Murdering Khamenei Will Kill Trump’s Presidency
By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 1, 2026
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei was assassinated in what is being described in western media as a joint airstrike operation. Even though the Israeli air-force carried out airstrikes in and around Tehran, it is clear that these were supported by the U.S. military. As such, the U.S. is complicit in the murder of the Head of State of a sovereign nation.
And this unilateral military action once again proved both that the United Nations Charter has lost its value and that the UN Security Council is now broken.
In his opening remarks to the Security Council, Secretary General António Guterres condemned the military strikes by the U.S. and Israel, which also condemning the Iranian response, citing Article 2 of the UN Charter.
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
The enormous and ongoing military strikes against Iran were clearly in breach of that Article.
In its response to the Security Council, Iran’s Representative cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individuals or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” Article 51 is one of only two exceptions to the general prohibition on the use of force by UN members set out in Article 2.
The strikes were all the more cynical for taking place part way through talks moderated by the government of Oman. Indeed, Guterres hinted at this in his remarks, saying:
“The U.S. and Israeli attacks occurred following the third round of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran mediated by Oman.
Preparations had been made for technical talks in Vienna next week followed by a new round of political talks.
I deeply regret that this opportunity of diplomacy has been squandered.”
Pakistan’s representative at the Council was more blunt, saying that “diplomacy has once again been derailed as these attacks have happened right in the middle of negotiations.”
Indeed, the strikes confirmed that the UN Security council has become completely unable to take measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
On the 80th anniversary of the founding of the UN Secretary General Guterres warned that “fragile” legitimacy of the Security Council could endanger global peace if it remains gridlocked and fails to fulfil its primary purpose.
All of the the western nations around the UN Security Council table last night showed themselves to be weak and silent, in the face of American’s military might.
As one, they criticised Iran’s unprovoked attacks on Gulf states, as Iranian ballistic missiles targeted U.S. military sites in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait, while also targeting Israel. Self evidently, Iran was targeting U.S. military installations in all of those countries and. Indeed, the U.S.’ fifth fleet Headquarters in Bahrain was struck by at least one ballistic missile. Yet civilian sites also got hit, including in the UAE and in Bahrain.
However, there was no mention at all of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in the statements of western nations at the Security Council, as if they feared U.S. reprisals if they spoke out. Not a single word from the French, the Latvians, the Danes, the Greeks, even the Bahrainis, only that Iran murdered its citizens and should not be allowed to acquire a nuclear bomb.
In the end the acting UK Permanent Representative, James Kariuki, who I can tell you from personal experience is the most arrogant and puffed up British diplomat that I ever met, said that:
“Iran must refrain from further strikes, and its appalling behaviour, to allow a path back to diplomacy.”
The sitting President of the UN Security Council, the United Kingdom (the U.S. takes over the Presidency today) did not utter a single word about the USA or Israel. No attempt, as the country convening the meeting, to seek common ground and some agreement on the way forward.
Britain’ approach was merely to blame Iran in what the Russian Federation representative described in his intervention as ‘victim blaming’. I already knew that Britain had given up diplomacy in 2014, but this appeared yet another nail in a coffin which the UK refuses to bury as it pretends to be a nation of diplomacy. It is not. Britain is now a nation of warmongers without the troops to fight.
While final confirmation of the fact had yet to be provided at that time, the Prime Minister of Israel and President Trump were already celebrating the possible killing of Khamanei. ‘The dictator is gone,’ Netanyahu crowed.
In his social media statement, President Trump called on Iranian people to rise up and take over their country.
Yet within hours, sources within the CIA were already leaking reports that Khamenei may simply be replaced by IRGC hardliners.
As I have pointed out before, rather than fomenting revolution, unilateral military action against Iran may have the opposite effect and mobilise Iranian resistance.
This idea was stated with great clarity by Professor Robert Pape of Chicago University who said:
“With each passing day of regime-targeting airstrikes, we lose control over the political dynamics they unleash.
It becomes less about individual leaders and more about national survival. Less about dissent and more about resistance.
Imagine if a foreign power struck Washington and called on Americans to overthrow their government. Would citizens rally against their leaders — or against the foreign attacker?”
Iran is a country of 92 million people with an army of over 610,000. It is a tightly controlled state and as we saw in January is more than capable and ready to stifle internal dissent, including through violent means. It also does not have an oven-ready opposition lined up in the wings that can walk in unopposed and miraculously take over the country. To suggest that it does takes us into Bay of Pigs territory.
Having already kidnapped the Head of State of one sovereign nation already this year, the United States of America has now murdered another, Ayatollah Khamenei. This will unleash asymmetric threats against the U.S. and all of its allies that Donald Trump will not be able to control. If this military action drags out inconclusively, and I predict it will, then the mid-terms may prove catastrophic for Trump. I predict that the Iranian regime will outlast his.
West’s hypocrisy over Iran and Gaza proves a regime-change operation in Tehran
Strategic Culture Foundation | January 30, 2026
The United States and the European Union are vehemently condemning Iran over alleged repression, while the West says nothing about the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The contradiction, of course, exposes the West’s rank hypocrisy. It also confirms that Iran is the target of a Western regime-change operation.
U.S. President Donald Trump this week repeated his threat to launch a blitzkrieg on Iran, bragging that an armada led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was in place to strike. “Don’t make me do it,” warned Trump with thug-like menace.
Meanwhile, the European Union declared Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a “foreign terrorist” organization. Given that the IRGC is a central component of Iran’s national security forces, the EU’s blacklisting is effectively designating the Iranian state as a terrorist entity. The EU’s provocation is paving the way for American aggression and all-out war, which will have devastating consequences, not least of all for Europe.
Washington and Europe are ostensibly basing their hostility towards Tehran on dubious claims that the Iranian authorities have committed systematic atrocities in repressing peaceful protesters in Iran demanding political change.
Trump has urged Iranians to keep protesting and vowed that “help is on the way.”
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, hailed the blacklisting of the IRGC, saying: “Repression cannot go unanswered… clear atrocities mean there must be a clear response from Europe.”
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot asserted: “We cannot have any impunity for the [alleged] crimes that have been committed.”
The Dutch top diplomat, David van Weel, added: “I think it’s important that we send the signal that the bloodshed that we’ve seen, the bestiality that has been used against protesters, cannot be tolerated.”
This all sounds noble and chivalrous of Western governments. But it is a contemptuous charade, belying disingenuousness and duplicity.
For more than two years, the Israeli regime has waged a blatant genocide in Gaza. The death toll is estimated at over 71,000, with most of the victims being civilians, women, and children. The real death toll is probably well over 100,000 from bodies buried under rubble from Israeli bombardment that are not accounted for.
Far from expressing any condemnation against the Israeli regime, the United States and the European Union (with minor exceptions) have maintained an odious silence that has afforded political cover for the genocide. The Western states are complicit as a result of their shameful silence. More damning, however, is that the United States and European states, including France, Germany, and Britain, have supplied warplanes, missiles, drones, electronics, and other weaponry to fuel the slaughter.
Trump boasts about his so-called Board of Peace for Gaza and a supposed ceasefire that was claimed to have started in October. Over 500 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the ceasefire travesty. Thousands of Palestinians are starving or freezing to death in windswept and flooded tents still deprived of humanitarian aid. The genocide continues under the grotesque guise of “peace”.
Trump is an “Israel First” U.S. president more than any of his predecessors, who all consistently gave the Zionist regime a license to kill and occupy. Trump’s complicity is remarkable and suggests his late pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein furnished Israeli intelligence with lots of blackmail material on the 47th president. So, his silence over genocide is explicable.
What about the Europeans, though? Maybe there is blackmail going on, too, to buy their complicity. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy is astounding.
Why aren’t Kallas, Barrot, and the other EU foreign ministers denouncing impunity and repression by the Israeli regime? They selectively apply their morals and faux humanitarian concerns to Iran.
The two scenarios are, in any case, incomparable. One is genocide, the other is civil unrest, which the evidence shows involves foreign orchestration.
Protests began in Tehran on December 28, sparked by legitimate economic grievances. The country of over 90 million has been strangled for decades by illegal Western economic sanctions. Tellingly, the relatively small demonstrations in Tehran’s bazaars at the end of December were rapidly escalated into full-blown violent attacks in several cities. The disturbances appear to have subsided, and there have been huge counter-demonstrations involving millions of people taking to the streets to denounce the violence of what seems to be almost certainly Western-orchestrated gangs.
The Iranian authorities claim that the total deaths after four weeks of violence are about 3,100. Western media reports and governments have cited much larger figures of 6,000 and up to 17,000 deaths. The Western figures are supplied by U.S. or European-based groups, such as the Iranian Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI). These groups are funded by the CIA’s cut-out organization, the National Endowment for Democracy.
Israeli news media have even admitted in reports that the street violence was being directed by foreign agencies. Former CIA chief Mike Pompeo also let it slip that Mossad operatives were behind the disturbances.
The methodical type of violence and damage sustained also indicates a coup attempt. Hundreds of mosques, schools, buses, government buildings, banks, and medical facilities were attacked and destroyed by gun-wielding gangs and arsonists.
Many of the casualties were inflicted on security forces and civilian bystanders in an orgy of violence that indicates a trained cadre of agitators and terrorists. Victims were beheaded and mutilated.
The Western media have conspicuously conflated the deaths and injuries as all attributed to the Iranian security forces, who allegedly used “lethal force to repress peaceful protesters.”
This is the standard operating procedure of Western regime change: to escalate deadly civil strife to destabilize the targeted state. The Western media then reliably row in with a massive propaganda assault to valorize the orchestrated violence and to demonize the authorities.
As Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi points out, the West’s modus operandi is to demonize foreign countries to justify regime change, and if needs be, to justify all-out military aggression.
In 1953, the same method was used by the Americans and British to overthrow the elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh’s “crime” was that he nationalized the oil industry, depriving Britain of its leech-like control over Iranian natural wealth, which saw most of the population living in poverty and squalor, as vast Persian oil profits flowed into London. For the coup to succeed, millions of dollars were funneled by the CIA into Iran to whip up street gangs, and the Western media on both sides of the Atlantic dutifully painted Mossadegh as illegitimate. He was overthrown, and the Western puppet, the Shah, was installed, presiding over a brutal CIA and MI6-backed regime for 26 years until the Islamic Revolution kicked him out in 1979. Amazingly, from the point of view of chutzpah consistency, more than seven decades later, the Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, living in pampered exile in the U.S., is being advocated by the West to take over if the Islamic Republic collapses. Plus ca change!
The same regime-change formula has been repeated over and over in as many as 100 other countries since the Americans and British launched their post-Second World War debut covert operation in Iran in 1953, as Finian Cunningham’s new book Killing Democracy surveys. Crucially, the Western news media play an absolutely vital role in assisting this systematic criminality, as they are doing currently in Iran, and before that in Venezuela.
Only four weeks ago, Washington’s military aggression against Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, by U.S. commandos was preceded by a full-court media campaign of demonization, absurdly labelling him a narcoterrorist.
Trump’s aggression towards Venezuela and now Iran is an outrageous violation of the UN Charter and international law. It marks a return to predatory imperialism. And the servile European states kowtow to this all-out predatory criminality with bogus concern about human rights.
We know their concerns are a complete sham and morally bankrupt because if there were any genuine principles, then they would not be so abject in their silence over the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza.
This is why Trump has been so emboldened to treat the Europeans with contempt over Greenland and other issues. If you act like a doormat, then expect to be walked on.
UK Health Officials Covered Up Reports of Heart Damage Linked to AstraZeneca Vaccine
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 29, 2026
Newly released U.K. public health data show that in 2021 and 2022, thousands of people filed cardiac-related adverse event reports after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
The data confirm the findings of a study by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) researchers. The study was published on Preprints.org.
GB News last week reported on the data, obtained from the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The data showed that in 2021 alone, the MHRA received 48,472 reports of cardiac-related adverse events linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Of these, 23,914 cardiovascular events had already been reported by late March 2021 — which means the reports were filed within the first three months after the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out to the public.
A total of 6,175 reports of blood-clotting events were reported during the same period, according to MHRA data.
The adverse event reports were being filed even as U.K. public health authorities told the public that the AstraZeneca vaccine — a non-mRNA vaccine developed in conjunction with Oxford University and licensed under the name Vaxzevria — was safe and effective.
Oxford researchers, Drs. Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan obtained the data through a freedom of information request submitted to the MHRA in October 2025. The request sought information on cardiovascular and thromboembolic (blood-clotting) events connected to the AstraZeneca shot between February 2021 and January 2024.
MHRA responded to the request a month later, providing the researchers with data, which Jefferson and Heneghan analyzed and published in a series of Substack posts.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time anyone (outside the powerful) has seen the reports submitted to the MHRA regarding serious potential harms during the first period of the rollout,” the researchers wrote in a Substack post.
CHD Senior Research Scientist Karl Jablonowski said the MHRA “used non-public data from one of the best medical record systems in the world” to craft “a narrative opposite to what the data reflect.”
“Instead of showing the cardiovascular catastrophe that unfolded in those injected with the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, health officials instead wrote that the results of their analysis offer ‘reassurance regarding the cardiovascular safety of COVID-19 vaccines.’ … The word ‘fraud’ may actually be too kind,” Jablonowski said.
Informed consent ‘compromised’
The MHRA contained discrepancies. According to GB News, MHRA dismissed its own figures after the researchers published them on Substack. Instead, they said the number of heart conditions linked to the AstraZeneca shot during the period in question was 13,010 — nearly four times lower than the original figure.
An MHRA spokesperson told GB News that the agency is “currently reviewing previously released figures in more detail to identify any potential discrepancies.”
In its analysis of the MHRA data, TrialSite News suggested that such significant data discrepancies call the MHRA’s credibility into question.
“While adverse-event reporting systems are designed to detect signals rather than prove causation, large unexplained gaps weaken confidence in risk communication,” TrialSite News wrote.
The researchers also asked the MHRA to provide data on the number of AstraZeneca shots administered in the U.K. The UK Health Security Agency initially refused, explaining that the information was “commercially sensitive” and that releasing it “would not be in the public interest.”
The agency later released the data after the researchers appealed. According to the researchers, the data showed a strong correlation between doses administered and adverse events reported. However, even after the AstraZeneca vaccine was withdrawn, adverse event reports were still being filed, suggesting “a long-term dose effect.”
TrialSite News founder and CEO Daniel O’Connor told The Defender that “the MHRA disclosures highlight a core failure of pandemic-era regulation: safety signals were managed rather than transparently communicated.”
“The issue is not only the adverse events themselves, but why their full scale emerged only through freedom of information requests,” O’Connor said. “When critical risk information reaches the public years late, informed consent is compromised and trust in the regulatory system is inevitably eroded.”
CHD study found evidence linking AstraZeneca shot to heart conditions
The data in the MHRA documents support the findings of a preprint study published by CHD and Brownstone Institute scientists last year.
The researchers reanalyzed data used in earlier studies that concluded the COVID-19 vaccines were safe. By comparing relative risks from different vaccines — which the original studies failed to do — the new research revealed evidence linking the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines to significant health dangers.
The study also found that the risks for cardiovascular disease and death from the AstraZeneca vaccine were significantly higher than those of the Pfizer vaccine.
The preprint, which is undergoing review, also suggested that some earlier COVID-19 vaccine safety studies were “biased by design.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD chief scientific officer, drew parallels with similar findings that he and Jablonowski discovered about safety signals connected to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and a subsequent cover-up of those signals by U.S. public health agencies.
Hooker said:
“The Pfizer vaccine was released on Dec. 11, 2020, and by January 2021, there were 23 reports of military service personnel with diagnoses of myocarditis following receiving the shot. At this point, less than 5% of U.S. adults had received the jab.
“The evidence regarding the Pfizer shot and myocarditis very quickly unfolded in front of these agencies, but no warning was given until May 27, 2021, when the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] trotted out a website that indicated there might be an issue with myocarditis and pericarditis due to VAERS reports. At that point, over 50% of those eligible in the U.S. had received the jab.
“The point was clear: lie and hide until we can get lots of shots in arms.”
UK continued to recommend AstraZeneca shot despite safety signals
According to GB News, at the same time that the MHRA data were showing evidence of cardiac conditions and blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, “internal discussions were taking place” about how to manage public messaging about the shot’s safety.
GB News cited minutes from a U.K. government task force on COVID-19 vaccine risks. The minutes, published in 2024, showed that concerns about the link between the AstraZeneca shot and blood clots were discussed as early as April 2021, and that safety issues were known by March 2021.
Throughout 2021, stories about people who died of blood clots after getting the AstraZeneca shot began appearing in the media.
Yet, the task force minutes recorded discussions of “concerns that public alarm over the vaccine could make it harder to vaccinate the population by increasing ‘vaccine hesitancy,’” GB News reported.
During this period, the mainstream press in the U.K. continued to promote the AstraZeneca shot as safe and effective. A March 2021 report by The Guardian claimed, “There’s no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots.”
In April 2021, the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised that adults under 30 should be offered an alternative COVID-19 vaccine. The European Medicines Agency issued similar guidance that month.
Yet, by March 2021, several European countries had withdrawn the AstraZeneca shot, citing the risk of blood clots. Research published that month also found a link between the shot and blood clots.
The AstraZeneca shot was never authorized or licensed in the U.S., but clinical trials for the vaccine were conducted in the U.S. with American participants. TrialSite News cited the case of Brianne Dressen, “who developed severe, long-term neurological symptoms after participating in the U.S. trial.”
AstraZeneca contractually agreed to provide medical care to trial participants for research-related injuries. However, in an ongoing federal lawsuit, Dressen alleges that the company reneged on that promise. AstraZeneca argued it is immune from legal prosecution.
In 2021, Dressen founded React19, an advocacy group for the vaccine-injured.
“These events underscore that even vaccines halted before approval can produce lasting human consequences — and unresolved accountability questions,” TrialSite News wrote.
‘A move to quiet the public, to pacify would-be critics’
AstraZeneca withdrew its COVID-19 vaccine from the market in 2024, citing “commercial reasons.” However, the company admitted in 2024 U.K. court documents that its shot could, in “very rare cases,” cause blood clots.
“This admission is now central to a growing class action lawsuit brought by individuals who say they suffered life-changing injuries,” GB News reported.
“The timing of events is interesting. AstraZeneca requested the withdrawal of the vaccine from EU markets in March 2024. It was effective May 2024. The study decrying its ‘cardiovascular safety’ was published in July 2024,” Jablonowski said.
According to Jablonowski, this suggests that these actions were “not for the betterment of public health nor vaccine uptake, since the vaccine was no longer available,” but were instead “a move to quiet the public, to pacify would-be critics.”
GB News reported that a U.K. parliamentary inquiry into the MHRA’s handling of vaccine safety issues is “very likely” to occur.
“These agencies, both in the U.S. and the U.K., need to be held to account for their felonious lies and those individuals who were harmed need to be compensated,” Hooker said.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
This is How We Should Have Responded to COVID-19
By Dr Alan Mordue and Dr Greta Mushet | The Daily Sceptic | January 24, 2026
Since March 2020 there has been an almost continuous refrain that the UK was not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic – across the mainstream media, at the UK Covid Inquiry and most recently by Dominic Cummings in a Spectator interview. So much so that it seems to have become an accepted ‘truth’ regardless of the actual facts. Nevertheless there are facts, even in the postmodern dystopian world we now live in.
Firstly, we did have a detailed UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy published in 2011 and it was explicit in saying that it could be adapted to respond to other respiratory virus pandemics, and gave as an example the first Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus (SARS). Secondly, there was further national guidance in 2013 and 2017 to update the strategy. Thirdly, this national guidance helped all four nations and each local health board or authority to develop their own pandemic plans which were regularly reviewed and updated. Fourthly, we had many systematic reviews of the evidence for non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to minimise transmission, one published only a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic started. And finally, the UK scored second in a global assessment of countries’ pandemic preparedness in 2019.
So, the ‘unprepared’ mantra was not the whole truth and arguably we were comparatively well prepared. However, in the event all this preparation did prove to be useless – but only because we decided to abandon it all in March 2020. We binned our pandemic plans and ignored the careful reviews of the evidence and the experience gained responding to previous pandemics. No doubt the UK strategy will be updated, but whatever is produced could be just as easily discarded next time. So what can be done?
Perhaps what we need is something more accessible, something that reflects the ethical and democratic foundations of our country, and, given how important this is for the whole of society, something that is shared widely – well beyond public health departments, the office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and the NHS. Core principles on how we should respond to a pandemic that are shared, understood and agreed with the public, perhaps through their representatives in Parliament, might give us some scientific, ethical and governance guardrails. They might help to improve and protect accountability and also stand a better chance of surviving beyond a few weeks when the next pandemic hits.
If so, what might such principles contain? Here we offer some suggestions with commentary on how they were applied, or not, during the Covid-19 pandemic, grouped under four headings – epidemiological, medical, ethical, and democratic. Many of these principles don’t appear in the UK Strategy, or those of the four nations or local pandemic plans … and for very understandable reasons. Prior to 2020 they were taken for granted, they were so obvious that they did not need stating, they were the principles and codes that the public health specialty and the medical profession had followed for decades if not centuries, they were the way we conducted ourselves in our liberal democratic society. The Covid-19 pandemic response changed all that – we now clearly need to restate our commitment to core, indeed fundamental, principles.
Epidemiological principles
The first task in epidemiology is to assess the scale and severity of a new disease or health problem, examine how it varies by time, place and person (age, sex, occupation etc.), and compare it with other diseases. This helps to ensure that any response is proportionate and identifies those at greater and lower risk, as well generating hypotheses about potential causes.
In the context of a respiratory viral pandemic, data on case and infection fatality ratios are paramount. These were available early in the COVID-19 pandemic and before the first UK lockdown. Instead of these data being reported accurately, compared to previous pandemic data and carefully explained to the population (for example here), public messaging was alarmist and seemed designed to instil fear not reassure, and made little reference to those at lower risk (see Laura Dodsworth’s 2021 book A State of Fear). In a future pandemic the public should expect such data, the media should demand them, the CMO should have a responsibility to identify and collate them, and government responses should be calibrated based upon them.
Then to ensure accurate monitoring of the developing pandemic within the country and valid comparison to earlier pandemics the standard definitions for confirmed cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be employed. This did not happen in the COVID-19 pandemic with new definitions adopted, definitions that for all three exaggerated the statistics. This was compounded by inappropriate widespread testing using a PCR test insufficiently specific and using inappropriate cycle thresholds.
There was a further concern that arose during the pandemic response on the epidemiological front: the use and impact of modelling studies. Whilst such studies can be helpful they cannot be interpreted without understanding their underlying inputs, assumptions and methods. They are ‘what if’ studies – for example, what if we assume that the number of cases will grow exponentially without any seasonal effect, what if we assume no existing immunity in the population from other coronaviruses, etc. The Imperial College modelling study published in March 2020 seems to have had a significant impact on the push for the first lockdown, but it had not been peer-reviewed and seems to have been insufficiently debated and challenged; of course, it is now widely considered to have been flawed. Modelling studies are not reality, they are not facts, they are not evidence, they are better viewed as ‘what if’ scenarios and their assumptions and results should be rigorously challenged. Their presentation to politicians without critical analysis and careful interpretation amounts to professional negligence.
Medical principles
Science and medicine only develop through open debate and a willingness to consider alternative views, even if they are contrary to the current orthodoxy. This did not happen during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the oft repeated term ‘The Science’ demonstrates. There is no such thing: there is rarely a consensus and science is never settled, we only ever have the current disputed theories which remain until better ones come along. Any pandemic response should be open to challenge and wide debate so that we are not limited to the knowledge and experience of only a few prominent scientific and medical government advisors. The thoughtful and detailed letters addressed to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) from often in excess of 100 doctors and scientists on the merits or otherwise of Covid vaccination of children were a case in point, and were ignored or summarily dismissed. Public health messages to the population certainly need to be clear and if possible consistent to maximise understanding, but this does not preclude an open and vigorous debate within the medical and scientific community, something that is essential if we are to develop an optimal response.
In 1979 Archie Cochrane, widely regarded as the father of evidence-based medicine, made his famous comment that: “It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organised a critical summary, by speciality or subspeciality, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomised controlled trials.” The international Cochrane Collaboration, named after him and designed to address this criticism, produced a series of systematic reviews on the effectiveness of physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses such as school and business closures, social distancing measures and restrictions on large gatherings. Despite the limited evidence for effectiveness and the relatively poor quality of the evidence from these reviews and similar conclusions from a WHO review published in September 2019, almost all these measures were applied to the whole population from March 2020, including a ‘lockdown’ of healthy people.
We copied the response of a totalitarian state despite a lack of evidence and despite the fact that these same systematic reviews drew attention to the widespread harms that would be caused by implementing these measures across the whole population. These harms are beginning to be appreciated across multiple areas – in terms of mortality and physical health particularly of older people, the social development of young children, the mental health and education of young people, businesses across the country as well as jobs, the economy and the benefits system.
An evidence-based approach also required a thorough review of the evidence on the benefits and harms for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in individuals. The limited data on the effectiveness of the novel gene technology ‘vaccines’ (and see Clare Craig’s 2025 book Spiked – A Shot in the Dark) and on their side-effects, with no data at all on long term harms, pointed clearly towards their use only in those at higher risk with full disclosure on what was known and what was not. In the event, of course, they were recommended and pushed on most of the population including those at insignificant risk. Furthermore, ‘safe and effective’ was far from a full disclosure of the evidence on benefits and risks.
By contrast, the use of re-purposed drugs such as ivermectin with known anti-viral and anti-inflammatory effects, extensive evidence on effectiveness and a well-documented safety profile, was actively discouraged.
In all these areas, doctors should be acting as advocates for their patients, informing them as best they can and helping them to make decisions on their treatment and care, as required by the General Medical Council’s guidance ‘Good Medical Practice.’ However, as already discussed, the informing was cursory and partial, and the contact often non-existent or via leaflet or video-call.
If they are to regain public trust the medical profession and public health authorities must do better next time, and patients and the public must demand better information and better discussion and engagement with medical staff to help them make decisions.
Ethical principles – informed consent for individuals
The Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates developed his Oath around 400 BC. It urged doctors to act with beneficence – that is, to help their patients and prevent harm – and non-maleficence – that is to do no harm themselves or primum non nocere. The term appropriateness brings these two concepts together – an appropriate treatment is one that has been chosen because its benefits outweigh its harms in the particular patient.
As outlined above, evidence-based medicine involves the careful assessment of the evidence, ideally from randomised controlled trials, to quantify these benefits and harms. Whilst the patient advocacy role of doctors involves them in informing and supporting their patients to make informed decisions on their treatment and care.
Although this process sounds simple and straightforward, it is not. It seems to be taken more seriously in surgical practice, after notable legal cases, but less so in medical practice with the prescribing of drugs and vaccines. Certainly in the pandemic consenting practices for vaccination were cursory, to the point of being non-existent – public information heralding the ‘safe and effective’ vaccines was at best partial, and coercion was widespread via national advertising that deliberately sought to shame and manipulate, via vaccine mandates, and via bans from venues without proof of vaccination (or negative Covid antigen tests).
Large relative risk reductions of 70% for the Astra Zeneca ‘vaccine’ and 95% for the Pfizer ‘vaccine’ were trumpeted, but not the smaller, less convincing absolute risk reductions of around 1-2%. And there was no attempt to directly compare benefits and risks and harms, the key information a patient needs to give fully informed consent.
The wholesale abandonment of standard codes of practice for informed consent during the pandemic was truly shocking. To regain public trust the medical profession needs to take this key responsibility more seriously and particularly improve practice in relation to long term medications and vaccinations.
Democratic principles
The UK Strategy of 2011 did emphasise the importance of accurate and timely information to the public, and stressed that uncertainty and any alarmist reporting in the media could create additional pressures on health services. Despite this, the early epidemiological data on the scale and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, a comparison with previous pandemics and clear identification of those at higher and lower risk were not shared with the public and carefully explained. The data that were given were far vaguer and the messages seemed designed to raise anxiety rather than contain it and modulate it to appropriate levels. Government advisors seem to have entirely lost sight of these crucial epidemiological data that are so essential to enable the government to calibrate its response and ensure it was proportionate. Data reflecting reality seem to have been overshadowed by modelling data reflecting potential future scenarios – fiction rather than fact influenced key decisions.
Whatever national response is being contemplated to a pandemic, there needs to be a clear separation of the medical and scientific evidence on the benefits and risks of specific interventions on the one hand, and the political value judgements and decisions on the other. Governmental advisors must present options and their benefits, risks, harms and likely costs to ministers, and in a democracy it is for ministers to decide as they are accountable to the electorate. This relationship is akin to the doctor-patient relationship – the doctor informs the patient and supports him or her to make his or her own decision but does not lead or coerce. This line may have been blurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, government advisors seemed reluctant to identify, and where possible quantify, the risks, harms and costs that might flow from the options they put to ministers despite some, like lockdowns, being unprecedented in their severity and scope.
In turn ministers and politicians more generally have a responsibility to ensure that their advisors present them with the epidemiological data and the data on the benefits, risks and costs of recommended options. Ministers also have a responsibility to ensure that differences of opinion on how best to respond within the medical and scientific community are fully aired and discussed. This is crucial to arrive at an optimal response and to avoid groupthink. Only if ministers do these things can they take decisions on behalf of their population and give fully informed consent.
Crucially ministers have a particular responsibility to protect the basic freedoms we enjoy in a democratic society – freedom of speech, association and movement and individual bodily autonomy when it comes to medical treatments. Any infringement of such basic freedoms demands a clear, unambiguous and overwhelming justification, must be subject to challenge in Cabinet and Parliament, and must be the least restrictive as is possible to achieve the aim – in extent, impact and time. This is such a fundamental issue that we perhaps need to develop a framework to guide and constrain actions: defining the types of evidence and high thresholds that are required; limiting powers in terms of their impact, duration and the number of people affected; and outlining checks and balances, with perhaps an automatic independent review afterwards. We have such a clear and rigorous framework for compulsory detention under the Mental Health Acts when one individual is affected: we need at least as rigorous a framework when the freedom of millions is at stake.
There has also been considerable criticism of how the usual democratic governance systems were subverted and avoided during the pandemic, including the use of emergency legislation by the executive without appropriate challenge within Parliament. These governance systems are essential to enable questioning and challenge by MPs and select committees with the aim of improving decision making, and to ensure a clear justification for measures taken and transparency to facilitate accountability. This did not happen during the COVID-19 pandemic as clearly outlined in The Accountability Deficit by Kingsley, Skinner and Kingsley (2023).
In all of these four areas – epidemiological, medical, ethical and democratic – principles were violated during the COVID-19 pandemic with dire consequences for health, basic freedoms, quality of life, education, business and the economy, and for democracy and society itself. Before 2020 it would have seemed unnecessary to state such core principles. Now, having set a precedent when we abandoned them, it seems absolutely essential not only to restate them but to discuss them widely and if possible to reaffirm our commitment to uphold them before another pandemic hits.
Dr Alan Mordue is a retired consultant in public health medicine and Dr Greta Mushet is a retired consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist.
The UK Covid Inquiry: Propaganda to protect the ‘pandemic’ narrative
By Gary L. Sidley | Propaganda In Focus | January 9, 2026
On the 20th of November, 2025, the UK Covid Inquiry published a report on Module 2 of its ongoing review titled, ‘Core decision-making and political governance’. Despite, to date, spending around £192 million of taxpayers’ money on an in-depth investigation into the management of the 2020 ‘pandemic’, this 800-page tome indicates that the overarching conclusion of the Inquiry will most likely be that the unprecedented and net harmful government responses (lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine coercion) were all necessary, and the only problems related to the timings of the interventions and process failures. As such, this Module 2 report can be reasonably construed as a propaganda exercise primarily intent on preserving the core elements of the dominant, fundamentally flawed, covid narrative.
In the words of the oft-quoted Edward Bernays, propaganda involves ‘the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses’. It is clear that this Module 2 report, and the UK Covid Inquiry as a whole, strive to do just that. With the primary goal of protecting the ‘pandemic’ story – that in early 2020, a uniquely lethal pathogen spread carnage across the world, and unprecedented and draconian restrictions on our day-to-day lives were essential to prevent Armageddon – the inquiry has incorporated a range of manipulation techniques designed to promulgate this state-sanctioned ideology. The two most prominent opinion-shaping strategies deployed by the Inquiry have been the suppression of dissenting perspectives, and a narrowing of the Overton window.
Suppression of dissenting perspectives
In her initial selection of ‘core participants’ for the Inquiry, Chairperson Baroness Hallett signalled her intention to marginalise voices that were likely to be critical of the official covid narrative. Those granted core status benefitted from the opportunity to make opening and closing statements, and to suggest lines of questioning to the witnesses, whereas those groups excluded were limited to submitting written evidence in the hope that it would be considered by the Inquiry team. Organisations who had been openly opposed to the mainstream public health responses during the covid event – for example, Us For Them (who repeatedly highlighted the devastating impact of the restrictions on our nation’s children) and the Health Advisory & Recovery Team (a group of scientists and clinicians concerned about ‘pandemic’ policy and guidance recommendations) – were unsuccessful in their applications.
Consideration of those groups who were permitted to be core participants for Module 2 clearly shows a preponderance of stakeholders who were highly likely to be on board with the central tenets of the official covid narrative. In addition to the expected establishment figures (representatives from various government departments, the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, the UK Health Security Agency) and four ‘Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice’ groups, it is difficult not to conclude that other core participants were selected on account of their fervour for more and earlier restrictions. For instance, despite ‘long covid’ being a highly contested concept, three groups representing the victims of this assumed malady were awarded core status. Similarly, the British Medical Association (who energetically campaigned for longer lockdowns and stricter mask mandates) also managed to secure a place in Baroness Hallett’s inner circle.
Despite this crude censorship, a significant amount of critical commentary did reach the Inquiry, in the form of both live testimony and written statements. Crucially, however, these counter narratives were de-emphasised by the Inquiry team and – subsequently – were not reflected in its conclusions. One blatant example of a dissenting voice being prematurely curtailed was the interview with Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and longstanding critic of the dominant covid narrative. When Heneghan asserted that expert interpretation of published research constitutes valid evidence for the Inquiry, Hallett retorted, ‘Not in my world it doesn’t … if there is anything further, please submit it in writing’. This abruptness contrasts sharply with the deferent, sometimes sycophantic, way establishment witnesses were managed by the Inquiry team.
Narrowing the Overton window
It was apparent from the start of the UK Covid Inquiry that Baroness Hallett and her legal team had decided which public health decisions made during the covid event were open to critical scrutiny and which were not. This contraction of the Overton window ensured that crucial elements of the official narrative were shielded from critical analysis.
To illustrate, three pre-determined assumptions – foundational to the official covid story – seemed to fall into this protected category:
1. Lockdowns were necessary
The headline-grabbing conclusion in the Module 2 report was that locking down a week earlier would have saved 23,000 lives. This absurd deduction was not based on robust science or real-world studies, but drawn from the fantasy realm of mathematical modelling. An in-depth analysis of covid-era decision making (which is what the Inquiry was supposed to be) would have given prominence to a detailed cost-benefits evaluation of lockdowns, a process that would have revealed the substantial harms of this unparalleled pandemic restriction. The key reason for the omission of this vital analysis was the Inquiry’s premature assumption that lockdowns were an effective public health tool, essential for the containment of a – purportedly – novel virus.
More specifically, Baroness Hallett and her team adopted a classic propaganda strategy, commonly referred to as ‘unanimity’. With the presumption that all right-thinking people recognise that lockdowns save lives, the Overton window was squeezed to become merely a question of timing; any testimony straying outside of this range of acceptability was ignored – or, at best, reduced to background noise – while, in contrast, speculations about the life-saving benefits of an earlier societal shutdown were amplified.
2. The mass vaccination programme was a great success
Despite increasing recognition that the covid vaccines were less efficacious, and more harmful, than initially claimed, the Inquiry appears to have adopted the foundational assumption that these novel products were safe and effective, and anyone who believed otherwise must constitute a deviant minority at odds with the unanimous opinion of right-thinking people. Indications for the constant presence of this guiding notion are brazen. Thus, Hugo Keith KC (the lead counsel to the Inquiry) has, at various points during his interactions with witnesses, described the vaccines as ‘entirely effective… undoubted successes… with lifesaving benefits that vastly outweighed the very rare risk of serious side effects’. Similarly, Baroness Hallett – at the press conference announcing the findings of Module 2 – hailed the vaccine programme as a ‘remarkable achievement’.
3. Community masking was not associated with any appreciable negative consequences
It was evident at an early stage in the Inquiry that another untouchable premise was that the masking of healthy people in community settings was a sensible precaution that could only have net benefits. Thus, when Professor Peter Horby, the chair of NERVTAG (a high-profile SAGE advisory group), gave evidence in October 2023 he reiterated his group’s 2020 conclusion that the evidence for mask effectiveness in reducing viral transmission was ‘weak’; Lady Hallett interjected, saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not following … if there’s a possible benefit, what’s the downside? Horby responded to this challenge by suggesting that respect for institutional science was at stake – in keeping with the majority of the establishment scientists, he failed to highlight the considerable harms associated with routine masking.
The Inquiry’s pre-formed assumption that compelling people to wear face coverings was a public health intervention free of negative consequences was confirmed by the Module 2 report with its emphatic conclusions that:
‘The experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that wearing a face covering has minimal disadvantage for the majority of the population.’
‘In any future pandemic where airborne transmission is a risk, the UK government and devolved administrations should give real consideration to mandating face coverings for the public in closed settings.’ (p. 288)
In conclusion, the overarching take-home message from the Inquiry to date is that public health strategy adopted by the government in response to the emergence of a novel virus in 2020 was essentially the correct one, and any criticism of the official covid narrative should be confined to process issues, such as the timing of restrictions. Devoid of any forensic analysis of their costs and benefits, Lady Hallett and her team have concluded that lockdowns, mRNA vaccines, and mask mandates all achieved positive outcomes and should therefore be repeated when we encounter the next ‘pandemic’. By amplifying voices supportive of the official covid narrative, while marginalising critical viewpoints, the Inquiry has succeeded in strengthening its – apparently pre-determined – perspective that, irrespective of any harms caused, the restrict-and-jab approach was, ultimately, for the greater good.
Most commentators who have been sceptical of the official covid narrative will not be surprised by the Inquiry’s conclusions. Given that the political elites, along with prominent public health mandarins, enthusiastically endorsed the calamitous restrictions and vaccine rollout (and continue to do so) the damage to the establishment of drawing different, more condemnatory, inferences would have been immense. From the perspective of our global leaders, the Inquiry to date is – no doubt – serving its primary purpose of concealing the true ramifications of the covid response from the general population.
Gary Sidley, PhD, is a former NHS consultant clinical psychologist with over 30-years’ experience of clinical, professional and managerial practice in adult mental health. In 2000, he obtained his PhD for a thesis exploring the psychological predictors of suicidal behaviour and has multiple mental health publications to his name, including academic papers, book chapters, and his own book, ‘Tales from the Madhouse: An insider critique of psychiatric services). Since the start of the covid event, he has written many articles critiquing the government’s nudge-infused messaging and mask mandates, including pieces for the Spectator, the Critic and Self & Society. More of his articles can be found on his ‘Manipulation of the Masses’ Substack.
Britain’s return to piracy to stop Russian ships – desperate attempt to demonstrate power
Ahmed Adel | January 28, 2026
British media claims that London is preparing to deal with tankers from Russian ports in the same way that the United States deals with tankers from Venezuela – by seizing them. However, Russia has the strength and means to protect its interests at sea and respond to all provocations, including possible pirate actions by Great Britain.
The United Kingdom is one of the few countries with experience in conducting naval operations after World War II, and despite major issues with the fleet, the traditions of the Royal Navy remain alive. The tradition of corsairs (state-sanctioned pirates) and piracy is closely linked to Britain, which even invited the best pirates to serve the Majesty. These are well-known facts from the age of the sailing fleet, and in essence, they show that these traditions are remembered and not forgotten.
The Russian ambassador to London, Andrey Kelin, also called the British government’s plans piracy.
“What politicians in London are talking about is essentially a return to the era of the pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard,” Kelin said. “What they forget is that Britain has long ceased to be the ‘ruler of the seas,’ and its actions will not go unpunished.”
The US and Britain are two different countries, both in terms of power and other factors. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Trump administration has, for now, halted British plans to transfer the Chagos Islands, where an American military base is located, to Mauritius. In the wake of this humiliation, the British are now trying to demonstrate, especially to Europe, that they are not weak.
The reality is that the days when the British had major influence are gone. They can still carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks in Ukraine and the Black Sea. However, directly seizing Russian ships would trigger a devastating response that the British are simply not prepared for.
Recently, the US has seized seven tankers linked to Venezuela. The US does not have the legal right to take such actions, but the country is acting from a position of strength and has deliberately not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which upholds the principle of freedom of navigation.
Washington’s example clearly inspired London, which suddenly remembered that it could also sanction Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet,” just as the US sanctioned Venezuela. A law passed before the start of the Special Military Operation—the Sanctions and Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2018—includes a provision that allows merchant ships suspected of evading sanctions or sailing under a false flag to be searched and seized by the British military.
The British are not only considering the option of seizing oil tankers, but also financing Ukraine with oil stolen in this way.
This is all an attempt by Britain to demonstrate that it is a force to be reckoned with. In reality, their situation is quite dire. The events related to Greenland also revealed this.
Russia’s fleet can reliably and easily escort tankers through the Baltic, English Channel, and Mediterranean Sea, from Turkish waters and beyond, via the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. Anything outside these routes would require more force, effort, and involvement, but Russia can easily handle it.
The British, on the other hand, have bases in both Gibraltar and the Indian Ocean. Because of this, the possibility of provocations cannot be ruled out, especially in the Baltic Sea. There is real paranoia in the Baltics – fortifications are being built along the border, swamps are being drained, and all sorts of measures are being taken. For example, Denmark is practically being superseded by the US in Greenland, but the Danes are criticizing Russia even more. It is as if Russia is taking Greenland, not the US.
London is also behaving this way, not wanting to be weaker than their former colonies, primarily the US.
Nonetheless, despite all the British bravado, on January 23, the Russian oil tanker MT General Skobelev traveled through the English Channel, escorted by the missile corvette Boykiy from the Russian Baltic Fleet, while two British Navy ships, HMS Mersey and HMS Severn, could only watch without attempting to intercept the Russian merchant vessel.
Britain’s political elite and its allies are considering various measures to put pressure on Russia. Ideas about the blockade of Kaliningrad are also emerging, while Britain is still one of the main sponsors of the Kiev regime and the main culprit for prolonging the war in Ukraine. Given this situation, which the Kremlin has not instigated, the most important thing is that the Russian Navy has the strength, capabilities, resources, and everything it needs to protect merchant vessels and tankers from British pirate raids.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
France and EU clash over UK missiles for Ukraine – Telegraph
RT | January 27, 2026
France has clashed with several EU nations over a proposal that would allow Ukraine to use an EU-backed loan to buy British Storm Shadow missiles, The Telegraph reported on Monday, citing diplomatic sources. Paris has consistently pushed for preferential treatment for the EU’s military industry on procurements destined for Kiev.
In December, EU leaders approved a €90 billion ($107 billion) loan to cover Kiev’s military needs and budgetary gap, with spending rules that prioritize EU-made weapons before allowing purchases from outside the bloc. According to The Telegraph, a coalition of 11 capitals has now proposed loosening the rule so Ukraine can more easily buy weapons such as Britain’s long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are in short supply.
France, however, has emerged as an “obvious opponent” to the plan, a diplomatic source told the newspaper. The outlet noted that Paris is the center of the EU’s drive for “strategic autonomy” amid concerns about overreliance on US defense after a rift with Washington over its controversial push to acquire Greenland.
Under the current design of the €90 billion loan, spending on weapons would follow a four-layer procurement cascade that prioritizes Ukrainian producers first, then EU defense firms, followed by partner countries such as the UK, with suppliers outside Europe – including the US – treated as a last resort, according to the article. Ukrainian officials have reportedly estimated that around €24 billion of equipment this year will have to come from suppliers outside the EU.
A diplomatic source told The Telegraph that the aim of Britain and its partners was to keep the system “open enough for the UK” to ensure that reaching the third layer of the cascade “is not so hard.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte earlier warned that the EU loan should not be constrained by “buy European” rules, while acknowledging the bloc “cannot fully supply everything Ukraine needs to defend itself today and deter tomorrow.”
Moscow has condemned Western arms supplies as prolonging the conflict, while Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has suggested that the €30 billion portion of the EU loan earmarked for Ukraine’s budget support would be embezzled by local officials.
The Board For Peace – Whitewashing Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
DOC MALIK | January 26, 2026
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Scientists accuse Cochrane Reviews of using biased studies to claim HPV vaccine prevents cancer
‘Completely misleading’
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 26, 2026
The prestigious Cochrane Library in November 2025 published two reviews touting the safety and efficacy of the HPV vaccine.
In a press release, Cochrane claimed the reports showed that girls vaccinated before age 16 were 80% less likely to develop cervical cancer, and that there was no evidence the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine caused any serious adverse events.
Cochrane is widely cited as the “gold standard” of systematic reviews. Major news organizations, from NBC News to The BMJ, repeated claims made in the press release.
The BMJ wrote that the researchers wanted to “share high quality data to counter misinformation spread on social media, which has had a massive impact on vaccination rates.”
The two reviews were published together. One assessed evidence from clinical trials, the other examined observational studies.
Co-author Nicholas Henschke declared that based on the reviews, “We now have clear and consistent evidence from around the world that HPV vaccination prevents cervical cancer.”
Co-author Hanna Bergman told Cochrane that the evidence from the clinical trials confirmed that HPV vaccines are “highly effective” and “without any sign of serious safety concerns.”
However, experts who analyzed the reviews in detail told The Defender that based on their analyses of the reviews, they determined that the authors relied on a small number of studies with a high risk of bias for their claim that the HPV vaccine prevented cancer.
The experts said they identified similar patterns when they analyzed other outcomes cited by the researchers.
“We know that the meta-analysis can only be as good as the quality of the studies included in the meta-analysis,” Lucija Tomljenovic, Ph.D., a biochemist, said.
Yet the vast majority of the studies the authors relied on to make their most dramatic conclusions about cancer and cancer-related lesions were at “serious or critical risk of bias,” according to the study authors themselves, she said.
“If this is not a gross misinterpretation of evidence, I don’t know what is,” Tomljenovic said.
A systematic review is a “study of studies,” a high-level research method that reviews, synthesizes and critically appraises the available body of evidence for a given disease or health topic in a standardized and systematic way.
Healthcare policymakers often use them to guide their decision-making.
Researchers use a crucial metric — “risk of bias” — to evaluate the studies and determine whether to include them in a systematic review.
Risk of bias indicates the likelihood that a study contains a systematic error that could cause its results to deviate from the truth, which could lead to an over- or underestimation of the effect of an intervention — in this case, the HPV vaccine.
Authors draw ‘completely misleading’ conclusions based on the evidence with high risk of bias
Although the two Cochrane reviews claimed to find an 80% reduction in cancer rates, the review of clinical trials stated that the studies evaluated “were not of sufficient duration for cancers to develop. Four studies reported on cancer. No cancers were detected.”
The observational review, which evaluated different studies to assess the impact of HPV vaccination on the general population, claimed there was “moderate‐certainty evidence” from 20 studies that HPV vaccination reduces the incidence of cervical cancer.
However, Tomljenovic said that only four of the 20 studies had a moderate risk of bias. The other 16 studies had either serious or critical risk of bias.
Of the four studies with a moderate risk of bias, one did not even include cervical cancer as an endpoint, and the follow-up was only seven years — which is not enough time for cancer to develop. Instead, the studies measured persistent HPV infections, Tomljenovic said.
As a proxy for cancer, many studies examined precancer outcomes, focusing on the reduction in CIN3+ — or cervical squamous intraepithelial neoplasia 3 — which are abnormal cells found on the cervix that may be precancerous and are caused by a high-risk HPV type.
Tomljenovic also found that of the 23 eligible studies included in the meta-analysis investigating CIN3+ lesions, only a single study was overall at moderate risk of bias. The other 22 had serious or critical risk of bias.
On this shaky basis, she said, the authors concluded, “There are now long-term outcome data from different countries and from different study designs that consistently report a reduction in the development of high-grade CIN and cervical cancer in females vaccinated against HPV in early adolescence.”
Tomljenovic called that conclusion “completely misleading.” She said that the authors of the Cochrane reviews themselves judged the vast majority of studies that “consistently” report reduction in cervical cancer and high-grade CIN lesions to be at serious and critical risk of bias.
“The best evidence for reduction from only a handful of studies was at a moderate risk of bias rather than low,” she added.
Lancet study conclusions, cited by Cochrane, are ‘patently absurd’
The Cochrane review of observational studies included the widely cited 2021 study in The Lancet, which investigated the impact of HPV vaccination in England. The Lancet study claimed to offer first direct evidence of prevention of cervical cancer using the Cervarix vaccine — not available in the U.S.
The Lancet study claimed an 87-97% relative reduction in cervical cancer rates and CIN3 lesions in girls vaccinated at ages 12-13 compared to unvaccinated girls.
The authors claimed that vaccination “has almost eliminated cervical cancer and cervical precancer up to age 25,” Tomljenovic said. However, her own analysis of U.K. cervical cancer statistics from Cancer Research UK tells a different story.
Tomljenovic found that data show that since the early 1990s, cervical cancer incidence rates decreased by 25% in females in the U.K., and have remained stable over the last decade.
She found that cervical cancer incidence rates reached their lowest point somewhere between 2004 and 2007 — a year before the HPV vaccine was introduced in the U.K.
“Since then, the incidence rates of cervical cancer have actually slightly increased, not decreased,” Tomljenovic said. “Therefore, these data completely contradict the conclusions of The Lancet study.”
In light of the cervical cancer incidence in the U.K. over time, she said, the claim by the The Lancet study authors that HPV vaccination with high coverage in 12-13-year-old girls has almost eliminated cervical cancer and cervical precancer up to age 25 “is patently absurd.”
Screening, healthy practices prevent cervical cancer, and affect study outcomes
Children’s Health Defense Senior Research Scientist Karl Jablonowski said, “The HPV vaccines are pushed, because they allegedly prevent cancer. Yet, a comprehensive review of the world’s literature on HPV vaccinations concludes an insufficient body of evidence exists.”
Dr. Sin Hang Lee, a pathologist and expert in molecular diagnostics who has extensively studied the HPV vaccine, told The Defender that most HPV infections — even high-risk types — are cleared by the immune system. He said cervical cancer is a predictable and preventable disease because it can be identified early through regular pap screenings and treated.
“With proper gynecological care, no woman should have cervical cancer or die of cervical cancer,” Lee said.
According to Lee, the cohort studies assessed in the Cochrane review that reported a reduced risk of cervical cancer following the HPV vaccine were conducted in countries where it is less likely that gynecologists may remind patients to do pap screening follow-ups.
The basic flaw of using observational cohorts to detect efficacy, he said, is that “observational studies are subject to healthy user effect and healthy adherer effect, which may lead to erroneous conclusions,” and create a statistical bias.
That means women who choose to receive a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer are also more likely to seek other preventive services and practice healthy behaviors that affect cervical cancer. This includes exercising more, eating a healthier diet, having fewer sex partners, and avoiding tobacco, excessive alcohol intake and illicit drugs.
“A healthy lifestyle is known to affect the rate of clearance of HPV infections,” Lee added.
Observational studies typically compare these women to women who did not get the vaccine, “which may lead to erroneous conclusions.”
No serious adverse effects?
The Cochrane authors also claimed their findings dispute claims about serious adverse effects “reported on social media.”
However, social media isn’t the only place where serious adverse events, including autoimmune conditions like POTS [postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome] and POI [primary ovarian insufficiency], have been reported.
The vaccine adverse event databases (VAERS and VigiBase) contain reports of serious adverse events. So do numerous case studies and Merck’s own internal data — as revealed in court documents from hundreds of lawsuits filed in state and federal courts against Merck, the maker of the Gardasil HPV vaccine.
Writing in response to the Cochrane findings in a letter to The BMJ, Dr. Peter Gøtzsche, ousted founder of the Cochrane Collaboration and founder of the Institute for Scientific Freedom, wrote that his own research group conducted a peer-reviewed systematic review that found “the HPV vaccines increased serious nervous system disorders significantly.”
Gøtzsche said that as an expert witness in a case against Merck, he documented that Merck “had hidden cases of serious neurological harms on Gardasil from the drug regulators.” Gøtzsche published his findings in a recent book.
Other research studies have identified similar adverse events. This includes a study published in Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics in July 2025. The study, which analyzed reports in the VAERS database related to Gardasil between 2015 and 2024, used multiple statistical signal-detection methods to identify safety signals for the Gardasil vaccine.
The researchers identified signals for certain neurological and autoimmune-related conditions, including POTS, eye movement disorders, autoimmune thyroiditis and posture abnormality — none of which are isted on the vaccine’s label.
U.S. regulators taking a closer look at HPV vaccines?
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month reduced the number of recommended routine childhood vaccines, the agency left the controversial HPV vaccine on the schedule.
However, the CDC now advises a single dose of the HPV vaccine, instead of the previous two-dose regimen. In making the new recommendations, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cited a growing global consensus that one shot is effective at protecting against HPV.
Investigative reporter Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., reported last week that after nearly two decades on the childhood immunization schedule, the HPV vaccine is being subjected to closer scrutiny.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) convened a new workgroup to reexamine the vaccine from the ground up — including its effectiveness, dosing, safety and long-term population impact.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Retsef Levi, a current ACIP member who has repeatedly called for longer safety follow-up and greater transparency about uncertainty in vaccine science, is leading the workgroup, Desmasi wrote.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
New US defense strategy downgrades Russian ‘threat’
RT | January 26, 2026
The Pentagon has downgraded the alleged threat level from Russia in its newly released US National Defense Strategy.
A similar document issued under the previous administration of President Joe Biden in October 2022, less than a year after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, described Moscow as an “acute threat.”
But the updated defense strategy, published by the War Department on Friday, referred to Russia as “a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future.”
The document also stressed that Moscow “possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, which it continues to modernize and diversify, as well as undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the US Homeland.”
It said the fighting between Moscow and Kiev has proven that Russia “retains deep reservoirs of military and industrial power,” as well as “national resolve required to sustain a protracted war in its near abroad.”
However, according to the Pentagon’s assessment, Moscow is “in no position to make a bid for European hegemony. European NATO dwarfs Russia in economic scale, population, and, thus, latent military power.”
The document said that the US will “continue to play a vital role in NATO” and “remain engaged in Europe,” but from now on it will “prioritize defending the US Homeland and deterring China,” echoing the White House National Security Strategy published in October.
Despite Europe having “a smaller and decreasing share of global economic power,” NATO members on the continent are “strongly positioned to take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense, with critical but more limited US support,” according to the strategy.
The EU and UK should also be “taking the lead in supporting Ukraine’s defense,” the Pentagon stressed. It also reiterated the stance of US President Donald Trump that the conflict between Moscow and Kiev “must end.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin opined last October that the Trump administration is guided by American interests, which he called a “rational approach.”
“Russia also reserves the right to be guided by our national interests. One of which, incidentally, is the restoration of full-fledged relations with the United States,” he stressed.
France seizes tanker ‘coming from Russia’
RT | January 22, 2026
French commandos have boarded and seized a sanctioned tanker “coming from Russia,” President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday. The ship, Macron claimed, is part of Russia’s supposed ‘shadow fleet’.
The ship was intercepted by the French Navy in the Mediterranean, Macron said, adding that the vessel was “subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag.” The tanker has since been diverted to port, he added, where a judicial investigation will take place.
The ship, named ‘Grinch’, was sailing from the Russian port of Murmansk. According to publicly available maritime tracking data, ‘Grinch’ is a 250-meter crude oil tanker flying under the flag of Comoros.
The seizure was carried out by French naval forces with assistance from the UK, the French military said in a statement. According to an AP report, Britain provided intelligence support for the operation.
“We will not tolerate any violation,” Macron wrote in a post on X. “The activities of the ‘shadow fleet’ contribute to financing the war of aggression against Ukraine.”
There is no Russian-operated ‘shadow fleet’. Instead, the term refers to any vessel that transports Russian oil outside the coverage of London-based insurance brokers. While their cargo may be sanctioned, Western powers have no legal basis to enforce these sanctions on the high seas, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
According to Macron, the operation took place on the “high seas” in the Mediterranean, but was carried out in “strict compliance” with the convention.
The seizure took place a week after British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper promised to take “a much more assertive and robust approach” against “the Russian shadow fleet.” In October last year, Macron said that France and other EU countries would adopt a “policy of obstruction” against these vessels.
”Russian oil must be stopped, confiscated, and sold for Europe’s benefit,” Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky said at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on Thursday. “Why not? If Putin has no money, there is no war,” he added.
Britain’s AI Policing Plan Turns Toward Predictive Surveillance and a Pre-Crime Future
By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | January 20, 2026
Let me take you on a tour of Britain’s future. It’s 2030, there are more surveillance cameras than people, your toaster is reporting your breakfast habits to the Home Office, and police officers are no longer investigating crimes so much as predicting them.
This is Pre-Crime UK, where the weight of the law is used against innocent people that an algorithm suspects may be about to commit a crime.
With a proposal that would make Orwell blush, the British police are testing a hundred new AI systems to figure out which ones can best guess who’s going to commit a crime.
That’s right: guess. Not catch, not prove. Guess. Based on data, assumptions, and probably your internet search history from 2011.
Behind this algorithmic escapade is Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who has apparently spent the last few years reading prison blueprints and dystopian fiction, not as a warning about authoritarian surveillance, but as aspiration.
In a jaw-dropping interview with former Prime Minister and Digital ID peddler Tony Blair, she said, with her whole chest: “When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times.”
Now, for those not fluent in 18th-century authoritarian architecture, the Panopticon is a prison design where a single guard can watch every inmate, but the inmates never know when they’re being watched. It’s not so much “law and order” as it is “paranoia with plumbing.”
Enter Andy Marsh, the head of the College of Policing and the man now pitching Britain’s very own Minority Report.
According to the Telegraph, he’s proposing a new system that uses predictive analytics to identify and target the top 1,000 most dangerous men in the country. They’re calling it the “V1000 Plan,” which sounds less like a policing strategy and more like a discontinued vacuum cleaner.
“We know the data and case histories tell us that, unfortunately, it’s far from uncommon for these individuals to move from one female victim to another,” said Sir Andy, with the tone of a man about to launch an app.
“So what we want to do is use these predictive tools to take the battle to those individuals… the police are coming after them, and we’re going to lock them up.”
I mean, sure, great headline. Go after predators. But once you start using data models to tell you who might commit a crime, you’re not fighting criminals anymore. You’re fighting probability.
The government, always eager to blow millions on a glorified spreadsheet, is chucking £4 million ($5.39M) at a project to build an “interactive AI-driven map” that will pinpoint where crime might happen. Not where it has happened. Where it might.
It will reportedly predict knife crimes and spot antisocial behavior before it kicks off.
But don’t worry, says the government. This isn’t about watching everyone.
A “source” clarified: “This doesn’t mean watching people who are non-criminals—but she [Mahmood] feels like, if you commit a crime, you sacrifice the right to the kind of liberty the rest of us enjoy.”
That’s not very comforting coming from a government that locks people up over tweets.
Meanwhile, over in Manchester, they’re trying out “AI assistants” for officers dealing with domestic violence.
These robo-cop co-pilots can tell officers what to say, how to file reports, and whether or not to pursue an order. It’s less “serve and protect” and more “ask Jeeves.”
“If you were to spend 24 hours on the shoulder of a sergeant currently, you would be disappointed at the amount of time that the sergeant spends checking and not patrolling, leading and protecting.”
That’s probably true. But is the solution really to strap Siri to their epaulettes and hope for the best?
Still, Mahmood remains upbeat: “AI is an incredibly powerful tool that can and should be used by our police forces,” she told MPs, before adding that it needs to be accurate.
Tell that to Shaun Thompson, not a criminal but an anti-knife crime campaigner, who found himself on the receiving end of the Metropolitan Police’s all-seeing robo-eye. One minute, he’s walking near London Bridge, probably thinking about lunch or how to fix society, and the next minute he’s being yanked aside because the police’s shiny new facial recognition system decided he looked like a wanted man.
He wasn’t. He had done nothing wrong. But the system said otherwise, so naturally, the officers followed orders from their algorithm overlord and detained him.
Thompson was only released after proving who he was, presumably with some documents and a great deal of disbelief. Later, he summed it up perfectly: he was treated as “guilty until proven innocent.”
Mahmood’s upcoming white paper will apparently include guidelines for AI usage. I’m sure all those future wrongful arrests will be much more palatable when they come with a printed PDF.
Here’s the actual problem. Once you normalize the idea that police can monitor everyone, predict crimes, and act preemptively, there’s no clean way back. You’ve turned suspicion into policy. You’ve built a justice system on guesswork. And no amount of shiny dashboards or facial recognition cameras is going to fix the rot at the core.
This isn’t about catching criminals. It’s about control. About making everyone feel watched. That was the true intention of the panopticon. And that isn’t safety; it’s turning the country into one big prison.
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From the Archives
The Dirty Little Secret behind the “Global Terrorism Index”
The Omission of Israeli Terrorism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Karin Brothers | Global Research | December 6, 2014
… The Israeli settlements — all of which are illegal – have been identified as a major impediment to peace. The refusal of a major “global” terrorism report to name the Israeli settlers as one of the groups most responsible for terrorism not only misrepresents a major source of regional violence but exposes the Global Terrorism Index as a propaganda tool that supports a U.S. agenda.
In recent years, governments have been attempting to thwart terrorism by blocking supportive fund-raising. When it comes to Israeli settlements, however, the US and Canada actually encourage fund-raising by giving organizations (such as Christian Friends of Israeli Communities (CFOIC) and the Jewish National Fund) financial support in the form of donor tax-deductions.
Charities which provide funds for the Israeli settlements should be regarded as terror-financing organizations. They should not only lose their tax-deductible status, but they should be banned because they support the violation of international humanitarian law. The terror-financing laws that are being strictly enforced for Muslim charities should be applied to Christian and Jewish charities as well. … Read full article
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