Where are they now? White House Covid Task Force members cashed in on pandemic panic
Almost 4 years later, things are going swimmingly for the virus panic corps.
By Jordan Schachtel | The Dossier | December 13, 2023
The White House Coronavirus Task Force was spun up on January 29, 2020. Shortly thereafter, the federal government began to deploy countless billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies with the ostensible hopes to mitigate a much-hyped incoming pandemic.
Now, almost four years later, our hindsight presents a much clearer picture to the fog of virus mania we experienced in realtime.
Instead of mobilizing an effective public-private response to the advertised problem, Operation Warp Speed and the Task Force served as a vehicle for further panic and the facilitating of taxpayer cash that ended up enriching the pharmaceutical industry. These taxpayer-funded, Covid-related slush funds ballooned to astronomical heights across two presidencies, delivering record profits to Pharma companies that took pains to bring themselves onsides with the people in charge in Washington, D.C.
Tragically, the government-backed mechanical (ventilators) and pharmaceutical (remdesivir, mRNA shots, etc) interventions didn’t work to remedy the respiratory illness problem. Instead, they added an additional layer of chaos on top of the virus mania that had captured the world.
Operation Warp Speed and the resulting Task Force operation was, by all objective accounts, a catastrophic blunder, but that didn’t stop many of its members from parlaying their roles on the high visibility government detail into successful post service gigs.
So we thought now would be a good time to take a look at some of the healthcare/pharma-related government officials responsible for some of those fateful decisions, and where they are today.

Mike Pence:
He was primarily responsible for staffing the Trump Administration’s Covid response team. Pence launched his presidential bid in June, but gave up by October. He is perhaps the only Task Force member who did not benefit from the operation, as his political career is effectively over.
Anthony Fauci:
The most notorious member of the Task Force, Fauci’s wealth increased multiple times over while serving as the Pharma kingmaker over at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He recently took a no-show professorship at Georgetown University and is said to be working on a book.

Deborah Birx:
The second most infamous member of the Task Force, Birx, a protege of the Bill Gates network, has also cashed in on her time in the spotlight. She has since joined multiple pharmaceutical boards and wrote a book attempting to generate even more virus hysteria.

Moncef Slaoui
Technically not a member of the Task Force but the leader of Operation Warp Speed. Slaoui succeeded in delivering preferential treatment to Moderna, where he had a board seat and $10 million in stock options. Moderna stock would jump 20x from January of 2020 to late 2021. Slaoui left Operation Warp Speed in January 2021 to join a GSK-owned pharmaceutical company. He was later fired due to a sexual harassment claim.
Alex Azar
A former president at Eli Lily, he briefly chaired the White House Task Force. As the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Azar facilitated billions of dollars in funding to vaccine companies. Like his colleagues, Azar has since joined several pharmaceutical and healthcare boards.
Jerome Adams
After leaving the White House, the former Surgeon General became Purdue University’s “Executive Director of Health Equity Initiatives,” sporting a salary of half a million dollars a year for the gig. He also joined the boards of half a dozen healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. The hyper woke activist just penned a book casting himself as a “front line hero” in the fight against Covid-19.

Brett Giroir
The Trump Administration’s assistant secretary for health (succeeded by the transgender identifying admiral “Rachel” Levine) spun right through the revolving door with his colleagues. He now serves as CEO and a member of the board of a respiratory virus treatment company. He also wrote a book on “fighting Covid from the front lines to the White House.”

Stephen Hahn
Hahn served as the FDA commissioner and a member of the Task Force. Only six months after authorizing the Moderna mRNA shot, he went on to serve as the chief medical officer of Flagship Pioneering, the venture capital firm behind Moderna. He has since joined multiple ventures seeking to get products approved for FDA clearance.

Robert Redfield
The former CDC director who once declared masks as superior to vaccines has joined quite a few boards related to Pharma and healthcare.
Seema Verma
As CMS Director, this Task Force member issued the infamous memo leaning on healthcare systems to suspend non elective procedures. After her tenure in the Trump Administration, Verma joined the boards of several healthcare firms and became a Senior Vice President at Oracle Corporation.
New Zealand whistleblower released on bail, meanwhile scientists debate meaning of leaked vaccine data
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 12, 2023
Scientists and statisticians continue to review and debate the accuracy and completeness of a large database of COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths released less than two weeks ago by a New Zealand Ministry of Health whistleblower.
Meanwhile, the whistleblower — Barry Young — was charged by New Zealand authorities with “accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes.” The 56-year-old appeared in Wellington District Court on Dec. 4. and was released on bail the next day.
Young, who also has used the pseudonym “Winston Smith,” was a computer systems programmer for New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, administering a computer payment system for certain vaccine administrators.
Police raided Young’s home on Dec. 3, and arrested him. Police raided the home of an associate the same day.
Young, who was reportedly offered two safehouses in New Zealand and one overseas but refused the offers, now faces at least seven years’ imprisonment. According to Newsweek, Young shouted “freedom” as he departed the courtroom on Dec. 4.
Young released the anonymized data with the assistance of Liz Gunn, a former lawyer, television journalist and candidate for public office for the NZ Loyal Party.
According to mathematician Igor Chudov, who analyzed the data, the database included information on the vaccine type, batch number, dose number, vaccination date, age, date of birth and date of death of the anonymized vaccine recipients.
The dataset was related to so-called pay-per-dose providers, such as individual doctors and drugstores. It did not include data on vaccinations administered at mass vaccination centers and by mobile vaccination clinics.
Data raise questions government ‘can’t ignore’
According to the New Zealand Herald, Health New Zealand, the national public health system also known as Te Whatu Ora, has opened an investigation and attempted to discredit the whistleblower, claiming Young “had no clinical background or expert vaccine knowledge.” Some analysts noted Young’s expertise in data administration.
Health New Zealand’s public messaging has centered around the security of personal data. “What [Young] is claiming is completely wrong and ill-informed … We take the security of the information we hold extremely seriously, and this is a significant breach of trust,” said Margie Apa, Health New Zealand’s chief executive.
In an interview with The Defender, Australian attorney Katie Ashby-Koppens said Health New Zealand was also granted an injunction from New Zealand’s Employment Relations Authority, prohibiting the publication of the leaked data.
Ashby-Koppens, who worked with New Zealand groups promoting medical freedom and transparency, questioned the legality of this injunction, which reportedly was used to pressure hosting providers to remove copies of the leaked data stored on their servers, leading some providers to remove accounts hosting the anonymized data.
Minister of Health Shane Reti sought to reassure the public about vaccine safety.
“There are many conspiracy theorists out there who unfortunately disseminate harmful disinformation, however, as Minister and as a physician, the public can and should continue to have confidence in vaccines,” he said. “I am reassured by experts confirming that there is no evidence supporting the allegations that have been made.”
According to the New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science (NZDSOS) media team, consisting of Dr. Cindy de Villiers, Dr. Alison Goodwin, Dr. Matt Shelton and Anna McLoughlin, such statements are a continuation of official COVID-19 narratives.
“The official mainstream media narrative is that New Zealand did very well during the pandemic, having negative excess mortality,” a spokesperson for NZDSOS told The Defender. “The New Zealand government and media have adopted a ‘shoot the messenger’ approach and then studiously ignored the issue, such that the average person on the street probably is unaware of what is happening in New Zealand.”
Yet, members of the public “who know what is happening absolutely support the whistleblower,” NZDSOS said, noting that “the media is so controlled and captured that large chunks of the population remain unaware of the data release or its significance.”
New Zealand authorities acknowledge only four COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths.
“The data has been very controversial, with people finding opposing things from their analysis of the data, despite being on the same side of the COVID debate,” Ashby-Koppens said. “The data is not complete [but] it raises a lot of questions, questions that the new New Zealand coalition government can’t ignore.”
Norman Fenton, Ph.D., a mathematician and professor emeritus at Queen Mary University of London, also examined the leaked data. He told The Defender the reaction of New Zealand’s authorities to the leak was “very strange.” He added:
“I understand that releasing confidential medical records is a criminal offense, but … the whistleblower only released an anonymized version of the data.
“Given the advanced publicity by people like Steve Kirsch about what the data revealed, I would have thought the New Zealand government would have been better advised to do nothing rather than raiding homes, arresting the whistleblower and erasing files from people who had gained access to the data. It is almost as if they wanted to get more publicity for both the data breach and what the data revealed.”
Presenting one possible reason supporting such an explanation, Fenton said:
“Not surprisingly, this has also led to conspiracy theories of which the most notable is that the government knew that this particular dataset did not contain (as some have claimed) any ‘smoking gun’ on vaccine safety and therefore it was deliberately released so it could be used to discredit ‘anti-vaxxers’ who claimed it did, and also act as a warning against any others who had access to more incriminating data to shut up.”
But for Kirsch, the founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation who examined the data and publicly claimed it proves that the COVID-19 vaccines killed 1 in 1,000 people globally, Young “is a hero.”
“He knew he would risk his life and could spend the rest of his life in jail, but he made the courageous move to expose the data for all to see,” he wrote.
According to NZDSOS, Young is due to appear in court again on Dec. 18 to submit a plea and is “represented by a large legal firm in New Zealand.”
Whistleblower noticed ‘really big safety signals’ in the data
In his Nov. 30 interview with Gunn accompanying the release of the data, Young said he helped build the very database from which the data were leaked. Access to such data led him to note items of concern that he decided to go public with, he said.
“I helped build it. I implemented it,” he said. “When I was looking up the data, I noted discrepancies with the dates of death. People were dying almost straight away after being injected and that sort of prompted my curiosity and I dug a little deeper.”
According to Young, he previously was vaccinated, but said that whether he’d get another dose was “a different story.” He added that he “believe[s] in fundamental freedoms of humans and [that] we shouldn’t have a procedure forced on us because of a mandate,” calling this “a huge overreach by the government.”
Following his release on bail, Young granted an interview to Infowars producer and host Alex Jones, stating that he noticed “really big red flags” and “really big safety signals” in the data. “Statistically, it may be killing people,” he said.
“I just looked at the data and what I was seeing, since the rollout, it just blew my mind. I was just seeing more and more people dying who shouldn’t have been dying. It was just obvious,” Young said. “I want people to analyze this … We need to open it up and the government needs to have an inquiry about it. Just bring it to the public’s attention.”
According to New Zealand police, Young’s post-bail interview with Infowars did not breach his bail conditions. He has since granted other interviews.
Scientists disagree on significance of data
According to NZDSOS, the leaked data “cover[s] vaccines that were administered as pay-per-dose. There are 2.2 million people and approximately 4 million doses included.” This compares to a total of 12.78 million doses administered in New Zealand.
Statistical consultant William Briggs is one of the analysts who reviewed the data. On his Substack, he wrote that “we cannot tell for sure” what the data definitively indicates, as there are important items of information missing.
“There was no cause of death given for anybody,” Briggs said. “Just death date for those who had at least one shot and died in this window. There can therefore be no certain proof of any cause of death,” he wrote.
Briggs added:
“An insurmountable problem in ascribing cause is the lack of data on people who did not get any shots. Their death and age data is missing. There is no comparison group for the people who got shots. …
“… this means there is no natural comparison group and nothing about cause, therefore, can be said with certainty.”
Briggs said that the data indicated a small increase in deaths among young people soon after receiving the first and second dose, but said this may be “because the young tended to get fewer shots.”
The analysis that has perhaps garnered the most analysis, though, comes from Kirsch, who wrote, “There is no confusion any longer: the vaccines are unsafe and have killed, on average, around 1 person per 1,000 doses.”
Kirsch noted that this figure “is consistent with other careful analyses,” such as one by Canadian scientist Denis Rancourt.
According to Kirsch, one safety signal he identified in the data is a “mortality hump that peaks around 6 months after a dose is given.”
“The data from New Zealand is not perfect; it is not a complete sample,” Kirsch conceded. “But, by using a cohort time-series analysis, it doesn’t matter. There is no possible way that this data is consistent with a safe vaccine.”
Fenton, who analyzed the data on his Substack, took a different position, telling The Defender, “The dataset is a very large subset of those vaccinated in New Zealand, and is potentially one of the most important publicly available datasets for examining COVID vaccine safety. But I don’t believe it is the ‘smoking gun’ as some have claimed.”
He noted the absence of a control group (the unvaccinated) and that “the age profile seems higher than the national age profile of [the] vaccinated, so there is some bias.”
However, he said the data “does provide some evidence of lack of safety of the vaccine, in particular supporting our own previous observations (from U.K. data) that in older age groups, all-cause mortality is higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.”
“What is less clear is the claim concerning batches with exceptionally high mortality rates,” Fenton said. “The claim that these batches were especially deadly due to the contents of the vaccine or its delivery is confounded by their very different age and time of vaccination profiles,” he added.
Chudov, in a pair of posts on Substack, also presented his analysis of the data. In his initial post, he suggested the public “be wary” of the data and noted that Gunn “is misinterpreting it by trying to pass normal nursing home deaths as evidence of ‘super deadly batches’ and ‘mass vaccine casualties.’”
In a follow-up post, Chudov acknowledged that some of his original questions about the completeness of the data were subsequently addressed, stating his belief that “Barry Young was more likely to be sincere than insincere in his intentions and actions.” Yet, he said his questions “about nursing home deaths and data quality still apply.”
Some analysts also pointed to official data indicating that excess deaths in New Zealand continue to be significantly above the long-term average — 17% in September and early October 2023, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Some also pointed to data indicating sharp increases in the incidence of heart attacks in New Zealand.
Yet, Apa said, “We assure people there is no evidence whatsoever that vaccination is responsible for excess mortality in New Zealand and that they can continue to have confidence in the vaccine,” in remarks quoted by the New Zealand Herald.
“We hope that additional independent assessment of the data by credible analysts will lead to further scrutiny of the vaccine rollout in [New Zealand] and that the whistleblower will not have risked everything for nothing,” activist group Voices for Freedom wrote.
Political questions surrounding the data leak, subsequent government actions
According to Voices of Freedom, Young reached out to them “a couple of years ago” and had reached out to several other organizations during this period, prior to telling Gunn about the data and releasing it with her assistance.
Voices of Freedom, as well as some other analysts, have nevertheless raised questions as to whether Gunn handled the release appropriately.
Young and Gunn told Infowars they attempted to contact Winston Peters, leader of the New Zealand First political party and current deputy prime minister and foreign minister, regarding the data, but were unsuccessful in doing so.
But according to analyst Tony Mobilifonitis, Peters “most likely is limited in what he can do because of the delicate politics of the three-party coalition.” Analyst Markus Mutscheller wrote that while Peters had previously “aligned with the NZ freedom movement … His priority is always to keep his position of power in the cabinet. Without it, he can’t do anything.”
NZDSOS told The Defender, “So far, there has been no public comment by NZ First or the ACT party, both of which championed a broader inquiry,” adding that Reti “is from the National Party, which firmly backs the use of mandated vaccines.”
“The Associate Minister of Health, Casey Costello, is from NZ First, who is well aware of what is happening. However, ministers are not able to comment on cases that are before the court,” NZDSOS added.
According to the New Zealand Herald, an inquiry examining New Zealand’s COVID-19 pandemic response has been convened. However, according to NZDSOS, it is unlikely to examine the leaked data, as the inquiry “specifically excludes vaccine efficacy and does not include vaccine safety.” Instead, it aims to “strengthen … preparedness for, and response to, any future pandemic.”
According to NZDSOS, “The new coalition government has promised a broader public inquiry, but terms and conditions have not been decided upon to date. It is not clear whether there will be additions to the existing inquiry or whether a completely new inquiry will commence. Our preference is for a brand-new inquiry.”
‘Still no letup’ in narrative that COVID vaccines are ‘safe and effective’
Several scientists, analysts and activists have called on the New Zealand government to release full, anonymized COVID-19 vaccine data and its own analysis.
“They should release the data on the unvaccinated so that a full direct comparison can be made,” Fenton said. “We also need all the (anonymized) patient-level data on new health conditions/hospitalizations since 2021, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated, so that we can determine the true level of vaccine adverse reactions.”
Similarly, NZDSOS said, “The best approach would be to release all the data in an anonymized form and for the Ministry of Health to discuss their analysis.”
Kirsch wrote, “Nobody will debate me on this,” adding that New Zealand authorities “should be releasing the full [12 million-person] record dataset to remove all doubt and prove to the world the vaccines are safe.”
“Clinical outcomes are never improved by keeping public health data hidden from public view,” Kirsch wrote. “Yet every health authority in the world has kept this critical record-level safety data hidden from view.”
In a subsequent Substack post, Kirsch wrote, “Health New Zealand: Where is your analysis of your data? Why aren’t you publishing it?”
Voices for Freedom called on New Zealand authorities “to be transparent with NZ’s vaccination data,” noting that “There appears to be no official denial of the accuracy of the downloaded Health NZ data set.”
NZDSOS said that New Zealand authorities have a history of not being transparent, telling The Defender that Official Information Act requests are fraught with “often lengthy delays and redaction of data” and the system “is not particularly functional.”
“Some of these requests have been acknowledged, but the length of time in releasing information of this kind in any form has been delayed time and time again … We have not heard of any data/information releases that have come out yet,” NZDSOS said.
Fenton said New Zealand authorities are not being forthcoming regarding the data because it would likely “reveal much more evidence on just how ineffective and unsafe the vaccines have been and on how it likely has led to increased all-cause mortality in all age groups who have taken it.”
“There is still no letup in attempts by governments and pharma companies to close down all discussion and evidence of vaccine harms and to maintain the ‘official’ line that these vaccines are ‘safe and effective’ and need to continue to be given,” he added.
“It appears that the measures taken to silence Barry and avoid discussing the data are designed to deter others from doing the same thing,” NZDSOS said. Similarly, Fenton shared his belief that “the very public actions taken against the whistleblower [were] likely intended to dissuade other whistleblowers everywhere, not just in New Zealand.”
NZDSOS said that prospective whistleblowers should nevertheless not be dissuaded.
“Do what will allow you to sleep at night. It is not about any legal advice, as we know that it is likely that the legal system is compromised. It is about doing what is right,” NZDSOS said. “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
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.
Unexplained deaths skyrocket in highly covid vaccinated Canada
By Rhoda Wilson – The Exposé – December 8, 2023
A report released by Statistics Canada (“StatsCan”) on 27 November showed that the number of covid deaths in highly vaccinated Canada rose by 36% last year.
The largest increase was in Atlantic Canada, where the number of covid deaths per 100,000 population in 2022 was more than seven times higher than in 2021. Atlantic Canada also had the highest uptake of covid “vaccines.”
As well as soaring covid deaths, Canadian government data reveals a staggering 135% death spike classified as “other ill-defined and unspecified causes of mortality.”
The report also reveals that Canadian life expectancy dropped for the third year in a row. The falling life expectancy trend coincidentally started in 2020.
According to StatsCan, the nation recorded a record number of covid deaths, despite high vaccination uptake and the pandemic having ended.
As of 10 September 2023, 83% of Canadians have had at least one dose of the covid injection.
Except for Nova Scotia where 83% of the population had at least one dose, Atlantic Canada – which makes up less than 7% of Canada’s population and comprises the provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island – had higher vaccination uptake than the national average of 83%: New Brunswick (87%), Newfoundland and Labrador (96%) and Prince Edward Island (90%).
According to StatsCan, Atlantic Canada also had a seven-fold increase in covid deaths last year; 59.5 deaths per 100,000 population in 2022 versus 8.3 deaths per 100,000 in 2021.
Despite the clear safety signal of increased deaths, the Government has an autumn booster campaign recommending that Canadians get “an updated covid vaccine dose.”
Maxime Bernier, the leader of the conservative People’s Party of Canada (“PPC”), broke the story on Twitter about “more shocking data on the number and causes of deaths” in Canada released by StatsCan. He tweeted:
In a PPC newsletter dated 5 December, Bernier delved into the implications of the report, saying, “These deaths have almost TRIPLED since 2020 from 6,841 to 16,043 in 2022.”
“What happened in 2021 that could have caused this explosion of unexplained deaths over the last 2 years? An experimental pharmaceutical product was rushed to market and forced on Canadian society, is what happened. They told us it was ‘safe and effective’ but over the last few years we have learned more and more about how that covid shot was neither,” Bernier said.
The PPC leader then accused the establishment of ignoring such a significant development, saying this breaking news was “ignored by all of our crooked establishment politicians and the dishonest corporate media.”
Sources for this article include:
- Canada Reports 135% Spike in Deaths from ‘Unspecified Causes’, Slay News, 6 December 2023
- StatCan report reveals 135% increase in deaths due to “unspecified causes”, The Counter Signal, 5 December 2023
- These Numbers Should Be Front Page News: Canada Reports 135% Spike in Deaths From ‘Unspecified Causes’, Lioness of Judah Ministry, 7 December 2023
Hungary: EU’s Covid-19 vaccine purchases reek of corruption
Remix News | December 7, 2023
In the European Commission, the procurement of Pfizer vaccines has been surrounded by suspicions of corruption for some time, especially regarding negotiations between EC President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, which were conducted over text messages that subsequently “disappeared.”
“It is clear that these vaccines were ordered and forced on member states in unnecessarily large quantities,” the Hungarian Government Information Center said in response to a request from daily Magyar Nemzet, after it emerged that Pfizer and BioNTech had filed a lawsuit against the Hungarian government in January this year over the purchase of some of the Covid-19 vaccines.
According to documents obtained by Politico, the plaintiffs are demanding payment from Hungary for 3 million BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines worth around €60 million.
Von der Leyen held preliminary talks with the head of Pfizer in March 2021 on the purchase of the coronavirus vaccine, and virtually agreed to the details by text message with the pharmaceutical giant’s CEO, Albert Bourla. An investigation into the deal, worth around €35 billion, was launched in January 2022, but the European Commission president’s team failed to find the text messages in question.
EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly concluded that von der Leyen had deliberately obstructed her work by claiming not to have found any text message between the EU commission president and Bourla. It later emerged that they had allegedly only reviewed internal document registers, not text messages, saying they were too short-lived and therefore not covered by EU law on the retention of policy documents.
The anti-Hungarian EU commissioner Vera Jourová, also previously suspected of corruption, could only defend von der Leyen, citing the short-lived, ephemeral nature of text messages.
However, according to the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, the behavior of the committee members did not comply with the transparency required by EU rules, and no attempt was made to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the matter.
The European Commission president also defended herself by saying that she was not involved in the negotiations and that the messages did not influence the course of the deal. It is no coincidence that von der Leyen has tried to play down the importance of the text message negotiations, as the purchase of Pfizer vaccines has also caused a financial loss for the European Union: Under the terms of the mega-contract with Pfizer and BioNTech, Brussels will buy 900 million doses of vaccines worth $35 billion between the end of 2020 and 2023, with an option for a further 900 million doses.
What We Are Not Allowed to Say
By Christine E. Black | OffGuardian | December 3, 2023
Censorship imperils cultures and civilization. When governments and elites prohibit speaking or writing without threats, shaming, or epithets meant to shut down discussion, free thinking dies. People also die.
A censorship industrial complex grew around Covid hysteria, which began as a war on a virus. New full-blown wars, with guns, bombs, tanks, and planes, and thousands dead now explode around us as free speech is lost in wars’ rubble, and propaganda buries truths.
With money and massive influence, private for-profit industries like pharmaceutical companies, capture US agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control, that then bolster industry profits rather than protect public health. Similarly, captured politicians help corporations profit from wars, as Marine Corp Brigadier General Smedley Butler notes in his book, War is a Racket and as Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against in his 1961 Farewell Address. Corporate and government elites get rich from wars based on lies, such as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and they sit rich now in retirement.
What truths might we uncover, sifting through wars’ rubble? Children and young people didn’t need Covid shots as they were at little risk from serious illness from Covid, and some countries stopped recommending them. Yet, vaccines are a main source of revenue for pediatricians. A “pandemic of the unvaccinated” never happened though entertainers, highly paid media figures, and politicians viciously maligned those who waited or declined a Covid shot.
Most people contracted Covid anyway, whether they got multiple shots or not. Shots did not prevent transmission. Thousands of Covid vaccine-injured people have been bullied into silence and rendered invisible. These are all statements we have been forbidden from making in the last few years; those who dare utter them faced rancor or ridicule or worse.
Don’t talk about Covid shots, school and business closings, or the many beloved businesses and churches that closed for good because of bureaucratic mandates.
Don’t talk about vaccine injuries or deaths or children’s learning losses or epidemics of addictions; don’t talk about child and teen suicides.
Don’t talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s astute observations that Haiti and Nigeria had the some of the least restrictive Covid policies on earth, had about a one percent Covid vaccine rate, and have had some of the lowest Covid death rates in the world, observations noted in his book, Letter to Liberals.
Don’t talk about how Covid shots may cause Covid, or how Pfizer’s own product literature states that Covid is one of the side effects of the shot. When we talk about these topics, listeners often stiffen and bristle, their eyes may go blank as they dismiss us with pity or contempt before we even complete a spoken paragraph. Now, new disasters and traumas affect the world, and many insist we not talk about them to avoid snarling and insults or worse.
Violence and war exploded in the Middle East recently, and more unutterable statements come to mind. For instance, criticizing the policies of the Israeli government does not equal anti-Semitism. Great Britain, the same colonial power that colonized and divided the African continent and other countries like poker chips among winners, made The Balfour Declaration in 1917 that declared a “home for the Jews” in Palestine, where Palestinians already lived.
Was this presumptuous and elitist for the British to declare?
Is a single, open, and democratic state in Israel with equal rights for all the best solution to the conflicts and violence, as Israeli American writer, activist, and Israeli Defense Force veteran Miko Peled has stated? Peled is the son of an Israeli general and grandson of one of the signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. His father was an Israeli war hero turned peace maker. He changed his thinking on Israel; so did Miko Peled. Peled writes his story in his book, The General’s Son and shares his views in talks and interviews, such as this one on the Katie Halper program.
In spite of how propaganda bombards us, we may note as Miko Peled does, that Palestinians are not simply evil barbarians, beheading babies and raping women. Islam is not a religion of fanatics and terrorists, in Palestine, or anywhere else, as the media often portrays it. It is one of the world’s major religions. The word, Islam, means “submission to the will of God.” The Arabic word, “salaam” which means peace, is part of the common greeting among Muslims all over the world.
Spreading peace is a requirement of the faith. Similarly, sharing God’s peace is expected among Christians and Jews.
Christians have been criticized for their views on Israel. An older and much more well-read peace activist friend shared with me that some evangelical Christians who support Israel, stand with Israel, do so because they believe Israel is the final launching pad for the Rapture when Christians will be zapped up to Heaven, and Jewish people will be too if they convert to Christianity. Jewish people who do not will perish.
What do Jewish people think of this scenario? What if they do not want to “accept Jesus,” but simply wish to remain Jewish? It is confusing. Plenty of the world’s worst violence has been committed and continues in the name of or under the cover of religion.
Statements we are not supposed to make call us to make them now. Statements I make above could be wrong. Many may disagree with them. However, censorship kills with its shaming epithets meant to shut down discussion and thought, like the labels “anti-Semitic” or “conspiracy theorist,” “science denier” or “anti-Vaxxer.”
Censorship imperils us when we are forbidden to speak without threats and insults, such as when we were told, “You don’t care if others die of Covid” if we decided not to wear a mask or to move about freely in 2020 and 2021. Similarly, we were told, “You deserve to be excluded from society if you decline a vaccine” even when some of us had natural immunity or didn’t think we needed it. Even worse, some of us were told, “You deserve to die – or lose your job or friends or education — if you don’t comply.”
Many said such horrible things in the last few years.
Slogans and advertising language often replace free speech and obliterate open thought, as they did during the Covid period, as they do during all wars. Should we be wary of sloganeering and pre-packaged language like “wiped off the map,” “Israel’s 9-11,” “rid the world of evil,” “mushroom cloud,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” – sloganeering that stops empathy and reflection, closes debate, and whips populations into war frenzies? Should we question slogans and manipulative phrases?
What questions might we ask about slogans like Israel’s “right to exist”? What does that mean? After a suicide bomber killed his niece in Israel years ago, Miko Peled asked questions. He joined dialogue groups of Israelis and Palestinians and changed his thinking.
US military veteran suicides have been at epidemic levels after soldiers returned from multiple deployments in disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignited by sloganeering after 9-11 and the launch of the so-called “war on terror,” which was to “rid the world of evil.” How might those veterans react now, hearing this same kind of language about “Israel’s 9-11”? This past week, I learned of another veteran who committed suicide.
Can we keep our minds opened, our hearts softened to alternative perspectives? During Covid lockdowns, rigid thinking and censorship caused the US to harm its own children relentlessly as their suicides, addictions, developmental delays, learning losses, and despair increased. Children around the world starved, were abused, exploited, and enslaved because of lockdown policies we were forbidden to question. Has an entire generation of young people been harmed?
Free societies do not ban statements and opinions. Free societies permit questions and debate. Statements above may be phrased as questions as well. For instance, do Covid shots work? Have they worked to stop transmission and illness and death? Was discussion of early Covid treatment suppressed, as Dr. Peter McCollough noted early in lockdowns? Are Covid vaccine-injured people silenced? Where may we find their stories?
Should western cultures have shut down in 2020 in an attempt to avoid a single pathogen? By what authority did bureaucrats suspend the US Constitution in 2020 and forbid assembly, speech, protest, group worship, and community gatherings? What were the harms? Who benefitted from lockdowns and Covid shots and how? How much money changed hands? Who wrote the checks and who got paid?
Why are Palestinians fighting? How do we end the violence and build peace? Should the US fund violence in Israel the ways it does? What has life been like in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine for the last few decades? Could lockdowns have made life there worse?
Israel has been criticized as one of the most repressive countries in the world for Covid restrictions and Covid shot mandates. Protesting Covid policies is a privilege Palestinians in Gaza would not have had. They have lacked basic medicines, clean water, and schools free of bombings for years.
Was the Balfour Declaration a good idea? Conservative Jewish Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, speaking at a Let the Quran Speak conference, supports Palestinians and criticizes leaders of the state of Israel on religious grounds.
Documentary films like Occupation 101 and Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land provoked my thinking when I helped organize public showings of them while working with peace groups. We led discussions of these films along with War Made Easy, a film based on Norman Solomon’s book by the same name, and The Ground Truth, a film about the horrific effects on the eight-ten percent of the population, sent on multiple deployments to fights those wars.
In the last few years, the same US government that sent military members to fight and die in catastrophic wars forced Covid shots on them until refusers struck down the unlawful mandates.
Stories from outsiders and whistleblowers may teach us, stories from former insiders in the military, in industry, in governments. Soldiers sent to fight disastrous wars may have lost limbs or memory or cognitive function from IEDs. They learned and changed and spoke – what we were not allowed to say.
Describing this latest violence as “Israel’s 9-11” is especially dangerous as we recall the unfathomable destruction and carnage that such language unleashed on the world more than twenty years ago with the launch of the so-called “war on terror”.
What did we learn? Outsiders and independent thinkers — who have said what was forbidden — have often changed history. From the so-called “war on terror,” the war on a virus, the current war in Israel and Palestine, perhaps they will now.
Christine E. Black‘s poetry has been published in Antietam Review, 13th Moon, American Journal of Poetry, New Millennium Writings, Nimrod International, Red Rock Review, The Virginia Journal of Education, Friends Journal, The Veteran, Sojourners Magazine, Iris Magazine, English Journal, Amethyst Review, St. Katherine Review, Dappled Things and other publications.
Citizen Inquiry Report Blasts Canadian Government Response to COVID
‘We Cannot Allow This to Happen to Our Children and Grandchildren’
By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | December 1, 2023
After months of hearings in nearly every province, Canada’s National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) on Tuesday released its final 643-page report on the country’s COVID-19 response, addressing the societal impacts of lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates and other measures.
The report, compiled by four independent commissioners, included nearly 5,000 additional pages of testimony from hundreds of people who experienced adverse vaccine reactions, destruction of their livelihoods and education, diminished mental health, damaged reputations, professional discipline and/or censorship, according to True North.
The report contained over 80 pages of recommendations for lawmakers, public institutions and citizens, and called for the establishment of a National Crisis Oversight Council that would serve as an “independent, multidisciplinary body tasked with monitoring, policing and investigating government actions during crises,” including pandemics.
In an online press conference announcing the report, NCI commissioners and others discussed the division and suffering the pandemic measures caused, the failure of institutions to serve citizens and the overreach of government authority that violated rights and freedoms.
They emphasized the importance of unity, open dialogue, accountability and active democratic participation to heal as a nation.
In his opening comments, NCI Commissioner Ken Drysdale, an expert in forensic engineering and investigations, said, “Our lips may be bloodied, and we may be shamed. But we cannot turn away from the horrors of the past three years. We cannot allow this to happen to our children and grandchildren.”
Commissioner Bernard Massie, Ph.D., author of 138 peer-reviewed papers and owner of 12 patents, said, “One of the greatest dangers to democracy is the tyranny of the majority that has forgotten the primordial importance of truth and liberty grounded in the individual responsibility that cannot and should not be outsourced to the administrative state.”
NCI administrator Ches Crosbie, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador, called out Health Canada for approving the COVID-19 vaccines without determining they were safe and effective.
“The expression ‘safe and effective’ is a marketing slogan and a deceptive one,” Crosbie said, adding, “Beyond dispute is that [the] vaccines are adulterated … by the presence of foreign DNA fragments and a sequence from a monkey virus called SV40, suspected of causing cancer.”
Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., co-director of CORRELATION Research in the Public Interest in Canada, told The Defender the NCI report “is a masterful in-depth examination of the COVID response in Canada and the world.”
“Through hundreds of testimonies and thousands of exhibits, the picture that emerges could not be more clear,” he said, adding:
“The entire COVID campaign — from CIA–military planning, to initial Wuhan false flag, to the WHO [World Health Organization] declaration of a ‘pandemic,’ to medical institutional responses, to general lockdowns and impositions on personal behavior, to unprecedented censorship and media alignment, to mandatory vaccination accompanied by dismissals from workplaces, to delicensing medical and legal professionals, to completely biased court rulings, to covering up vaccine harm and deaths, to egregious isolation and mistreatment of vulnerable populations, to shredding of constitutional protections, to criminalizing dissent and demonstrations, to locking away political prisoners, and on and on, in a total blanket of actual totalitarianism in Canada and many countries — has been an outright unjustified vicious assault against people, freedom and democracy.”
A citizen-organized, citizen-run, citizen-funded initiative
The NCI — “funded and staffed by volunteers who believe in a better Canada,” said Crosbie — was established in response to the government’s actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and because “no Canadian government has shown an appetite for a fulsome review of the measures implemented,” according to the report.
Hearings took place over 24 days between March and May in eight cities, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. More than 300 sworn testimonies from both experts and citizens were collected.
NCI heard expert testimony from doctors, scientists, lawyers, economists, teachers, psychologists, morticians, risk management analysts and experts in public policy, emergency management, occupational health and safety, aviation safety, pharmacy, policing and journalism, according to True North.
Among the 147 experts testifying were Rancourt, known for his analysis of all-cause mortality during the pandemic; Dr. Peter McCullough; Dr. Jay Bhattacharya; Dr. Jessica Rose; Dr. Didier Raoult, the French doctor who promoted early treatment with hydroxychloroquine at the beginning of the pandemic; Dr. Sabine Hazan; Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research ; Catherine Austin Fitts; James Corbett; Dr. William Makis; Dr. Charles Hoffe; Edward Dowd; J. Jay Couey, Ph.D., staff scientist for Children’s Health Defense; Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute; Steve Kirsch, founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation; and Dr. Jordan Peterson.
The commissioners invited testimony from representatives of all provincial/territorial and federal levels of government across Canada — including “sixty-three members of government, regulators, and authorities” — but none accepted or testified.
However, NCI was able to obtain records of government positions from court proceedings, policy statements, press conferences and other evidence of their actions, and incorporate these into their hearings and findings.
NCI considered testimony on pharmaceutical interventions (use of drugs, vaccines and other treatments) and non-pharmaceutical interventions (masking, lockdowns, closures of public facilities and quarantines), and analyzed their impacts in the following categories:
- Social — including restricted public meetings, movement and ability to interact and meet with other people.
- Civil — the abridgment of rights and freedoms, the imposition of restrictions and forced mandates, assessed at the personal, institutional and organizational levels.
- Economic — the shutdown of businesses and the characterization of “nonessential” businesses, restrictions to employment and overall impacts.
- Health — forced medical procedures, lack of access to patients due to mandates, doctors treating virtually; injuries resulting from forced medical procedures and isolation.
“These testimonies provide irrefutable evidence that an unprecedented assault has been waged against the citizens of Canada. Not since World War II has the nation experienced such a devastating attack on its people,” Drysdale told True North.
Commissioner Janice Kaikkonen, an educator and public policy researcher, said at the press conference that her experience with NCI had been “quite the journey,” and that “the picture being painted was much deeper, all more devastating and divisive, and the response from our public institutions on every Canadian far more destructive” than she expected.
Kaikkonen said society still needs to address “the impact on … children of being isolated from their friends and their social networks and their structures being taken from them.”
“The juncture Canadians face in moving forward must include exposing the forces that willingly subscribed to destroying our beloved country from the inside out,” she said.
Breakdown of legal system
NCI heard extensive evidence that Canadian courts failed to uphold the rule of law during the pandemic, leading to “a breakdown in confidence and an erosion of trust in a Canadian legal system,” according to the report.
None of the legal experts who testified or consulted with NCI reported success in any court across the country against the measures or mandates.
Similar to the U.S., the Canadian system of government is comprised of executive, legislative and judicial branches. However, during the pandemic, “much of the rule-making power in Canada coalesced into the executive, which resulted in unelected public health offices across the country ruling as petty tyrants, without accountability or oversight,” the report stated.
The report attributed this in part to the “overgrowth of the administrative state,” resulting in “Canadian courts … pay[ing] more and more deference to the powers of unelected administrative bodies,” leading to “a perfect storm” where unelected officials who are “not subject to oversight through an election” have “powers over Canadians” that are “largely unchallengeable in court.”
The most obvious example of administrative overreach — enforced by professional bodies that regulate various health professions — was the public health orders, the report stated, which “subvert[ed] rights on the premise of ‘protecting the greater good.’”
Commissioner Heather DiGregorio, senior partner in an Alberta law firm, said during Tuesday’s press conference that her position as a lawyer made her pay particular attention to the testimony about the Canadian legal system, the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“By guaranteeing that the government cannot tread on my neighbor’s rights, we guarantee our own,” she said. “This is never more important than when things are difficult in times of fear and uncertainty.”
The evidence gathered from the NCI hearings “all points one way: to a significant breakdown of Canadian institutions,” DiGregorio said.
She cited such undesirable pandemic outcomes: “The division of our society. Neighbors pitted against neighbors. Families torn apart. Individuals suffering grievous injuries that their own doctors won’t acknowledge. Feelings of isolation. Depression. Suicides. Pain and grief.”
“Canadians have been left with a feeling that there is no person to protect them from government overreach,” the report stated. “This is worrisome evidence of a breakdown of the rule of law.”
Despite the grievous lapses in the legal system during the pandemic, DeGregorio said, “Seeing the strength of ordinary Canadians, even in the darkest times of their lives, gave me renewed hope.”
Proposals, outlook going forward
In addition to the establishment of a National Crisis Oversight Council — which the report said should include enforceable subpoena powers — the NCI report called for a full judicial investigation of the COVID-19 vaccination authorization process in Canada, leaving open the possibility of criminal liability under existing Canadian law.
It also called for an in-depth review of how Canadian courts handled all pandemic-related cases to “rebuild public confidence in the justice system.”
Citing the need to ensure “proper checks and balances,” the report recommended examining and reforming the extent of executive authority during emergencies and establishing laws that require administrative bodies “to demonstrate their expertise and rationale for decisions, particularly when those decisions infringe on individual rights.”
Regarding healthcare, the report called for establishing a clear framework for oversight of public health authorities’ decision-making processes during emergencies, and an “independent, multidisciplinary inquiry into the governance of professional colleges, especially those governing medical professionals,” to ensure transparency, accountability and adherence to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
During the press conference, DiGregorio called for “accountability for the actions of others,” but said we also need to “look at our own actions and take accountability for the part that each of us have played.”
Kaikkonen called for “Each and every one of us saying we’ve had enough, this is not going to happen again, and we’re going to stand with people who say no, who have that strength,” and with “people who are being shamed publicly or abused or trodden over.”
Voicing his hopes for the report, Drysdale said, “In the end, it is not the report itself that wields the power of transformation. … It remains just a tool, lying dormant on a shelf … until thousands or millions of people choose to wield that tool.”
Massie said it’s going to take time before things change, but that “it’s not going to take the majority of people to wake up to make a difference. … You just need a critical mass of people … to move [on the] political front, provincial, federal, [and in] court.”
Rancourt told The Defender :
“Canadians may have produced the most comprehensive report, which is an historic landmark. Now, will there be accountability? To what degree, and what form will it take?
“Every citizen’s awakening is one unit of the needed accounting, and this report has been a process that catalyzed more awareness.”
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.

The following translation was performed free of charge to protest an injustice: the destruction by the ADL of Ariel Toaff’s Blood Passover on Jewish ritual murder. The author is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv.