of a lab-modified H5N1 virus escaping from a lab. The scientists refer to the resurgence of H1N1 influenza in 1977 after a 20-year hiatus, most likely after escaping from a lab in the former Soviet Union.

April 15, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Did the U.S. Death Rate from Measles Decline by over 98% Before Introduction of a Measles Vaccine?

Injecting Freedom by Aaron Siri | April 12, 2024

Did the death rate from measles in the United States decline by over 98% between 1900 and 1962, the year before the first measles vaccine was introduced?

According to the CDC’s data, the death rate from measles had already declined over 98% between 1900 and 1962, which was before the measles vaccine was introduced in the United States.

This official United States government data shows that in 1900, the rate of mortality from measles was 13.3 per 100,000 individuals and by 1960 it was 0.2 deaths per 100,000 individuals. The death rate was also 0.2 deaths per 100,000 individuals in 1961 and 1962. And the first measles vaccine did not come onto the market until 1963. Meaning, an over 98% decline in measles mortality between 1900 and the early 1960s before there was a measles vaccine.

If you like charts, the following is an official chart of measles mortality issued by the United States government showing the drop in measles mortality from 1900 to 1960. This chart was published before there was a measles vaccine — no doubt they would never publish such a chart today!

April 14, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

15 Federal Agencies Knew About EcoHealth’s Gain-of-Function Proposal in 2018 But Said Nothing

‘Trail of Lies, Obfuscations and Cover-ups’

By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | April 12, 2024

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee announced on Tuesday they will investigate 15 federal agencies that were briefed in 2018 on a proposal to “insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.”

The $14.2 million project — DEFUSE, developed by Peter Daszak, Ph.D., president of EcoHealth Alliance in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wuhan lab) — was proposed on Jan. 30, 2018, during the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) PREventing EMerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT) Proposers Day program.

“Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research,” Paul said in the announcement, which noted that it took until 2021 before the public even learned of the DEFUSE project.

In announcing the investigation, Paul cited new information from documents not yet made public revealing that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Rocky Mountain Laboratories was a partner in the DEFUSE proposal.

In Paul’s letters to the agencies, he named Rocky Mountain Laboratories’s Vincent Munster, Ph.D., as the working partner in DEFUSE. Munster was co-author of a Jan. 24, 2020 New England Journal of Medicine article about “a novel coronavirus emerging in China” that neglected to mention the Wuhan lab or gain-of-function research on coronaviruses conducted there.

The letters also named the following newly discovered DEFUSE partners: the lab of Ralph Baric, Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Duke-NUS (National University of Singapore) Medical School and the lab of virologist Dr. Ian Lipkin at Columbia University.

Lipkin was one of the authors of the 2020 “Proximal Origin” paper that attempted to discredit the lab-leak theory of SARS-CoV-2 origins.

Paul requested the 15 federal agencies provide all documents, records and communications related to the DEFUSE project and PREEMPT Proposers Day events since 2016 at which agency personnel were present.

In addition to the NIAID and DARPA, Paul sent requests to the heads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Defense Health Agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Navy and Army, among other agencies.

USAID funded EcoHealth GOF research in 2015

Marine Corps Major Joseph Murphy, an internal DARPA whistleblower, in 2021 was the first to expose the 2018 DEFUSE proposal. Murphy said the EcoHealth proposal was later funded by NIAID — then under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci — through sub-grants to EcoHealth Alliance.

EcoHealth Alliance in turn worked with Wuhan lab to engineer SARS-CoV-2.

Murphy shared a DARPA document outlining the agency’s decision not to approve the EcoHealth Alliance project, noting “prior work under USAID Predict,” a pandemic preparedness program that “identified high risk of SARSr-CoVs in specific caves in Asia.”

In a Senate hearing Tuesday, Paul grilled USAID Administrator Samantha Power about her agency’s funding of gain-of-function research in China through EcoHealth Alliance. Power denied knowledge of any such program, “USAID has not authorized gain-of-function research,” she said. “This is the first time seeing this.”

Paul presented a poster-sized enlargement of a 2015 paper, “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence,” co-authored by Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan lab — and others, including Baric — with an acknowledgment section that credited “USAID-EPT-PREDICT funding from EcoHealth Alliance.”

After reading sections of the paper establishing that the researchers were undeniably conducting gain-of-function research, Paul raised the 2018 PREEMPT meeting where the DEFUSE project was presented, with its intention to insert a novel furin cleavage site “which doesn’t exist in nature but makes it incredibly more infectious in humans,” he said.

Paul said USAID was at the meeting — before Power joined the agency. “But nobody from USAID and nobody from all 15 agencies ever told anyone about this project,” he said, expressing incredulity that those attending the meeting would not have made a connection between DEFUSE and SARS-CoV-2 when it emerged in 2020 and “come forward to warn us that this could be a virus not from nature.”

The DEFUSE grant proposal and the PREEMPT program

In 2018, EcoHealth Alliance’s Daszak proposed the DEFUSE (Defusing the Threat of Bat-borne Coronaviruses) project to DARPA’s PREEMPT program. The proposal aimed to develop a bat vaccine to prevent SARS-related coronaviruses in Asia, focusing on high-risk hotspot bat caves in China.

The PREEMPT program was established to identify and mitigate emerging pathogenic threats. The DEFUSE proposal aligned with the PREEMPT program’s goals by aiming to suppress the viral population of SARS-related coronaviruses in bat populations, reducing the risk of spillover into humans.

DARPA hosted the 2018 “PREEMPT Proposers Day” to introduce potential applicants to the PREEMPT program. The event provided an overview of the program, facilitated networking among potential proposers, and provided a platform for attendees to present their technical capabilities and interest in forming partnerships.

Attendees included government personnel — the 15 agencies Paul listed — academic researchers and representatives from various organizations interested in collaborating on the project.

Presenters were allowed only a single slide and three minutes to pitch their projects. EcoHealth’s slide included the following gain-of-function research proposition:

“Experimental assays to test QS0 jump potential: Sequence QS0 spike protein similarity to high-risk SARSr-CoVs, model spike structure to assess ACE2 binding, then in vitro and ACE2 humanized mouse experiments. Use results to test machine-learning genotype-to-phenotype model predictions of viral spillover risk.”

DARPA ultimately rejected the DEFUSE proposal due to significant weaknesses, including the potential for dangerous gain-of-function research and the lack of risk mitigation plans.

Daszak under increasing scrutiny

Paul on April 9 penned an op-ed for Fox News outlining his committee’s new investigation.

“Under duress, the administration finally released documents that show that the DEFUSE project was pitched to at least 15 agencies in January 2018,” he wrote.

Paul alleged Daszak concealed the DEFUSE proposal and that UNC scientist Baric failed to reveal that the Wuhan lab had already proposed to create a virus similar to COVID-19.

On the “RFK Jr Podcast” Thursday, Paul called Daszak “the bag man for Wuhan, China” and “basically a money guy” who has been able to procure “over $100 million from the government … through schmoozing and … fancy proposals.”

Daszak was a U.S. representative to the World Health Organization’s 2021 investigation into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which ultimately found the lab-leak theory “extremely unlikely.”

Paul, who on April 1 announced the launch of a bipartisan investigation into the origins of COVID-19, told Kennedy he believed Daszak has been concealing information about the development of viruses in China. “He’s evidence of what’s gone wrong and what has gone amok in a scientific community and the grant community,” Paul said.

House Republicans have also been investigating Daszak. In November 2023, the House Oversight and Energy and Commerce committees conducted a closed-door transcribed interview with Daszak.

Because new documents recently received by the committees under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request contradict portions of Daszak’s testimony, the committees have scheduled a public hearing with Daszak on May 1.

At issue is Daszak’s statement that EcoHealth Alliance would only be conducting gain-of-function research in the U.S. if DARPA approved the DEFUSE proposal. But the FOIA documents suggest, “EcoHealth intended to mislead DARPA and conduct the risky research at the Wuhan lab instead,” according to an Energy and Commerce Committee press release.

In the announcement for the upcoming hearing, the committee chairs quoted from their letter to Daszak:

“These revelations undermine your credibility as well as every factual assertion you made during your transcribed interview. The Committees have a right and an obligation to protect the integrity of their investigations, including the accuracy of testimony during a transcribed interview. We invite you to correct the record.”

‘Just a trail of lies, obfuscations and cover-ups’

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Paul said Fauci likely knew as early as 2018 about the Wuhan lab’s desire to create a coronavirus. He also said Fauci “commissioned people to say the opposite” of what they actually thought about the origins of the virus.

Fauci repeatedly denied that NIAID funded gain-of-function research under his watch. During a contentious exchange with Paul at a July 2021 Senate hearing, Fauci said, “Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. … The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., then-director of the NIH, in a May 2021 statement made the denial even broader, saying, “Neither NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported ‘gain-of-function’ research on coronaviruses.”

Paul told Kennedy he had a 250-page document on his desk concerning a briefing for Fauci on NIH’s interaction with coronaviruses, but that “every word has been … redacted.”

“I do think there was an enormous conspiracy … because they knew that they had funded this lab in Wuhan, and that … blame would attach to them for the pandemic,” Paul told Kennedy. “And there’s just a trail of lies, obfuscations and cover-ups.”

Jamie Metzl, a former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who in 2021 called for the removal of Daszak as president of EcoHealth Alliance, weighed in on the emerging controversy:

NIAID has not commented on its involvement, according to the Daily Mail. Spokespersons for the Army and CDC acknowledged receipt of Paul’s letters and said they would be responding, according to The Epoch Times.

A statement released by EcoHealth Alliance claimed Paul’s op-ed “uncritically repeats several unfounded and false claims” and that the organization “did not support ‘gain-of-function’ research at Wuhan lab” or “send ‘millions of dollars’ to another scientist to create chimeric coronaviruses.”

EcoHealth further claimed that at the time of the 2018 meeting, the DEFUSE proposal had not yet been drafted or submitted to DARPA, and that “the presence of a Federal Agency at the Proposer’s Day event does not mean that they had detailed information” about the proposal.

John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

April 14, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | 1 Comment

Let’s Talk About the Moon

It’s time

NewZealandDoc | April 13, 2024

The night that Neil Armstrong was one small step for (a) man from the lunar surface I was taking my first airplane flight to a hockey camp near Toronto. I remember gazing out the window of the jet as a fourteen year old in July 1969 and imagining the Apollo craft on its impossible and miraculous journey to the very moon which I and countless others had marveled at and regarded as forever out of reach.

Yet reach it we did — we being the all-powerful United States of America, then simultaneously wielding its might in the jungles of a faraway country with perverse ferocity and with the sacrifice of American youngsters in the service of the hazy ideal of protection against Communism.

For many years, while cognizant of the endless warpath trodden by the country of my birth AFTER it had emerged as the glowing victor of World War II, bursting with economic and creative energy and bestriding the rest of the globe as the Colossus, I consoled myself and others with that magnificent and scarcely imaginable achievement of lunar landings.

Placing a man on the moon, that pure and nearly snow-white surface as far removed from the heat and grime of the napalmed Vietnamese jungles, somehow unified humanity in praise and deference, and established the United States as the artificer of miracles. In so doing it also lent a burnished sheen of intimidating and awe-inspiring power to an America whose tradition of can-do individualism was seen to have vanquished its socialistic rival, Russia.

The eyes of humankind for as long as it has trodden this precious Earth have looked heavenward and followed the glowing and bright and changeable Moon with a plethora of dreams and wishes and sighs. To have reached the lunar surface, to have made that impossibly giant leap, became the stuff of insurmountable accomplishment. In sum, no matter how degraded or destructive or sinister the Deep State factions of the United States had been with their never-ending wars and atrocities, the Apollo missions were an offsetting balm, a reminder of greatness and goodness and magnificence on which all could agree as the fulfillment of one of the grandest of dreams.

I had heard, throughout the years, of the cavils of small-minded conspiracy theorists who questioned the Apollo landings, but I had dismissed them or, more accurately, simply ignored them. Knowledgeable though I was about the devastating State-sponsored murders of JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X, and cognizant as I was of the sickening exhibition of destructive deception that was 9/11, Apollo was a glowing ember of hope and beneficence, an emblem of the possibilities of a beneficent collective — the very stuff that dreams are made on, dreams which all of us could share and revel in and be proud about having realized, utterly without qualm.

Nonetheless, for one reason or other, nagged no doubt by an itch fostered by State duplicity, I decided to look into Apollo a bit more closely. I decided, in fact, to do my own bit of sleuthing just to make sure that the stirrings and suspicions about Apollo could be attributed to malaise and malcontents rather than to veracity.

My looking about and digging in resulted in a personal surprise, and a personal awakening. I discovered, in fact, that the case for legitimate human footsteps upon the lunar surface was ridiculously absurd. I discovered that I — and most of the world, I supposed — had accepted a grand illusion as reality when a cool examination of the evidence led to the deflating conclusion that Apollo was a hoax. A big one, a splendid one, an unparalleled one, but a hoax nonetheless.

I wrote my first article about Apollo in 2018, entitled, “How High the Moon”, which appeared on the http://www.aulis.com website. Others followed, including “Moon Landings: Magnificent and Deviously Contrived Propaganda,” and a review of a film by the Italian documentarian Massimo Mazzucco. I urge you to take a look at them.

Determined to lay the matter to rest for myself I even lit upon a small but telling anomaly — the Apollo 11 command module’s extra-vehicular handles. Made of aluminum, these handles should have melted under the intense heat of reentry; but they didn’t. I have published my findings comprehensively here and, in a more accessible fashion, here. These are small potatoes compared to the work of Kaysing, René, Sibrel, Percy, Bennett, Allen, Henderson, McGowan, Wisnewski and many others, whose extensive investigations have revealed and exposed innumerable discrepancies and problems with the official NASA account about virtually every aspect of the Apollo missions. Randy Walsh’s recent books are highly recommended for their overviews.

But allow me, in passing, to direct your attention to this famous video clip of what has become known as the ‘lunar grand prix’:

You be the judge as you watch the robotically immobile driver and listen to the comically insipid commentary.

The single greatest argument against the Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972 is the fact that despite the astronomically exponential growth of computational and technological power since then, somehow or other getting ‘back’ to the moon in the 21st century has not yet been achieved.

Interestingly enough, the trailer for a new film about Apollo has just been released:

From what I can tell it brazenly suggests that NASA actually undertook to film a fake lunar landing just in case the ‘real’ one didn’t fly. I wonder why, just now, in the aftermath of a fake pandemic, this candy-coated message has been released. Is it a clever piece of propaganda designed to forestall the obvious astonishment and questioning of generations born into the internet age when they are asked to accept the clumsy and comical NASA videos of last century? Is it a sophisticated psychological way to resuscitate the halo of the Apollo achievements? What will the impact of encasing a truth within the envelope of a lie amount to, over time?

My point however is that of all the psyops, Apollo stands out supremely. Unlike the assassinations of JFK or RFK, unlike 9/11 or covid, it is not terrifyingly destructive. It is instead positive, meant to induce awe — which creates a different kind of fear among those worshipping at the altar of the miracle — and to bathe us in the aura of supreme human achievement, of conquering the unconquerable and patting ourselves on our backs, we denizens of the little species that could.

It is and has also been a way to cover over the darker and rabidly perverse and destructive machinations of State factions whose goals have been and still are endless war, power and profit — sprinkled with a dash of what I call ‘brinkmanship madness’.

For it is eminently possible that the corrupt Deep State JFK sought to confront, the one that brought us to the lip of nuclear war in the Sixties and is now bringing us all to the edge of a New Tyrannical Order, replete with hot wars and wars irregular and concealed against our very humanity, has a wild and unpredictably calamitous streak.

Those at the helm can be crazy enough to bring us all down in an orgy of annihilation even as they promise themselves visions of transhumanist immortality.

Let’s see.

I thought long and hard about discussing the Moon and the myths of America’s Apollo, because these views might cast aspersion on an already fragile alliance of people protesting against the deceptions of the covid operation. But I think the time is right — maybe Fly Me to the Moon nudged me a little?

If we are going to prevail and really create a better world — as I think we indeed are on another brink of doing — what better way to begin than by discarding all of the grand illusions in favor of humility and truth?

One final note. At the famous press conference of Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were asked by a reporter if they could see stars from the lunar surface.

The answers are instructive.

Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D.

April 2024

April 14, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Film Review, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | 3 Comments

Japanese Professor’s Message to World

“Fraudulent use of gene therapy in healthy people an extreme violation of human rights”

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | April 11, 2024

Masayasu Inoue is Professor Emeritus of Osaka City University Medical School who specializes in molecular pathology. Reviewing his publishing resume, I wasn’t surprised to see that he has a longstanding interest in oxidative stress. His paper titled Mitochondrial Generation of Reactive Oxygen Species and its Role in Aerobic Life presents the following summary:

The present work also describes that a cross-talk of molecular oxygen, nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide radicals regulates the circulation, energy metabolism, apoptosis, and functions as a major defense system against pathogens. Pathophysiological significance of ROS generation by mitochondria in the etiology of aging, cancer and degenerative neuronal diseases is also described.

Lately “the etiology of aging, cancer and degenerative neuronal diseases” has been been on my mind a lot, as the young friend of a friend was recently discovered to have advanced, metastatic melanoma of unknown primary site that had spread to her brain. The day after I heard this news, I saw the following article in the New York Post:

Cancer rates rising in young people due to ‘accelerated aging,’ according to ‘highly troubling’ new study

Naturally the “troubling new study” mentions nothing about the genetic shots that have been repeatedly injected into young people for the last three years.

Listen to Professor Inoue’s “Message to the World” and try to fathom the crime against humanity he describes. It will be very interesting to see how long YouTube will allow it to remain on the platform.

 

April 13, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | 1 Comment

War and Peace in an Ocean of Lies

Does anyone in Washington care about Israel’s crimes?

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW  • APRIL 11, 2024

One expects that anyone involved in politics will lie whenever they think they can get away with it to burnish one’s own image and while also distorting reality to promote policies that are being favored. Nevertheless, the record of high crimes committed by a series of presidents and their top aides since the so-called “war on terror” began has established a new low for government veracity. One would have thought that the fake intelligence fabricated by a group of Zionists in the Pentagon and White House to launch the misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq would be as bad as it could possibly get, but the Joe Biden team has outdone even those unfortunately unindicted criminals by allowing itself to be maneuvered by friends in NATO and by Israel into situations that are one step short of nuclear war.

Listening to John Kirby, Lloyd Austin, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield speak suggests that a course of remedial English might be in order as they cannot articulate a sentence that is coherent, especially as they are frequently lying or being deliberately evasive. And then there is teleprompter Joe himself who can pout over the killing of 13,000 children in Palestine while also secretly sending weapons to the Israelis who are eager to slaughter still more based on the judgement that they will grow up to be “terrorists.” Joe’s idea of a exchange of views with the Israeli government is a threat to maybe do something unspecific followed by a strongly worded message from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling him to “Go to hell!”

Joe’s gang cannot confirm that the Israelis are committing war crimes linked to genocide even though the rest of the world, including a majority of Americans, watch it happening on television and are convinced regarding what is taking place. But hey, Israel is a wonderful little democracy and America’s best friend and ally in the whole wide world. Or at least that is what Congress and the White House as well as the Jewish dominated media want you to believe. In reality, Israel is a racist and sectarian state that has been a US liability since it was founded, something that Secretary of State George Marshall warned about, but Harry Truman wanted Jewish money so he could get reelected. Some things never change as we watch Biden and Trump battle for the shekels by pledging their loyalty to Israel.

The latest wrinkle on the consequences of loving Israel so much comes with what is going on with Iran, which had its Embassy Consulate General building in Damascus Syria attacked by Israeli fighter planes, killing two senior Iranian generals plus a number of other Iranians, Lebanese and Syrians. For what it’s worth, embassies and consulates are generally speaking regarded as untouchable military targets under the terms of the Vienna Convention, which sought to keep enemies talking to each other even under the most adverse circumstances. In fact, Syria last fought Israel in 1973, more than fifty years ago, and has not gone to war with the Israelis since that time while Israel has been bombing Syria regularly as well as killing Iranian officials and scientists for many years. Iran, like Syria of late, has never attacked Israel.

Iran has said it will retaliate and Israel has gone on high alert. So what does Biden do? He warned Iran to back off and ignores the fact that it was Israel that did the unprovoked attacking and started the whole business and pledges “ironclad” support for the Jewish state if Iran dares to do anything serious in response. There are also reports that Israel and the US are planning jointly their possible retaliation if Iran were to strike. General Erik Kurilla, commander of the US Central Command, is now on his way to Israel and is expected to meet Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior Israel Defense Forces officials to coordinate possible US responses with those of Israel. Nota bene that President Biden has flipped the right or wrong of the entire affair over to do exactly what Israel wants, i.e. hopefully have the US go to war with the Iranians. This has been Netanyahu’s intention right from the beginning and there is also a bit of blackmail thrown in for good measure with Israel threatening to start using its secret nuclear arsenal if the United States stops supplying the Jewish state with weapons. Israeli Knesset member Nissim Vaturi, a representative in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, issued the threat in an unsubtle way while discussing the probability that Iran would retaliate against Israel for bombing its embassy. He said “In the event of a conflict with Iran, if we do not receive American ammunition … we will have to use everything we have.” In other words, Israel will have no choice but to start dropping nuclear weapons on its enemies and might also attack its friends who failed to support it, a reference to the Samson Option in which a beleaguered Israel would use its nukes to “take everyone down with them.”

The timing of the embassy attack suggests that Israel is acting as it does, i.e. taking steps to shift the narrative and restore its perpetual “victimhood,” because it definitely needs a public relations boost in a world where only the US and a few other nations aligned with Washington are not yet ready to give up on Bibi and his wild plans for regional domination. The horrific killing of hundreds of Palestinians in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as well as the targeted assassination of seven employees of a charity that was bringing in food to those starving due to Israel’s blocking the entry of relief supplies have been the top stories all over the world, and rightly so. The Israeli disdain for any behavior that might show weakness in the drive to remove the Palestinians from Palestine has resulted in the Jewish state’s being condemned and boycotted by much of the world with more to come.

Nevertheless, even in those countries that have made illegal pro-Palestinian expressions, demonstrations calling for a ceasefire have attracted hundreds of thousands of protesters. The governments confronting elections later this year, including the US and Germany, are under considerable pressure to respond to the popular sentiment. Indeed, it is already being mooted that President Joe Biden might well fail to be re-elected due to his kid gloves handling of Netanyahu who has assessed Biden’s weakness and has heedlessly taken US support as a given while also ignoring the warnings that are now coming out of Washington and elsewhere over the genocide taking place.

Indeed, it would be useful to speculate that the conflict in Gaza is in part being used as a smokescreen for developments with Iran and other Israeli neighbors that may prove more dangerous in the long run. Even the well-informed might be surprised to learn that even though Israel is not actually at war legally with several of its neighbors, it is nevertheless de facto at war with three countries, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. It has been exchanging fire with the Lebanese Hezbollah militias on its northern border on an almost daily basis since fighting with Hamas began in October and has sought and apparently obtained US guarantees of direct support should Hezbollah escalate its activity. In Syria, which has not in any way attacked Israel, the Israeli air and missile forces have staged numerous attacks against targets that it invariably claims to be “Iranian” even though most of the casualties are Syrians. There have been missile and bombing attacks on Syria nearly weekly since 2017, including a number of recent incidents involving both Damascus and Aleppo international airports that endangered civilian passengers and air crews.

As reported above, the most recent and most damaging attack was directed against the Iranian Consulate General, which was attached to the Iranian Embassy located in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The building was completely destroyed by six missiles fired from F-35 fighter planes that had crossed over the Syrian border from Israel, killing several long-serving diplomats alongside Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi. It was also reported that Brigadier General Hossein Amirollah, the chief of general staff for the al-Quds force in Syria and Lebanon, was among the victims as was at least one Hezbollah member. Sources in Syria confirmed that a total of 13 people were killed in the attack, including six Syrians. Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said afterwards that “We consider this aggression to have violated all diplomatic norms and international treaties. Benjamin Netanyahu has completely lost his mental balance due to the successive failures in Gaza and his failure to achieve his Zionist goals.” Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge.

And just days before the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Israeli military had launched massive strikes against a target in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo which killed at least 40 people, most of them soldiers. The air strikes hit a weapons depot, resulting in a series of explosions that also killed six Hezbollah fighters.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) subsequently revealed that it had strengthened air defenses and called up reservists in expectation of a response either from Lebanon or directly from Iran itself. Zahedi was an important Iranian official, reportedly responsible for the IRGC’s operations in Syria and Lebanon, for Iranian militias there, and for ties with Hezbollah, and was thus the most senior commander of Iranian forces in the two countries. His killing was the most significant death of a senior Iranian official since the murder in Baghdad of General Qassim Soleimani by the Trump Administration in January 2020. As the IRGC is a US-designated terrorist organization, Washington may have in advance approved of the Israeli action, though that was denied by the Pentagon.

Iran’s possible reprisal includes the capability to respond by directly launching missiles from its own territory rather than via any of its proxy groups, which include the militias it supports in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Responding to that possibility, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz has warned on social media that if Tehran attacked from its territory, Israel would react and “attack in Iran.” Iran may therefore choose to respond indirectly or through a proxy, but any major reprisal would be giving Israel an excuse to elevate the conflict, which just might be the main reason for the attack on the Consulate General in the first place. It is, however, widely believed that the Iranian leadership is eager to avoid any escalation into a major or even a minor exchange that could be referred to as a war. Nevertheless, posters have gone up around Tehran in a sign of public pressure for an Iranian response. “The defeat of the Zionist regime in Gaza will continue and this regime will be close to decline and dissolution,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech to the country’s officials in Tehran. “Desperate efforts like the one they committed in Syria will not save them from defeat. Of course, they will also be slapped for that action,” he added.

Israeli Defense Minister Gallant responded to the Ayatollah, saying that Israel is “increasing preparedness” in the face of threats from all across the Middle East. Gallant said that the country’s defense establishment is “expanding our operations against Hezbollah, against other bodies that threaten us,” and reiterated that Israel “strikes our enemies all over the Middle East… We will know how to protect the citizens of Israel and we will know how to attack our enemies.”

Intelligence sources in Washington suggest that Iran will try to respond by possibly blowing up an Israeli Embassy or other building, or even by assassinating an Israeli official, but they will more likely do something indirectly through a proxy like Hezbollah or the Houthis. They could also send a more subtle message by accelerating their nuclear program, though there is a danger that that would definitely bring the US into the game, which is precisely what Israel would like to see. They want to cripple Iran but would much prefer that all the heavy lifting – and the casualties and costs – be endured by Washington. If a US intervention were to occur and there were a misstep, it could easily escalate into a regional war with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran all lined up against the US and Israel with China and Russia likely to be playing a supporting role aiding the Arabs and Iranians. And don’t forget that Israel is nuclear armed. If it gets in trouble it would see itself as a victim and would be tempted to do something very dangerous.

So it is easy to see that Israel has staged a deliberate provocation to draw Washington into its wars. It is playing with fire in an attempt to once and for all establish its dominance over all of its neighbors. Interestingly, the tone deaf Biden Administration appears to be falling into the trap set by the Israelis. Beyond the “ironclad” pledge, it also voted against a Russian and Chinese drafted UN Security Council resolution to condemn the Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate General. The vote should have been a no brainer given the clear violation of international law and act of war committed by Israel in doing what it did, but the US was joined by Britain and France in casting the veto vote “no” reportedly after “Diplomats said the US told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear.” It all means that Biden is stepping in it yet again in a situation where Netanyahu is in control and running circles around him.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

April 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 1 Comment

Late admission: Who is really responsible for the chemical attacks in Syria?

By Bakhtiar Urusov – New Eastern Outlook – 12.04.2024 

On 22 February this year, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) issued an opinion from the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) that found ISIL responsible for the use of chemical weapons (CW) in the Syrian town of Mari in September 2015.

Despite the fact that it took the OPCW more than 8 years to state a known fact, the conclusion uses cautious language such as “there is reason to believe” that “only ISIL could have had the intent, motive and capability” to use CW at this location.

The conclusion is based on another OPCW document, the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) report on the Mari incident, dated 24 January 2022.

It is noteworthy that the OPCW inspectors conclude that CW has been used by ISIL fighters against other “armed groups”, including the US-controlled terrorist organisation Jabhat al-Nusra. Despite its official recognition by the international community as a terrorist organisation, the report refers to this international terrorist organisation as “armed opposition to ISIL”. It also states separately that there were no Syrian army forces in the Mari area. In reality, this refers to the presence of chemical weapons in the terrorists’ possession, which they used in their struggle for power.

At the same time, there are known facts of the use of chemical weapons by Jebhat al-Nusra itself. For example, in 2015, Turkish parliamentarians presented evidence of supplies of precursors for CW (sarin) and CW missiles by militant groups from Turkey.

Details of British and American intelligence assistance to extremists in the creation of CWs are revealed in the book “The Red Line and the Rat Line” by the well-known American journalist Seymour Hersh.  In it, the author refers to the documents of the US military intelligence, according to which the US not only knew about the creation of CW by pro-Turkish militants with the help of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but also actively contributed to it.

This fact played a key role in President Obama’s declaration of readiness to attack Syrian troops if CW were used. The Americans knew that such a scenario had already been prepared by extremists supported by Washington and its allies – Ankara, Riyadh and Qatar. The “White Helmets” and “Belingcat” organisations, created by Britain’s MI6, were to provide the necessary media image to justify the invasion of Syria.

Damascus’ proposal to destroy Syria’s CW stockpiles, with Moscow’s active mediation, postponed for a while, but did not stop the provocations with its use. Apparently, the initiative took the members of the anti-Assad coalition by surprise and they had no plan B. Against the background of the defeat of the terrorists in Syria, it was too late to create another pretext for a quick invasion of Syria.

The subsequent chemical attacks in Syrian cities were clearly attributed to the Syrian army. Without any investigation, based only on the testimony of the White Helmets and Belingcat, the Americans, British and French launched several massive attacks against the Syrian army in an attempt to prevent the defeat of the terrorists. Just three days after the Syrian Air Force destroyed a militant CW depot in Khan Shaykhun (April 2017), the US Navy struck the Syrian Air Force’s Shayrat airbase with missiles, a base which had played a key role in pushing al-Nusra militants out of northern Idlib province. When the Syrian military forced the militants to retreat from the suburb of Douma in April 2018, the militants staged a chemical attack there, prompting a massive missile attack by US, French and British forces on the advancing Syrian army just six days after the incident. As before, the White Helmets’ testimony about the Syrian army’s use of CW was enough for the West. With the full cooperation of Damascus, OPCW experts inspected the site of the alleged CW use. Subsequently, one of the inspectors appeared at the UN with a refutation of the White Helmets’ conclusion, providing evidence of a staged use of CW. However, his testimony was rejected by the OPCW and he was ostracised and dismissed without any legal basis.

Similar provocations have been carried out in other cities in Syria. All of them have one thing in common – preliminary military successes of the Syrian army against terrorists in a particular area, the absence of any military sense in the use of CW, as well as immediate air strikes by the “friends of Syria” led by the United States, the invasion of foreign troops into the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.

If it took more than eight years to recognise ISIL responsibility for the use of CW, it took only a few days for the West to accuse and attack government forces. All the CW provocations in Syria are reminiscent of the infamous test tube of white powder demonstrated by US Secretary of State C. Powell at the UN in 2003. With the passage of time this lie, which became the pretext for the invasion of Iraq, has become obvious to everyone. The use of CWs by terrorists supported by the West, Turkey and KSA is also becoming obvious. But we should not expect Washington, London, Paris or Ankara to acknowledge this fact any time soon. This would mean admitting that they have committed crimes against humanity, violated many international conventions and carried out aggressions against sovereign states.

Collective condemnation of the crimes of these countries in the UN, the OPCW and other international and regional organisations should be a defence against such a policy of the West. International cooperation should be established to repel such hybrid attacks on yet another “overly independent” state that, according to Washington, intends to defend its national interests “to the detriment of the interests of the United States.”

April 12, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Attack on Pearl Harbor Was No Surprise (Part IV)

Tales of the American Empire | April 11, 2024

The previous three parts of this series provide overwhelming evidence that American President Franklin Roosevelt knew a Japanese carrier force was sailing east to attack Hawaii in late 1941. Few Americans know about this shocking fact because their government controls informational sources. In 1989, the BBC produced a great documentary about the Pearl Harbor attack titled: “Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor.” Not only does this documentary expose the truth, the title says that President Franklin Roosevelt sacrificed 2,403 Americans at Pearl Harbor to trick Americans to support his goal of entering World War II. As a result of tighter government controls, this documentary can no longer be found on the BBC’s Timeline documentary website and it is blocked from posting at YouTube.

_______________________________________

“Operation Gladio”; BBC; 1992;    • Operation Gladio – Full 1992 document…  

“USS Liberty: Dead in the Water”; BBC; 2002;    • USS Liberty: Dead in the Water – BBC …  

“Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor”; BBC; 1989;    • Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor (BBC)  

Related Tales: “The Attack on Pearl Harbor”;    • The Attack on Pearl Harbor  

April 12, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant: The Samson Solution

Sputnik – 11.04.2024

Ukraine continues its attacks on Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi warned that it came “quite close” to a nuclear accident on Sunday after it was attacked by drones.

Dr. Chris Busby, a physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, shares his opinion about what the non-stop Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant could result in with Sputnik.

We all know the Biblical story of the end of Samson. Having been betrayed and captured by the Philistines, Samson ends his life, and all the others around him, by exerting his great strength and pulling down the pillar he was chained to. The building falls down, killing him and all his captors. This has always been my worry about what I will call the Ukrainian conflict.

As the developments go against Ukraine, there is an increasing tendency to abandon direct engagement with the Russian forces (lack of weapons, poor air cover, army losses) and rather to move to a kind of Terminator 2 warfare. Action at a distance, using robot drones and cruise missiles. A move towards a spiteful kind of warfare that is relatively cheap but results in politically spectacular results.

Well, so what – you may say. For me, as someone who has studied the effects of radiation and radioactive contamination, the possibilities relating to the six reactors and associated waste cooling ponds of the Zaporozhye nuclear site represent something which would have more effect on Europe and Ukraine and indeed the world than anything that has occurred so far.

For individuals in Ukraine, motivated by hatred and spite, the site is a tempting target. Do these people know what it is they are doing, or may do? I think they don’t. Or maybe, like Samson, they don’t care. They want to pull the house down. In this case, Europe, Russia, the world.

Of course, they have no idea what could happen if one of the reactors went up. Or a spent fuel pond. And let’s be clear, if one goes up, like the domino effect at Fukushima, probably they all go up. That is because nuclear fuel is hot. Even spent nuclear fuel is hot. The fuel in the reactor in shutdown, or in the spent fuel ponds, has to be cooled. If it is not cooled (by pumping water round it, or cooling the water in the ponds by spraying) then it gets hotter and hotter. Then it melts.

When nuclear fuel melts together it forms a critical mass. The neutron flux increases and increases. It turns into a kind of nuclear bomb. That explodes and sends radioactive material up in the air, as with Chernobyl, as with Fukushima.

The winds carry this Pandoras box contents for hundreds, even thousands of kilometres. The Chernobyl radiation went west, after contamination of an enormous tract of land and water courses, sending the contamination through Kiev, down the Dnepr to Zaporozhye and beyond. Studies of cancer and infant mortality, congenital malformations along the water route found significant effects, children died, from cancer, from heart attacks, the population of Belarus, the entire country showed a sharp increase in adult deaths, at the same time a sharp reduction in births.

As far away as Wales and Scotland children died from leukemia; I know this, I studied the numbers which were released to me when I was part of the UK Committee examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters, CERRIE. Babies developed leukemia in Germany and Greece. And the explosion of one reactor at Zaporozhye is a much bigger deal than Chernobyl.

How could this happen? There are a number of possibilities. First, a cruise missile attack on one of the reactor buildings could theoretically result in the penetration of one of the reactors. There are penetration warheads in existence now that can cut through concrete; using depleted uranium (DU) penetration.

Do we know what Ukraine has in the way of cruise missiles? I don’t. I read that France and UK have given Ukraine cruise missiles. Also depleted uranium weapons. Some of these went up at Khmelnitsky, as I wrote about. The material went north west to Poland, Belarus and Germany, round Scandinavia, and ended up (and was measured) in England. Ukraine has (it seems) promised not to use these cruise missiles to attack distant targets in Russia, or the Crimea bridge. But Zaporozhye is not a distant target. It is just across the river (indeed there was an attack by boats).

Then there could be a fatal destruction of the control room and control facilities, so that the reactor goes mad and can’t be controlled. Then the cooling system could be knocked out. The electricity supply, the stand-by generators. Nuclear power stations are a very big target. They were never built to survive a war. It is no wonder that Rafael Grossi, the IAEA supremo, is worried.

The substances released by such an explosion include Caesium-137 with a half life of about 30 years. That means it’s around for 100 years or more. This causes cancer but also affects muscles, as in children’s heart muscles. They get arrythmias and die of heart attacks. The rate of arrythmias in children in Belarus is 15 %. In the rest of the world the background rate is 2%.

The contamination includes Strontium-90, which binds to DNA, causes cancer and kills children in the womb, or causes malformations. There are (of course) enormous amounts of Uranium particles. Uranium has a half life of billions of years. There is Plutonium. I can go on and on. And on. The radiation, focused inside the body, or the people, the animals, the plants, will destroy everything slowly.

But what about Chernobyl, you say, that hasn’t destroyed Europe. Well, just look at the cancer rates in Europe from 1986 onwards. In England, in the 1990s, about one in 6 developed cancer. In 2022 it was closer to one in 3. It is predicted (by WHO) to be soon 1 in 2. And this is adjusted for age. No one is asking why this epidemic has developed (except me).

The Samson option, will destroy the health of the population of Ukraine, Europe, Russia, and further afield. It would poison the productive land, crops would fail or else be poisonous.

The Samson option, it seems to me, is a possibility which I put in the same box in my head as Global Nuclear War. Ukraine has no nuclear weapons. But this can be done.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Still Trying to End the Vietnam War Killings

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | April 10, 2024

The Vietnam War ended nearly 50 years ago. Still, the killing and maiming is not over. People continue to suffer from and succumb to injuries from the war long past. And others, often people born since the war’s end, are killed or injured by the explosion of some of the many bombs from the war that now clutter Vietnam.

A March 15 New York Times article profiles Chuck Searcy who, as a United States Army intelligence analyst in Vietnam, became disillusioned with the war. Years later, writes Seth Mydans in the article, Searcy is working in Vietnam on ameliorating the harm from the left behind bombs. Project Renew that he cofounded has been “deploying teams of de-miners, teaching schoolchildren how to stay safe, and providing prosthetics and job training to victims” for over 20 years. You can read the article here.

It is inspiring that people are dedicated to trying to minimize the long-term damage of the US government’s wars. It is unfortunate, though, that, since the Vietnam War, Americans have been suckered into allowing their government to pursue a series of devastating wars across the world. These wars, like the Vietnam War, have killed and maimed many people and then, after their conclusion, left behind new streams of suffering that flow into the future.

The world would do much better if there were a big uptick in one “illness” in America: the Vietnam Syndrome.

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

‘Low Credibility’ Study Claims No Link Between Cellphone Use and Brain Tumors

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 9, 2024

A new peer-reviewed study concluded that heavy cellphone use was not associated with an increased risk of developing brain tumors. But some critics questioned the results, citing methodological flaws and bias from industry funding.

The authors of the COSMOS study (Cohort Study on Mobile Phones and Health) promoted it as the world’s largest multinational prospective cohort study on the potential health risks of cellphone use.

They said the study, published in Environmental International, found “no evidence” of increased risk for developing three common brain tumors linked to heavy cellphone use.

“Our findings to date, together with other available scientific evidence,” the authors wrote, “suggest that mobile phone use is not associated with increased risk of developing these tumours.”

Dr. Lennart Hardell, a leading scientist on cancer risks from radiation, told The Defender the study “lacked scientific integrity.”

Hardell, an oncologist and epidemiologist with the Environment and Cancer Research Foundation who has authored more than 350 papers — almost 60 of which address radiofrequency (RF) radiation — said he found multiple shortcomings in its methodology and representation of the scientific literature.

“This is a product defense study, not suitable for a scientific journal claiming to have conducted a credible review of a submission,” Hardell said. “Obviously the referees have not done their proper job or have not been listened to. In the latter case, it casts doubt on the scientific credibility of the very journal.”

What Hardell found “most remarkable” was that the study authors failed to cite or reference important studies documenting an increased incidence of brain tumors among those who heavily used a cellphone, he said.

“It is hard to believe that the study authors are so incompetent and/or perhaps so biased towards the ‘no risk’ paradigm,” he said. “One may rightly ask what results they are hiding — at least a clarification is needed.”

“One must also ask if there is influence by industry,” he added.

Mona Nilsson, co-founder and director of the Swedish Radiation Protection Foundation, said there is reason to suspect that industry influenced the COSMOS study.

In an article critiquing the study, Nilsson said telecommunication companies were the ones who initiated the study and provided some of the study’s initial funding. “They have an interest in showing that mobile phones do not have negative health effects.”

Additionally, the researchers who conducted the study “have a long history of dismissing evidence of health risks,” she said. In her opinion, their results have “low credibility.”

Despite the study’s faults, Nilsson predicted it will be used “as effective evidence for the telecom industry” in lawsuits regarding brain tumors alleged to be caused by mobile phone use.

“The study will also be used in expert opinion reports as an argument that radiation from wireless technology does not cause cancer … So the telecom industry’s investment in the COSMOS study has been successful,” Nilsson told The Defender.

Methodological flaws underestimate risk

The COSMOS study included 250,000-plus participants from Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K.

The researchers recruited participants between 2007-2012 and had them complete a detailed questionnaire about their lifetime mobile phone use.

Roughly seven years later, the researchers looked at cancer registries to see if any of the participants had developed one of three kinds of brain tumors: glioma, meningioma or acoustic neuroma.

Through statistical analyses, the researchers examined whether heavy cellphone use was associated with an increased risk of developing a brain tumor.

But the way they conducted their analyses was flawed, Nilsson said.

Rather than compare those who were heavily exposed to RF cellphone radiation with those who weren’t exposed, the study authors compared those who were heavily exposed with those who were just less exposed.

The authors simply split their participants into two groups based on total call time — the 50% who used their cellphones more versus the 50% who used their cellphones less — and compared those two groups.

“This leads to an underestimation of the risk,” Nilsson said, “because the exposed people were not compared with unexposed people but with a group of other exposed people.”

Hardell agreed and noted several other ways in which the analyses may have inaccurately minimized the risk of developing a brain tumor from RF radiation exposure.

For instance, the researchers didn’t analyze which side of the head participants said they held their phone in relation to the site of the brain tumors they later detected in some participants.

“These questions are vital for studying the association between use of wireless phones and brain tumor risk,” Hardell said.

They also didn’t include data on cordless phone use in their analyses, even though they asked the participants detailed questions about their cordless phone use.

“This is scientific misconduct,” Hardell said, “It is a shame to the participating individuals who gave of their time to answer the questionnaire.”

Prior research has shown that RF radiation from both cellphones and cordless phones — which were still very much in use during the study period — can be a risk factor for developing brain tumors, so researchers must look at people’s use of both, Hardell said.

Moreover, the study authors dropped 629 participants from the study because they had brain tumors before the start of the study. This could have further affected the analyses, Hardell said.

The study authors even failed to report “basic information,” including how many people were initially invited to participate and the breakdown of their gender, ages and country of origin, he said. “It is remarkable that the study was published in the current version.”

The COSMOS study is ongoing, meaning the researchers will follow up with the study cohort in the future.

In this first follow-up report on the COSMOS cohort, participants reported using mostly phones on a 2G and/or 3G network.

“Future updates of the COSMOS cohort on cancer outcomes will provide additional information on potential long-term effects of RF-EMF from more recent technology,” the authors wrote.

Telecom industry provided money, input

Three Swedish telecommunications companies — Ericsson, TeliaSonera and Telenor — provided funding for the COSMOS study data collection, according to the authors’ funding statement.

“The study appears to have been initiated by Ericsson and the Swedish scientists at KI,” the Karolinska Institutet, a major medical university in Sweden, Nilsson said.

Ericsson representatives in 2005 contacted Karolinska Institutet researchers Anders Ahlbom and Maria Feychting, she said. “They agreed to collaborate on a research project, with industry paying 50% of the costs.”

A 2012 report by the Swedish weekly magazine, Ny Teknik, revealed that the industry representatives and researchers had discussed arrangements and funding before turning to Vinnova, a Swedish governmental research agency, to draw up an agreement that ostensibly guaranteed COSMOS’ scientific independence from the industry, Nilsson said.

“In 2005,” she continued, “when the researchers and Ericsson started meeting, Ericsson made certain demands on ‘quality criteria’ and had views on the design of the study, according to Christer Törnevik, head of research at Ericsson.”

According to the funding section, the authors who were involved in acquiring funding for the study also contributed to the study concept — meaning that researchers who secured the money made seminal decisions about what the study would look at and what it would not look at.

Moreover, initially COSMOS was supported for five years by the U.K.’s Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research program, jointly funded by the U.K. Department of Health and the mobile telecommunications industry, the funding section said.

Several other telecom industry entities — including Nokia, Elisa and the Mobile Manufacturers’ Forum — also contributed to COSMOS.

The study also received funding from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, the Danish Strategic Research Council, Finland’s National Technology Agency, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, the Kone Foundation, the U.K. Department of Health & Social Care, and the U.K.’s National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit and The Netherlands Organization for Health Research.

Feychting, the study’s lead author, did not respond when asked by The Defender what she would like to tell people who are concerned that industry influences may have biased the research.

She also did not comment on the allegation that the study’s findings lacked credibility.

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa.

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.

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | 1 Comment

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