Rush to trash hydroxychloroquine exposes fundamental flaws in profit-based medical ‘science’
By Helen Buyniski | RT | June 4, 2020
As the WHO and prestigious medical journal the Lancet back away from questionable data provided by healthcare analytics firm Surgisphere, ulterior motives for the rush to demonize hydroxychloroquine become clear.
The World Health Organization (WHO) sheepishly resumed testing the off-patent malaria drug hydroxychloroquine on coronavirus patients on Wednesday after pausing that arm of its ‘Solidarity’ clinical trial based on data that appeared to show the drug contributed to higher death rates among test subjects. That data, it turned out, came from a tiny US healthcare analytics firm called Surgisphere, and calling it faulty would be excessively charitable.
Not only is Surgisphere a company lacking in medical expertise – its employees included an “adult” entertainer and a science-fiction writer – but its CEO Sapan Desai co-authored two of the damning studies that used the firm’s data to smear hydroxychloroquine, already thoroughly demonized in the media thanks to its promotion by US President Donald Trump, as a killer. All data is sourced to a proprietary database supposedly containing a veritable ocean of real-time, detailed patient information yet curiously absent from existing medical literature.
The Surgisphere-tainted study appeared to show increased risk of in-hospital deaths and heart problems with no disease-fighting benefits, confirming the suspicions of medical-industry naysayers already inclined to hate the off-patent drug due to the lack of profit potential and Trump’s incessant boosterism. Italy, France, and Germany rushed to ban hydroxychloroquine, citing “an increased risk for adverse reactions with little or no benefit.”
But such a shameless character assassination performed against a potentially-lifesaving drug – especially one with a decades-long track record of safety in malaria, lupus, and arthritis patients that came highly recommended by some of the world’s most eminent disease experts, including France’s Didier Raoult – could only be accomplished with help from industry prejudice. It required ignoring numerous existing studies showing hydroxychloroquine was beneficial in treating early-stage Covid-19 patients, as well as anecdotal reports from thousands of doctors who’d successfully used it.
It also required trusting a fly-by-night company with next to no internet or media presence to make decisions that could affect the lives of millions of people. It’s not like there weren’t warning signs Surgisphere was something other than the top-notch medical analytics firm it presented itself as. The company began life as a textbook publisher in 2008 and hired most of its 11 employees two month ago, according to an investigation by the Guardian, yet it claimed ownership of a massive international database of 96,000 patients in 1,200 hospitals worldwide. One expert interviewed by the outlet said it would be difficult for even a national statistics agency to do in years what Surgisphere had supposedly done in weeks, calling the database “almost certainly a scam.” Yet no one at the Lancet or WHO thought to look a gift horse in the mouth – not when that gift drove a stake through the heart of hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatment.
And while Australian researchers found flaws in the Surgisphere data just days after the May 22 publication of the Lancet study, noting that the number of Covid-19 deaths cited by the study as coming from five hospitals exceeded the entirety of Covid-19 deaths recorded in Australia at that time, the Lancet – instead of investigating just who this Surgisphere company really was, and why it had made such a glaring mistake – merely published a minor retraction related to the Australian data and put the controversy to bed.
The full-frontal assault on hydroxychloroquine was instead allowed to continue unchecked in the media, as mainstream outlets focused their energies on fluffing up remdesivir – a costly, untested drug manufactured by drug maker Gilead that has so far produced lackluster results in clinical trials – and stumping for an eventual vaccine. Hydroxychloroquine’s off-patent status meant it was a dead end as far as profits were concerned, while remdesivir and whatever vaccine is ultimately green-lighted will make a lot of people very rich. Perhaps hoping to throw their audiences off the real reason for their hydroxychloroquine hatred, several outlets hinted that Trump stood to make money off the drug (which costs about 60 cents per pill) – but even Snopes, no fan of the ‘Bad Orange Man’, had to pour cold water on that speculation.
The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine have – belatedly – published “expressions of concern” about the Surgisphere hydroxychloroquine study, and an independent audit is being conducted. But the problem of biased health authorities selectively embracing some trial results while rejecting others is unlikely to stop there.
The Lancet study is hardly the only one to show hydroxychloroquine lacks efficacy in treating Covid-19. Multiple studies conducted by the US National Institutes of Health on hospitalized (i.e. severely-ill) coronavirus patients have yielded poor results, but even the drug’s most ardent evangelists acknowledge it doesn’t help end-stage or very sick patients. Raoult has even claimed France banned the drug’s use in all but the most severely ill patients in order to discredit it as a treatment. The US National Institutes of Health was publishing studies in its journal Virology touting chloroquine as “a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection” as far back as 2005, yet ‘coronavirus czar’ Anthony Fauci throws shade at the drug whenever he gets a chance.
As long as deadly diseases like Covid-19 are seen as profit sources first and human rights issues second (or third, or tenth…), treatments that aren’t profitable will always be marginalized in favor of costly and frequently less-effective pharmaceuticals. Drug industry profiteering has already killed hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people in the US alone. Taking the profit motive out of healthcare can help ensure its body count stays as low as possible.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
Staggering Death Rate in 7 US States
American deaths per million equal or exceed Europe’s worst-hit nations in several locales

click to enlarge
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | June 3, 2020
At first glance, the United States appears to have fared reasonably well during this pandemic. So far, 327 Americans have died of the coronavirus out of every one million in the population.
That’s according to official numbers. Which are all we have to work with at the moment. (There are solid reasons why official numbers should be viewed as provisional and inexact. See the bottom of the page here.)
If we compare its overall rate of 327 deaths per million to the hardest hit nations in Europe, America looks blessed. Belgium has experienced 820 deaths per million. Spain and the UK, 580. Italy, 555.
But peer a bit closer, and another story emerges. America’s number is low because many parts of that country have (so far) been spared a serious outbreak. In places where the virus gained a foothold in the wider community, the death rate exceeds even the worst countries in Europe:
New York state: 1,546
New Jersey: 1,327
Connecticut: 1,114
Massachusetts: 1028
Rhode Island: 691
District of Columbia: 666
Louisiana: 611
Michigan: 556
This being an election year, some people are blaming US President Donald Trump, a Republican, for the lives lost. It’s worth observing, therefore, that the governor is a Democrat in six of the seven US states is which the death per million rate equals or surpasses Italy.
Likewise, the mayor of the District of Columbia is a Democrat. Only in Massachusetts is a Republican in charge.
Bigoted Cops and the Drug War
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | June 3, 2020
If Americans want to diminish racial bigotry in police departments across the country, the best way to start is by legalizing drugs, all of them. That would bring an end to the legal opportunity that bigoted cops have in the enforcement of drug laws against blacks.
I’m not saying that all cops are racial bigots. We all know that they’re not. But we also know that some of them are. And the drug war permits them to exercise their racial bigotry to their heart’s content — and even get praised and thanked for their service while doing so.
After all, let’s face it: there are racial bigots in society, and there will always be racial bigots in society. Anyone who thinks he is going to wipe out racial bigotry through “education” and “enlightenment” is living in la la land.
When someone engages in racial bigotry on a private level, he is subject to private and peaceful retaliatory measures, such as loss of sales if he is a business owner or the loss of a job if he is an employee. He is also subject to criticism and social ostracism. The free society makes the bigot bear an economic and social penalty for his bigotry, which might well nudge, not force, him into better behavior.
It’s totally different with drug laws. They have converted police departments into magnets for racial bigots. With the drug war, cops are empowered to stop blacks arbitrarily and subject them to abusive interrogations and intrusive, demeaning, and oftentimes violent searches and seizures of their persons, automobiles, and homes.
As long as they are “searching for drugs,” it’s all okay. No loss of sales. No loss of job. No public criticism. No social ostracism. Hey, they are helping cleanse our society of illegal drugs! They’re considered heroes! People praise them for their courage and thank them for their service.
That includes many judges, some of whom do not hesitate to mete out extraordinarily long jail sentences to blacks. A good example is a black man in North Carolina named Michael Holmes who has now served some 30 years of a 200-year jail sentence for a non-violent drug offense. There are thousands more like him.
The drug war also provides bigoted cops with the perfect opportunity to frame blacks for drug offenses by planting drugs on them or by simply lying about drug transactions. As prosecutors ask jurors, “Who are you going to believe — this upstanding (white) police officer who is simply trying to keep drugs from reaching your children or this (black) defendant who obviously has a motive to lie?” The false and fraudulent arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and harsh jail sentences meted out to dozens of innocent blacks in Tulia, Texas, several years ago is just one example of this phenomenon.
The noted academician Michelle Alexander rightly calls the drug war the new Jim Crow. It gives bigoted cops a license to do what bigoted cops did during the days of racial segregation. In fact, the drug war is without a doubt the most racially bigoted government program since segregation.
The legalization of drugs would, of course, not end racial bigotry in society. But it would end the opportunity that drug laws have given cops to legally exercise racial bigotry. Unable to exercise their bigotry legally through the enforcement of the drug war, police departments would no longer serve as a magnet for racial bigots. Those who are already cops would begin drifting back into the private sector where they would be nudged toward more appropriate behavior with such things as boycotts, criticism, and social ostracism rather than praised and thanked for their bigoted enforcement of the drug war.
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics.
Israelis Trained the Minnesota Cop How to Kill
By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute For Political Economy | June 2, 2020
Precisely as I reported Minnesota police received Israeli training. The knee-on-neck is an Israeli restraint hold that Israeli forces use for breaking Palestinian necks. I doubt the Minneapolis cop intended to kill Floyd. He probably thought he was just using a restraint technique. In so many of the cases of police-inflicted death and injury there is no need for restraint. People are not resisting. Maybe the cops just want to practice their training.
Another main cause of police-inflicted death and injury are the middle of the night home invasions, sanctioned by courts and local authorities. There is absolutely no reason for these invasions. They are nothing but murder weapons.
The real murderers of George Floyd were the Israelis who taught the Minnesota cops the knee-on-neck restraint technique. The irresponsible court rulings that permit unannounced home invasions have also killed a lot of people. The police have been turned into killers by their absurd and inappropriate training. The cop will pay the price for his wrongful training just as did George Floyd.
It is pure idiocy to let those responsible for these practices off the hook and to run around shouting “racism.” Knee-on-neck is a restraint technique taught to the police. It is not racism. The technique should not have been taught to American police, and people who are not resisting should not be restrained. George Floyd died because of wrongful police training, not because of racism.
Minnesota cops ‘trained by Israeli forces in restraint techniques’

Israeli police officers detain a Palestinian protestor on March 12, 2019.
By Jon Collins – Morning Star– June 1, 2020
Officers from the US police force responsible for the killing of George Floyd received training in restraint techniques and anti-terror tactics from Israeli law-enforcement officers.
Mr Floyd’s death in custody last Monday, the latest in a succession of police killings of African Americans, has sparked continuing protests and rioting in US cities.
At least 100 Minnesota police officers attended a 2012 conference* hosted by the Israeli consulate in Chicago, the second time such an event had been held.
There they learned the violent techniques used by Israeli forces as they terrorise the occupied Palestinian territories under the guise of security operations.
The so-called counterterrorism training conference in Minneapolis was jointly hosted by the FBI.
Israeli deputy consul Shahar Arieli claimed that the half-day session brought “top-notch professionals from the Israeli police” to share knowledge with their US counterparts.
It is unclear whether any of the officers involved in the incident in which Mr Floyd was killed attended the conference.
Israeli forces broke necks
But in a chilling testimony, a Palestinian rights activist said that when she saw the image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck, she was reminded of the Israeli forces’ policing of the occupied territories.
Neta Golan, the co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) said: “When I saw the picture of killer cop Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd by leaning in on his neck with his knee as he cried for help and other cops watched, I remembered noticing when many Israeli soldiers began using this technique of leaning in on our chest and necks when we were protesting in the West Bank sometime in 2006.
“They started twisting and breaking fingers in a particular way around the same time. It was clear they had undergone training for this. They continue to use these tactics — two of my friends have had their necks broken but luckily survived — and it is clear that they [Israel] share these methods when they train police forces abroad in ‘crowd control’ in the US and other countries including Sudan and Brazil.”
Israeli training of US police is widespread
The training of US police officials by Israeli forces is widespread.
Even Amnesty was compelled to report that hundreds of police from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state and Washington DC had been flown to Israeli for training.
Thousands more have been trained by Israeli forces who have come to the US to host similar events to the one held in Minneapolis. According to the somewhat selective rights organisation, many of these trips are taxpayer-funded, while others are privately funded.
Since 2002 the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have paid for police chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains to train in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), it said.
The Minneapolis Police Department was contacted for comment.
*(embedded links added by If Americans Knew)
[IAK notes: Anoka County (north Minneapolis region) Sheriff James Stuart traveled to Israel last December for a similar training.]
GCHQ propagandizing kids as young as four in secretive school ‘educational’ programs aimed at recruitment
RT | June 2, 2020
Britain’s GCHQ spy agency is running secretive “educational” programs in dozens of schools and disseminating propaganda to children as young as four years old, without the knowledge of parents, it’s been revealed.
The intelligence agency is running the programs in at least 40 schools with access to 22,000 children who are potentially being spied on, according to an investigation by Declassified UK.
According to the investigative website, GCHQ officers themselves are operating in at least one of the schools and parents of the pupils involved have not been made aware of the extent of the spy agency’s role in the so-called Cyber Schools Hub (CSH) programs also known as ‘CyberFirst’.
GCHQ publicly describes the programs as giving children between the ages of 11 and 17 the chance to experience “new ways of learning” in an “innovative cyber environment” and aims to use the school activities to help recruit kids for the cyber security industry.
Yet, Declassified revealed that the efforts have now expanded into primary schools where GCHQ has access to children as young as four years old – and that while the program literature states it is operational in 23 schools, it is actually running in nearly double that number – 10 of which are primary schools.
One of the primary school level “code clubs” is in fact staffed “entirely” by officers from GCHQ. The agency gains access to schools by offering to provide technology to local libraries and “recruitment teams” field enquiries from schools interested in being part of the program, the website said.
More disturbingly, the investigation revealed, local police worked with GCHQ on a “joint tag team event” to gain access to a student who had been reported to authorities as “very talented” by teachers who were worried he may be about to “cross the line” with his cyber activities – though there was no evidence that the child had done anything wrong.
The revelations about GCHQ’s activities in British schools are unsurprising considering US whistleblower Edward Snowden had previously revealed that one of the spy agency’s “top objectives” was to target children and create a “reporting service on radicalisation.”
Children are told that GCHQ, which conducts unlawful mass surveillance, according to the European Court of Human Rights, is the “heart of the nation’s security” system and has “saved countless lives.”
Asked what information was given to parents about the taxpayer-funded program, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) told Declassified it had “no contact with parents” and that what teachers share with parents is up to them.
Declassified UK was rebuffed by both GCHQ and the schools themselves when trying to glean more information about the projects, with both citing “national security exemptions” in order to block freedom of information requests.
The spy agency is attempting to “drip-feed” children with messages aimed at recruiting them for the field over time, Jen Persson, director of Defend Digital Me, told Declassified.
“There is regulation in other areas to protect [children] from undue adult influence, like online advertising – yet it sounds like spies can walk into schools whenever they want with no transparency or independent oversight,” Persson said.
GCHQ has posted “comments” from children on social media apparently praising the program as “the best thing EVER,” “fabulous” and “masses of fun” – but some of these quotes are seemingly made up.
A newsletter on an event for girls includes an alleged quote from Ella and Chloe in Year 8 (12-13 years old) expressing the need for “diversity in perspectives, leadership and experience.” Aside from “sounding more like language used by GCHQ media relations,” Declassified found that the same quote is attributed to 13-year-old Evie in another CSH blog post. Asked about this curious detail, NCSC told the website that teachers provide the quotes from students.
During an unannounced visit to a GCHQ “hub school,” one principal told Declassified that the program has brought his school no investment or new facilities but has simply made the school put more of a focus on cyber security.
Following a “successful” pilot phase in England, the government is now planning to expand the GCHQ program across the whole UK.
‘Wanton thuggery’: Outraged Australia to probe US police attack on its journalists covering White House protest

Police aim at Reuters TV cameraman during unrest in Minneapolis. © Reuters / Julio Cesar-Chavez
RT | June 2, 2020
The Australian embassy in Washington, DC will investigate an apparent assault by the US police against two Aussie journalists. The pair were roughed up live on air while covering a protest outside the White House.
A crew working for the outlet 7News was targeted on Tuesday while reporting from a demonstration in the US capital against police brutality. Correspondent Amelia Brace and cameraman Tim Myers were battered as the police cleared a protesting crowd, footage of the incident showed. Brace was hit with a baton, while Myers was attacked with a riot shield.
“We have asked the Australian embassy in Washington, DC to investigate this incident,” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an investigation into the alleged assault. “I want to get further advice on how we would go about registering Australia’s strong concerns with the responsible local authorities in Washington,” she added.
Craig McPherson, Seven Network’s Director of News and Public Affairs, in turn, said, it was “nothing short of wanton thuggery.”
“They weren’t in anyone’s way – just doing their job,” McPherson said, adding that the company will file its own complaints against the police’s behavior, calling the incident “abhorrent.”
Brace, who returned to cover the news after the attack, said the officers’ actions were indiscriminate and they simply didn’t care that he and Myers were members of the media.
What happened to the Australian crew is one of many instances of journalists reporting from protests in the US being caught up in violence and targeted by police officers. Russia has demanded an investigation into an attack by Minneapolis police on a group of reporters, which included a Russian correspondent who was pepper-sprayed.
The US is currently experiencing nationwide protests and rioting over the death of an African American man, George Floyd. He was arrested by Minneapolis police and pinned to the ground, with one officer putting his knee on the man’s neck. An independent autopsy confirmed that Floyd died as a result of being unable to breathe due to their actions.
Moscow demands probe after Russian journalist pepper-sprayed by Minneapolis police
RT | May 31, 2020
The use of violent force by police against journalists, including a Russian correspondent who was pepper-sprayed in the face, is unacceptable, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said, urging the US to investigate the incident.
This comes after a RIA Novosti correspondent, Mikhail Turgiev, and a group of US journalists were attacked by police in Minneapolis while covering the ongoing riots provoked by the death of an African American man, George Floyd. The crew was targeted with rubber bullets and Turgiev was pepper-sprayed, despite showing his press ID.
Police attacks on media staff executing their professional duties are unacceptable, the ministry added, calling the law enforcers’ use of pepper spray on Turgiev “unjust cruelty.”
The ministry urged the US authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident, reminding Washington of its obligation to ensure that journalists can carry out their activities on US soil in a manner that is safe and unhindered.
International organizations and human rights NGOs should also look into the attack on the Russian correspondent, it added.
Israeli Soldiers Kill A Palestinian Near Ramallah
IMEMC News – May 30, 2020
Israeli soldiers killed, on Friday evening, a Palestinian father of five children, including an infant, allegedly after he tried to ram them with his car near Nabi Saleh village, northwest of the central West Bank city of Ramallah. His family denied the military allegations and said the man lost control of his car after Israeli colonialist settlers opened fire at it.
The Israeli army claimed that the soldiers fired live rounds at the Palestinian car after the driver reportedly tried to ram them, and that the soldiers “neutralized the threat,” a term Israel and various Israeli media outlets frequently use when the soldiers fatally shoot a Palestinian.
The slain man has been identified as Fadi Adnan Sarhan Samara, 37, a father of five children, including an infant (two months of age) from Abu Qash village, north of Ramallah.
He works in Israel and came back home to Nabi Saleh to celebrate the Muslim feast of al-Fitr with his family.
His brothers stated that he left his home in the evening heading to the az-Zawiya village, west of Salfit in central West Bank, to drive his wife and children back home, as they were visiting her family there.
The Israeli army claimed that the man tried to ram soldiers with his car near a natural spring in the Ramallah governorate. He was shot in the leg and was left to bleed for about an hour, without any first aid.
Palestinian media outlets and residents in the area said the man lost control of his car when illegal Israeli colonialist settlers, who repeatedly invade the area, opened fire at his car, before the soldiers fired a barrage of live rounds at it, claiming that he was attempting to ram them.
One of his brothers, and one of his cousins, were both detained by the army, and after being released, they stated that an army officer told them, after confirming his identity, that they cannot take his corpse for burial.
They stated that the military was taunting them by stating that the family can have his corpse back “maybe in an hour or two, a month or two, a year or two….”
His family, and the residents of his village, strongly denounced his murder, and stated that the Israeli soldiers are always “trigger happy” when it comes to shooting Palestinians, and that the army tries to justify these crimes by making false allegations.
They called for a serious investigation into the fatal shooting and called on international organizations to act and hold Israel accountable at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its escalating crimes and ongoing violations against the Palestinian people, their homes and property.
Israeli Police Kill Unarmed Man with Mental Disability in Jerusalem
![Iyad Hallaq, a mentally disabled Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces in Jerusalem on 30 May 2020 [Twitter]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Iyad-Hallaq.jpg?resize=1200%2C787&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
Israeli forces shot and killed Iyad Khairi Hallak, 32, a Palestinian man with mental disability. (Photo: via Social Media)
Palestine Chronicle | May 30, 2020
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man with mental disability in East Jerusalem on Saturday morning, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
According to Israeli reports, Israeli officers opened fire on a man who was carrying “a suspicious object that looked like a pistol” and ran away when ordered to stop.
Later Israeli reports confirmed that the man, who was shot dead during the chase, was actually unarmed.
The victim was identified as Iyad Khairi Hallak, 32, from Wad el-Joz neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem. Hallak, who was attending an institution for people with special needs in the same area where he was killed, was left on the ground bleeding until he died.
Police closed all gates leading into Jerusalem’s old city following the incident and banned entry or exit from it. They also raided the Hallak home in Wad el-Joz, according to Palestinian sources.





