Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

ABC fact checking is a ‘black box’

Who are the fact checkers, what are their qualifications and how do they decide what is true or false?

Maryanne Demasi, reports | April 22, 2024

Australia’s public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), proudly announced in 2022 that it had partnered with the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), an international alliance of major news corporations and Big Tech firms, to counter the growing threat of “fake news.”

It was part of sweeping reforms in the media to deliver ‘trusted’ news to global audiences and protect the public from the harms of misinformation and disinformation online.

Spearheaded by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), partners include Reuters, Associated Press, Financial Times, The Washington Post, and ABC Australia, along with social media and tech giants – Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Microsoft (LinkedIn) and Google (YouTube) to name a few.

When ABC announced its new alliance with TNI, Justin Stevens, ABC News Director said, “We’re pleased to join the Trusted News Initiative and, in the process, provide Australian audiences with a deeper and better-informed view of our region and the world.”

Justin Stevens appointed ABC News Director in April 2022

During the pandemic, the alliance promised to focus on preventing “the spread of harmful vaccine disinformation,” and “the growing number of conspiracy theories,” targeting online memes that featured anti-vaccine messaging or posts that downplayed the risk of covid-19.

But critics have grown increasingly uneasy about the alliance. They say governments are being protected by journalists, instead of being held to account for their pandemic policies and they’re concerned the alliance has shaped public discourse by controlling people’s access to information and censoring content that diverges from the status quo.

Weaponising fact checking

Deploying fact-checkers is one way that TNI members control the dissemination of public information. When they label a statement ‘false’, ‘wrong’, or ‘misleading’, it’s used by social media platforms to legitimise the censorship of that content by deprioritising, hiding, demonetising, or suppressing it.

Debunking content is time consuming and costly. Fact-checkers are invariably junior journalists or intern researchers, with little to no understanding of complex scientific issues or public health policies, and often appeal to governments for the ‘truth’.

When the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration opposed government enforced lockdowns, fact checkers ran hit pieces on the authors – the notable academics were then shadow-banned, censored and deplatformed from social media.

In the case of the ABC, its original in-house fact checking unit was axed in 2016 because of Federal budget cuts, but was revamped the following year when the ABC teamed up with RMIT University in Melbourne to form the RMIT ABC Fact Check and RMIT FactLab departments.

The ABC paid more than $670,000 to RMIT between 2020 – 2023 as part of its joint fact-checking venture but they quickly gained a reputation for being flawed. For example, concerns about the suppression of the lab leak theory were labelled as “false” even though they were true.

ABC’s fact checkers were also accused of being biased by SkyNews because they had used their influence to censor disfavoured political views in the Voice to Parliament referendum.

Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick grilled ABC’s Managing Director David Anderson at a Senate Estimates hearing about the network’s dodgy fact-checking practices last year.

“Who is fact-checking the fact-checkers?” asked Senator Rennick.

“You’ve made some outrageous claims on these fact-checks that aren’t correct, and you haven’t actually backed them up with any facts,” added Rennick, accusing the ABC of bias for predominantly fact-checking politically conservative voices in the media.

Sources say these controversies have prompted the ABC to cut ties with RMIT whose contract ends in June 2024.

New fact-checkers, same problems?

An ABC spokesperson said the network is now building its own internal fact-checking team, called “ABC NEWS Verify,” which appears to have similarities to the “BBC Verify” initiative.

“ABC NEWS Verify will be our centre of excellence for scrutinising and verifying information in online communities,” said the spokesperson outlining the various tasks of fact checkers. “Establishing a dedicated team will enhance and focus our efforts, creating a hub for verification best practice.”

I asked the ABC if it had any internal policy document outlining the criteria its fact-checkers would use to deem content as ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ but the spokesperson responded saying “no it doesn’t.”

Andrew Lowenthal, an expert in digital rights and a Twitter Files journalist, said the ABC’s failure to explain how it intends on fact-checking claims was “seriously ridiculous.”

“That the ABC is seeking to decide what is misinformation without laying out any criteria demonstrates just how farcical and political ‘fact-checking’ has become,” said Lowenthal.

“Without transparent and publicly available criteria the program will quickly turn into a partisan advocacy initiative,” he added.

Andrew Lowenthal, Twitter Files journalist

Lowenthal’s Twitter Files investigation confirmed the Australian government was monitoring Covid-related speech of its citizens and requesting that posts were flagged and censored if they deemed them to be misinformation.

“In that investigation, the government’s Department of Home Affairs was relying on Yahoo! News and USA Today, among others, to justify their take down requests or they’d hire journalists without scientific credentials. We need dialogue, not diktats, to determine what is true,” said Lowenthal.

Senator Rennick agreed, saying the ABC’s process lacks transparency. “Who are these people that claim to be the fact-checkers in the first place and what are their credentials? Sounds to me like it’s a black box,” said Rennick.

“Often when fact checkers come out with their reports, they don’t give the other person they’re fact checking, a right-of-reply. Also, they rarely disclose the conflicts of interest of the so-called ‘experts’ they use to fact check claims,” he added.

Michael Shellenberger, author, journalist and founder of Public, has written extensively on the “censorship industrial complex.”

“That’s what the trusted news initiative [TNI] was all about…a strategy to use fact checking initiatives to demand censorship by social media platforms,” said Shellenberger.

Michael Shellenberger, author of San Fransicko (HarperCollins 2021) and Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins 2020)

“They can pretend that’s not what it’s about, but the fact that the news media are participating in this, is grotesque. It’s a complete destruction of whatever reputation and integrity they used to have,” he added.

“Organisations like BBC and ABC… they used to have reputations for independence and integrity, but they’ve now decided to destroy their entire reputation on the mantle of them being the deciders of the truth. The Central Committee. That’s totalitarianism that’s not free speech.”

The ABC says its new ABC NEWS Verify will have no connection to TNI.

Impartiality and credibility?

TNI’s broad principles of working in lockstep towards a single narrative, has meant that legacy media operate largely as a mouthpiece for government propaganda, offering little critique of public health policies…and ABC has been no exception.

During the pandemic, the broadcaster repeatedly came under fire after its medical commentator Dr Norman Swan made countless calls for harsher lockdowns, mask mandates and covid boosters – policies that strongly aligned with the government but had little scientific backing.

Swan’s commentary rarely provided an impartial perspective and he was eventually called out for failing to publicly disclose his financial interest in seeking government contracts related to covid-19.

In addition, Ita Buttrose, who was ABC Chair until last month, was seen fronting Pfizer’s advertising campaigns for covid products. ABC defended Buttrose saying, “Given she was not involved in editorial decisions, there was no conflict of interest.”

Ita Buttrose, former ABC Chair, March 2019 – March 2024

The ABC denies its alliance with TNI has impacted its editorial independence but Shellenberger says the entire purpose of joining TNI is to ensure they become the single source of truth.

“They’ve stopped doing real reporting, and they’re just out there wanting to be paid to regurgitate and act like publicists for the government. It’s grotesque. It’s not journalism, it’s propaganda,” said Shellenberger.

Resisting the tyranny

Some journalists have been resisting what they perceive to be ‘tyranny’ in legacy media and the widespread suppression of free speech.

In June 2021, a group of around 30 journalists rallied together to denounce TNI’s “censorship and fearmongering” and accused the alliance of subjecting the public to a distorted view of the truth.

The group known as ‘Holding the Line: Journalists Against Covid Censorship’ shared concerns that reporters were being reprimanded by their superiors and freelancers were being blacklisted from jobs for not following the “one official narrative.”

Presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr has filed a lawsuit against TNI alleging that legacy media organisations and Big Tech have worked to “collectively censor online news” about covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election.

The lawsuit states:

“By their own admission, members of the “Trusted News Initiative” (“TNI”) have agreed to work together, and have in fact worked together, to exclude from the world’s dominant Internet platforms rival news publishers who engage in reporting that challenges and competes with TNI members’ reporting on certain issues relating to COVID-19 and U.S. politics.”

A group of 138 scholars, public intellectuals, and journalists from across the political spectrum have since published The Westminster Declaration.

In essence, it’s a free speech manifesto urging governments to dismantle the “censorship industrial complex” which has seen government agencies and Big Tech companies work together to censor free speech.

In Australia, the journalist’s union MEAA has called on ABC’s newly appointed Chair Kim Williams to “restore the reputation of the national broadcaster by addressing concerns about the impact of external pressures on editorial decision making.”

Kim Williams, current Chair, ABC Network Australia

Williams, who took over from Buttrose last month, has warned his journalists that “activism” is not welcome at the ABC and that if they fail to observe impartiality guidelines, they should consider leaving the network.

Will the ABC course-correct with Williams at the helm? Now that trust in legacy media is at historical lows, the ABC’s partnership with TNI does little to assuage fears that the network has passed the point of no return.


NB: I was a TV presenter/producer at ABC TV (2006-2016) and wrote about my experiences with censorship at the network here and here.

April 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia’s Communications Minister Tells People To Report Social Media Posts to the Chief Censor

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | April 19, 2024

Australia’s Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has urged citizens to report content posted on social sites to what’s known as the country’s “chief censor,” the eSafety commissioner.

Appearing on the ABC Radio Sydney Breakfast, Rowland explained to host Craig Reucassel what the current government thinks should be done about “misinformation.”

Often-repeated assertions were heard that there is dangerous misinformation on social media along with exposure to “reactions and rumors” that traumatize users – because, for example, they are able to view breaking news videos “with no censorship.”

(This last bit is what rubs Reucassel the wrong way, and it has to do with the recent Sydney stabbing attacks that he would evidently like “nicely packaged” first, in that way controlling how the public learns about an event and reacts to it.)

And so, clearly, both the minister and the host agree that the government should step in (even more) and intervene, the only question is, how?

One of the ideas is to come up with yet another “voluntary” (voluntary as in, “or else…”) code of conduct for tech companies, probably along the lines of what is already happening in the EU.

The purpose would be to get platforms to remove even more content that’s labeled as “misinformation.”

Right now, the eCommissioner is the official who can order comments removed, but a “voluntary code” would obviously expedite things.

In the meantime, since according to the minister, platforms aren’t “doing enough,” she encouraged citizens to report content to the eSafety commissioner, turning themselves into some sort of “government censorship helpers.”

Reucassel exhibited quite the zeal for censorship, remarking during the conversation that ABC Radio Sydney Breakfast flagged content on TikTok (also related to one of the Sydney stabbings), but accused the platform of not removing it.

The host revealed that the media outlet told TikTok, “We’re taking down all this footage that’s happened in the Wakeley stabbing, we’re trying to regulate that kind of stuff.”

But apparently this effort, joined by the eSafety commissioner, did not produce results – or as Reucassel said, social platforms are not sufficiently “proactive.”

Even if videos have a sensitive content warning and people have to click and choose to still watch it – Rowland doesn’t think that’s “enough.”

Rowland agreed.

“They need to do more. Keeping Australians safe online, protecting particularly children and vulnerable people from being exposed to this content is a collective responsibility.”

And that’s when listeners got “encouraged” to report content to eSafety.

April 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Censorship & persecution of dissident voices continues across the world

The ‘cautionary tale’ modus operandi

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | April 15, 2024 

Those who, like the members of HART, have been speaking out for three or four years about the perils of lockdowns, the lack of access to proper medical care and the utter debacle of the unsafe and ineffective vaccines, keep hoping the tide is turning. But for every stone upturned another boulder seems to descend to crush the truth. There is also no apparent end to the persecution of doctors speaking out.

Two physicians from opposite ends of the world and facing loss of their medical careers for speaking out against the vaccine saviour narrative, typify the current authoritarian approach. Charles Hoffe from Canada and Shankara Chetty from South Africa have two things in common, firstly both are clinicians serving a large local population and secondly both have shared their experiences widely.  In Dr Chetty’s case he has reported his success at treating over 1000 covid patients with a combination of repurposed drugs including antihistamines in a clinical centre in rural South Africa with no access to oxygen let alone intensive care. In Dr Hoffe’s case, he first hit the headlines when he reported a high frequency of serious adverse events when his patients started receiving the mRNA vaccines.

Both these hard working and ethical physicians now, three years on, are being subjected to investigations by their medical boards. For Dr Chetty, he has previously been found guilty of professional misconduct but was called to attend a further hearing last week in front of the Health Professionals Council of South Africa. The results of their deliberations are awaited.

For Charles Hoffe the situation is even more bizarre. He was due for a hearing last week but when he submitted all the supportive evidence for his case, the health board in British Columbia deposited a large amount of evidence of their own but then threatened to invoke a ruling by which their evidence would be accepted as ‘fact’ by the court and Dr Hoffe and his legal team would be unable to cross question the data or present any information to the contrary. It looks like the right to a free trial has been abandoned in Canada, along with the right to free speech.

Below is a list of some senior clinicians and academics from across the world who have been vilified for speaking truth to power. It is by no means comprehensive.

USA:

Canada:

Australia:

New Zealand:

Germany:

France:

Switzerland:

  • Thomas Binder (initially incarcerated in a mental institution)

UK:

This list is continuing to grow despite the increasing reports in the scientific literature which confirm almost everything they have said.

When does it stop?

April 15, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia bins 35% of multi-billion dollar Covid vaccine supply

By Rebekah Barnett | Dystopian Down Under | April 12, 2024

As part of its pandemic response, the Australian government purchased 267.3 million doses of Covid vaccines, enough to vaccinate Australia’s population of approximately 26 million people ten times over.

But figures released to me by the Department of Health (DOH) this week confirm that, three years into the vaccine program, only 70 million doses, or 26% of the 267.3 million doses purchased, have been administered, while 35% of vaccines doses have been wasted since the start of the vaccine rollout.

Last week, the Australian reported that more than 35% of Covid vaccines were being tossed out as of January due to oversupply. The revelation came from the DOH’s public submission to the federal Covid inquiry.

The wording made it unclear if this was a cumulative figure or applicable only to the month of January, so I contacted the DOH to confirm the total wastage to date, along with some further questions on the value of doses purchased, delivered, and wasted, and exactly how many had been administered.

A DOH spokesperson responded,

“As of 31 March 2024 the total COVID-19 vaccine program wastage rate was at 35.69%. Australia’s wastage rate is within the World Health Organization (WHO) acceptable wastage parameters for multidose vials of 15% and 40%.

“Approximately 80% of COVID-19 vaccine wastage is attributed to expiry of doses across warehouses and vaccine administration sites.”

This appears to mean that 80% of the wasted doses simply expired on the shelf.

The remaining 20% of wasted doses would likely be due to administration sites not managing to use the entire contents of multi-dose vials once opened. While unopened vials have a shelf-life of anywhere between 9-18 months, opened vials must be used within 6-48 hours.

The DOH refused to confirm the value of doses purchased or wasted, or how many of the purchased doses have actually been delivered, “for contractural and security reasons.” The Australian government has repeatedly refused to release details of its tax-payer-funded Covid vaccine purchase agreements.

However, we know that total government spending on Covid vaccines and treatment supply amounts to over $18 billion, of which it appears that the lion’s share was allocated to purchasing vaccine doses.1

Most of these remain unused. DOH figures provided to me this week show that as at 3 April, only a quarter (70 million) of the 267.3 million purchased doses had been used, at a total usage rate of 26.2%

Of the remaining 197.3 million unadministered doses, the DOH advised that approximately 53 million doses have been donated as foreign aid.2

That leaves approximately 144 million doses, more than half of the total stockpile, either already expired, or likely to expire within the next several years, as booster rates hover below 10%. 3

As Australia’s vaccine purchases extend into 2023 and 2024, it is probable that a portion of these doses will still be viable up to 2025.

But even if vaccine doses never expired, it would take Australians 29 years to work their way through the glut, based on the five million boosters administered in the past 12 months.

As it stands, usage rates by brand are as below:

  • Of 131 million Pfizer doses purchased, 48.5 million have been administered, a usage rate of 37%. 82.5 million doses remain.
  • Of 29 million Moderna doses purchased, 7.5 million have been administered, a usage rate of 25.7%. 21.5 million doses remain.
  • Of 56.3 million AstraZeneca doses purchased, 13.8 million have been administered, a usage rate of 24.5%. As the AstraZeneca stockpile expired on 20 March 2023, the remaining 42.5 million doses have been binned, unless they were donated as aid prior to this date.
  • Stunningly, of 51 million Novavax doses purchased, only 273,700 have been administered, a usage rate of 0.5%. 50.7 million doses, 99.5% of the stockpile, remain. This is because by the time Novavax was approved for use, in December 2021, over 90% of Australians aged 16 and over had already been double vaccinated.

In a July 2022 article investigating Australia’s already apparent vast vaccine wastage, the ABC asked if perhaps the government had bought too many vaccines?

Deborah Gleeson, Associate Professor of Public Health at La Trobe University, criticised the government’s run on the global vaccine supply, suggesting that Australia had hoarded more than its share.

Prof Gleeson told the ABC,

“Australia really participated in a bigger trend that we’ve seen worldwide of wealthy countries buying up far more doses of COVID-19 vaccines than they needed early on in the pandemic. And this is a practice that unfortunately has continued.”

It’s enough to make advocates for global vaccine equity lose sleep at night.

The news of the Australian government’s wastage of billions of dollars worth of Covid vaccines comes as Australians are grappling with the soaring cost of living and the worst housing crisis on record, with over a quarter of a million Australians accessing homelessness services in 2022-2023.


1

The government webpage also details investment in aid program COVAX, and research and supply chain developments, including some funding for the development of a potential Covid vaccine (since abandoned). The page mentions a 10-year partnership with Moderna and the Victorian Government that will see Moderna build an mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility at Monash University Victoria. However, it is unclear if funding for the Moderna partnership comes from this $18 billion investment, or from other funding.

2

From a DOH spokesperson,

“Australia has donated more than 52 million doses to countries in the Indo Pacific and Southeast Asia.

·       23.6 million as part of our commitment to share 40 million doses through the Department’s procured supply; and

·       28.5 million as part of the commitment to share 20 million doses through DFAT’s agreement with UNICEF.

“Australia has offered a further 16.8 million doses to the COVAX Facility for distribution to participating developed and developing countries. Of the 755,200 doses that were accepted by the COVAX Facility, 14,400 have been donated.”

3

Note that because the DOH would not confirm how many of the 267.3 million purchased doses have been delivered, the precise number of doses sitting in the national stockpile cannot be determined. However, the vaccine agreement webpage does specify delivery dates of some purchases, and from this, it can be ascertained that the great majority of doses purchased have already been delivered.


To support my work, share, subscribe, and/or make a one-off contribution to DDU via my Kofi account. Thanks!

Follow me on X

Follow me on Instagram

April 13, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

State Of The Great Barrier Reef 2024

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | March 14, 2024

The Australian Environment foundation (AEF), which is a farmer friendly conservation group, has issued a new report entitled “State of the Great Barrier Reef 2024.”

Peter Ridd, the Chairman of the AEF, said the report shows that the reef is in excellent condition with record amounts of coral. “Despite all the catastrophism about hot water bleaching events in the last decade, the species most susceptible to bleaching, (the plate and staghorn corals), have exploded in number. Sadly, the impact of bleaching is routinely exaggerated by the media and some science organisations.”

“The impact of farm pollution in the Reef is negligible and all 3000 individual reefs have excellent coral. No other Australian ecosystem has shown such little change in modern times” Ridd said.

Peter Ridd added, “Australia spends roughly $500 million each year to “save the reef” but this money could be much better spent on genuine environmental problems such as control of invasive weeds and feral animals, or restoring indigenous fire practices into forests and rangeland”.

He concluded, “The public is being deceived about the reef. How this occurred is a serious issue for the reef-science community which has embraced emotion, ideology, and raw self-interest to maintain funding”.

“This new report distils a great deal of data about the reef” said Ridd “it is time that the reef science institutions confront this data rather than ignoring it and hoping nobody will notice. I challenge them to a public science duel – any time any place.”

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest reef system in the world, and scientists have been warning of its imminent demise since the 1960s.

The report is here.

March 15, 2024 Posted by | Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

US, UK sacrifice international security for Israel’s interests: Tehran

Press TV – February 25, 2024

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman has strongly condemned fresh “arbitrary” airstrikes by the United States and Britain on Yemen, saying the raids proved once again that the pair sacrifice international security for Israel’s interests.

Nasser Kan’ani made the remarks on Sunday after American and UK forces carried out a series of aerial assaults against positions across Yemen, including the capital Sana’a.

“Such arbitrary and adventurous attacks contravene the internationally recognized rules and principles and violate Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.

“The US and the UK once again proved that they fully support the Zionist regime’s war crimes and genocide in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and that they put the illegitimate security and interests of the occupying regime ahead of international peace and security.”

In a statement, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that the strikes were conducted with the support of Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand in a bid to “degrade” Yemen’s capabilities to conduct naval pro-Palestine operations.

Kan’ani said that the US and Britain showed that they breach all moral and humanitarian principles, as well as international law and the UN Charter.

He added that the two countries are seeking to escalate tensions in the region, expand the scope of the Gaza war and divert public opinion from Israel’s war crimes, and buy an opportunity for the continuation of the ongoing genocide against Palestinians.

“Instead of taking effective and immediate action to eliminate the main cause of insecurity and instability, which is the Zionist regime’s warmongering and its daily killing of hundreds of Palestinians…, the US and the UK are waging military attacks on a country that is trying to somehow put pressure on this killer regime and stop its killing machine,” the top diplomat said.

In recent months, the US and its allies have launched illegal attacks on Yemen amid their frustration in the face of an anti-Israel maritime campaign by the Yemeni armed forces.

Israel waged a US-backed genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip on October 7 following a historic operation by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group against the occupying regime.

In support of Gaza, Yemeni armed forces have targeted ships going to and from ports in the occupied territories, or whose owners are linked to Israel, in the southern Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Gulf of Aden, and even in the Arabian Sea.

The US-led attacks on Yemen prompted the country’s military to declare American and British vessels to be legitimate targets.

February 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia regime threatens X with “big trouble” if It doesn’t censor “misinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | February 14, 2024

Australia’s authorities are once again putting pressure on social media, X this time, threatening that the company will face big fines and “big trouble” in general – unless “mis- and dis-” information is censored.

And, it is Australia’s new laws, when they come into force this year, that will represent the legal grounds for such actions.

The fines would run up to $3 million or 2 percent of annual turnover for “voluntary code of conduct” violations, and $7.8 million or 5 percent of annual turnover in case of lack of compliance with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) “standards.”

This transpires from an article published by the Financial Review, citing Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, while the motive behind her last crusade is described as “a litany of issues” now allegedly plaguing X.

Rowland went all over the place to accuse X of “not doing enough” – from Taylor Swift deep fakes, to what’s likely a key point of contention – the platform’s decision to reinstate some 6,000 accounts of users previously banned by Twitter.

The thinking here seems to be that if the threat is made ahead of time, X will “align” better with Australia’s politics and agree to once again plunge itself into mass censorship.

The laws Rowland mentioned were drafted in 2023 with the aim of giving broader powers to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, specifically “to combat mis- and disinformation online,” the article said.

The upcoming legislation seeks to produce two effects – the tech industry subjecting itself to a formally voluntary code of conduct, and after this “carrot” comes the stick in the shape of the ACMA’s new powers, fines and punishment, if ACMA’s unhappy with how the code is adhered to.

Rowland added that X at this time “isn’t even covered by a voluntary industry code.” The reason is that X was removed from the code after it stopped the practice of flagging content running against (Twitter’s) “civic integrity policy.”

Elsewhere in Australia’s media scene, some are asking why the country’s government “hates Elon Musk.”

“It is about $300 million that Musk owes the Australian government so far,” wondered Sky News host James Macpherson. And by “owes” – he meant, the fines Australia has tried collecting from X even before the latest threats.

February 14, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

New wave of US, UK strikes target Yemen

The Cradle – February 4, 2024

US and UK warships and fighter jets bombed Yemen on 4 February, in a wave of missile strikes US officials claim hit 36 targets.

The US said in a CENTCOM statement that it hit “36 targets at 13 locations,” striking “underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”

According to the statement, the US, UK, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand took part in the attacks.

The strikes were in response to Yemeni efforts to target Israeli-linked commercial ships passing through the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea. The Yemeni attacks are in response to Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza.

Rather than press its ally Israel to stop its military campaign, which has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, the US has joined forces with the UK to bomb Yemen.

Saturday’s strikes were launched by US F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft, and the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Carney firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, according to US officials and the UK Defense Ministry.

The Yemen Armed Forces issued a statement detailing where the attacks took place, reporting 13 raids on Sanaa, 9 on Hodeidah, 11 on Taiz, 7 on Al-Bayda, 7 on Hajjah, and one on Saada.

“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not go unanswered and punished,” read the statement.

The strikes come one day after the US sent B-1 bombers to target 85 locations affiliated with the Islamic Resistance of Iraq in eastern Syria and western Iraq, killing at least 16. This was in response to an operation by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq that targeted US military outpost Tower 22 in Jordan last week, killing three US soldiers.

US officials reportedly told Al-Jazeera that the strikes on Yemen are “considered a next round of retaliation for the killing of the [US] soldiers in Jordan.”

Like Ansarallah, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition, formed after 7 October, has also targeted Israel, as well as US bases in Syria and Iraq. The groups say their attacks are in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which the US has supported militarily and diplomatically.

Ansarallah leaders in Yemen say they have no intention of scaling back their campaign despite pressure from the US and UK bombing.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, an Ansarallah official, said, “military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are stopped and the siege on its residents is lifted, no matter the sacrifices it costs us.” He wrote on social media that the “American-British aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered, and we will meet escalation with escalation.”

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia: ABC staff threaten strike after Arab journalist sacked

Award-winning journalist and author Antoinette Lattouf
MEMO | January 17, 2024

ABC journalists in the broadcaster’s Sydney offices yesterday threatened to strike unless management addresses concerns over the unlawful dismissal of radio host Antoinette Lattouf, Anadolu news agency reported.

The award-winning journalist and author, who is of Lebanese heritage, was sacked by ABC last month for sharing on Instagram a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The internationally-recognised rights watchdog released a report on how starvation was being used as “a weapon of war” by the Israeli government in Gaza. ABC also published a news item on the report.

On Tuesday, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed a leaked chain of WhatsApp messages from a group called Lawyers for Israel who had lobbied for Lattouf to be sacked.

“The ABC sacked broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf after a high-level and coordinated letter-writing campaign from pro-Israel lobbyists that directly targeted the corporation’s chair, Ita Buttrose, and managing director David Anderson,” the news daily said.

The report reveals that the Israeli lobby “repeatedly wrote to the ABC demanding Lattouf be sacked, and threatened legal action if she was not.”

Yesterday, about 80 ABC staff members demanded a meeting with Anderson, who is currently on leave.

They threatened to stage a walkout if their concerns were not addressed.

Lattouf has legally challenged her termination, saying she was sacked on the grounds of “political opinion or a reason that included political opinion” and later expanded the claim to include race, due to her Lebanese heritage.

While ABC has denied Anderson was behind Lattouf’s sacking, the broadcaster has told a court that the journalist was removed “because she ignored a direction from managers and shared a controversial social media post from Human Rights Watch.”

Lattouf demands a clear public apology, financial compensation and the offer of a proportionate position.

Hearings are scheduled to begin later this week.

In a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald, Lattouf’s lawyer, Josh Bornstein, said that after “October 7 and the ensuing conflict in the Middle East, it has become common knowledge in the media industry that Arab and Muslim journalists are being subjected to intimidation, censorship and expulsion.”

January 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Complains About X Reinstating Censored Accounts

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 12, 2024

Without considering the possibility that there were perhaps too many of them to begin with – Australia’s eSafety Commissioner is complaining in a new report that X, since the Musk takeover, has fired too many “safety and public policy personnel.”

Another complaint from the commissioner’s “transparency report” is about previously censored accounts getting reinstated on the platform.

The sum of the new policy, according to this Australian office – a government agency that’s “independent (but) supported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)” – is that X is now less capable of “tackling online hate.”

It is no wonder that these accusations are made by eSafety, considering that it has been given powers to deal with what’s described as “cyberbullying, image-based abuse, and illegal and harmful online content.”

Basing the report on information obtained from X, eSafety writes that 80 percent of “safety engineers” have been let go since October 2022 (the same figure applies to global public policy staff). Moderators working for X have fared somewhat better – still, over 50 percent of them have been fired.

Considering that these employees were doing more than simply moderating – there have been many confirmed and very controversial cases on clear censorship against content and accounts – free speech supporters are likely fine to learn these precise numbers for the first time.

However, the Australian eSafety is not, taking a negative stance toward the developments and warning that they have “implications for Australian users.”

Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is quoted in the report as saying that, “It’s almost inevitable that any social media platform will become more toxic and less safe for users if you combine significant reductions to safety and local public policy personnel with thousands of account reinstatements of previously banned users.”

About that last point – we now know that the number of banned accounts that have been allowed back on X is at this point in excess of 6,100. But, the Australian office is not even sure if these figures concern X’s operations globally or just in Australia – although eSafety “understands” the latter to be the case, and draws this understanding from media saying earlier that a total of more than 62,000 accounts have been reinstated.

The commissioner is also displeased with the fact that X did not find it necessary to place “additional scrutiny” on these accounts – banned under previous ownership, and its policies.

January 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Russia warns West against seizing assets

RT | December 22, 2023

The seizure of Russian assets by Western countries would be “illegal” and “extremely dangerous” for the global finance system, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Friday.

The US and EU are reportedly considering using Russian assets frozen in the West to rebuild Ukraine, or even fund Kiev’s ongoing military efforts. According to the New York Times, the administration of US President Joe Biden is said to have made the latest proposal to do so as the White House struggles to greenlight a new $60 billion aid package for Ukraine.

An estimated €260 billion ($285 billion) in Russian central bank assets was immobilized in G7 countries, the EU, and Australia following the launch of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, with most of the reserves being held in Europe.

Speaking to journalists on Friday, Peskov noted that the issue of confiscating the frozen funds continued to be raised in both Europe and the US.

“This topic is, first of all, unacceptable,” Peskov said, adding that the potential seizure of Russian assets would deal “a very serious blow to the international financial system.”

The Kremlin spokesman stressed that any country considering the move must understand that Russia would “never leave those who did this alone,” and would take wide-ranging legal steps.

The EU and US must also understand that the seizure of Russian assets would be followed by a proportionate response from Moscow, Peskov added. “If something is confiscated from us by someone, then we will see what we can confiscate in response. And if this something is found, we will, naturally, [confiscate] it immediately,” the spokesman said.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov previously issued a similar warning to the West, promising a tit-for-tat response, while State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin claimed last month that the G7’s assets in Russia were “more numerous than Russia’s frozen funds [in the West].”

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that a number of EU members, including France, Germany and Italy, have been “extremely cautious” over the idea of seizing Russian assets. According to the newspaper, these countries are worried that the move would be seen as “cross[ing] a line,” and may cause concern in Asia and the Middle East that sovereign assets held in Western currencies are not safe.

December 22, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Conversation with Dr. Paul Oosterhuis on Lessons From the Down Under

By Julie Obradovic | The Defender | December 11, 2023

Sitting in front of a computer screen in August 2021, Dr. Paul Oosterhuis was prepared.

The regulators, the people who hold the registrar of health practitioners in Australia, had recently come out with a document informing practitioners they could only speak about the positives of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Saying anything negative or cautionary was not allowed.

Dr. Oosterhuis addressed the document in a tweet. Since the COVID crisis began on the other side of the world the year prior, he had become rather outspoken on social media about many pandemic protocols.

Now that the virus was finally at Australia’s doorstep, he had a lot to say. “The document is ridiculous,” he tweeted.

“In science,” he argued, “you can’t give informed consent without saying the pluses and minuses, the hazards and the benefits.”

A combination of tweets, Facebook posts and Facebook comments like this had already ruffled some feathers. During an event he refers to as “Facebook fear porn” in March of 2021, the registrar insisted the only way to save lives was with the jab.

“Please tell everyone to take vitamin D, zinc, hydroxychloroquine, and ivermectin as an evidence-based approach for treatment,” he countered.

And rather quickly he was told, “This is misinformation. I’m going to report to you.”

So later that year, in August, when he tweeted New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazard, he wasn’t surprised by what happened next. Mr. Hazard had rounded up 24,000 school kids at Sydney Arena to get the experimental COVID-19 injection. Dr. Oosterhuis was furious.

“Here’s the childhood infection fatality rate by age. Kids are more likely to die from sharp objects.”

He went even further. At that time, the infection fatality rate for kids was .00016%, effectively zero.

“If there is even one death among these 24,000 kids, you have a signal of harm. And if you’re not watching for it, you will be held culpable.”

Two hours later, he received a call. The Medical Council of New South Wales was hastily putting together an immediate suspension hearing under the “Immediate Action Powers for Public Protection” section 150 of Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.

The hearing would be based on 10 social media posts where Dr. Oosterhuis had stated there was no evidence for anything the government was doing, whether it be masks, mandates or jabs, specifically regarding antibody-dependent enhancement. These were the posts selected as high heresy and grounds for suspension.

So here he was, sitting in his living room on a computer screen, participating in what he considered to be an online kangaroo court, but eager to participate anyway. He wanted to put them on notice. Whether they were calling it a vaccine or gene therapy, it hadn’t undergone the safety testing it should have.

There were no long-term data on the vaccine’s safety or efficacy, and they had an obligation to say so.

But it turned out, they weren’t interested in anything he had to say about that. Likewise, they had no interest in debating the science he provided or the merit of what he had claimed in any of his posts.

In fact, they only had one question: “Are you vaccinated?”

The answer was, no. And for the first time, there was a press release with his name on it. Dr. Paul Oosterhuis was officially labeled a threat.

‘Flabbergasted’: a doctor could lose his license for tweeting about informed consent?

I first met Paul in my parents’ kitchen 11 years ago.

He had flown to America with my cousin to attend a family event. Traveling the world after college, my cousin had never made her way home. Instead, she settled in Australia, married Paul, and had children. It was my first time meeting them too.

Eleven years ago I was very involved in the vaccine-safety-medical-freedom-quest-for-justice movement, which was substantially smaller then. I had helped form The Canary Party, now called Health Choice, the first political organization whose mission was to fight for medical freedom, justice for the vaccine injured, and systemic change to the vaccine program in the United States.

I had raised money for various autism organizations, marched on Washington, repeatedly met with my legislators, appeared on television, spoken at conferences and written more articles than I can count as a contributing editor to the Age of Autism blog and for other publications.

In short, I was pretty outspoken myself. And given this was long before anyone could have ever imagined the COVID pandemic, or that a highly respected mainstream doctor from Australia would lose his license for tweeting about informed consent, we didn’t really discuss my views on autism causation.

In fact, I’m fairly certain I totally avoided it.

So when my mom texted me last year that Paul had caused quite a stir and lost his license to practice medicine because of his opinions about COVID policies and protocols, I was admittedly pretty flabbergasted.

I had learned over time that the majority of physicians didn’t look at their practices as being responsible for creating negative health outcomes. Clearly, it seemed, he wasn’t afraid to do so. I decided right then and there I needed to reach out.

‘Something’s not right’

Dr. Oosterhuis completed medical school at Sydney University, also training at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center and in Papua New Guinea. After completing his residency with rotations in internal medicine, cardiology, general surgery, neurosurgery and intensive care, he decided he liked critical care best. Anesthesiology was his preferred practice.

“I’ve seen more cardiac arrests than most people have had hot breakfasts,” he commented about his time in emergency medicine over the last three decades.

This explains why he was hyper-aware of what was happening in the world regarding COVID in hospitals long before he became labeled a public health threat. He comes at it from a critical care space.

At the start of his career 30 years ago, Paul believed the Australian system of medical care was the best. Clinicians could still observe, speculate and doubt about a patient’s condition and care, he told me. Hospitals were full of doctors, nurses and other health practitioners.

Over time, however, he began to see a shift. Hospitals became less occupied by medical experts and more occupied by administrators and bureaucrats.

“It drove me mad from the get-go, the never-ending increase in red tape and bureaucracy,” he said. “It all became more and more leftist, more and more ‘woke-ian’ over the last eight years or so.”

The first red flag came in 2016 when a sign on an operating door said that any physician without a flu shot had to wear a mask for the following 12 months. To him, it made no sense. He had looked at the literature and found no evidence that masks prevented influenza in emergency room departments.

On top of that, in 2015, he received the flu shot, not only ending up feeling terrible for one week afterward but also getting the worst flu of his life a few weeks after that. He wasn’t the least bit interested in trying it again.

“I couldn’t leave the bed. And then a few weeks later, I got the flu. And it was the worst flu I’ve ever had. So when I saw that notice on the operating door, I went, no. I’m going to look into this. There’s something not right here. It doesn’t add up.”

No matter, it seemed. Suddenly, all the hospital administration cared about was his vaccine status for his re-employment contract.

From there, the changes ramped up. Senior staff were being moved out of the decision-making tree. He started recognizing pollution in the journal space, conflicts of interest and questionable findings in published science. His faith in the scientific literature was being damaged. His faith in the medical system even more so. All of it was causing him great concern.

So when COVID came, he was early to the question, “Why are the doctors and nurses falling sick in northern Italy?” Surely, he thought, they had to have good quality PPE (personal protection equipment) like they did in Australia. Didn’t they?

To avoid the same crisis in Australia, he began speaking out. In his mind, a lack of quality PPE was a bureaucratic failure. He pointed out that Italy may have failed to prepare, but Australia had time to do so.

He started by asking for quantitative fit testing of their masks. He suggested alternatives when they refused. Alas, it fell on deaf ears.

“I could see there was no openness to anything I was suggesting.”

In January 2020, he tweeted the prime minister that doctors were going to hardware stores to get effective PPE. He was adamant they work on this problem, that medical staff have a safe work environment.

And that’s when the online attacks against him began.

Amid those attacks, and after pointing out that strangely, no masks had been given to busy clinics where people from hot spots like Iran and China were coming to, his medical director suggested that perhaps he shouldn’t turn up for his next list (of patients) if he were going to keep this up.

Before he even had the chance to reply, however, he had to go into isolation. A nurse he worked with was diagnosed with COVID.

While in quarantine, Dr. Oosterhuis remained in contact with his fellow doctors and nurses, none of whom could get testing. When an email came from the medical director claiming everyone had been tested and all had been negative, he knew for a fact it was a bald-faced lie.

“I had lost trust in the system by then,” he said. “They were lying. They were not acting logically. They were not working on the problem. They were not listening to solutions that would work. Something was very wrong.”

And then, the coup d’état. He saw the NFR (not for resuscitation) and intubation orders and got a clear sense they were heading toward something very dystopian. The paranoia of viral contamination was so strong, that they were just going to let people die. No one would be getting CPR.

‘Like water on a raincoat’

To counter the insanity, Dr. Oosterhuis began aggressively researching treatment protocols. If they weren’t going to help prevent people from getting sick, at least they could treat them, he reasoned.

That’s when he discovered things like taking zinc, hydroxychloroquine, quercetin and vitamin D could have a powerful effect.

“The things they censored were very instructive,” he said. “The truth could be found in whatever that was.”

For most of 2021, he continued to follow the research and speak out, telling anyone who would listen about options for treatment. Eerily, however, it was like they couldn’t hear it. Long before Robert Malone talked openly about mass formation psychosis, he claims he could see and feel it for himself.

“It was truly bizarre. [Suggestions for treatment] would hit them like water on someone covered in a raincoat,” Dr. Oosterhuis said. “It rolled right off them.”

Alas, it soon began to make sense. The gene therapy injection was coming. The document from the regulators released in March of 2021 confirmed it. Only the vaccine, they insisted, would be able to save everyone.

By August, challenging that narrative would cost him his license.

‘Beyond the scope of authority’

During his suspension, Dr. Oosterhuis attended several protests alongside hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens. He went to one in Melbourne with a half million people. He went to another and marched on Parliament House in Sydney with a half million more. He even attended Australia’s trucker protest. They had one, too.

Although the press refused to cover the demonstrations fairly, he describes the cooperation and camaraderie of the people as nothing he had ever experienced. Everyone was so happy to know they weren’t alone, he told me.

“We had the sense we were living through history and felt sorry for the people captured by the narrative and living in fear. Human rights, bodily autonomy, informed consent — none of that seemed to matter to them.”

At the protests, several people suggested a legal brief he could take to the Australian Supreme Court to challenge the Medical Council’s decision and restore his medical license. He wasn’t going to be able to debate the merit of his social media posts, that much had been made clear.

But he was possibly going to be able to prove they didn’t follow the law in making their decision. The council had acted ultra vires, it seemed — or, beyond their powers.

He summoned the Supreme Court and Medical Council for judicial review, representing himself. Once again he found himself in his living room on a computer screen, this time in his pajama bottoms, with people trying to ruin his livelihood and reputation.

The first time around, he admits, he was nervous. By the 12th hearing, however, he was a warrior ready for battle. And on May 10, 2022, he emerged victorious. All anonymous complaints, and the suspension of his medical license, had been lifted. He had won his case.

Dr. Oosterhuis wasn’t entirely satisfied, however, as his true goal had been getting medical freedom back for all Australians. There was still work to do, he claimed. He had really hoped to get a ruling stating they had acted unlawfully, not just out of their jurisdiction. It would have overturned all suspensions — and potentially the regime of terror against doctors with it.

‘Give me my orders’

Paul now considers himself a soldier in the war for medical freedom. He sees himself as a part of the machine trying to get sanity back in science and to protect the public. In the environment of censorship and propaganda, he believes, you no longer have a democracy. Informed consent becomes impossible.

We talked for well over an hour about the parallels of our journeys for the same things, and how even though he’s later to the party than me, he’s in it for life. He insists he won’t stop fighting until they stop injecting our kids.

He also admits he just wasn’t awake. He took all vaccines without question until his horrible experience with the flu shot in 2015. He has also had to reevaluate past practices and assumptions.

Having resuscitated many SIDS babies over the years he realized, “Never once had it crossed my mind to ask, ‘When was their most recent vaccination?’”

Likewise, he has dug deeply into the literature on vaccine safety, or rather, the lack thereof. He understands now how they manipulate and censor science if they don’t like the outcomes, specifically citing Paul Thomas and James Lyons-Weiler’s study of the vaccinated versus unvaccinated and how the publisher pulled it, not a doctor or scientist.

“They don’t like having control groups,” he said. “One of the most sinister agendas in this whole thing is they never study any of these agents versus a placebo control.”

He went further adding, “And we know why. Because it would show it’s an unmitigated disaster.”

Paul went on to describe just how deeply this experience has affected him personally. Besides the trauma of losing his medical license after a stellar record of 30 years in practice, and for social media posts nonetheless, it has helped him formulate a new personal philosophy.

“I personally will not have another vaccine in this body in this lifetime,” he told me.

“I had made an oath a year and a half ago that that was my decision,” he said. “And so then the question was, how am I going to live in this world where they seem determined to inject every man, woman, child and animal on the planet with this thing? Like I say, I’m opposed to it. I’m a soldier. And I am opposed to it to my death.”

‘Real threat to the whole of humanity’

Dr. Oosterhuis hasn’t returned to the hospitals where he once worked. For one, they still have their vaccine mandates. And two, far too many of his colleagues have chosen to stay asleep, he feels. He can’t go back to it pretending none of this is real.

Instead, he spends his time now speaking out. In addition to being interviewed globally by people such as Steve Kirsch, Pierre Kory, and Peter McCullough, he has created a Substack with a substantial following. Topics have included the increase in the all-cause mortality signal; fraudulent PCR tests; and the shocking damage to fertility we see happening all over the world.

“In country after country, you see nine months after the roll out (of the vaccine), a collapse in birth rates, a massive increase in infertility, and problems with women’s cycles,” he said. “This is a real threat to the whole of humanity.”

He’s equally concerned about the power grab of the World Health Organization and other health agencies. When I commented that without liability, pharmaceutical companies have no incentive for restraint, he took it a step further. They don’t just lack an incentive for restraint, he countered. They are now incentivized to create disasters.

“It’s criminality that’s become an existential threat to humanity. We don’t have any choice but to push back.”

‘I hoped I was wrong’

From the very beginning, Paul insists that he wanted to be wrong. He wanted to be wrong about it all. He was simply putting questions out into the digital universe.

What if they tried a different mask? Where was the proper PPE? Why was there such resistance to treatment protocols? Why were they giving 24,000 students an experimental injection for a disease they’d never die from? None of it made any sense.

“I hoped I was wrong. I really did,” he said. “But within days I heard a report of a high school student who had died, and I heard there was going to be a service. Then there were other reports of deaths in the 24,000. At the time of my tweet, I prayed I was wrong. I would have been happy to be wrong. But my role was to put them on notice. I didn’t want them to be able to say, ‘we didn’t know.’ It’s on public record, they did.”

When top officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration resigned last year over the pressure to push for boosters, Paul says their parting letter didn’t pull any punches. The danger was not just to the credibility of the COVID-19 vaccine, these officials claimed, but to the credibility of all vaccines. Paul believes they are right, and that accountability is coming, even if it’s slow.

Meanwhile, his trust in the government, medicine, science, journalism and the media has been destroyed. He carries a sense of disgust that many of us have already carried for some time, and he is adamant that we have to rebuild our institutions from the ground up. We need true science, true integrity and an end to conflicts of interest.

“Public-private partnerships sound great until you put a jackboot on it,” he says.

Most of all, he insists, we need bodily autonomy.

“If we don’t have bodily autonomy, we are already enslaved.”

‘A coincidence theorist’

Paul tells me that he is not a conspiracy theorist but rather a coincidence theorist. I laugh, only because the name of my book, which he hadn’t known, is “An Unfortunate Coincidence: A Mother’s Life inside the Autism Controversy” (Skyhorse 2016).

Both of us notice the coincidences. When they become less and less probable, “you start to think, maybe this is the way reality actually works.”

We commiserate for a little while over the figurative costs of being in this fight, and how neither one of us could have ever imagined being a part of it, or really ever having needed to be. Science was once sacred, I remind him. He agrees, but pushes back.

“The fight is here. It’s now,” he said. “The ultimate battle is here. And as big as the cost is of speaking out, the cost of not speaking out is exponentially larger. And the cost gets greater every day that passes.”

I am inspired again to pick up my proverbial sword. It has been almost six years since I have actively spoken out or regularly written anything. Fifteen years in the fight prior affected me in profoundly personal ways that required a reprieve.

And yet, I know he is right. The fight is here. It is time to get back in the ring. I thank him for reminding me of that and all he is doing.

“For decades, I have fought for everyone’s lives, and I’m still doing it. I’m not doing it in the operation theater, but I’m doing it on a different scale now. The only way you can protect those closest to you is to end this for everyone.”

Paul and I finish the conversation. It is late for me in Chicago while he is in Sydney. Once again, he is in his living room over a computer screen, in the same space where he lost his medical license and then took on the Australian Supreme Court to regain it.

In the same place he intends to save many more lives.

Even in his pajamas.


Julie Obradovic is a contributing editor to the Age of Autism blog, a founding member of The Canary Party and the author of “An Unfortunate Coincidence: A Mother’s Life inside the Autism Controversy.”

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.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment