Venezuela’s Drug-running Hobbyists
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | December 22, 2025
The absurdities keep piling up to justify increasing United States aggression against Venezuela in the name of fighting the war on drugs.
An organization that the US government’s own intelligence reporting says is not a drug cartel controlled by the Venezuela government has been relentlessly propagandized as directed by Venezuela’s president to send fentanyl and cocaine to America despite those substances actually primarily coming from other countries.
Plus, the US military has been since early September blowing up small boats and killing all the occupants, claiming the boats are transporting drugs as part of Venezuela’s “narco-terrorism” threat. No proof is ever offered about the boats and their crews. And the destructive force employed eliminates any evidence. “Just trust us” seems to be the motto of the enormous US military force pursuing a macabre hunt at sea.
Saturday, after US military forces boarded and seized a second oil tanker that had left Venezuela, came a new ridiculous drug war rooted argument for the continuing ramping up of aggression. Why was the tanker seized? US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem provided this explanation at Twitter: The seizure was part of the US government’s fight against the “illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region.”
Got that? Noem is saying that these Venezuelan narco-terrorists, the combating of whom has become a primary focus of the massive US military, cannot even make ends meet through their drug enterprise. Instead, the drug running is all just a hobby funded by other activities typically pursued by ordinary businesses such as using tankers to transport oil.
We are supposed to be afraid of these guys? Drug cartels are known for members being able to buy fancy homes and cars with the proceeds of their drug activities. By contrast, the Venezuelan drug threat that supposedly calls for the US military to go all out in threatening the nation of Venezuela apparently can’t even operate in the black. Oil shipping is a needed activity for members to pay their rent and stop repo men from towing away their Kia Fortes.
Its involvement in shipping oil, Noem indicates, funds the purportedly uniquely menacing Venezuela drug cartel’s hobby of participating in the global illicit drug trade. Enough already with the drug war propaganda that keeps ascending further into goofiness. Withdraw the US military force deployed to threaten Venezuela and call it a day.
US officials admit to major violations during 2020 election
RT | December 22, 2025
Election officials in the US state of Georgia have admitted to major violations of vote certification procedures during the 2020 presidential race. US President Donald Trump, who lost to Joe Biden, has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” and marred by widespread fraud and irregularities.
The admission, made earlier this month, emerged from a complaint filed by election integrity activist David Cross, who accused Fulton County, Georgia’s most populous county, of illegally certifying at least 315,000 ballots in 2020.
Biden beat Trump in Georgia – which has 16 electoral votes – by fewer than 12,000 votes, before going on to win the Electoral College 306–232.
The dispute centers on tabulator tapes produced by voting machines during early voting. Under state rules, each tabulator must generate closing tapes signed by poll workers to certify the recorded vote totals.
After filing an open records request with Fulton County, Cross found at least 134 tabulator tapes with no signatures, meaning that the associated ballots could not have been legally certified.
Cross also raised allegations of missing “zero tapes” meant to confirm that machines began counting from zero at the start of polling, along with discrepancies involving scanner serial numbers and unusually late poll closing times.
During a recent State Election Board hearing, Ann Brumbaugh, an attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, said the county “does not dispute the allegations,” acknowledging the failure as a violation of election board rules.
Members of the state board described the findings as “very troubling” and referred the case to the Georgia Attorney General, seeking potential civil penalties of $5,000 per unsigned tape and other enforcement action.
The Georgia result has remained a focal point of Trump’s broader complaints about the 2020 election, which have been rejected by Democrats and formed the basis of multiple legal cases against him.
Since returning to office, Trump has vowed to overhaul the US voting system, pledging stricter voter identification requirements, limits on mail-in voting, and a shift toward paper ballots, arguing that these changes are necessary to restore confidence in elections.
Trump Administration Moves to Overhaul Childhood Vaccine Schedule, Embrace Informed Consent Model
By Sayer Ji | December 20, 2025
In what may prove to be the most significant transformation of U.S. vaccine policy in decades, the Trump administration is preparing to fundamentally restructure how childhood vaccines are recommended—shifting away from blanket federal endorsements toward a model that empowers parents and physicians to make individualized decisions.
According to a December 19th report in The Washington Post, federal health officials are developing guidance that would encourage parents to consult directly with their doctors about vaccination decisions, rather than simply following a standardized federal schedule. This “shared clinical decision-making” approach represents a profound departure from the paternalistic model that has defined American vaccine policy for generations.
The Denmark Model: Less Is More
Central to the administration’s emerging framework is Denmark’s approach to childhood vaccinations. While the current U.S. schedule calls for vaccinations against 18 infectious diseases, Denmark recommends the injections against 10—yet maintains excellent health outcomes.
Tracy Beth Hoeg, a top FDA official, presented the Danish model to the CDC’s federal vaccine advisory committee earlier this month. Her presentation highlighted what she characterized as the “Danish Vaccination Schedule Benefits,” including making “more time for overall health at doctors’ appointments” and decreasing the “medicalization of childhood.”
The policy shift “kicked into high gear” immediately following President Trump’s directive earlier this month to consider recommending fewer shots. In his announcement, Trump noted that the United States is an “outlier” among developed countries and emphasized that “many parents and scientists have been questioning the efficacy of this ‘schedule.’”
Informed Consent Takes Center Stage
Perhaps most significantly, the administration is moving toward what health freedom advocates have long championed: genuine informed consent.
Under the emerging framework, vaccines would shift to “shared clinical decision-making”—meaning parents would consult with medical professionals about the risks and benefits before proceeding. Critically, insurance coverage would remain intact, preserving access while restoring choice.
The CDC has already begun implementing this approach for covid vaccines and the hepatitis B vaccine for children. This marks a fundamental acknowledgment that vaccination decisions are not merely technical matters to be dictated by government committees, but personal medical choices that belong in the hands of families and their trusted physicians.
A Vindication Decades in the Making
For those of us who have spent years (even decades) advocating for medical freedom, parental rights, and genuine informed consent, this moment represents a profound vindication.
Those like Secretary Kennedy, part of the “disinformation dozen,” viciously targeted during the Covid-19 era, have long argued that the U.S. vaccine schedule—which has expanded dramatically over the past four decades—deserves rigorous scrutiny rather than reflexive acceptance. We have insisted that parents are capable of making informed decisions about their children’s health when given accurate information about both risks and benefits. We have maintained that comparing health outcomes across nations reveals that more vaccines do not automatically equal better health.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has called for additional scrutiny of the childhood vaccine schedule throughout his career, now sits at the helm of HHS. Martin Kulldorff, a renowned epidemiologist and biostatistician, has been named a chief science officer at the department. The voices that were systematically marginalized and deplatformed are now shaping policy.
Del Bigtree, founder of the Informed Consent Action Network, told the Post he supports the shift: “Our belief is there are just too many vaccines. It’s very exciting.”
What This Means Going Forward
The policy remains in development, and specific details—including which vaccines would move to the shared decision-making model—have not been finalized. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon cautioned that until official announcements are made, reports remain “pure speculation.”
However, the direction is unmistakable. The era of unquestioning deference to an ever-expanding federal vaccine schedule is drawing to a close. In its place is emerging a model that:
- Respects parental rights as the foundation of children’s healthcare decisions
- Restores the physician-patient relationship to its proper central role
- Acknowledges uncertainty rather than projecting false consensus
- Aligns with international norms rather than treating American exceptionalism as an excuse for over-medicalization
- Preserves access while eliminating coercion
The Resistance Has Already Begun
Predictably, the public health establishment is sounding alarms. Former CDC official Demetre Daskalakis called the Denmark comparison “not gold standard science.” The recently defunded American Academy of Pediatrics rejected what it termed the “one-size-fits-all approach” while simultaneously opposing any departure from the current one-size-fits-all schedule.
Even a Danish health official questioned the shift—though notably, his objection was that “public health is not one size fits all” and is “population specific,” which is precisely the point advocates have been making for years. If public health is population-specific, then surely it should also be individual-specific, with families empowered to make decisions appropriate to their unique circumstances.
A New Chapter for Health Freedom
We are witnessing what may be the most consequential health policy transformation of our lifetimes. After years of censorship, deplatforming, and marginalization, the health freedom movement’s core principles are being integrated into federal policy.
This is not about being “anti-vaccine.” It is about being pro-informed consent, pro-parental rights, and pro-science that welcomes questions rather than demanding compliance.
The battle is far from over. State mandates remain in place. Institutional resistance is fierce. The entrenched interests that have profited from the expanding schedule will not yield quietly.
But the tide has turned. And for parents who have long demanded the right to make informed medical decisions for their children, this moment represents nothing less than the restoration of a fundamental freedom.
Hepatitis B Vaccination of Newborns: Seriously Misleading Media Reports
By Peter C. Gøtzsche | Brownstone Institute | December 19, 2025
Fiction or faith. It is a major failure to give equal prominence to people presenting scientific facts and people talking about their feelings or beliefs with no evidence in their support, or to allow them to contradict unchallenged the most reliable evidence we have.
However, virtually every time I know something about a healthcare issue considered controversial, this is what I see in the news, and the hepatitis B vaccine controversy illustrates this abundantly.
On 5 December 2025, with a vote of 8 versus 3, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ended the recommendation that all newborns in the United States receive a hepatitis B shot at birth. The birth dose was recommended only if the mother had tested positive for the virus or if her infection status was unknown.
The change was very rational, and as in Western Europe, only Portugal recommends a universal birth dose, it would seem difficult to argue against it. But the media did and failed us badly. Two days after the vote, I downloaded news stories from 14 major media outlets, and they were all very negative. The media used three main tactics to support their beliefs:
They denigrated the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the members of ACIP he had selected, and some of the presenters at the meeting.
They gave undue prominence and praise to the three dissenting ACIP voices and outsiders, who were depicted as experts or scientists, as if to say that they must be right, and they were widely quoted for their remarks, which were rarely rational or evidence-based.
They didn’t check if what the critics of the policy change claimed was correct.
The Denigration of Kennedy
Of the 14 news outlets, only Nature did not denigrate Kennedy.
Reuters started its press release by saying it was “a major policy win” for Kennedy that vaccine advisers named by him reversed a decades-long recommendation “that disease experts say will reverse decades of public health gains.” So, Kennedy’s advisers were not experts, and as the critics were experts, they must be correct, right?
Reuters noted that the CDC is “now run by a Kennedy-appointed acting head, Jim O’Neill, who is not a scientist;” that Kennedy founded the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense; fired ACIP’s previous 17 “independent” experts and replaced them with a group that largely supports his views; dropped broad recommendations for the Covid vaccine and cut funding for mRNA vaccines.
The facts are that several of the previous experts at the ACIP were not independent but had conflicts of interest in relation to vaccine manufacturers and other drug companies; that recommending Covid vaccines only to high-risk groups brought the US on par with Europe; and that cutting funding for mRNA vaccine research was well motivated. Kennedy said that his team had reviewed the science and found that these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu. His department was therefore shifting the funding toward “safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.”
Reuters misrepresented the ACIP meeting entirely, claiming that “many of Kennedy’s committee members criticized the vaccine as unsafe.” What they said was that safety had not been adequately studied, which was correct.
The other media called Kennedy a vaccine sceptic (The Hill, Health Policy Watch, CBC), a vaccine activist (CNN, the Guardian), or an anti-vaccine advocate (PBS), who fired all 17 previous members of the ACIP, replacing them with people who largely shared his scepticism (New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio, CNN, PBS, CBS News, Time, Health Policy Watch, CBC, BBC, Guardian ) with a “goal of upending vaccine policy” (New York Times ), and the vote fulfilled a long-held goal of the anti-vaccine movement (The Hill ).
The CBC, the largest news broadcaster in Canada, noted that Kennedy had promoted debunked theories linking vaccines to autism. It is correct that studies of the MMR vaccine and aluminium adjuvants did not find a link, but the aluminium study is seriously flawed, some studies have claimed a link, and as it has not been studied if the extensive US childhood vaccine program might cause autism, the CDC has suggested additional research projects.
The Washington Post said that aluminium had become a focal point for anti-vaccine groups that claim cumulative exposure may harm neurological development and that vaccine researchers note that aluminium is present naturally in breast milk, food, and water at far higher levels than in vaccines and is rapidly cleared from the body. It is highly misleading to compare dietary intake with injections, as very little aluminium is absorbed from the gut and the rest is effectively eliminated via the kidneys, and as aluminium adjuvants in vaccines are harmful.
The Hill and CNN noted that aluminium adjuvants in vaccines have been proven to be safe (which is false), but that vaccine sceptics like Kennedy have long said they are linked to allergies and other health conditions (which is correct). Natural infection protects against allergies, and studies comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated children have shown vaccines increase the occurrence of asthma and other atopic diseases.
The Denigration of ACIP Members and Meeting Presenters
Nature noted that several panel members continued to express broad criticism of vaccines.
The New York Times lamented that most of the new ACIP members and some of the presenters have no experience in vaccine research or clinical practice and that the divisiveness and dysfunction of the committee in making the decision raised questions about the reliability of the advisory process.
This is terribly misleading. People who have learned to read can assess the merits of vaccines, and scientific debate is what furthers science. Acting ACIP chair Robert Malone said that the committee’s work must be guided by evidence, transparency, and a willingness to scrutinise assumptions rather than protect them.
Health Policy Watch wrote that Malone has been criticised for vaccine misinformation, which is a meaningless comment without any mention of what the issues were. Some of the most outstanding vaccine researchers in the world, professors Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn from Copenhagen, have been criticised for misinformation and have had lectures and interviews removed from YouTube even though everything they said was correct.
CBS News noted that ACIP member Retsef Levi, a mathematician with no medical training (so what?), had falsely claimed that experts had never tested the vaccines appropriately, and the New York Times called it incorrect when lawyer Aaron Siri, a presenter, said that “not one” of the shots administered to children had been compared against a placebo or an inert substance. But Levi and Siri were correct. No childhood vaccine on CDC’s schedule was studied in placebo-controlled trials or relied upon before licensure.
The CBC also described Levi as a person with no medical degree who had questioned the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines and called for Covid vaccine programs to be halted. Well, I have observed repeatedly that Levi’s arguments were far more persuasive than those offered by people with medical degrees, e.g. by ACIP member Cody Meissner, a paediatric infectious-disease specialist (see below).
And Covid vaccines are definitely not safe; they have killed children who developed myocarditis and adults who developed blood clots. It was very prudent to change the “all-inclusive” US Covid vaccine programs when by far most people have been infected, whether vaccinated or not, and because repeated boosters can weaken the immune system and increase the risk of respiratory infections, also for flu shots. Healthcare workers themselves have already delivered a verdict. According to the CDC’s own data, fewer than 10% received a booster in the past year.
National Public Radio denigrated Siri: an anti-vaccine lawyer with no medical or scientific training, and the Washington Post failed their readers, too: “Aaron Siri, a Kennedy ally and lawyer for the anti-vaccine movement, delivered a presentation for more than 90 minutes. Siri said clinical trials for vaccines have not been properly performed, that safety surveillance after vaccines are licensed is lacking and that the efficacy of vaccines in reducing deaths and spread of disease has been overstated. Siri and Kennedy-aligned activists argue that the cumulative number of shots places an undue burden on child immune systems. Scientists counter that… the immune system can safely handle far more antigens than vaccines contain.”
Siri is correct and the reason why he was given so much time is that he is evidence-based and very knowledgeable. His book about vaccines is outstanding. And “scientists” have no evidence that the immune system can safely handle many vaccine antigens injected simultaneously. This is unknown and needs studying.
The Washington Post also noted that “Siri petitioned the government in 2022 on behalf of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network, which is run by Kennedy’s former communications director, to reconsider its approval of Sanofi’s stand-alone polio vaccine. Siri argued that the government had relied on inadequate data, a claim regulators rejected.”
However, the petition notes that “the clinical trials relied upon to license this product did not include a control group and only assessed safety for up to three days after injection. These trials therefore did not comply with the applicable federal statutory and regulatory requirements necessary to prove the product was ‘safe’ prior to licensure.” As live, attenuated polio vaccines can mutate and cause polio, I agree with Siri that this drug had not been adequately studied before licensure.
The New York Times and National Public Radio wrongly implied that Siri wanted to remove all polio vaccines (“polio vaccines” or “the polio vaccine”).
Praising “Experts” and Giving Them Undue Prominence
Safety was a major issue. Dissenting ACIP member Cody Meissner said at the meeting that we know that the vaccine is safe, and his reassurances were quoted by the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Nature, the BBC, and Time.
However, when the Institute of Medicine in 2013 was commissioned to review the safety of the CDC childhood vaccine schedule, they could not find a single study that had compared health outcomes in vaccinated children with those in children who had not received any vaccines and they concluded: “There is no evidence that the schedule is not safe.” Similarly, Time wrote about the hepatitis B vaccine that there is “no evidence in regard to lack of safety.” My comment on this kind of reasoning was: “If the brakes in a new car model have never been tested, the reassuring conclusion would be: ‘There is no evidence that the brakes don’t work.’”
At the ACIP meeting, Meissner accused Siri of presenting “a terrible, terrible distortion of all the facts” (New York Times, National Public Radio, The Hill, CNN, Time ) and of making “absolutely outrageous statements about safety.” This was totally false and Meissner should know better. ACIP members were shown that the clinical trials underpinning approval of the hepatitis B vaccine were small, lacked a placebo group, and followed infants for no more than seven days after vaccination, which would not detect any long-term adverse outcomes. Normally, such findings would have shocked people and prompted caution, but Meissner insisted that “There is no evidence of harm.” Well, if you don’t look, you won’t find.
Levi hit the nail on the head: “What is the number needed to vaccinate – among babies born to hepatitis B-negative mothers – to prevent one case of chronic hepatitis B?” No one supplied an answer. But if the true number was “in the millions,” then any credible harm-benefit analysis would require showing a number-needed-to-harm one infant seriously even higher.
Meissner, however, opined that the move was rooted in baseless scepticism and that we will see more hepatitis B infections (Washington Post, Nature ). He was also against possibly using fewer than three doses of the vaccine (New York Times, The Hill ), arguing that antibody titres are not a good correlate of protection and did not have scientific backing (Nature ). The inconsistency was unmistakable. Antibodies are embraced as proof of vaccine efficacy when convenient, e.g. in drug regulation, otherwise not.
Another dissenting ACIP member, psychiatrist Joseph Hibbeln, was quoted a great deal although he said nothing of substance: The revised guidance was “unconscionable” (Washington Post ), “the decisions should be based on data” (The Hill ), “Those are all speculations” (Time ), “Is there any specific evidence of harm of giving this vaccination before 30 days?” (Guardian ). Not a single journalist wondered why a psychiatrist sat in a vaccine committee.
Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, a presenter at the meeting, noted that the US was an outlier recommending around 72 childhood vaccine doses, while countries like Denmark use fewer than 30. PBS and Time argued that the US is not an outlier in recommending hepatitis B vaccines for newborns because 116 of the 194 WHO member states did the same. This is not a proper comparison, and, as noted above, in Western Europe, only Portugal recommends a universal birth dose.
Levi noted that “The policy in the US is completely misaligned with many countries that… care about their children just as much as we do,” and when Meissner viewed the growth of the childhood vaccine schedule as an achievement for child health, Siri countered correctly that the US “has the worst health outcomes amongst all developed countries.”
The media quoted three previous CDC directors. Rochelle Walensky said that over the past few months, she had observed “a systematic undermining of the nation’s vaccine program” (National Public Radio) and that the “US vaccine-safety monitoring system can detect very, very rare safety events“ (Nature ). Maybe, but she ignored them. In April 2021, cases of myocarditis after Covid-19 vaccination, particularly among young male vaccine recipients, had been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System at the CDC, but Walensky said by the end of the same month: “We have not seen a signal and we’ve actually looked intentionally for the signal in the over 200 million doses we’ve given.”
Tom Frieden provided a doomsday statement: “The ACIP recommendation… puts millions of American children at greater risk of liver damage, cancer and early death.” He advised everyone to “stand up for fact-based care” and “not accept this misguided and dangerous recommendation” (Time).
Demetre Daskalakis had a weird argument: “This will signal to clinicians that there is something wrong with the vaccine – there is not” (Reuters, CNN). It could also signal greater responsibility at the CDC than under previous directors. But the BBC and the Washington Post joined the folly arguing that public health experts, representatives of medical organisations, and some ACIP members worried the vote could raise unfounded safety concerns about the vaccine and undermine hard-won trust in vaccines leading to more sickness.
The media gave organisations undue prominence without ever considering if they were impartial. They urged people to look to “independent recommendations,” e.g. from the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, for “science-based advice” (National Public Radio).
I would call it advice based on money. The Academy would continue to support the birth dose of the vaccine (Reuters, CBS News, Health Policy Watch, CNN, Time, CBC) but all journalists forgot to say that it receives many millions of dollars from vaccine manufacturers and other drug companies. Unsurprisingly, hepatitis B vaccine makers Merck, Sanofi, and GSK defended their products as safe, and Merck was “deeply concerned by the vote” (Reuters ). Perhaps because Merck’s shares dropped?
“Don’t listen to ACIP at all… listen to the American Academy of Pediatrics” (CNN), which said that the “irresponsible and purposely misleading” guidance would harm children; called it a “deliberate strategy to sow fear and distrust among families” (CBC); and delivered a gigantic falsehood: “Vaccine recommendations are largely similar across developed countries” (CBS News).
Reuters noted that ACIP members had said that the birth dose “was out of step with peer countries, particularly Denmark,” but then quoted “a CDC disease expert” for saying that the US is not comparable to Denmark with its universal healthcare and more thorough screening for the virus. The Washington Post said that “public health experts” had noted that European countries recommending fewer shots for children were smaller and had better health care systems, and that medical associations had argued that the US schedule had been thoroughly studied (which is blatantly false). None of the media quoted Levi, who mentioned that the US and Denmark have the same background rate of hepatitis B despite different policies on the birth dose.
The American Medical Association is also heavily corrupted by industry money and said that ACIP’s decision was “reckless and undermines decades of public confidence in a proven, lifesaving vaccine. Today’s action is not based on scientific evidence” (CNN).
The American College of Physicians said that “This vote… will only endanger children and increase risk of death for millions,” and a hepatitis researcher urged people to “go back to our true experts… our CDC colleagues” (Health Policy Watch).
Time noted that “A group of several dozen professional medical organizations and health advocacy groups, including the American Medical Association” expressed alarm over the committee’s decisions: “Previously, we could expect science to drive decisions.”
Some panellists and media noted that universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth had helped to nearly eliminate cases among newborns in the United States, and that there was no evidence of harm (New York Times, Washington Post, The Hill, Guardian ). However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. When Levi countered that the risk for a child of getting infected was extremely low, supporters of the birth dose noted that the virus can be spread by household objects like toothbrushes, razors, or combs used by an infected person. This is a fake argument and the CDC website is explicit: “Although HBV can be found in saliva, it is not spread through kissing or sharing utensils. It is also not spread through sneezing, coughing, hugging, breastfeeding, or food or water.”
Levi also said that the decline in hepatitis B cases occurred long before the birth-dose policy was introduced and was concentrated in older age groups, not among infants, which supported a risk-based policy, focused on infants born to hepatitis B-positive mothers and on high-risk adult populations. When ACIP liaison Dr Flor Muñoz of the Infectious Diseases Society of America claimed that much of the discussion amounted to “misinformation,” Levi responded: “It’s not misinformation… this is CDC data.” When Muñoz pushed back, presenting her disagreement as established fact, Levi replied: “I appreciate your beliefs and feelings about this, but these beliefs and feelings are not supported by the data that were presented.”
Levi also pointed to ACIP’s prior recommendation of Covid-19 vaccination for healthy, extremely low-risk children, which he described as “one of the most outrageous” examples of framework failure.
ACIP’s decision sparked anger from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a doctor, who said the vaccine is safe and effective (BBC, CBS News, Time, Health Policy Watch). He wrote on X that “Siri, a prominent anti-vaccine lawyer, makes his living suing vaccine manufacturers and is presenting as if an expert on childhood vaccines. The ACIP is totally discredited” (Washington Post, The Hill ).
The Hill was particularly critical. It wrote about an ardent objection from major medical organisations, internal spats among ACIP members, and a stark lack of data to support altering decades-long vaccine guidance, in fact, “There’s been great data and studies done on these vaccines, and they are safe and effective.” The Hill quoted top figures from Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York City for their rants, which included that they would not abide by ACIP’s “irresponsible attacks on clear, evidence-based science.”
When journalists “dial-a-quote,” they call organisations or people whom they know will respond in a way that mirrors their own bias pretending they have asked an “independent expert.”
The media were full of evidence-free, derogatory comments that were meaningless because they could not be contested:
- “We can no longer trust federal health authorities when it comes to vaccines,” “heartbreaking to see this science-driven agency turn into an ideological machine” (New York Times );
- “Medical experts have argued that it’s important to vaccinate all newborns for hepatitis B” (Washington Post );
- “The vaccine is incredibly safe,” experts decried the move (Reuters );
- the American Association of Immunologists is “extremely disappointed” in the decision;
- the American College of Physicians called the meeting “completely inappropriate” (CBS News); “many experts expressed dismay at today’s decision” (CNN);
- “A long lineup of medical experts…strongly urged against changing the vaccination schedule” (Health Policy Watch);
- “Public health experts decried the move,” CDC and the ACIP are no longer trustworthy sources and are becoming increasingly irrelevant (CBC);
- “a forum for the discussion of falsehoods,” ACIP members promoted their own sceptical views on vaccines, looking for a bogeyman, and you’re not going to find something if it doesn’t exist (Time );
- “Experts say any change to the current hepatitis B vaccination recommended schedule could have significant and far-reaching consequences for childhood health in the US” (Guardian ).
When the media presented statements that could be contested, they were usually wrong or seriously misleading, e.g. “Siri’s presentation was replete with ‘falsehoods and misrepresentation of the data,’ and he conflated informed consent with mandates” (New York Times ); “fierce objections from medical groups that said the recommendation had proved a successful public health strategy, nearly eradicating the dangerous virus among U.S. children” (Washington Post); a “Minority of members argue the change is not supported by data” (Reuters ).
Persuasion by Big Numbers
Like the drug industry does, the media used big numbers in their propaganda.
Globally, the vaccine has prevented millions of infections (Health Policy Watch). Before the vaccine, around 200,000 to 300,000 people were infected each year; since the vaccines began being universally administered to babies, overall cases are down to around 14,000 annually (PBS).
After a birth dose was recommended in 1991, the shots have prevented an estimated 90,000 deaths in the US (BBC) and reduced hepatitis B infections among infants and children by 99% (CBS News, Time, Health Policy Watch, Nature ).
All these claims are false or seriously misleading. Data presented at the meeting showed that much of the decline in hepatitis B infections over past decades occurred before the birth dose was recommended and it was largely driven by behaviour change, screening, and targeted vaccination of high-risk groups.
Senator Cassidy wrote on X that “Before the birth dose was recommended, 20,000 newborns a year were infected with hepatitis B. Now, it’s fewer than 20” (CBS News, CNN, Health Policy Watch). This was an error of 133 times. CDC data show that in 1990, only around 150 children below one year of age became infected.
Vaccinologist Paul Offit Lied on CNN
The most high-profile vaccinologist in the world, after vaccine “Godfather” Stanley Plotkin, is Paul Offit, but that may be a thing of the past after Siri’s recent revelations and his self-destructing appearance on CNN on the second day of the ACIP meeting.
Offit told viewers he had not been invited to speak at the meeting but internal documents show his claim is false. CDC officials had contacted him repeatedly – via emails, phone calls and a speaker-request form – inviting him to present.
Offit warned viewers that “50% of people in this country have chronic hepatitis B and don’t know it” (only about 0.3% have chronic disease) and suggested newborns were at risk through everyday contact with nannies, daycare workers, and family members because of sharing toothbrushes, towels, or simply being held by an infected adult, which the CDC denied could happen.
Offit described ACIP as a “clown show,” an “anti-vaccine advisory committee” that “puts children in harm’s way.” He lied monstrously saying that before universal infant vaccination, “30,000 children under the age of 10” contracted hepatitis B each year. CDC data presented at the ACIP meeting showed that new hepatitis B cases in children under the age of 10 were around 400 per year before the universal birth dose was introduced.
I am very indebted to journalist Maryanne Demasi, PhD, who wrote many of the articles I quoted above. She gave Offit the opportunity to clarify his remarks but he did not respond. This silence contrasts sharply with the certainty he brings to national television, where his claims are delivered without scrutiny and his financial ties to vaccine manufacturers are almost never mentioned.
Offit is not an impartial commentator. He earned millions from the sale of his stake in Merck’s rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, and has long been aligned with the pharmaceutical industry whose products he routinely defends. Yet major news outlets present him as a neutral authority and take his statements at face value.
Conclusions
The media’s reporting on the hepatitis B issue was seriously misleading and their advice that we should trust the “experts” who condemned the ACIP committee’s wise decision is horribly misguided.
The new ACIP’s first chair was biostatistician Martin Kulldorff. He developed the monitoring system the CDC uses for quick detection of vaccine harms, considered the best in the world. On 1 December, Kennedy announced that Kulldorff was appointed to a senior role at the Department of Health and Human Services after he had “transformed ACIP from a rubber stamp into a committee that delivers gold-standard science for the American people.” NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said that “Five years ago, Martin Kulldorff and I co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration calling for an end to pandemic lockdowns. That evidence-based approach to public health now permeates HHS.”
What the media presented was what we call eminence-based medicine, and the medical journals’ reporting on vaccine issues is also a disaster. I shall end with the abstract of an article I published on 10 November:
The reactions to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s initiatives to improve vaccine safety have been almost uniformly negative. I studied how the narratives were framed in a cohort of 33 articles in the BMJ of which 30 were written by journalists or the editor. I focused on whether the reporting was balanced and informative, and whether the articles saw any merit in Kennedy’s reforms in his role as Secretary of Health and Human Services or supported the status quo.
The reporting in the BMJ was highly biased. Much of the information provided in Kennedy’s disfavour was misleading, and some was wrong. All initiatives at improving vaccine safety were condemned, without any analysis of their merits in an evidence-based fashion. Instead, the BMJ cited people who had their own agendas and who condemned Kennedy without providing any evidence in their favour while expressing faith in vaccines, with the industry mantra that they are safe and effective, although all drugs will harm some people.
The BMJ did not take any interest in the widespread and lethal corruption in US healthcare institutions – one of Kennedy’s focus points – but toned it down.
Despite the constant ad hominem attacks, Kennedy has succeeded to introduce important changes and plans related to vaccine safety, guidance about how vaccines are used, and about avoiding neurotoxic metals in vaccine adjuvants.
Dr. Peter Gøtzsche co-founded the Cochrane Collaboration, once considered the world’s preeminent independent medical research organization. In 2010 Gøtzsche was named Professor of Clinical Research Design and Analysis at the University of Copenhagen. Gøtzsche has published over 100 papers in the “big five” medical journals (JAMA, Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine). Gøtzsche has also authored books on medical issues including Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime.
South Carolina Measles Outbreak Spurs Renewed Debate About MMR Vaccine
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 11, 2025
South Carolina health officials warned this week that a measles outbreak, primarily affecting children, is “accelerating.” They blamed rising vaccine hesitancy for the increase in cases.
Some news outlets pointed the finger at federal health policy, and specifically U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a link some experts rejected.
Emily G. Hilliard, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told The Defender that 120 cases have been reported in South Carolina, “primarily in an under-vaccinated community, of which 43 were reported since Dec. 5.”
The Washington Post cited Dr. Linda Bell, an epidemiologist with the South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH), who said that of the 111 measles cases reported as of Wednesday, 105 people were unvaccinated and three were partially vaccinated.
DPH reported that 254 people are in quarantine and 16 are in isolation.
During a Wednesday press conference, Bell said that “accelerating is an accurate term” to refer to the trajectory of the current outbreak. She said the state has “lower than hoped for” MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccination coverage.
Hilliard said the increase in recent cases in South Carolina “was due to exposures occurring at large church gatherings among under vaccinated communities and at schools, including an international school in Greenville, South Carolina.” She said more cases are expected in the coming week.
According to DPH, 16 cases resulted from exposure at the Way of Truth Church in Inman, while 43 students at Inman Intermediate School are in quarantine.
DPH data show that most cases were identified in children, including 75 cases in kids ages 5-17, and 20 cases in children under 5.
Bell said the spike in cases across the state was the result of travel during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and a lack of vaccinations.
MMR vaccine responsible for ‘catastrophic’ injuries
DPH data show that MMR vaccination coverage among school children in South Carolina decreased from approximately 96% in 2020 to 93.5% this year.
According to NBC News, MMR vaccine uptake in Spartanburg County, one of the hardest-hit areas during the latest outbreak, was 90% for the 2024-25 school year.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Bell credited “high vaccination coverage” for eliminating ongoing transmission in this country. She urged the public to “consider the effectiveness of the vaccine and having this disease essentially go away.” She said the outbreak may end if more people get vaccinated.
The Post reported that even a “small decline in vaccination can significantly increase the likelihood of an outbreak,” citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures indicating that one dose of the MMR vaccine is 93% effective against measles and the two-dose series is 97% effective.
Hilliard said, “The best way to protect against measles is vaccination with the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. CDC encourages individuals to consult with a healthcare provider on what is best for them.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), agreed that the MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent measles — but questioned whether measles needs to be prevented in the first place.
“Case mortality for measles before the vaccine was introduced was 2 in 10,000,” Hooker said. “I just don’t think you need to avoid getting the measles, as opposed to the risk of the vaccine.”
Polly Tommey, host of CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD,” has interviewed parents whose children were injured or killed as a result of an adverse reaction to the MMR vaccine. “The devastation this particular vaccine causes is catastrophic,” she said.
“We’ve seen so many children and adults who have had multiple MMRs and still had measles,” Tommey said. “Not only does the vaccine hardly work, it can and has killed children. I know because I’ve interviewed the parents … So much brain injury, life-altering gut issues, to mention a few.”
Tommey added that while measles “is not much fun,” its symptoms don’t last long, and that “with proper care and rest, children bounce back very quickly.”
Dr. Michelle Perro, a pediatrician, said measles infection can provide lifelong natural immunity.
“It is well established that natural measles infection produces long-lasting, lifelong immunity — a feature recognized in classical infectious-disease epidemiology. While no one recommends seeking out infection, it is inaccurate to imply that immunity from infection is weak or transient,” Perro said.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., CHD senior research scientist, said the MMR vaccine contains live measles virus — specifically, genotype A, which is raised in chicken cells and considered poorly equipped to proliferate within humans.
“In theory, this gives our immune system time to learn how to fight it, along with the other wild-type measles strains,” he said. But theory “doesn’t always translate into practice, and vaccine-originating measles viruses can persist and infect others.”
Experts question ‘scary’ mainstream media narrative on measles
The Post reported that South Carolina’s worsening measles crisis is proof that the U.S. is “reeling from the resurgence of a preventable, highly contagious disease.” The news organization cited this year’s measles outbreaks in West Texas and other regions that reportedly cost the lives of three unvaccinated people as proof of vaccine hesitancy’s toll.
But Hooker said, “the ‘scary’ narrative in the mainstream media is stoked by the evident surge in 2025 and the false reporting about the three deaths wrongly attributed to measles.”
“We know that the two girls who died in West Texas died due to improperly treated bacterial pneumonia. And in the third case of an adult in New Mexico, the individual denied all medical treatment and was diagnosed with measles only via RT-PCR during their autopsy,” Hooker said.
Jablonowski said the two Texas girls “did not die from measles — they died from hospitals, hospital-acquired infections and fatally biased healthcare professionals.”
According to CNN, no new measles cases have been reported in Texas since August. The CDC has recorded 1,912 measles cases in the U.S. this year.
‘No vaccine provides 100% immunity’
Perro said that while the current outbreak is being blamed on the unvaccinated, such outbreaks “have historically included both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.”
“No vaccine provides 100% immunity, and secondary vaccine failure — waning immunity years after vaccination — has been documented in the literature. Breakthrough cases are generally milder, but they do occur, and understanding those patterns is essential to a complete epidemiologic picture,” Perro said.
Hooker cited safety concerns with the MMR vaccine, noting that in 1999, Merck “started secretly increasing the virus content within the MMR to levels that could eclipse that which has been appropriately safety tested.”
This coincided with a “dramatic increase in the reports of deaths and anaphylaxis from the vaccine” submitted to the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 provides a liability shield for manufacturers of vaccines included in the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule. As a result, manufacturers have less incentive to produce safe vaccines, Perro said.
“Manufacturers could have pursued cleaner formulations over the past four decades, such as aluminum-free products, improved stabilizers or alternative delivery systems, but without liability and regulatory oversight, the incentive simply was not there,” Perro said.
‘Absurd’ to blame RFK Jr. for measles outbreaks
Media narratives also suggested that Kennedy’s policies as HHS secretary have contributed to “vaccine hesitancy” and the increased spread of measles.
According to the Post, “an uptick of vaccine misinformation that, at times, has propagated on social media and among some public officials, including President Donald Trump and his pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” has contributed to the outbreaks.
But Perro said that CDC data show that measles cases in the U.S. “have been rising for several years, from 59 cases in 2023 to 285 in 2024, and now over 1,900 cases reported in 2025 across 43 jurisdictions.” She said these trends “predate the current HHS leadership.”
“The representation that one political figure alone ‘caused’ this is not supported by the longer-term data,” Perro said.
According to Hilliard, the 1,912 measles cases reported so far this year in the U.S. are significantly fewer than the number of cases reported in Canada (5,298) and Mexico (5,089). Both countries have substantially smaller populations than the U.S.
Tommey said it is “absurd” to blame Kennedy for this year’s outbreaks. “Parents are not vaccinating because they see the utter carnage from those of us that have vaccinated. They have lived it or seen it first-hand … Once you know, you know — this is why the vaccination rates are down,” she 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.
Reuters spreads lies and propaganda to prolong Ukraine conflict – Tulsi Gabbard
© Alex Wong / Getty Images
RT | December 21, 2025
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has accused European NATO states of trying to pull Washington into a direct confrontation with Russia and slammed Reuters for “fomenting hysteria” in order to sell war.
Russia has consistently rejected claims that it plans to attack EU countries, describing them as warmongering tactics used by Western politicians to justify inflated military budgets. This week, President Vladimir Putin once again dismissed such claims as “lies and nonsense.”
Yet in a report published on Friday, Reuters claimed that “Putin intends to capture all of Ukraine and reclaim parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire,” citing anonymous sources allegedly “familiar with US intelligence.”
“No, this is a lie and propaganda Reuters is willingly pushing on behalf of warmongers who want to undermine President Trump’s tireless efforts to end this bloody war that has resulted in more than a million casualties on both sides,” Gabbard retorted in a post on X.
Dangerously, you are promoting this false narrative to block President Trump’s peace efforts and foment hysteria and fear among the people to get them to support the escalation of war, which is what NATO and the EU really want in order to pull the United States military directly into war with Russia.
According to Gabbard, US intelligence assessments instead indicate that Russia “seeks to avoid a larger war with NATO” and lacks the capacity to wage one even if it wanted to.
Moscow insists it is defending its citizens in the Ukraine conflict and has accused NATO of provoking hostilities and derailing US-backed peace initiatives. Putin, who has repeatedly dismissed any intention to restore the Soviet Union, has accused NATO countries of “preparing for a major war” by building up and modernizing offensive forces while “brainwashing” their populations with claims that a clash with Russia is inevitable.
Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who is currently engaged in Ukraine peace talks with US interlocutors in Miami, praised Gabbard as a rare voice of reason.
“Gabbard is great not only for documenting the Obama/Biden origins of the Russia hoax, but now for exposing the deep-state warmonger machinery trying to incite WW3 by fueling anti-Russian paranoia across the UK and EU,” Dmitriev wrote on X. “Voices of reason matter – restore sanity, peace, and security.”
FDA Won’t ‘Rubber-Stamp’ Pfizer mRNA Flu Vaccine Without Better Safety Data
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 15, 2025
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) likely won’t approve Pfizer’s mRNA flu vaccine unless the drugmaker produces data proving the product is safe for seniors, according to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.
Makary told Fox News last month that the data from Pfizer’s recently completed Phase 3 clinical trial showed that adults 65 and older were at higher risk of several serious adverse events, including kidney failure and acute respiratory failure.
“We’re not just going to rubber-stamp new products that don’t work, that fail in a clinical trial,” Makary said. “It makes a mockery of science if we’re just going to rubber-stamp things with no data.”
Makary said the shot “failed in seniors” and the trial data “showed zero benefit” from the vaccine.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense, said Makary’s comments signal a change in the way the FDA evaluates clinical trial data for vaccines.
“Makary’s FDA threw out the rubber stamp,” Jablonowski said. “The FDA, under different leadership, may have brushed off the lack of efficacy and Pfizer’s concerning safety data. A future administration may resurrect the rubber stamp. For the time being, this is Makary’s FDA.”
Last month, Pfizer published the results of its clinical trial in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). However, the published results included data only for participants between 18 and 64. Data for participants 65 and older, published only on ClinicalTrials.gov, drew criticism from some scientists.
That data showed that elderly trial participants who received the mRNA vaccine had a significantly higher rate of death and several serious adverse events, including cancer, compared to participants who received the conventional non-mRNA flu shot.
This contrasts with Pfizer’s claims that the vaccine delivered “statistically superior efficacy” compared to the conventional flu shot, and that the frequency of serious adverse events was “similar” across the mRNA and non-mRNA groups.
“The disposition of the kidney and lung issues associated with the mRNA shot was concerning,” Jablonowski said.
Some experts noted that even among the 18-64 age group, adverse events were higher among trial participants who received the mRNA shot.
The only mention of the trial data for people 65 and over in the NEJM came in an accompanying editorial, which noted that this age group faces “the highest risk of hospitalization or death” from the flu.
Dr. Meryl Nass, a former internist and founder of Door to Freedom, said she was encouraged by Makary’s remarks. She said the FDA is legally required to license only those drugs that are proven to be safe and effective.
“This mandate is at least 70 years old,” Nass said. “What Makary is saying is already mandated by Congress. But the FDA has chosen to ignore that mandate due to politics, and Congress has failed to enforce it. Makary is actually obeying the law for the first time in decades regarding flu shots.”
Makary: annual mRNA vaccination ‘not based on science’
Makary told Fox News that past administrations rubber-stamped vaccine approvals even when safety data was questionable.
“That was the MO in the Biden administration with the eternal COVID booster approvals for young healthy kids,” Makary said.
The current administration will adopt a different approach to vaccine approvals, especially for children, Makary said.
“Recommending that a 6-year-old girl get another 70 mRNA COVID shots, one each year for the rest of her life, is not based on science,” Makary said.
Makary’s remarks came days after the release of a leaked memo in which Dr. Vinay Prasad, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said changes are coming to the framework for evaluating flu vaccines.
“We will revise the annual flu vaccine framework, which is an evidence-based catastrophe of low quality evidence, poor surrogate assays, and uncertain vaccine effectiveness measured in case-control studies with poor methods. We will re-appraise safety and be honest in vaccine labels,” Prasad wrote in that memo.
Dr. Robert W. Malone, a member of ACIP and the committee’s influenza workgroup, told The Epoch Times that Prasad’s memo means “the entire influenza vaccine, annual vaccination enterprise is now subject to major disruption.”
In May, COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna withdrew its application for FDA approval of a combination mRNA flu and COVID-19 vaccine, after the FDA requested more clinical trials.
In June, the CDC’s vaccine advisers voted to stop recommending flu shots that contain thimerosal — a mercury-based preservative linked to neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism.
‘No one has figured out’ how to make mRNA shots safe
Makary’s statements came amid growing questions about the safety, efficacy and necessity of existing non-mRNA flu vaccines and waning uptake of the shots.
A Cleveland Clinic study published in April found that people who received the flu vaccine were 27% more likely to get the flu than those who didn’t.
Another study, published that month in JAMA Network Open, found that flu vaccines, whether given alone or in conjunction with COVID-19 shots, caused women to have longer menstrual cycles.
Endpoints News reported last month that public demand for flu vaccines is stalling and that “the general consensus among vaccine makers for Covid-19, flu and RSV is that dampening demand has shrunk sales.” Data from Eurostat indicate a decline in flu vaccine uptake in the European Union.
Research into mRNA-related platforms is also facing growing scrutiny. In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cancelled nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research.
“With regard to mRNA injections, no one has figured out how to make them safe,” Nass said. “mRNA shots provide an unknown dose, and they can be ‘the gift that keeps on giving,’ because we don’t know how to shut off the production of mRNA-coded proteins. We probably never will.”
Nass added that while FDA rules require that a specific dose be established for every drug, “somehow this rule has never applied to mRNA vaccines.”
“I believe the mRNA platform is irrevocably flawed for this reason alone, although there are other toxicities involved that also make the platform problematic,” Nass said.
A growing number of scientists have called for the suspension or withdrawal of the administration of mRNA vaccines and products.
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.
Bill Gates’ CEPI revives Moderna mRNA bird flu vaccine development with $54M investment after HHS terminated funding
Avian influenza jab “mRNA-1018” is in full pandemic flight
By Jon Fleetwood | December 19, 2025
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will invest up to $54.3 million to support a Phase 3 clinical trial for Moderna’s investigational mRNA-based pandemic H5 avian influenza “bird flu” vaccine candidate, mRNA-1018.
The move immediately follows the Gates Foundation’s $3.3 million award to a team of scientists at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to develop “breakthrough purification technologies” for producing mRNA-based vaccines, which are plagued with contamination and impurity issues.
Bill Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a co-founder and major funder of CEPI since its 2017 launch at Davos.
A Thursday press release from CEPI emphasizes the new mRNA bird flu vaccine is for “pandemic preparedness,” as this website has been documenting gain-of-function experiments being conducted on bird flu pathogens around the world, warning about the supranational orchestration of a coming bird flu pandemic.
HHS had terminated its multi-hundred-million-dollar commitment to Moderna to produce mRNA-1018 in May, with Moderna vowing to explore “alternative paths for development of the vaccine program.”
Moderna—also Gates-funded—has now followed through on its promise.
This is despite the fact that Moderna submitted data in November 2017 proving their mRNA vaccine lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) accumulate in mammalian liver, spleen, plasma (blood), kidneys, heart, and lungs.
Per the new CEPI press release:
The funding marks a significant step forward in global pandemic preparedness that could enable fast, equitable access to vaccines for one of the world’s most pressing health threats.
This Phase 3 study would be the first mRNA-based vaccine targeting pandemic influenza to enter a pivotal trial. If the vaccine candidate is licensed, it would expand the current global portfolio of H5 vaccines with a rapid-response platform that could revolutionize future pandemic responses, making a significant contribution to CEPI’s 100 Days Mission, a global goal to develop safe and effective vaccines within 100 days of a new pandemic threat being identified.
Dr Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of CEPI, stated:
“Pandemic influenza remains one of the greatest threats to global health security. With this partnership, we are not just advancing vaccine science, we are fundamentally changing the game. By harnessing the speed and adaptability of mRNA technology, we could shave months off the response time, deliver vaccines at scale, and enable equitable access for all. This is how we plan to protect the world from the next flu pandemic.”
Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna, said:
“We are proud to have the support of CEPI to advance our pandemic influenza vaccine candidate, research that is critical to our commitment to pandemic preparedness. mRNA technology can play a vital role in addressing emerging health threats quickly and effectively, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with CEPI as we advance our health security portfolio, and in parallel, further the 100 Days Mission.”
CEPI collaborates closely with the World Health Organization (WHO)—also Gates-funded—through a 2017 Memorandum of Understanding, meant to accelerate pandemic vaccine development.
The WHO has already:
- Established a WHO-backed influenza command framework that merges governance, operational authority, and outbreak-response assets into a single controlling entity for the next pandemic cycle.
- Approved a WHO–Gates influenza-adjacent global digital ID and surveillance architecture, designed to track vaccination status and population compliance across borders during respiratory-virus campaigns.
- Ran pre-COVID compliance-testing programs tied to future influenza vaccine deployment, using CDC-, Gates-, and Oxford-linked institutions to model population behavior toward lower-quality vaccines years before SARS-CoV-2.
- Activated a “Future Pandemic” plan positioning U.S. labs inside a WHO-directed influenza sentinel surveillance network, preserving global monitoring operations even after the U.S. attempted withdrawal.
- Deployed a national influenza surveillance grid in Egypt under WHO authority, installing 30 sentinel sites and training 270 officers for real-time detection, reporting, and response.
- Constructed an international influenza pathogen-sharing command system enabling rapid transfer of H5- and other high-risk influenza samples for sequencing, analysis, and vaccine design under centralized WHO control.
- Outlined an influenza-triggered governance model that explicitly mandates “integration—merger of assets” and “united governance,” transferring all national governance functions to a single authority under conditions of crisis, uncertainty, or sector failure.
The WHO is already dictating how the coming bird flu pandemic will be controlled, just as it controlled the authoritarian COVID-19 pandemic response.
Moreover, the Trump administration this year announced a $500 million “next-generation, universal vaccine platform” called ‘Generation Gold Standard’ that will focus on bird flu jab creation.
Taken together, the CEPI–Moderna Phase 3 push, Gates-funded efforts to address known mRNA impurity issues, and the WHO’s already-built influenza surveillance, sample-sharing, and compliance architecture suggest a coordinated, pre-positioned pipeline designed to move seamlessly from pathogen research to mass deployment—before a bird flu emergency is formally declared.
Russia, African Countries Agree to Strengthen Security Cooperation – Lavrov
Sputnik – 20.12.2025
CAIRO – Russia and African countries have agreed to strengthen cooperation in the spheres of politics and security following the Second Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday.
“The joint statement also contains our shared decision to strengthen cooperation in the political and security spheres, including with the aim of recommending the establishment of working relations between the African Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
The minister added that Russia and Africa do not see the need to dwell on Western sanctions.
“We prefer to focus on coordinating workable, efficient mechanisms that will safeguard our trade and economic ties, making them independent from the illegal actions of those who, in violation of all principles of international law, resort to methods of blackmail and pressure,” Lavrov noted.
Additionally, the Foreign Minister discussed increasing trade turnover and energy cooperation with African partners, as well as the creation of joint financial and logistical structures to protect the trade and economic investment partnerships of the countries from illegal unilateral sanctions.
“Unlike those who try to continue colonial and neocolonial policies, dictating their will to others, we, together with our African friends, have a solid international legal foundation in our positions,” he emphasized.
In turn, Abdelatty said that during the ministerial conference in Cairo, African countries and Russia had reached a mutual understanding regarding further cooperation.
Lavrov participated today in the second ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Egypt. The conference was attended by foreign ministers, heads of state, and leaders of executive bodies from integration associations across the continent. They discussed cooperation in various areas. The minister also held a series of bilateral meetings.
The forum was established in 2019. Two summits were held within its framework—in Sochi in 2019 and in St. Petersburg in 2023, as well as the first ministerial conference in November of last year.
US Weighs Port Restrictions on Spain Over Israel Arms Transit Ban
teleSUR | December 20, 2025
The United States is considering restrictive measures against Spanish-flagged vessels following Spain’s decision to block the transit of US military cargo bound for Israel through its territory, prompting a formal investigation by US maritime authorities.
In late September this year, the Spanish government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez prohibited the transit of US aircraft and ships carrying weapons, ammunition, or military equipment destined for Israel through the military bases of Rota, in Cádiz, and Morón de la Frontera, in Seville. The measure was adopted in protest against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
The Joint Spanish–US Committee confirmed the decision, clarifying that the ban applies both to aircraft and vessels heading directly to Israel and to those bound for the country after intermediate stopovers.
Washington responded on Friday through the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), which said it is considering closing US ports to Spanish ships while it investigates Spain’s refusal to allow US cargo vessels carrying arms to Israel to dock at the port of Algeciras, in southern Spain.
In a statement, the FMC said it is examining options that include cargo limitations, denial of entry to vessels operating under the Spanish flag, or fines of up to $2.3 million per voyage for Spanish-flagged ships.
Spain has prohibited the transfer of US weapons to Israel through the military bases of Rota and Morón, facilities located on Spanish territory but used by the United States under bilateral defense agreements.
US authorities view Spain’s stance as a challenge. The FMC said it is gathering information on “the current policy of Spain of denying or rejecting port access to certain vessels carrying cargo to or from Israel,” which, according to the commission, may be creating “unfavorable general or special conditions for maritime transport in US foreign trade.” The FMC, which is independent of the US government, stressed the urgency of completing its investigation to determine what “corrective measures may be appropriate to address such conditions.”
According to sources from Spain’s Ministry of Defense cited by Europa Press in September, the Defense Cooperation Agreement governing military collaboration between the two countries will not be amended. As a result, US-operated military bases in Spain remain excluded from arms embargoes.
Under Article 32 of the agreement, the United States must obtain authorization from the Permanent Committee, which operates under Spain’s Ministry of Defense, for operations involving the loading or unloading of munitions and explosives, as well as their transport by land, sea, or air within Spanish territory. However, the United States is not required to disclose the final destination of such cargo when stopovers are involved.
Spain reaffirmed in September its decision to halt arms sales to Israel, a move that has been questioned by some reports. The country has also taken broader diplomatic steps critical of Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In late May 2024, Madrid formally recognized the State of Palestine and later joined South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of committing genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip.
How Israel hijacked US politics, media and tech – without Americans even realizing
By Maryam Qarehgozlou | Press TV | December 20, 2025
When tech billionaire Larry Ellison was tapped to help oversee TikTok’s US operations, the move immediately drew scrutiny over the Oracle co-founder’s longstanding ties with the Israeli regime and how it could sharpen censorship of pro-Palestinian content on the platform.
Oracle’s ascendance came after the US Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok earlier this year, positioning the company as the frontrunner to take control of the Chinese-owned app.
Under the arrangement, Oracle would serve as the “secure cloud provider,” storing US user data and controlling the recommendation algorithm, an authority Washington framed as necessary to counter alleged Chinese “manipulation.”
But while the campaign against TikTok was outwardly led by China hawks, pro-Israel contractors, and the powerful Zionist lobby in Washington, played a central role in shaping the political pressure that made Oracle an obvious choice for the takeover.
Pro-Palestine advocates point out that a deeper motivation has been to silence the overwhelming pro-Palestinian opinions and sentiments on TikTok, where users have in great detail documented Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and challenged American-Israeli narratives about it.
The platform has become a key outlet for unfiltered footage from Gaza, including scenes of devastation, civilian casualties, and global solidarity campaigns.
Research from Northeastern University has consistently shown that pro-Palestinian posts dwarf pro-Israel content—most recently, in September 2025, by a ratio of roughly 17 to 1.
This imbalance reflects TikTok’s younger user base—Gen Z and millennials—who increasingly reject Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s deceptive and deeply manipulative positions.
Israel’s leadership understands the stakes. Benjamin Netanyahu recently described social media as a decisive “weapon” in modern warfare, calling the TikTok sale “the most important purchase” for securing influence over US public opinion.
Oracle’s deep alignment with Israeli interests has only heightened concerns. The company had already tightened its grip over aspects of TikTok’s operations while openly embracing a pro-Israel agenda and, as an Intercept investigation revealed, suppressing pro-Palestine activism within its own ranks.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz, an Israeli-American and longtime supporter of the Zionist project, made her stance bluntly clear, telling an Israeli business outlet: “For employees, it’s clear: if you’re not for America or Israel, don’t work here—this is a free country.”
Ellison, a major funder of Israeli causes and a close ally of Donald Trump, has long been celebrated by the US political establishment.
Trump—who placed him in the front row at his inauguration—famously hailed him as “one of the most serious players in the world.”
In 2017, Ellison made the largest single donation in the history of the so-called “Friends of the Israel Forces,” a US-based organization tied to the Israeli military responsible for genocidal attacks across Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Oracle’s material support for Israel extends far beyond philanthropy. In 2021, the company opened a $319 million data center in occupied al-Quds, providing cloud services to Israeli banks, health institutions, and military units.
Immediately after Israel launched its genocidal assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, Oracle publicly declared its support for the regime even as hospitals and schools were bombed.
Catz instructed that the message “Oracle Stands with Israel” be displayed across all company screens in more than 180 countries.
The company has also actively participated in Israel’s digital propaganda efforts. Following the outbreak of the war on Gaza, Oracle and the Israeli regime officials developed “Words of Iron,” a project designed to amplify pro-Israel content while whitewashing horrendous war crimes and countering critical narratives on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.
In February 2024, Oracle collaborated with the Israeli military’s cyber department on a hackathon seeking “tech solutions” for rehabilitating illegal settlements near Gaza.
Around the same time, Oracle donated medical and environmental supply bags worth half a million dollars to Israeli occupation forces.
Oracle’s political lobbying worked in tandem with its technological support. Last summer, Catz joined a closed-door meeting with US senators to push for continued weapons shipments to Israeli-occupied territories.
Later that year, Oracle partnered with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems—one of Israel’s major weapons manufacturers—on an AI program to provide “warfighters with quick, actionable insights in the battlespace.”
While Israel escalated its bombing and invasion of Gaza, some Oracle employees reported that the company was actively curtailing internal support for Palestinians.
Oracle’s charitable matching program quietly removed organizations such as Medical Aid for Palestinians and UNRWA from its list of eligible beneficiaries, effectively blocking workers from directing matched funds toward humanitarian relief.
Ellison and Catz are hardly outliers; they are part of a broader pattern of influential Zionist figures holding disproportionate power across US political, financial, media, academic, tech, and cultural institutions.
Although only about 2 percent of the US population identifies as Jewish, Jewish and Zionist representation among American elites is significantly higher—a trend that has shaped US foreign policy, cultural production, and the sustained alignment with Israel’s violent occupation.
Below is a list of influential Zionist figures who occupy key positions across these sectors.
Jews in American politics
In February 2021, less than a month after former US President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post celebrated the new president’s appointments of 15 Jewish politicians.
“US President Joe Biden has appointed a strong, experienced team for his new administration. Among them are a minyan and a half of Jews. Indeed, I wonder if there has ever been a more Jewish US administration,” columnist Shlomo Maital wrote in the article.
The article added that “a vigorous American presence in world affairs, spearheaded by the Jewish A-Team, is in Israel’s long-term interest, more than an ‘America first’ administration that made the US largely irrelevant in global affairs.”
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines were among the Jewish members of Biden’s administration holding influential positions.
The list also included Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander, Deputy Health Secretary Rachel Levine, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
Other key figures were NSA Cybersecurity Director Anne Neuberger, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, COVID-19 Coordinator Jeff Zients, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Also serving in senior economic and political roles were Jared Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris.
As Secretary of State, Blinken was a central public and diplomatic defender of US support for Israel during the initial phase of the Gaza genocide — pressing allies, coordinating arms transfers, and publicly backing negotiations framed to protect the Israeli regime while offering limited humanitarian concessions for the besieged people of the Gaza Strip.
According to rights groups and activists, his steady diplomatic backing helped shield Israeli genocidal actions from stronger, public US rebukes.
Yellen’s Treasury enforced and expanded financial pressure instruments, such as sanctions that the US uses against Iran and other supporters of the Palestinian resistance.
The Treasury under Yellen issued targeted sanctions on Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical sectors.
Cohen, as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (Treasury), also designed and executed sanctions that targeted Iran’s oil, petrochemical, and financial sectors.
He is widely described in reporting and policy bios as the administration’s “sanctions guru.”
As Deputy Director of the CIA (and acting director briefly), Cohen brought his sanctions experience into targeting work against Iran — shaping covert disruption tools in addition to Treasury levers.
These unilateral sanctions form a core non-military lever in the US hawkish toolkit.
A Lancet study in August found a significant link between sanctions and higher mortality. The US and EU sanctions were associated with over 564,000 deaths annually from 1971 to 2021 in 152 countries.
It is similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict.
Children under 5 years faced about an 8-9 percent higher death risk, and adults aged 60-80 years had about a 2-3 percent higher risk.
The study found the strongest effects for unilateral, economic, and US sanctions, but none from UN sanctions.
Trump’s first term also included many Jewish officials in senior roles. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior advisor, was among the most influential, alongside Elliot Abrams, Special Representative for Venezuela and later Iran, and David Friedman, Ambassador to the Israeli-occupied territories.
Other key figures included Jason Greenblatt, Special Representative for International Negotiations on Palestine; Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury; Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor for Policy; Gary Cohn, Director of the White House National Economic Council; Reed Cordish, Assistant to the President for Intragovernmental and Technology Initiatives; and Avrahm Berkowitz, Deputy Advisor to the President.
Additional senior officials were Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General; Elan Carr, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism; Ellie Cohanim, Deputy Special Envoy for the same office; Jeffrey Rosen, Attorney General; Morgan Ortagus, State Department spokesperson; David Shulkin, Secretary of Veterans Affairs; and Lawrence Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council.
Also serving in high-level positions were Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and advisor, who was raised Christian but converted to Orthodox Judaism to marry Kushner in 2009; John Eisenberg, National Security Council Legal Counsel; Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Acting Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Len Khodorkovsky, Deputy Secretary of State and Senior Advisor to the US Special Representative for Iran.
Several senior Jewish members of the Trump administration played central roles in reshaping US policy in ways strongly favorable to the Israeli regime.
Kushner was the architect of the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states — including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
Kushner also helped push forward the administration’s West Asia so-called “Peace to Prosperity” plan, which embraced long-standing Israeli positions on expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, and occupation of Palestine.
David Friedman, the Ambassador to Israeli-occupied territories, used his position and strongly supported recognizing occupied al-Quds as Israel’s capital, encouraged the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to al-Quds, and backed Israel’s claim to West Bank settlements.
His diplomatic messaging consistently pushed Washington toward formally accepting Israeli control over the occupied territories.
Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, worked closely with Friedman and Kushner.
He was one of the primary US officials promoting the idea that settlement expansion was not an obstacle to peace. His role helped shift the State Department’s language away from the traditional American view of settlements as “illegitimate,” aligning it more closely with Israeli regime positions.
Lawrence Kudlow and Gary Cohn, who headed the National Economic Council at different times, supported the administration’s economic components of West Asia policy, including aid packages tied to normalization and economic incentives designed to complement Kushner’s diplomatic agenda.
Elan Carr and Ellie Cohanim, from the State Department’s antisemitism office, advanced aggressive messaging on global antisemitism that often intertwined with defending the Israeli regime’s genocidal and apartheid policies. Their public diplomacy helped cast any criticisms of Israel in terms of antisemitism, influencing international discussions.
After re-entering the White House for a second term in January, Trump once again packed his inner circle with vocal Jewish and Zionist loyalists, many of whom stand out for their unprecedented hostility toward the Palestinian people and their basic rights.
Trump stacked his advisory ranks with a mix of familiar figures and newer faces who exert outsized influence over his relationship with the Jewish community in the US and in the occupied territories.
Among them are Will Scharf, White House staff secretary; Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser; Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to West Asia; Howard Lutnick, secretary of commerce; Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s personal senior counsel; Elizabeth Pipko, national spokesperson for the Republican Party; Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Laura Loomer, an extremist influencer who operates as an unofficial loyalty enforcer within Trump’s political orbit.
Ivanka Trump and her husband were notably absent from much of Trump’s 2024 campaign and announced two years ago that they had stepped back to support Trump “outside the political arena.”
However, as one of Trump’s former top aides alongside Kushner—who played a central role in brokering the Abraham Accords and now runs a multibillion-dollar private equity fund bankrolled by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar—many speculate that the couple’s influence, particularly Kushner’s, will persist throughout Trump’s presidency.
This influence is expected to be especially pronounced in shaping the administration’s interference in West Asian affairs, as has already witnessed during the so-called Gaza “truce deal.”
Miller, one of Trump’s most hardline advisers on immigration during his first term, was instrumental in shaping some of the administration’s controversial policies, including the travel ban targeting seven Muslim-majority countries and the policy that separated the children of undocumented migrants from their parents at the border.
Pipko is an avowed Zionist and stated following her appointment that “supporting Israel is in the best interest of the United States.”
She has also attacked pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses, singling out demonstrations at her alma mater, Harvard.
In an interview with Ynet News, she dismissed the protests as “awful” and “disgusting.”
Loomer, who has described herself as “a proud Islamophobe,” ran an online campaign in August that pressured the US State Department into halting visa issuance for children from Gaza in desperate need of medical care amid Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Strip.
Zionist donors heavily underwrote Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Miriam Adelson, a casino magnate with an estimated net worth of $35 billion and a prominent Zionist mega-donor, spent more than $100 million to propel Trump back into the White House.
She is the widow of Sheldon Adelson, one of the most prolific financiers of illegal Israeli settlements in history.
Miriam Adelson is herself a settler, born and raised in the occupied Palestinian territories, and has been a vocal champion of the regime’s settler-colonialism.
She is closely associated with the ideology of neo-Zionism, which advocates not only the permanent retention of occupied Palestinian land but also the expansion of the occupation through annexation of Palestine and neighboring countries.
Ivy League presidents
The Ivy League is a group of eight elite private universities located in the northeastern United States. They include Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.
At present, five of these institutions are led by Jewish presidents.
Their Jewish and Zionist identities have become most visible amid the wave of pro-Palestine university encampments that swept campuses across the United States.
Beginning at Columbia University on April 17, 2024, pro-Palestinian students established encampments on at least 80 college and university campuses nationwide, demanding that their institutions disclose investments tied to Israeli-occupied territories and divest from financial and cultural entities that support Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
These demands were raised in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians—most of them women and children—and the continuation of the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.
The protests echoed a call from Palestinian civil society for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel.
The largely peaceful demonstrations, however, were met overwhelmingly with force. Police crackdowns resulted in mass arrests and injuries, actions frequently ordered by the students’ own university administrators and, in some cases, backed by faculty members.
After taking office in January, Donald Trump signed an executive order to “combat antisemitism,” directing federal agencies to explore avenues for deporting pro-Palestinian activists, including student protesters—a demand to which many universities, including Ivy League institutions, readily capitulated.
Christopher Ludwig Eisgruber, a Jewish-American who has served as Princeton University’s 20th president since July 2013, ordered the removal of a major pro-Palestinian encampment on Cannon Green, citing preparations for commencement, and has repeatedly resisted demands that Princeton divest from the Israeli regime.
In April 2024, when police—acting on authorization from university administrators—arrested dozens of students during pro-Palestinian protests, including at Princeton, Eisgruber warned that those students would face disciplinary action that could “extend to suspension or expulsion.”
Alan Garber, another Jewish academic leader, was appointed president of Harvard University in August 2024 after serving as interim president since January 2 of that year.
He succeeded Claudine Gay, who was forced to resign after being accused by members of Congress of failing to adequately condemn and combat “anti-Semitism” on Harvard’s campus during pro-Palestine encampments.
Under Garber’s leadership, Harvard shared information with the US Department of Homeland Security in response to its request for the disciplinary records of international students and records of pro-Palestinian activity.
Sian Leah Beilock, the president of Dartmouth College, is another Jewish leader within the Ivy League.
She faced sharp criticism for her decision to call in police to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus on May 1 of last year.
Mike Kotlikoff, who is also Jewish, assumed permanent leadership of Cornell University in March, as universities faced unprecedented pressure from the Trump administration over pro-Palestinian student protests.
In November 2024, while serving as Cornell’s interim president, a leak revealed that Kotlikoff had suppressed academic freedom after criticizing a pro-Palestinian professor’s planned course on the Gaza genocide in an internal email.
The course, Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance, was set to be taught by Eric Cheyfitz, who is also Jewish.
Cheyfitz, the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters and a scholar of Indigenous studies, wrote in the course description that it would examine how Indigenous peoples have been engaged “in a global resistance against an ongoing colonialism.”
He further stated that the course would “present a specific case” of the ongoing genocidal war as “settler colonialism in Palestine with a particular emphasis on the International Court of Justice finding ‘plausible’ the South African assertion of ‘genocide’ in Gaza.”
Kotlikoff wrote in an email to another professor that he “personally finds the course description to represent a radical, factually inaccurate, and biased view of the formation of […] Israel and the ongoing conflict.”
Kotlikoff replaced Martha Pollack, who is also Jewish, and stepped down amid sweeping pro-Palestinian protests across US college campuses.
During the protests, Pollack expressed disappointment with student demonstrators and warned that if they refused to dismantle their encampments, “more temporary suspensions… are forthcoming.”
Christina Paxson, who converted to Judaism after marriage, serves as president of Brown University.
Last year, for the second time during her tenure, Paxson rejected divestment from 10 companies identified by a student-led pro-Palestine initiative as facilitating “the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territory.”
Hollywood
It is widely documented that Jewish people are overrepresented in Hollywood relative to their share of the overall population.
Jews account for roughly 2 percent of the American population, yet various estimates suggest they have historically comprised a far higher proportion of key industry roles, including studio executives, writers, and actors.
Some discussions cite figures of 20 percent or higher in certain sectors of the entertainment industry.
Jewish entrepreneurs were instrumental in founding most of the major film studios during Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age.
These figures include Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures; William Fox, founder of the Fox Film Corporation; Louis B. Mayer and Marcus Loew, co-founders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM); Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the brothers behind Warner Bros; Carl Laemmle, a founder of Universal Pictures; and Harry and Jack Cohn, founders of Columbia Pictures.
In more recent decades, prominent Jewish executives have continued to occupy influential positions in the entertainment industry.
They include Bob Iger, chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company; Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment; Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate; Shari Redstone, president and CEO of National Amusements; David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery; and influential film producer and former Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal.
For years, activists and some academics have warned that this concentration of power has helped shape an industry culture that frequently aligns with pro-Israel narratives, whitewashing Zionist crimes while marginalizing or excluding Palestinian perspectives.
Jewish Hollywood power brokers, they say, used their influence in the mid-20th century to mobilize cultural support for the Zionist project, portraying settler violence as “Jewish self-defense” in early films and theatrical productions.
By contrast, Palestinian narratives are routinely sidelined. Palestinian films are often excluded from major festivals and streaming platforms, while Israeli atrocities are frequently framed in ways that downplay or obscure Palestinian suffering.
Even films and documentaries that seek to center Palestinian humanity and lived experience have become a subject of sustained controversy within the industry.
Finding mainstream Hollywood productions that portray Palestinians in a balanced, non-dehumanizing manner remains difficult, as decades of output have either perpetuated negative stereotypes or erased Palestinian perspectives altogether.
The few films that do offer more nuanced or humanizing depictions of Palestinians are typically independent productions or international co-productions, often directed by Palestinian filmmakers working outside the Hollywood studio system.
Meanwhile, public support for Palestinian rights or criticism of the Israeli regime or its backers has increasingly carried professional consequences in Hollywood.
Actors and industry professionals—both Jewish and non-Jewish—have faced reprisals ranging from being dropped by agents to losing roles, contributing to a pervasive “silencing effect.”
In December 2023, two months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, actress Melissa Barrera, a star of the Scream franchise, was fired from the next installment after posting on social media about Israel’s real-life horror show in the Gaza Strip.
Barrera was not alone. In November of the same year, actress Susan Sarandon was dropped by United Talent Agency (UTA) after speaking at a pro-Palestinian rally.
Actor Mark Ruffalo also faced backlash during Israel’s May 2021 assault on Gaza, when he was pressured to apologize for using the term “genocide.”
Top 50 Billionaires
The latest rankings of the world’s wealthiest individuals highlight a notable trend: of the top 50 billionaires globally, at least 12 are Jewish, showcasing their considerable influence across technology, finance, and investments.
Leading the pack is Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, whose fortune stands at $213.7 billion, making him the third richest person in the world.
Close behind is Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, which includes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with a net worth of $202.4 billion and a world rank of 4.
The search engine giants Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, are ranked 6th and 7th, respectively, with fortunes of $157.8 billion and $150.7 billion.
Other prominent Jewish billionaires in the top 50 include Steve Ballmer of Microsoft ($127.7 billion, rank 9), Michael Dell of Dell Technologies ($113.5 billion, rank 12), and media mogul Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg LP ($104.7 billion, rank 16).
Stephen Schwarzman, a major figure in investments, ranks 28th with $50.4 billion, while Jeff Yass, active in trading and investments, holds $49.6 billion at rank 29.
Luxury fashion also sees Jewish representation through Gerard Wertheimer and Alain Wertheimer, owners of Chanel, both holding $41.5 billion and sharing world rank 38.
The Miriam Adelson & family, tied to the casino industry, are valued at $34.9 billion, ranking 49.
The overwhelming majority are based in the United States, dominating technology and investment sectors, and heading companies that shape global information flows.
But beyond wealth, their power has had devastating consequences for Palestinians.
Meta and Oracle, for example, have been implicated in censoring Palestinian voices online, shaping narratives in favor of Israeli policies while silencing dissent.
Google, Microsoft, and Dell Technologies have enabled the Israeli military’s genocidal war on Gaza over the past two years, providing cloud infrastructure, AI, and technology services that the regime has used to target Palestinian civilians.
This concentration of wealth and technological control underscores not only the disproportionate influence of Jewish billionaires in the US tech world but also raises profound questions about the ways these platforms and services are weaponized in geopolitics—always aligning with US and Israeli agendas to the detriment of human rights.
Sport teams owners
Ownership patterns across major US professional sports leagues reveal a striking concentration of power among a small group of ultra-wealthy Jewish stakeholders, many of whom hold openly pro-Zionist political positions or have backed policies hostile to Palestinian advocacy.
In the National Basketball Association (NBA), estimates indicate that roughly 40 percent of franchises are majority-owned by individuals or groups with Jewish backgrounds—far exceeding their approximate 2 percent share of the US population.
An additional five teams include Jewish minority stakeholders, underscoring a level of influence that extends well beyond ownership into league governance and political positioning.
Out of 30 NBA teams, 12 are majority-owned by Jewish stakeholders.
These include Anthony Ressler (Atlanta Hawks); Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall (Charlotte Hornets); Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago Bulls); Dan Gilbert (Cleveland Cavaliers); Miriam Adelson (Dallas Mavericks); Joe Lacob and Peter Guber (Golden State Warriors); Herbert Simon (Indiana Pacers); Micky Arison (Miami Heat); Marc Lore (Minnesota Timberwolves); Steve Ballmer (Los Angeles Clippers); Joshua Harris and David Blitzer (Philadelphia 76ers); and Mat and Justin Ishbia (Phoenix Suns).
Teams with Jewish minority owners include the Jacobs family (Sacramento Kings), Larry Tannenbaum (Toronto Raptors), George Kaiser (Oklahoma City Thunder), Oliver Weisberg (Brooklyn Nets), and Larry Fink (New York Knicks).
For four decades, the NBA itself has been led by two commissioners—David Stern (1984–2014) and Adam Silver (2014–present)—both of whom presided over eras marked by close alignment with US foreign policy narratives and repeated controversies related to Palestine.
The league has faced sustained criticism for suppressing or sanitizing Palestinian references under political pressure.
In 2017, the NBA removed “Palestine—occupied territory” from an official website list following a complaint from Israel’s sports minister.
A year later, the league apologized after a fan-voting list for the All-Star Game included “Occupied Palestine,” blaming an outsourced firm after Israeli officials demanded its removal.
Senior NBA figures, including Commissioner Adam Silver, along with current and former players, have participated in high-profile trips to Israeli-occupied territories, meeting with Israeli regime officials and engaging in public relations efforts to normalize occupation.
Meanwhile, players who expressed solidarity with Palestinians faced swift backlash.
Former NBA star Dwight Howard said he was pressured to delete a “Free Palestine” tweet in 2014 after receiving multiple calls, including one from the commissioner’s office.
This concentration of ownership and political alignment is not limited to basketball.
In the National Football League (NFL), 11 of the league’s 32 teams are owned by individuals or families with controlling Jewish stakes, including Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons), David Tepper (Carolina Panthers), Jim Irsay (Indianapolis Colts), Mark Davis (Las Vegas Raiders), Stephen Ross (Miami Dolphins), the Wilf family (Minnesota Vikings), Robert Kraft (New England Patriots), Steve Tisch (New York Giants), Jeffrey Lurie (Philadelphia Eagles), the Glazer family (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), and Josh Harris and Mitchell Rales (Washington Commanders).
Major League Baseball (MLB) shows similar patterns.
Eight of its 32 teams are majority-owned by Jewish stakeholders—David Rubenstein (Baltimore Orioles), Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago White Sox), Bruce Sherman (Miami Marlins), Mark Attanasio (Milwaukee Brewers), Steve Cohen (New York Mets), the Fisher family (Oakland Athletics), Stuart Sternberg (Tampa Bay Rays), and the Lerner family (Washington Nationals).
Six additional teams have Jewish minority owners or executives, including Tom Werner (Boston Red Sox), David Blitzer (Cleveland Guardians), Stan Kasten and Peter Guber (Los Angeles Dodgers), and Lester Crown (New York Yankees).
Several teams without Jewish majority owners—including the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Toronto Blue Jays—are run by Jewish presidents or senior executives.
Across leagues, Jewish owners and executives with strong pro-Israel views have helped shape institutional responses that activists warn would marginalize Palestinian voices while reinforcing US and Israeli political narratives.
Federal Reserve
Beyond sports and entertainment, Jewish financiers have played central roles in US monetary power structures.
Paul Moritz Warburg, a German-Jewish banker from Kuhn, Loeb & Co., was a key architect of the US Federal Reserve System.
From 1987 to 2014, the Federal Reserve was chaired consecutively by Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen— three Jewish individuals overseeing periods of aggressive financial intervention that disproportionately benefited Wall Street while entrenching US global dominance.
Other influential Jewish figures include Emmanuel Goldenweiser, who supervised early Federal Reserve Board operations, and Stanley Fischer, who later served as vice chair.
Media, advertising, adult entertainment
Jewish Americans have also been influential across a wide spectrum of media, advertising, and public relations industries, sectors that play a decisive role in shaping political narratives, as well as adult entertainment businesses.
In the advertising and public relations world, influential Jewish executives include Richard Edelman, CEO of the global PR firm Edelman; Carl Spielvogel, co-founder of the major agency Backer & Spielvogel; Ronn Torossian, founder of 5W Public Relations; and Marian Salzman, a senior advertising and communications executive and trend expert.
Torossian, an American public relations executive, is a prominent and controversial figure in the far-right Zionist movement, known for his leadership of the recently re-launched Betar USA organization.
Betar USA, under Torossian’s leadership, has been using inflammatory rhetoric and calling for violence. In response to a social media post about Palestinian children killed in the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, the group’s account commented, “Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!”
Betar has been involved in identifying and circulating lists of pro-Palestinian protesters for deportation.
Digital media platforms have also been dominated by Jews with allegiance to the Tel Aviv regime.
Susan Wojcicki was an American business executive who was the chief executive officer of YouTube from 2014 to 2023.
Human rights and digital media advocacy groups, such as the organization 7amleh, have denounced YouTube’s policies and blatant bias against Palestinian voices and in favor of Israeli narratives.
In November 2015, Wojcicki and other Google representatives met with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely to establish a mechanism for monitoring and removing Palestinian content deemed “inflammatory” by the apartheid regime in Tel Aviv.
In adult entertainment, prominent founders and executives include Michael Lucas, the founder and CEO of Lucas Entertainment, one of Manhattan’s largest gay adult film companies.
Last year, the adult film producer faced intense backlash after bragging about writing his name on a missile to be dropped in Gaza in a post on social media.
Several adult entertainment stars have since vowed to boycott working with Lucas and his company over the “reprehensible” post.
Taken together, the American landscape reveals not a coincidence but a pattern: a dense web of political power, corporate control, cultural influence, and financial leverage that consistently converges to protect Israel from accountability while suppressing Palestinian voices.
Disguised under the language of “security,” “shared values,” and “combating antisemitism,” US institutions have been mobilized by the powerful Zionist lobby to normalize occupation, whitewash mass killings, and criminalize solidarity with the oppressed.
The result, according to activists, is a manufactured consensus in which Israel’s crimes are laundered through American power centers, and dissent is treated as a threat.
As Gaza is starved, bombed, and erased in real time, this alignment exposes the moral bankruptcy of an order that privileges loyalty to a settler-colonial regime over international law, human rights, and basic human life, they warn.
HHS to Prohibit Hospitals From Performing Sex-Change Surgery on Kids
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 19, 2025
Federal health officials are taking action to prohibit hospitals from performing sex-rejecting procedures on children and support the families of children who underwent such procedures and now regret it, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday at a live press conference.
Sex-rejecting procedures, or “gender-affirming care,” refers to the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and/or surgery as a treatment for gender dysphoria. The Mayo Clinic defines gender dysphoria as a “feeling of distress that can happen when a person’s gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.”
Children are falling prey to a “predatory multi-billion dollar industry,” said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy cited a study that reported profits from sex-rejecting drugs and surgeries surpassed $4.4 billion in 2023, and were on track to top $7.8 billion by 2031.
Kids’ and teens’ brains aren’t fully mature yet when they decide to undergo the procedures, said Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz.
Kennedy agreed, citing a comment by one doctor who “callously” described sex-rejecting procedures in kids as a “big money maker.”
Kennedy said:
“Hospitals rake in millions of dollars by convincing boys and girls that a lifetime of off-label prescriptions for estrogen and testosterone blockers, chest reconstruction surgeries and more are the only way to achieve true happiness and belonging in life.
“It’s wrong. The Trump administration will not stand by while ideology, misinformation and propaganda push young people into decisions they cannot fully understand and that they can never reverse.”
Kennedy told his audience — which included Congress members and several attorneys general — that he signed a declaration stating that healthcare practitioners who perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors would be deemed out of compliance with professionally recognized standards of healthcare.
The “overwhelming body of evidence” shows “these procedures hurt, not help children,” Kennedy said.
The declaration is based on an HHS peer-reviewed report published last month, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” which concluded sex-rejecting procedures have an unfavorable risk-benefit profile and fail to meet professionally recognized healthcare standards.
Hospitals that perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors will no longer be eligible for Medicaid or Medicare funding. And no Medicaid funding can be used to pay for the procedures, Oz said. “We’re not going to let taxpayer money go to hurt these children.”
CMS will release a notice of proposed rulemaking to bar hospitals from performing sex-rejecting procedures on kids as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid. It will also release a notice of proposed rulemaking to prevent Medicaid dollars from going toward sex-rejecting procedures on kids.
CMS will issue its final rule after a 60-90 day period soliciting public comments.
HHS also announced it will work to reverse the Biden administration’s attempt to have gender dysphoria be considered a disability under federal law.
That’s important, so hospitals that no longer perform sex-rejecting procedures will not be charged with discriminating against those with a disability, according to an HHS press release.
Admiral Brian Christine, M.D., HHS assistant secretary and head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, on Thursday signed a public health message telling medical providers, families and policymakers that sex-rejecting procedures are not safe or effective treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria.
“Evidence shows sex-rejecting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries are dangerous,” Christine said in a statement. “Providers have an obligation to offer care grounded in evidence and to avoid interventions that expose young people to a lifetime of harm.”
Doctors should ‘start slowly’ when treating gender dysphoria
President Trump charged HHS to undertake actions against sex-rejecting procedures in his January executive order, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
The MAHA Report also named the “overmedicalization” of U.S. youth as a key driver of the childhood chronic disease epidemic, Kennedy noted.
As the number of youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria has increased in recent years, thousands of children have been “fast-tracked” into sex-rejecting procedures, Oz said.
Doctors seeing kids who have gender dysphoria should “start slowly” with the least invasive treatments possible, such as psychotherapy and evaluating for other conditions like ADHD, autism, anxiety and depression.
Gender expression is complex, and scientists are still trying to find out all the factors that play a role.
For instance, research by Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist, suggests that prenatal exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals can blur physiological and behavioral sex differences in offspring.
However, she and other scientists conducting similar research acknowledged the issue’s political and ethical implications.
“We have to be very careful not to frame gender non-conforming as an adverse effect,” said Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in a report by Undark.
NIH to fund research supporting kids who want to ‘de-transition’
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya announced his agency, which already stopped supporting research on gender transition, will do science aimed at helping kids who are “de-transitioning” — or wanting to “de-transition” back to their original sex — and their families.
Thousands of kids and their families have been harmed by these procedures, Bhattacharya said. “We are going to fund science to help them because what I don’t want is for the answers to those families to be based on basically no evidence or presumed knowledge that we don’t actually have.”
Chloe Cole, a 21-year-old, spoke at the press conference about detransitioning at age 16 after starting on puberty blockers at age 13 and undergoing an irreversible double mastectomy at 15.
“I, myself, and every other detransitioner I know have so many different medical concerns,” she said. “They’re not being addressed because our own doctors don’t have any standards of care to refer to. They don’t know what to do with us.”
‘Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?’
Cole, now an activist against sex-rejecting procedures, has a bill named in her honor.
The “Chloe Cole Act,” initially proposed under a different title by the U.S. Department of Justice, would ban hospitals, clinics and doctors from performing sex-rejecting procedures on kids.
It would also allow children who underwent such procedures and their parents to sue the healthcare provider for damages. On Sept. 18, the bill was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. The bill hasn’t yet come up for a vote.
On Dec. 17, a related bill championed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene passed the House. The “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which has yet to be voted on in the Senate, would make it a federal crime to provide gender-affirming care to a minor.
“Every American needs to hear Chloe Cole’s story,” Greene wrote in a 2022 X post of a speech Cole gave about her experiences. “The gender clinic presented my parents with the classic false dichotomy: Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” Cole said.
At yesterday’s press conference, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary said that the notion that parents are putting their child at increased risk of suicide if they don’t consent to sex-rejecting procedures is a “baseless claim that has never been supported with good data.”
Bhattacharya agreed. He told the audience this true story:
“There was a researcher that the NIH funded that did a study to answer the question, was it more likely that a child who didn’t transition would commit suicide?
“That researcher found the answer was no, but because the researcher’s ideology was so enmeshed in this — because if the answer is no, that means she might get canceled — she refused to release the study.”
The NIH obtained the researcher’s data and made it available for other researchers to work with, Bhattacharya said.
Makary also shared that the FDA will issue warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers that are illegally marketing breast binders to kids as a treatment for gender dysphoria.
Breast binders are a “class one medical device” usually used by women after breast cancer surgery, he said. Using them long-term can have negative effects, including pain, compromised lung function, lung collapse and difficulty breastfeeding.
“The warning letters will formally notify the companies of their significant regulatory violations and how they should take prompt corrective action,” Makary 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.
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From the Archives
The 9/11 “Double-Cross” Conspiracy Theory
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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