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How the world now works – or doesn’t

[How fewer doctors means more doctors – it’s official]

By Dr. Malcolm Kendrick | October 30, 2022

This blog has nothing to do with heart disease, or vaccines, or anything directly about medical practice at all.

However, it does have a great deal to do with data manipulation, which is something very close to my heart. It also illustrates how a ‘fact’ can be anything but.

I am also hoping to help highlight an increasingly worrying trend that now scours the planet. Namely that we are living in a world distorted to fit whatever narrative those in power are trying to stuff down our throats. Although, I continue to marvel at how anyone can spout utter, utter, nonsense, and not simply curl-up and die of acute embarrassment.

Anyway, gentle reader, let me set the scene for your delectation.

In the UK, more specifically England, doctors and nurses have been leaving the profession in droves. In particular GPs. This has caused a degree of faux concern by politicians, who always wish to claim they are the great protectors of the NHS. The NHS is inevitably a big issue at every election.

Years ago, Jeremy Hunt, the then health secretary – and slippery eel made flesh – promised he would ensure there would be five thousand more GPs within about five years(ish). The actual number of years it was going to take kept moving around as the target receded into the distance. ‘Did I say three, I meant five… or was it ten.’

Commentary on this was not complementary:

“Delivering 5,000 extra GPs in five years, when training a GP takes 10 years, was a practical impossibility that was never going to be achieved,” said Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the BMA’s GPs committee.

“It was a pledge that also ignored the fact that one third of GPs are planning to retire by 2020, and the current medical graduates do not want to join an overworked, underfunded service, with more than 400 GP trainee posts left unfilled last year.”

Andrew Gwynne, the shadow health minister, said Hunt was backtracking on the pledge, and that “the Tories’ election promises are unravelling one by one”.1

Seven years, or so, have now passed since Hunt’s promise, and the number of GPs has fallen. As predicted by anyone who knew why GPs were leaving. Basically, they were all burnt out, and pissed off, and nothing was being done to make their lives easier, especially, especially not by Jeremy Hunt – who did nothing but make the job considerably more difficult. I should know, I am one. Both burnt out, and pissed off, but clinging on – for increasingly unfathomable reasons. Money, mainly.

Now, however, the UK has a new Prime Minister, a new cabinet, a new health minister and a new Chancellor of the Exchequer (one Jeremy Hunt, no less). Lo and behold, we find that the number of doctors and nurses has actually, mysteriously, who’d have thunk it … increased. Even GP numbers have increased!

‘Latest data published by NHS Digital shows that, compared to August 2021, there are also over 3,700 more doctors and over 9,100 more nurses working in the NHS.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay* said:

More healthcare staff means better care for patients, which is why it’s fantastic to see a record number of over 1.2 million staff working hard in the NHS.

With over 3,700 more doctors and 9,100 more nurses, we are really putting patients first and NHS England is developing a long-term workforce plan so we can continue to recruit and retain more NHS staff.

Thanks to all our doctors, nurses and NHS healthcare staff who work tirelessly to look after us and our loved ones and continue to inspire future generations to join this rewarding career.

The government continues to deliver on its commitment to recruit 50,000 more nurses by 2024, with 29,000 more nurses since September 2019.’ 2

[*this is a new, new, health secretary. The previous new one, began this sorry saga]

Phew, all is well. Sorted. What a remarkable thing. How has this been achieved … virtually overnight? Did they manage to compress the average training time for a fully qualified doctor from at least ten years to one month? Did they find a locked room full of 3,700 doctors and 9,100 nurses that no-one had noticed before? ‘You are now free to leave and start working. Go, go now, and tend to the sick.’

No, to understand where these figures come from, let us go back in time. Twenty-nine days from the date I wrote this blog – to be exact. We shall visit a website known as doctors.net. A place where doctors post about various things – but nothing critical of vaccines obviously. Here, twenty-nine days ago, we find this, possibly, strange post:

‘I’ve just had an email from the GMC saying the secretary of state has asked for my emergency registration to run until 2024. I doubt she had me in mind specifically. I wonder what has been foretold?’

And this one:

‘Oh. My wife tells me she has also been re-registered.’

And this one, amongst many others:

‘I’ve had the email too. They’ve also apparently restored emergency registration for the nurses, too; just after some of the ones I was working with at the vaccination centre paid to continue their registration. They are somewhat pissed off.’

What is this emergency registration of which they speak? Well, during the COVID19 panic, sorry pandemic, a number of doctors and nurses who had recently retired, (and who had handed back their registration) were unceremoniously dragged back onto the register. Thus, allowing them to keep on practicing medicine. Whether they wanted to or not … most didn’t.

These doctors and nurses didn’t need to do anything themselves, not even ask to be re-instated. It was just done. This policy was designed to help plug holes in staffing. It was known as emergency registration. As stated here, with regard to nurses:

‘The Coronavirus Act 2020 gives the Registrar a new emergency power to temporarily register a person or group of persons as registered nurses, midwives or nursing associates if the Secretary of State advises that an emergency has occurred, is occurring or is about to occur.’ 3

Then as the panic, sorry pandemic, fell away, emergency registrations began to be withdrawn.

‘Many temporary Coronavirus Act provisions remain in force. However, by default they will expire on 25 March 2022. The Government has said it will allow almost all these provisions to expire.

The following policy areas have temporary changes which are set to expire in England or (where relevant) on a UK-wide basis:

– temporary registration of health and social care professionals’ 4

 

Of course, getting rid of emergency registration would have the effect of (appearing to) sharply reduce the number of doctors and nurses. Even if the vast majority of those who had been plonked on the register never did an extra day’s work and remained happily retired. Yes, this was always a ‘pretend’ workforce. ‘Look at all these additional doctors and nurses we have created… who we haven’t spoken to, and we have no idea if they will ever work again …’

Anyway, the Government was dispensing with emergency registration. Then, out of the blue, it was back again. With retired doctors and nurses placed back on the ‘pretend’ doctors and nurse’s lists once more – until 2024. Which just happens to be the year of the next general election.

What is the explanation for this? Well, according to the General Medical Council in September 2022:

‘The UK government asked us to give temporary emergency registration to suitable people, as part of the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.’ 5

[The General Medical Council (GMC) controls medical registration].

What…? We had a new COVID-19 pandemic last month? I thought it started in 2020. Did you know it was back with a vengeance? Did you? Did you hear anything about it? No, you didn’t, because it never happened. This statement is simply … not true. I would never dream of calling it a damned lie. Other’s may feel differently.

Anyway, let me take you through this from a slightly different angle.

The UK Government is desperately trying to claim they are doing everything they can to support the NHS, which is currently falling to bits, and will damage their prospects at the next election. One of the key things they wish to claim is that they are increasing the work force – especially doctors and nurses (not managers for some strange reason).  However, …

‘More than 40,000 nurses have left the NHS in England in the past year, an analysis by the Nuffield Trust has revealed.

The analysis, conducted by the think tank for the BBC, said that this is the highest number and proportion of nurses leaving the NHS since trend data began.

It found that many of these nurses were often highly skilled and knowledgeable with many more years of work left.’ 6

In addition:

‘Over the last year, the NHS has lost 339 individual (headcount) GP partners and 305 salaried, locum and retainer GPs. This has created a net loss of 644 individual GPs since September 2021… There are now just 0.44 fully qualified GPs per 1,000 patients in England – down from 0.52 in 2015.’ 7

Yet, despite all these people heading for the exit, the Government now informs us that the workforce is not falling, it is going up, up, up, baby. I find this apparent conundrum to be spookily similar to my findings when studying research papers. How can various results be reconciled, when they seem directly contradictory? Heart attacks fell, but deaths from heart disease increased. In the same trial? Oh no, I must read the methodology section – usually impenetrable.

In the same way, we find the number of ‘registered’ doctors is going up, whilst the number of doctors is falling. This leaves us with two seemingly contradictory facts. Which of them is true? Or can they both be true?

In my simple little world, the true ‘fact’ is that the number of doctors is falling, rapidly. However, the Government have solved this issue by creating an equal and opposite fact. Which is that the number of doctors is going up.

They achieved this remarkable feat by bringing back the emergency re-registration of retired doctors, sharply increasing ‘pretend’ doctor’s numbers. In this weird, distorted, manipulated way we have another’ fact’ on our hands. Which is that there are more doctors on the register a.k.a. ‘more doctors.’

Which of these facts is true? Yes, in the hands of politicians, facts can become slippery little swine.

To quote John Martyn: ‘Half the lies I tell you are not true.’

In truth, once you cut through the utter steaming bullshit, I know, and you now know, what is going on – as did many doctors at the time. Here are a few more posts, from twenty-nine days ago, commenting on the re-introduction of emergency registration:

‘After a few hours to consider, I have now emailed the GMC to ask that my temporary registration be removed. FWIW (for what it is worth) I think it highly likely that this is an attempt by the government to inflate the apparent numbers of doctors available.’

Or this one:

‘It has been foretold that for purposes of political spin, they need to say that they have more doctors on the register.’

Another doctor was even more acute in their observation – twenty-nine days ago:

‘The weird thing about this is the clear and direct nature of cheating.

If – as is highly likely – this process relates to absolutely nothing at all apart from manipulating stats to misrepresent reality for political ambitions, then there would be people with job time allocated to it, meetings, emails, conclusions, notes, presentations etc.

“Are you going to the meeting about cheating the doctor numbers tomorrow?”

“Yes, I should make that meeting where we deliberately lie about how many doctors there are”

“Great, see you there. Hopefully we can cheat those figures really efficiently and get away on time!”

And lo, the game played out, exactly as predicted. One month ago, the Government very deliberately inflated figures on doctor’s numbers (and nurse’s numbers). Now they are crowing, in public, about this magnificent increase. ‘Look how brilliant we are. ‘

‘Crikey, how did you manage this totes amazeballs thing?’

‘Well, wouldn’t like to boast about it, really. Hard work, dedication … I would like to thank my team. Golly, is that the time, must dash.’

Do they think we are all completely stupid? Don’t answer that, they clearly do. Do they think no-one noticed? People were tweeting about it at the time:

‘Why has Secretary of State for Health and Social Care @theresecoffey asked the GMC @gmcuk to extend temporary registrations until 2024? Is this to prevent a sudden drop in the number of doctors on the register, causing embarrassing stats in the press?’ 8

Today, we are swimming in a sea of misinformation, and deliberately manipulated statistics. Yet, people seem to shrug their shoulders. ‘Don’t get worked up about it. Everyone is up to it, who cares. Same old, same old. The other lot are just as bad.’

It is time, I believe, for pitchforks and burning torches, and people taking to the streets in protest about the way that this world is going. So very badly wrong.

‘In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ George Orwell.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/24/doubt-lingers-over-jeremy-hunts-pledge-5000-new-gps

2: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-numbers-of-staff-working-in-the-nhs

3: ‘https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/registration/covid-19-temporary-emergency-registration-policy.pdf

4: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/expiry-of-the-coronavirus-acts-temporary-provisions/

5: https://www.gmc-uk.org/registration-and-licensing/guide-for-doctors-granted-temporary-registration

6: https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/record-number-of-nurses-leaving-the-nhs-in-england-30-09-2022/

7: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis#:~:text=%2D-,Number%20of%20NHS%20GPs%20by,FTE)%20%2D%20fully%20qualified%20GPs%20only&text=Over%20the%20last%20year%2C%20the,individual%20GPs%20since%20September%202021.

8: https://twitter.com/TheSmartGP/status/1575832771821727746

October 30, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russia suspends participation in grain deal after Ukrainian attacks on ships

Samizdat | October 29, 2022

Moscow has halted its compliance with a grain deal with Kiev, brokered by the UN and Türkiye, after Ukraine launched a major drone attack on ships involved in securing safe passage for agricultural cargo, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Saturday.

In a post on its Telegram channel, the ministry said Russia “is suspending its participation in the implementation of agreements on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports”.

It explained that the move was prompted by “a terror attack” against the ships of the Black Sea Fleet and civilian vessels involved in ensuring the security of the grain corridor. The ministry also alleged that the bombing was organized with the involvement of British military.

The UK Defence Ministry has denied any involvement in the Ukrainian drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, claiming that Moscow “is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale” in an effort to distract the global community from “their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

“This invented story, says more about arguments going on inside the Russian Government than it does about the West,” it added.

Commenting on Russia’s decision to suspend the grain deal, Andrey Ermak, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, accused Moscow of “blackmail.”

“Russian blackmail is primitive across the board: blackmail in nuclear, energy and food field,” he stated, adding that all supposed Russian ploys are “too simple and predictable.”

Earlier on Saturday, Russia’s Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev signaled that Moscow is ready, with Türkiye’s help, to send the world’s poorest countries up to 500,000 tons of grain within the next four next months.

He noted that considering this year’s harvest, Russia “is fully ready to replace Ukrainian grain” and arrange deliveries to “all interested countries” at a reasonable price.

“The grain deal not only did not solve the problems of countries in need, but even aggravated them in a sense. We can see where the ships from Ukraine were heading – Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. For some cargoes, the share of EU countries ranges from 60 to 100%. These are not the states that are experiencing a real food problem,” the minister said.

Russia earlier warned that it could quit the grain deal if an agreement to ease restrictions on its food and fertilizer exports were not implemented. Moreover, following the blast on the strategic Crimean Bridge, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if turns out that Ukraine – the country that Moscow accused of carrying out the attack – used grain corridors to transport explosives, “it would put the very existence of these corridors in question”.

The breakthrough deal between Moscow and Kiev was reached in Istanbul in July with mediation by the UN and Türkiye. It aimed to unlock agricultural exports via the Black Sea from Russia and Ukraine – two of the world’s leading grain exporters – which had ground to halt due to the conflict between the two nations.

October 29, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

British experts helped Kiev’s forces to prepare “terrorist act” in Crimea: Russia

Samizdat | October 29, 2022

An unsuccessful Ukrainian attack on the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea early on Saturday involved nine aerial and seven naval drones, Russia’s defense ministry has said.

The “terrorist attack,” which targeted the vessels of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and civilian ships docked in the city began around 4.20am local time, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

It added that the Russian Navy ships had been involved in providing security for the “grain corridor,” which was set up to allow exports of Ukrainian food products from the Black Sea ports in line with a deal reached between Moscow and Kiev with UN and Turkish mediation in the summer.

All of the incoming drones were shot down by Russian warships and naval aviation in the bay of Sevastopol, the ministry said.

According to the statement, the attack resulted in minor damage to the trawler vessel ‘Ivan Golubets’ and to the net boom barrier in the bay.

“The preparation of this terrorist act and training of the military personnel of the Ukrainian 73rd Special Center for Maritime Operations had been carried out under the supervision of the British experts, based in the city of Ochakov in Ukraine’s Nikolaev Region,” the ministry said.

Information obtained by the Russian military suggests that the same unit of the Royal Navy took part in planning, supplying and carrying out the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea on September 26, the statement read.

Earlier on Saturday, Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev said it was the largest Ukrainian drone attack on the city since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in late February.

Located in Crimea, which became part of Russia after a referendum in 2014, Sevastopol has been designated as a federal city by Moscow due to its strategic importance and status as the base of Russia’s Black Fleet. The key port has frequently been the target of drone attacks by Ukraine during the conflict.

In July, six people were injured after a UAV crashed into the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in Sevastopol. The attack took place on Russia’s Navy Day and led to the cancellation of celebrations in the city. Another UAV hit the roof of the HQ in August, but failed to cause any significant damage.

October 29, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

British navy involved in Nord Stream 2 ‘terrorist attack’ – Russia

Samizdat – October 29, 2022

Units of the British Navy were involved in a “terrorist attack”, which destroyed the key Nord Stream gas pipelines, the Russian Defence Ministry alleged on Saturday.

Writing on its official Telegram channel, the ministry alleged that Royal Navy operatives “took part in planning, supporting and implementing” the plot to blow up the infrastructure in September. It did not provide any direct evidence to support its assertion.

The accusation follows a Russian Foreign Ministry claim that NATO conducted a military exercise during the summer, close to the location where the undersea explosions occurred.

The September incident put the pipelines, connecting Germany to Russia, out of commission. Western countries have blocked a transparent international investigation.

The Defence Ministry further alleged that the same UK operatives trained Ukrainians involved in a drone offensive in Crimea earlier on Saturday.

In late September, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that this summer, NATO conducted military drills not far from Bornholm, which featured intensive use of “deep-sea equipment.’’

While the officials stopped short of naming the culprit, they were said to be “working under the assumption that Russia was behind the blasts.” Moscow has repeatedly denied that it had anything to do with the incident.

Meanwhile, Sky News has cited a UK defense official as saying Nord Stream 1 and 2 could have been damaged by a remotely detonated underwater explosive device. At the time, the broadcaster said the pipelines might have been breached by mines lowered to the seabed, or explosives dropped from a boat or planted by an undersea drone.

October 29, 2022 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Oxford, England proposes dystopian surveillance system that limits driving

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | October 27, 2022

If the city goes through with plans, motorists might need special permits and open themselves up to more surveillance to drive through Oxford, England. The Oxfordshire County Council is considering giving permits to households that only allow them to drive through the city for 100 days per year per vehicle.

To implement the plan, ANPR (automatic number plate readers) cameras will be installed at “traffic filter” locations across the city.

Private cars will not be allowed across the filters without a permit. All other vehicles, including coaches, buses, vans, taxis, mopeds, HGVs, and motorbikes will be allowed through traffic filters at all times.

Consultation for the plan ended October 13 and the council is expected to make a decision in November. If they approve the plan, it will cost £3 million ($3.48 million) to implement.

Oxfordshire County Council’s minister for highways management Andrew Grant said that the traffic filter scheme is part of a “vision for a vastly improved Oxford.”

“We want to improve lives, transport and health for the people that live and work here. We have done a lot of modeling to reach these locations and we want to encourage people to choose to use their cars less,” he added.

“This is not about being anti-car, it’s about managing the way we use our roads so that they are safe for everyone. It’s about designing Oxford for the next decades and we want to hear from everyone. I would encourage people to comment and take part in the consultation, especially people who would not normally think about going online and commenting on it.”

Some that are against the plan have voiced their opinion.

Over 3,400 people have signed a petition opposing the installation of traffic filters on Hollow Way and Marston Ferry Road.

October 28, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

England: Social worker fired over social media posts wins case

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 25, 2022

Social Work England dropped the case against Rachel Meade, a social worker and member of the Free Speech Union (FSU), who was suspended over posts on her personal  page.

A complaint about the posts was filed by Sport England’s Diversity Champion Aedan Wolton. That single complaint resulted in the suspension of Meade from her social worker position at the Westminster City Council.

Meade’s ‘crime’ was sharing links to articles covering transgender issues and petitions and blog posts on the national debate about if it is right for people to self-identify their gender. The case lasted for almost two years.

Meade told the Daily Mail that the “last two years have been nothing short of an Orwellian nightmare for me and my family.”

“My apparent crime was to share some news articles and petitions about the self-ID gender debate to fewer than 50 friends on Facebook. I found myself wrongly accused of holding abhorrent transphobic views,” she added.

Her lawyer, Shazia Khan, said Social Work England violated Meade’s freedom of speech and asked for an apology to Meade. The organization refused to apologize.

October 28, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

COVID19 vaccination

DR. MALCOLM KENDRICK | OCTOBER 25, 2022

I have been somewhat quiet recently. I have started about ten blogs, then got bogged down …. possibly blogged down? Then stopped, and started again, then tore it all up – metaphorically.

The problem is that I have been looking at COVID19 vaccination.

There is much to say, maybe too much. However, one treads a very fine line here. I liken it to walking along a cliffside, in the dark. At any point you can make a small mis-step and plummet to your doom. Or, perhaps it is more like being in the trenches in World War I, knowing that at any point, a sniper could pick you off.

Yes, it is true that WordPress doesn’t seem to care much what anyone writes. Good for them, I say. So, I can write pretty much whatever I want. But the rest of the world watches, waiting for the slightest mistake. At which point you shall be denounced, then silenced, in all other outlets. If this happens, the vast majority of people stop listening to you. ‘Oh him, he’s one of those anti-vaxx nutters. Don’t listen to a word he says.’

Yes, I know there is a large community out there who do not follow the mainstream narrative. Those who know there are – or certainly may be – some significant issues with the COVID19 vaccines. In particular the mRNA vaccines. Speaking to them is easy, gaining their support is easy. They cheer you on.

However, there is no real point in reaching out to them, enjoyable though it may be. It is preaching to the converted. The people that I would really like to get at are those who firmly and absolutely believe that mRNA vaccines are highly effective, absolutely safe, and that everyone should be happy to be vaccinated. Along with their children.

The people who are also very critical of those who do not get vaccinated [I have had three doses, but I shall not be having a fourth, unless things change dramatically].

How do you reach these people? How can you even begin to get them listening to anything you have to say?

To give one example of the problem of starting a discussion. I posted a link in a discussion forum on the Doctors.net website (a website that can only be accessed by UK registered doctors). This link discussed some issues with vaccines. It didn’t seem, to me, to be hyper-critical.

However, I got a message from the moderators informing me that if I attached links to any information critical of vaccines, again, they would remove me from the site. This was my final warning. No discussion.

More recently, the post below was published on the same site. It was in response to a twitter comment which followed an interview with Dr Aseem Malhotra:

‘This is a disgraceful interview with this self-publicising charlatan and hypocrite. He says that “until proven otherwise, it is likely that Covid mRNA vaccines played a significant or primary role in all unexplained heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, & heart failure since 2021”.

That is so grossly irresponsible and untrue It staggers me to think he can be allowed to say this and remain a registered medical practitioner.’

The post I have duplicated here was published by a doctor who works, full-time, for a pharmaceutical company. Something he, surprisingly, failed to mention as a potential conflict of interest. Others piled on in support of him. Many of them agreeing that Aseem Malhotra should be flung off the GMC register forthwith – which would render him unable to work as a doctor.

I suggested that, perhaps it would be better to engage Dr Malhotra in debate, rather than attacking him as a charlatan. At which point I was attacked. In my opinion, if you find yourself being attacked for suggesting that it would be a good idea to have a debate, it is not difficult to work out which way the wind is blowing.

I have discussed vaccination at my local sports club. At which point, almost everyone takes on that silent, arms crossed look, if you mention you have some concerns about vaccines.

They don’t debate the issue, because they can’t, because they don’t know anything other than what they have been told by mainstream media. But it is clear that some of them now see me as a bloody anti-vaxxer. Even if I say nothing more than, ‘I have some concerns.’

Yes, to ask for debate, or to dare express some concerns, is to be labelled an anti-vaxxer.

This is a very high barrier to overcome. I have tried irony. ‘Oh yes, I am absolutely one hundred per cent in favour of COVID19 vaccines. I think everyone should have them four times a year. Pregnant women, children from the moment they are born. No exceptions at all. Yes, these mRNA vaccines have been fully tested. It is clear that they are one hundred per cent safe and one hundred per cent effective. Yup, I cannot see any problems with them at all.’

Response. You are taking the mickey and you are an anti-vaxxer. I claim my prize.

I have also tried saying absolutely nothing at all. I still got accused of being an anti-vaxxer because I did not enthusiasticly agree with criticising someone who was believed to be an anti-vaxxer.

Maybe I should just attend this meeting ‘The New Frontier of RNA Nanotherapeutic. Monday, October 24, 2022 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Hybrid Conference’:

‘The RNA vaccines against COVID-19 mark the beginning of a technological revolution that will transform the way we treat disease and restore health. “The New Frontier of RNA Nanotherapeutics” presented by the George and Angelina Kostas Research Center for Cardiovascular Nanomedicine, will feature a discussion on the events that led to the RNA vaccine breakthrough and preview emerging RNA Nanotherapeutics. Advances in the design of RNA constructs to improve stability and translational efficiency will be presented along with the leading-edge developments in nanomedicine to improve delivery and tissue specificity. The potential of nanotechnology-enabled RNA therapeutics to enhance health is virtually limitless.’

Any doubts I have will evaporate …. maybe.

Anyway. The answer as to … how can I even start a discussion on mRNA vaccines without being shot, falling of the edge of cliff, or being silenced, continues to elude me. Farewell enlightenment. Hello dark ages.

Science, to me, is debate. Science is attacking ideas from all directions. No exceptions. Those ideas which cannot be destroyed may turn out to be correct. But, if an idea is considered sacrosanct, with anyone questioning it condemned as an unbeliever, then we do not have science. We have religion. So yes, in my opinion, vaccines, and vaccination, have become a religious belief. No evidence needed.

Scary. Anyway. If anyone has any good ideas about how a debate can even get started, without descending into anger and accusation … please let me know. It seems beyond me. The end.

October 25, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

U.K. Regulator Mulls Covid Vaccination for Babies Despite High Injury Rate – as Moderna Trial Finds Vaccine Can Cause Diabetes in Infants

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 21, 2022

The U.K. regulator may decide on whether Covid vaccines should be approved for British babies before Christmas. The Mail has the story.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which polices the safety of drugs used in the U.K., told MailOnline it is currently reviewing data on Moderna’s vaccine.

The pharmaceutical firm has submitted evidence in the hope of getting its jab approved for children aged six months and older, as it is in the EU and U.S. Only over-fives can currently get Covid vaccines in the U.K.

Any approval of jabs for babies would cause huge controversy. British authorities have so far held out on approving jabs for infants despite massive pressure, due to concerns that the benefits do not outweigh any potential risks. Children rarely get seriously ill with Covid and the majority are thought to have already been infected.

Experts said today that, even if approved, the jab must not be rolled out “en masse” to healthy infants.

Dr. Laura Squire, the MHRA’s Chief Healthcare Quality and Access Officer, revealed the regulator was processing an application from Moderna. But she added the mRNA jab, which works in a similar way to Pfizer’s, would only be approved if it met strict safety and efficacy standards.

She said: “We have received an application from the company to extend the approval of Moderna to those aged six months to five years. No extension to the vaccine will be approved unless it meets our stringent standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.”

Moderna’s jab application was submitted in mid-September, meaning it has already gone through weeks of analysis. The MHRA declined to detail the timeframe for its expected decision. But it took health chiefs two months to consider the evidence before approving the first Covid jab in December 2020. Moderna’s application is for its existing jab to be rolled out to other groups, rather than for a new drug. Dr. Squire also confirmed rival vaccine maker Pfizer has not yet applied to have its jab approved for use in the youngest children.

Professor David Livermore, a microbiologist at East Anglia University, said giving the jab to the very limited numbers of children with specific conditions might be wise.

He said: “The tiny minorities of children with severe underlying health problems may benefit from vaccination against Covid.”

But he added that a large-scale jab campaign for children should be off the cards. “There should be absolutely no question of mass vaccination of healthy children, for whom the benefits don’t outweigh the risks,” the professor said. “Over 80% of children have now had Covid and have developed natural immunity. This lasts longer than vaccine-induced immunity and is broader in respect of covering variants. Vaccines offer nothing useful to this very large majority.”

Professor Livermore said the risks of vaccine-related harm, while tiny, do not clearly outweigh the very minor benefits for the vast majority of children.

“This is acceptable for elderly vulnerable populations at risk from severe Covid,’ he said. “It’s not acceptable for healthy children, who are at minuscule risk of developing severe Covid.”

He added that he would like Britain to follow Denmark’s lead and stop vaccinating children against Covid unless recommended by a specialist paediatrician.

Worth reading in full.

Moderna has now published the results of its trial in the under-fives. The study population was very small – too small to get meaningful efficacy results and efficacy was “inferred” from “neutralising antibody concentrations”:

The efficacy of mRNA-1273 was inferred on the basis of having met prespecified criteria for immunobridging, the approach used for authorisation and approval in COVID-19 vaccine studies involving adolescents and older children.

In the supplementary appendix (Table S28 and S29) vaccine effectiveness estimates are given which, while the confidence intervals are wide, are all below 51% and one is even negative.

Among children 6-23 months of age, eight serious adverse events occurred in the vaccine group and none in the placebo group. The data in the supplementary appendix consistently show the vaccinated with adverse events of grade 3 (prevents carrying out daily tasks) and grade 4 (hospitalisation) many times higher than either a placebo or lower dose cohort.

Medically attended unsolicited adverse events (Table S26) were two to three times higher in the vaccine cohort than the placebo:

  • 1% vaccinated vs 0.3% placebo in 2-5 years
  • 1.5% vaccinated vs 0.8% placebo in 6-23 months
  • 1.2% vaccinated vs 0.5% placebo in 6 months-5 years

This indicates that 0.7% of the vaccinated or 1 in 143 had an unsolicited side-effect of the vaccine that required medical attention.

Alex Berenson spotted that in the appendix Moderna disclosed a case of new-onset Type 1 diabetes in a one-year-old girl that its investigators found was vaccine-related. This is Moderna admitting that its vaccine can give children diabetes. El Gato Malo points out that this does not appear to have been disclosed ahead of the approval of the vaccine in the U.S.

A German retrospective study found a hospitalisation rate from the (lower dose) Pfizer vaccine in under-fives of around one in 500.

Why are regulators even considering approving these vaccines for small children?

October 23, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The crushing of dissent throughout the covid era

Orwellian parallels worsen by the week

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | October 8, 2022

The recent actions of the financial technology company, PayPal, to close the accounts of subscribers expressing political opinions of which they disapprove, represents the latest example of censorship within so-called liberal democracies. Their strategic decisions to block the online monetary activities of the Free Speech Union, the Daily Sceptic website and the Us For Them campaign group – although later reversed – signal the willingness of powerful global big-tech companies to collude with governments in the crushing of activities that challenge the dominant narratives.  But no one should be surprised; we have all been manipulated by top-down censorship and state propaganda for many years, a dystopian process that accelerated during the covid era.

Since the emergence of the novel coronavirus in early 2020, there has been widespread censorship of views that do not support the two mantras of covid-19 orthodoxy: namely that, ‘Lockdowns and other restrictions were appropriate responses’ and ‘The mRNA vaccines are safe and effective’. Indeed, the unprecedented and non-evidenced covid restrictions could not have been so successfully imposed without propaganda in all its forms. Contrary to popular opinion, techniques of manipulation do not only characterise recognised totalitarian regimes, but are now endemic within contemporary liberal democracies. And three, overlapping, forms of non-consensual persuasion have been widely deployed throughout the covid era to control the narrative and subsequent behaviour of citizens:

1.      Control through emotional manipulation

The covert influencing of people’s emotions via use of behavioural-science ‘nudges’ has been well documented. Based on the advice of state-employed psychological experts, the covid-19 communication strategy has relied heavily on evoking uncomfortable feelings in the populace as a way of inducing them to ‘do the right thing’, where what is ‘right’ is solely determined by government-appointed officials. In particular, the manipulation of fear, shame and scapegoating – or ‘affect’, ‘ego’ and ‘norms’, to use the euphemisms of behavioural science – has been conducted for this purpose via the broadcasting of selective statistics, alarming images and emotional messaging. Furthermore, the decision to impose mask mandates was most likely informed by the knowledge that face coverings enhance the power of each of these three nudges, thereby increasing people’s compliance with government diktats.

Despite escalating concerns about the ethical basis of the state’s deployment of behavioural science, there has been a stark reluctance of anyone in authority to accept responsibility for this form of manipulation. The British Psychological Society (the formal guardians of ethical application of psychological interventions) is of the view that covertly inflicting emotional distress on people so as to promote compliance with covid restrictions and the vaccine rollout is acceptable as it is encouraging ‘social responsibility’, thereby colluding – along with other professional bodies – with the state’s mission to silence dissent and eliminate contrary behaviour. Meanwhile the Government show a reluctance to explore the ethics underpinning their deployment of nudges as evidenced by their ‘Public Administration and Public Affairs Committee’ ignoring a request for an independent inquiry and the omission of any mention of behavioural science in the draft terms of reference for the Inquiry into the covid-19 pandemic.

2.      Control through modulating the flow of information

A second way of controlling dissent – used at unprecedentedly high levels throughout the covid event – has been via the regulation of information flow within our TV, radio, newspaper and social media outlets. Ease of access to facts, data and opinion (including that of scientific experts) has been mainly determined by the degree to which the information corresponds with the dominant narratives: write or speak words supportive of lockdowns, masking and vaccination and they will typically receive preferential treatment within the media’s editorial processes, gaining prominence and ease of access; in contrast, say or print something contrarian and it will most likely be submerged in the quagmire of daily media output.

The seeds of this system of selective information flow had been sown prior to 2020 with the formation of the ‘Trusted News Initiative’ (a coalition of mainstream media, publishers and big-tech companies) aspiring to ‘create a global alliance of integrity in news’ by countering ‘misinformation’ and ‘bias’. Furthermore, at the start of the pandemic, Ofcom – the UK’s communications regulator – instructed broadcasters not to cover anything that went against the Government’s narrative. This censorial alliance ensured that voices expressing dissent about covid restrictions and the vaccine rollout were disadvantaged, displaced to the inaccessible fringes of media output.

In the UK, there has even been military involvement in the form of the 77th Brigade with their explicit mission to create and spread material ‘in support of designated tasks’ while also ‘supporting counter-adversarial information activity’. Internationally, the WHO has effectively modulated the flow of information via the use of fact-checking organisations and collaborations with Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube, so as to guarantee that ‘science-based health messages from official sources’ (aka the dominant narrative) appear first when one searches for covid information.

Specific examples of the impact of this – seemingly global – operation to control information flow are numerous. They include: Professor Gupta (an epidemiological expert) being instructed not to mention the Great Barrington Declaration prior to appearing on a BBC discussion programme about lockdowns; academic journals blocking the peer-reviewed covid research of Dr Peter McCullough and the suppression of trial findings that had concluded that Ivermectin was an effective treatment; the removal of Dr Robert Malone (the inventor of mRNA technology) from Twitter; and the removal of MPs Sir Christopher Chope and David Davies from YouTube for, respectively, raising concerns about vaccine damage and vaccine effectiveness.

One fundamental consequence of this selective regulation of information was that our Western media – a supposed pillar of democracy – failed us all in their refusal to scrutinise and evaluate the actions of public officials.

3.      Control through erasing dissenting voices

Presumably based on the assumption that eliminating people before dissent is expressed is a more effective censorial method than controlling their information output, throughout the covid era there appears to have been a systematic state-driven attempt to discredit or cancel those brave individuals expressing views that are inconsistent with the dominant restrict-and-jab narrative.

Since March 2020, anyone who has expressed a contrarian covid opinion in a public space will likely have attracted criticism involving accusations of being ‘right wing’, fascist or a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Efforts by powerful players to destroy reputations and livelihoods through smearing and character assassination have been commonplace. Arguably the most high-profile example of this egregious practice is in regards to the targeting of the main authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a multi-signatory document arguing for an alternative to the blanket lockdowns. In leaked emails between Anthony Fauci (Chief Medical Advisor to the US president) and Francis Collins (the Director of the US National Institute of Health), these powerful state officials refer to the illustrious authors of the document as ‘fringe epidemiologists’ while describing the need for a ‘quick and devastating public takedown’ of their arguments. Furthermore, the extremely popular US podcaster, Joe Rogan, was smeared as a transphobe and racist in the aftermath of him giving a platform to experts expressing views at odds with the dominant covid narrative.

A threat of imminent loss of earnings – actual or implied – is another tactic that has been commonly deployed to cancel those criticising the approach of Western governments to pandemic management. Many academics have suffered in this way, including Canadian professor Julie Ponesse who lost her job after she challenged the vaccine mandates. Of course, such a draconian sanction serves as a warning to many other university scholars who might also be considering expressing dissent.

The recent actions of PayPal suggest that our medico-technocratic powerhouses are not satisfied with inflicting emotional distress, censorship and character assassination on the Western population, but now seek to control how we spend our money. Manipulation by means of regulating access to our finances may be the new front in the war on freedom of verbal and behavioural expression. It raises the spectre of the imposition of a totalitarian social credit system, mediated via a Central Bank Digital Currency, a world where unelected global bureaucrats determine our monthly spend based on the degree to which our behaviour conforms to their version of what constitutes the ‘greater good’.  

In the words of Piers Robinson (an expert on global propaganda), ‘That the censorship, smearing and coercion … has come to be tolerated is a clear indicator of how far our democracies have slipped into an authoritarian abyss’. And the imminent Online Harms Bill, with its ‘legal but harmful’ category, may further restrict our basic human right to freedom of expression. But there is still hope. As more and more people become aware of the associated collateral damage, the dominant narratives on the benefits of lockdowns, school closures, masks and ‘safe-and-effective’ covid vaccines are beginning to crumble. As awareness of ubiquitous state-funded manipulation and censorship grows, increasing numbers of citizens are turning to independent sources of expert information – such as HART and PANDA – for reliable covid updates. The basic human right of freedom of expression within Western democracies must be protected; once lost, it is unlikely to be restored within our lifetimes.

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine war is ‘Biden’s war’ now

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 21, 2022 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Oct 18, 2022 that evidence of military personnel of United States and other Western countries having their boots on the ground in Ukraine is mounting.

The most obvious explanation to the mysterious air dash of the UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace to Washington on Tuesday could be that he was canvassing for the support of the Biden Administration for his pitch to succeed Liz Truss as Britain’s next prime minister. But another plausible explanation can be that the secret, hurried trip marked a defining moment in the conflict in Ukraine, which is showing all signs of turning into a full-fledged war. 

To be sure, the Biden team cannot but be worried that London is drifting into chaos and the Conservative Party’s faction leaders scurry around like headless chickens looking for a substitute Truss who stepped down on Thursday. 

The British economy is disintegrating and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt anticipates that a cut on the defence budget is inevitable. That is to say, the Deep State’s fun and frolic in Kiev is no longer affordable. The UK is heading for hard times, the rubric of Global Britain looks delusional. 

Enter President Biden. The reports from Moscow suggest that Russians have hard intelligence to the effect that Washington has demanded from President Zelensky some spectacular performance on the battlefield as the midterms in the US on November 8 is around the corner. 

That adds to the enigmatic comment by a second defence minister in London James Heappey that the conversations that Wallace would be having in Washington were “beyond belief,” hinting that particularly sensitive and serious issues were on the agenda.  

Indeed, after arrival in Washington, Wallace headed straight for the White House to meet up with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Biden’s point person for the Ukraine war. A White House readout said the two officials “exchanged views on shared national security interests, including Ukraine. They underscored their commitment to continue providing Ukraine with security assistance as it defends itself against Russian aggression.” 

As British politics descends to skulduggery that will extend into months, the US will be a stakeholder. Historically, since the World War 2, Britain led the US from the rear in critical situations involving Russia. 

Indeed, Biden issued a rare statement on Truss’ exit, which stated that the US and the UK “are strong Allies and enduring friends — and that fact will never change.” He thanked her “for her partnership on a range of issues including holding Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine.” Biden underscored that “We will continue our close cooperation with the U.K. government as we work together to meet the global challenges our nations face.” 

Biden has sent a powerful message to Britain’s political class signalling that he expects them to come up with a new prime minister who will faithfully adhere to the compass set by Boris Johnson on Ukraine. In immediate terms, what does it signal for the Anglo-American project in Kherson? Will it go ahead? That is the big question. 

The situation in Kherson is assuming the nature of a large-scale military confrontation, as Zelensky is throwing everything into it in an attempt to wrest control of the strategic Kherson city, which has been under Russian control since March, before the midterms in the US. 

At a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Army general Sergei Surovikin, the newly-appointed theatre commander for Ukraine operations, conceded that there was a danger of the Ukrainian forces advancing toward Kherson city. 

To quote the general, “A difficult situation has arisen. The enemy deliberately bombards infrastructure and residential buildings in Kherson. The Antonovsky Bridge and the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station were damaged by HIMARS missiles, traffic there was stopped. 

“As a result, the supply of food in the city is difficult, there are certain problems with the water and electricity supply. All this greatly complicates the lives of citizens, but also poses a direct threat to their lives. 

“The NATO leadership of the Ukrainian armed forces has long been demanding offensive operations against Kherson from the Kiev regime, regardless of casualties… We have data on the possibility that the regime in Kiev will use prohibited methods of war in the area of the city of Kherson — preparation for a big missile attack on the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam, massive and indiscriminate missile and artillery attacks on the city…

“In these circumstances, our top priority is to preserve the life and health of citizens. Therefore, the Russian army will first of all ensure the safe, already announced departure of the population according to the resettlement program being prepared by the Russian government. Our further plans and actions regarding the city of Kherson itself will depend on the current military-tactical situation. I repeat, it is already very difficult today. [Emphasis added.]

“In any case, as I said, we will start from the need to protect the lives of civilians and our military as much as possible. We will act consciously and in a timely manner, without excluding difficult decisions.” [Emphasis added.] 

The full interview of Gen. Sergey Surovikin to Russian media is below:

The Kremlin thinking gets echoed in a public appeal by the head of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo where he explained that the evacuation of civilians was not only for people’s safety but also for the operational freedom of the military:

“Dear compatriots, I want to say again that our army has very strong capabilities to repel any attack. But in order for our military to work quietly and not to think that civilians are behind their backs, you MUST get out of these neighbourhoods I mentioned and allow the military to do its job properly, with fewer casualties for the civilians. Our cause is just and we are sure we will win!” 

The message here is that the Russian military is prepared to expand the scope of the conflict in Kherson, if need arises. There has been talk about a massive Russian offensive circa mid-November. The new security measures announced by Putin this week and the establishment of a special coordination council headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to support the needs of Russia’s Armed Forces imply that time is being put on a war footing.

Significantly, Gen. Surovikin said at one point in his press conference: “The enemy does not give up trying to attack the positions of the Russian troops. This concerns, first of all, the directions Kupyansk (Kharkov oblast), Krasnolimansky (Donetsk oblast) and Mykolaiv-Krivoy Rog (neighbouring Kherson oblast.) Our enemy is a criminal regime that is killing the citizens of Ukraine. We are one people with Ukrainians and we wish Ukraine to become a state independent of the West and NATO, friendly to Russia… [Emphasis added.]

“The Ukrainian regime is trying to break through our defences. To this end, the AFU is pulling all available reserves to the front lines. These are mainly territorial defense forces that have not completed full training. In fact, the Ukrainian leadership is condemning them to destruction.” 

Then, he added, “We have a different strategy. The Commander-in-Chief [President Putin] has already talked about this. We don’t aim for high advance figures, we take care of every soldier and methodically “grind” the advancing enemy. This not only limits our losses, but also significantly reduces the number of civilian casualties.” 

That is to say, specifically, the set parameters of the special military operations with focus on “demilitarisation” and “denazification” remain unchanged while also aiming at the replacement of Zelensky’s regime. 

Russia will be keenly watching the profound political crisis developing in Europe, of which the paroxysms in Britain are an early harbinger, which could erode the rock-like UK support for Zelensky, as the western capability and interest to bankroll the Ukrainian economy and fuel the military conflict may also be on the wane. 

Nonetheless, Surovikin did not take to hyperbole but instead chose to communicate directly, realistically. He echoed Putin’s priority to take all necessary measures and resources in accordance with the operational and tactical situation at the front with the supreme objective of saving the lives of Russian soldiers and local civilians. 

The general conveyed the impression that the Russian command is ready for every development of the situation in Kherson — both tactical withdrawal and heavy city fighting. 

In political terms, with the UK bogged down in a domestic quagmire, Biden has the option to shift to diplomacy. This is “Biden’s war” now. He is about to script his presidential legacy as the fifth of the 14 American presidents in office since World War II to “own” a war — after Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, George HW Bush and George W. Bush.

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Where Are All the Vaccine Safety Reports the MHRA Promised Us, Ask Doctors and Scientists

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 19, 2022

The Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART), an expert group of medics, clinicians, scientists and academics, has published an article reminding the U.K. drug regulator, the MHRA, that it initially set out a solid plan of how it would monitor the safety of the Covid vaccines it had approved for emergency use. It asks what happened to that plan and all the vaccine safety reports promised under it.

The article starts by setting out the ways in which the MHRA has fallen short in its duty to regulate the vaccines.

The U.K. drug regulator, the MHRA, did not carry out the toxicity, biodistribution and pharmacokinetics studies that are required of new drugs because of the political pressure to approve. However, nearly two years have passed since then and the MHRA has not set a deadline for the pharmaceutical companies to provide these data. The MHRA allowed the treatments to be presented as vaccines like any other when they are a novel class of agents, never before approved for human use despite the technology being around for decades (mostly because they have been dangerous and ineffective in previous human trials).

The trials should have remained placebo controlled and ongoing for two to five years minimum in order to establish an understanding of their safety. Authorisations were based on two months of safety data in healthy people and the MHRA allowed the pharmaceutical companies to vaccinate the placebo control group such that further safety data could not be collected.

Approvals for children were unethical when the trial data did not show evidence of a benefit from the drug to the children themselves when there was already good evidence of short term safety issues and when long term safety data was inevitably unavailable. Approving for younger children after the arrival of Omicron was even less defensible.

The MHRA failed to notice that the total mortality in the trial was higher in the vaccination group than the placebo group, showing no evidence of an overall mortality benefit, and the serious adverse reactions were much higher in the vaccination group such that one in 800 participants were hospitalised for a non-Covid condition, which far outweighed the small reduction in Covid hospitalisations.

Dame June Raine, the head of the U.K. drug regulator the MHRA, appeared to take a unilateral decision to change its role. She said “the Covid pandemic has catalysed the transformation of the regulator from a watchdog to an enabler.”

The regulator receives 86% of its funding from industry fees. In 2005, the House of Commons’ health committee expressed concerns regarding the U.K. drug regulator that pharmaceutical funding could lead the agency to “lose sight of the need to protect and promote public health above all else as it seeks to win fee income from the companies”. Do we want a regulator which sees itself as an enabler of pharmaceutical companies?

At the outset, the MHRA set out an excellent plan for safety monitoring of the Covid vaccines which was required because of the minimal safety data from trials and the planned extensive rollout. It described this as a four part system of “proactive vigilance… to rapidly detect, confirm, characterise and quantify any new risks that were not detected in clinical trials”.

The four parts were:

1. Have doctors report concerns to the Yellow Card system
2. Actively analyse GP data on a weekly basis to look for increases in any suspected condition
3. Proactively survey to follow up a sample of people after vaccination
4. Academic studies of large medical databases

The only publications from the MHRA in the last two years on safety have been the Yellow Card reports and even these do not divulge the number of people affected or the seriousness of the reports.

Where are these weekly analyses of GP data, proactive surveys of the vaccinated and academic studies of large medical databases? We’re approaching two years into the rollout – where are all these promised reports? And why is no one apart from HART and a smattering of others asking these questions?

Worth reading in full.

October 20, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

The United States and Britain continue secret biological research in Central Asia

By Vladimir Platov – New Eastern Outlook – 19.10.2022 

Despite numerous publications about military research in secret US biology laboratories in the post-Soviet space and demands to place their activities under strict international control, there is, unfortunately, no qualitative improvement of the situation in this matter. Therefore, it is not surprising that at the recent 22nd Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State, the Chinese president additionally drew the attention of the association’s member countries to the need “to effectively meet the challenges in biosecurity, and other non-traditional security domains”. As part of the Samarkand Declaration of 2022, SCO countries were urged to strictly adhere to the Biological Weapons Convention and to adopt a protocol to it that provides for an effective verification mechanism.

After Russia initiated the special operation to denazify Ukraine, alongside publicly exposing the illegal US biological weapons development activities in secret biolabs, the Pentagon sought to move unfinished programs in Ukraine to other countries in the post-Soviet region as quickly as possible. This particularly pertains to the territory of the states of Central Asia (CA) and Eastern Europe.

Recently, Russia Today journalists have found out that the US has decided to study the deadly anthrax in a bio-lab in Kyrgyzstan. In this regard, the US Department of Health & Human Services plans to fund this work and allocate about a quarter of a million dollars for this purpose. According to the tender published on the procurement portal of the US government, the regional hospital in the city of Osh in the south of the republic will become the base for these tests. At the same time, the publication reminded that Kyrgyzstan and the United States are negotiating a new agreement between the two countries in the field of US biological laboratories in the Republic of Kazakhstan, but the nuances and points of the future document are hidden from the public.

Very disturbing information in this regard has recently come from Uzbekistan, where, according  to the Telegram channel, the active work of US representatives to create a powerful military-biological cluster in that country is confirmed. This is particularly evidenced by the growing “work” in Uzbekistan in recent years on the part of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). On this issue, the publication has prepared an infographic on US military-biological activities in Uzbekistan, which clearly indicates the potential damage to the security of the countries of Central Asia, the Russian Federation and China, the main political opponents of the White House.

There is also information that the United States and the United Kingdom continue to conduct joint research at the Kazakhstan Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) in Almaty. In early 2022, the United Kingdom shipped a large number of samples of virus strains, laboratory equipment, diagnostic instruments, etc. through the British shipping company WN Shipping the first half of the year.

Kazakhstan’s CRL in Almaty was built with Pentagon funds and has a third level of biohazard because a repository for particularly dangerous infectious agents is located on the premises of this facility, which are examined by staff of specialized laboratories for plague, cholera, zoonotic bacterial and natural viral focal infections. According to Kazakhstan’s official information, no US military experts (biologists and virologists) reportedly work at CRL, and as of January 1, 2020, it is fully funded and owned exclusively by Kazakhstan’s budget. However, in reality, this facility is not directly funded by the United States, but through a system of American grants, i.e. the research is carried out in the interest of the United States under a certain program of the Pentagon. And apparently this “cooperation” continues.

This is confirmed, in particular, by the fact that on November 5, 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development of Kazakhstan initiated the process of public discussion on the construction project of the BSL-4 laboratory for work with especially dangerous strains and an underground storage facility for a collection of dangerous and especially dangerous strains in the village of Gvardeisky in the Zhambyl region, the construction of which is planned for 2025. The fourth biological safety code BSL-4 (Biosafety Level 4) of this planned biological laboratory alone indicates that the facility poses a high risk to people and society of the viruses being studied, most of which are simply impossible to handle.

The Kyrgyz public has already reacted very critically to this project. Protesters have gathered in front of the US Embassy, outraged that the lab will be built near the border with Kyrgyzstan, just 90 kilometers from Bishkek. Kyrgyz experts, together with the International Association for the Control of Biological Research, sent a letter this summer to the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, asking that the construction of a biological laboratory in the border region be stopped.

Obviously, Washington is eager to preserve the countries of Central Asia as a testing ground for its military biological research. Hence the US efforts to develop similar projects in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. At the same time, Washington has an increased interest in Tashkent and Alma-Ata, as these two countries have better developed infrastructure and more qualified personnel compared to other Central Asian states. The increased US interest in Uzbekistan is also due to the fact that the country is not a member of the CSTO, which gives Washington more freedom of action.

October 19, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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