COVID Vaccines Linked to 113% Higher Risk of Underactive Thyroid
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 19, 2025
People who received COVID-19 mRNA vaccines had a 113% higher risk of hypothyroidism and a 16% greater risk of hyperthyroidism, according to a study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
The six co-authors of the study — four from institutions in Taiwan, one from China and one from the U.S. — performed a retrospective cohort study to compare the risk of thyroid dysfunction among a “large cohort” of people who received COVID-19 shots and among the unvaccinated.
According to the study, reports on long-term thyroid dysfunction following COVID-19 vaccination were limited. “Understanding the risk of subacute thyroiditis, hyperthyroidism, and hypothyroidism in vaccinated individuals is crucial for post-vaccination monitoring,” the study noted.
The study used two equal-sized samples of 1,166,748 people each. The people in one sample received COVID-19 vaccines, while those in the other sample did not. Subacute thyroiditis, hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism were the primary outcomes the study examined.
Patient data were derived from a database managed by TriNetX, a provider of “real-world data for the life sciences and healthcare.”
According to the results, the vaccinated had a 30% higher risk of being diagnosed with hypothyroidism 12 months following their vaccination. Those who received COVID-19 mRNA vaccines had a 113% higher risk of hypothyroidism 12 months after getting the vaccine.
There was no significant difference in hyperthyroidism among the vaccinated and unvaccinated samples after 12 months. However, people who received an mRNA COVID-19 versus another type of COVID-19 vaccine had a 16% higher risk of hyperthyroidism 12 months after their vaccination.
Hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid, is a condition that occurs when the thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroid hormone. It can lead to symptoms including a slowed heart rate, muscle weakness, weight gain, depression and memory problems.
Hyperthyroidism refers to an overactive thyroid, which can lead to overproduction of the thyroid hormone. Symptoms include a fast or irregular heartbeat, heart palpitations, tremors, fatigue, swelling, unintentional weight loss and changes in menstrual cycles.
The risk of subacute thyroiditis — an immune reaction of the thyroid gland often accompanied by an upper respiratory infection — remained unchanged in both groups after 12 months.
Results contradict findings of prior studies with shorter monitoring periods
The study’s results highlight “the need for ongoing thyroid function monitoring,” the authors said.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense (CHD), called the study’s results “earth-rattling.” Jablonowski said they contradict the findings of two previous studies, which found no link between COVID-19 vaccines and thyroid disease.
According to Jablonowski, those two studies also used large samples but employed much shorter monitoring periods — less than two months — compared to the new study’s 12-month monitoring period.
Jablonowski said:
“This paper stands as a warning to endocrinologists ‘highlighting the need for ongoing thyroid function monitoring’ for the vaccinated. For the greater scientific and medical communities the authors demonstrate that two months of observation … is insufficient for vaccine safety evaluation.”
A meta-analysis published in May 2024 identified a link between COVID-19 vaccines and thyroid-related autoimmune diseases.
Epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher said the results of the new study raise “serious concerns” about the safety of mRNA shots and confirm the growing number of studies linking the products to serious adverse events and death.
“Recently, a study found that COVID-19 vaccination doubles the risk of post-COVID death in the long-term,” Hulscher said.
Hulscher suggested that the new leadership of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “should initiate more large-scale studies comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations to identify other serious long-term health risks.”
Last week, the U.S. Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary. During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy pledged that HHS would emphasize “good science” and “gold standard” scientific research.
Following his confirmation, Kennedy told Fox News he would seek to implement a better vaccine injury surveillance system. On Tuesday, during his first address to HHS staff, Kennedy pledged to subject potential causes of chronic disease — including vaccines — to “unbiased scientific investigation.”
Some U.S. states and at least one country — Slovakia — are considering proposed legislation or policy recommendations to ban mRNA shots, on the basis of their health risks.
A growing number of medical organizations and scientists have publicly supported a ban or moratorium on mRNA products.
Related articles in The Defender
- COVID Vaccines May Cause Thyroid-related Autoimmune Diseases
- RFK Jr.: HHS Will Investigate All Possible Causes of Chronic Disease — Including Vaccines
- ‘We Will Do That Right Away’: RFK Jr. Promises Better Vaccine Injury Tracking, as White House Launches MAHA Commission
- Kentucky, Montana, Idaho Among States Looking to Ban mRNA Vaccines
- RFK Jr. Pushes Back on Chronic Disease, Autism and Agency Corruption
- Kennedy Calls for ‘Radical Transparency’ at Government Health Agencies, as Sanders Demands CHD Stop Selling Onesies
- ‘Truth Is Becoming More Obvious’: Author of New Peer-reviewed Study Calls for Moratorium on COVID mRNA Vaccines
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.
NATO to expand military pipelines in Eastern Europe – Spiegel
The bloc supposedly plans to extend pipelines from Germany to Poland and the Czech Republic for rapid jet fuel supply in potential war with Russia
RT | February 22, 2025
NATO is supposedly set to extend its Cold War-era fuel pipeline system from western Germany into Poland and the Czech Republic, according to Der Spiegel citing an internal memo from the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces. The move comes as the bloc makes “operational plans for a possible Russian attack on the eastern states”, the newspaper wrote on Friday.
NATO’s Central European Pipeline System was built in the late 1950s and was designed “to meet operational needs in central Europe in times of peace, crisis and conflict.” It transported large volumes of kerosene, gasoline, and diesel fuel through Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and was also used by the United States.
The plans include “storing fuel as far east as possible near the potential area of operations,” according to an internal memo. Now the fuel distribution is limited to NATO’s eastern flank, the existing pipeline network currently ends in western Germany.
The project is to cost €21 billion ($22 billion) and is expected to be largely completed by 2035, according to the report. Germany is ready to contribute more than €3.5 billion ($3,7 billion) to the project, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told Der Spiegel. “For our soldiers, a reliable fuel supply is one of the essential requirements for their operational readiness,” he added.
A senior NATO official told Der Spiegel that while ammunition and spare parts could be airlifted, fuel transport by plane would be nearly impossible due to “immense consumption”. He told Der Spiegel there are “significant problems in the sustainable supply of fuel to the forces that would have to be relocated to the eastern border if necessary”. “The demand is gigantic,” the official claimed.
However, some factors could delay construction and increase costs, Der Spiegel added. The pipeline is to be laid under several rivers, including the Weser and Elbe, that should be “protected from possible accidents”.
In addition, there might appear “land issues” with the authorities and land owners that should be “clarified”, the newspaper wrote.
Russia has repeatedly argued that the Ukraine conflict was provoked by NATO expansion towards its borders, Kiev’s aspirations to join the US-led military alliance, and Ukraine’s policies toward the Russian-speaking Donbass region. Western officials have suggested that Russia could pose a threat to NATO amid the Ukraine conflict, but Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed these claims as ‘nonsense,’ arguing they are used to justify Western military spending.
In December 2024, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov stated that Russia must be prepared for any scenario, including a possible military conflict with NATO in Europe within the next decade.
Petroleum demand will rise despite push for renewables: OPEC chief
Press TV – February 22, 2025
Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) says that petroleum demand will continue to increase in the coming decades despite a global move toward renewable energies.
In an interview with the Iranian Oil Ministry’s news service Shana, published on Saturday, Haitham al-Ghais said that the OPEC believes that oil and gas will continue to be the key element in the global energy trends even after 2050, the year in which many countries have pledged to phase out the use of fossil fuels as part of the so-called net zero campaign.
Ghais said that demand for oil and gas will fall in Europe in the coming decades while it will remain almost flat in the United States.
However, he said that the rest of the world will see a rise in petroleum demand as many countries in Asia and Africa will need hydrocarbon resources to meet their economic growth targets.
“… the unrealistic sense that was given to people about oil demand dropping by 75 million barrels per day by 2050, which we believe is really unrealistic,” he said.
The OPEC chief said that some European governments that are seriously opposed to the increasing consumption of fossil fuels have resumed using oil, gas and even coal to respond to their energy needs.
“… we believe that the problem is the net zero scenario, and it is quite dangerous actually, because it has, unfortunately, caused many governments to be misled into putting into place policies that have become much more expensive for their consumers.
Electronic Intifada director’s violent arrest and MI6 infiltration into ‘neutral’ Switzerland
By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | February 22, 2025
On January 25th, prominent Palestinian-American journalist and activist Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website, was violently arrested by undercover operatives in Switzerland, en route to a speaking event.
He proceeded to spend three days and two nights in jail completely cut off from the outside world, during which he was interrogated by local defense ministry intelligence apparatchiks without access to a lawyer or even being informed why he was being imprisoned.
Abunimah was then deported in the manner of a dangerous, violent criminal.
Abunimah’s ordeal caused widespread outcry, not least due to Switzerland being the oldest ‘neutral’ state in the world. Such is Bern’s apparently indomitable commitment to this principle, that it initially refused to join the UN lest its neutrality be compromised, only becoming a member in September 2022, following a public referendum.
Moreover, the country routinely scores highly – if not highest – in Western human rights rankings, and has provided a safe haven for foreign journalists and human rights activists fleeing repression.
Abunimah’s flagrantly political persecution and ruthless treatment, undoubtedly motivated by his indefatigable solidarity with Palestine, stands at total odds with Swiss neutrality.
So too Bern’s secret, little-known involvement in Operation Gladio. Under the auspices of this monstrous Cold War connivance, the CIA and MI6 constructed underground shadow armies of fascist paramilitaries that wreaked havoc across Europe, carrying out false flag terror attacks, robberies, and assassinations to discredit the left, install right-wing governments, and justify crackdowns on dissent.
Switzerland’s Gladio unit was known as Projekt-26, the numerals referring to the country’s separate cantons. Its existence was uncovered in November 1990, as a result of an unrelated Swiss parliamentary investigation triggered months earlier.
This probe was launched after it was revealed local security services had kept detailed secret files on 900,000 citizens, almost one-seventh of the country’s total population, throughout the Cold War.
The inquiry found during the same period, P-26 operated “outside political control”, and specifically targeted “domestic subversion”. Its membership ran to around 400, with “most” being “experts” in “weapons, telecommunications and psychological warfare.”
The unit moreover “maintained a network of mostly underground installations throughout Switzerland,” and was commanded by “a private citizen who could mobilize the force without consulting [the] army or government.”
Parliamentarians also concluded that P-26 “cooperated with an unidentified NATO country.”
It was some time before that “NATO country” was confirmed to be Britain. Subsequent investigations shed significant light on London’s mephitic relationship with P-26, and the unit’s role within the wider Operation Gladio conspiracy.
Much remains unknown about the extent of its activities, and will most certainly never emerge. But while P-26 was officially disbanded after its public exposure, the recent persecution of Abunimah strongly suggests MI6 continues to exert unseen influence over Switzerland’s politics, intelligence, military and security apparatus today.
‘A Scandal’
Discovery of P-26 prompted a dedicated inquiry into Switzerland’s “stay behind” network, overseen by local judge Pierre Cornu. It was not until April 2018 that a truncated version of his 100-page-long report was released, in French.
No English translation has emerged since, and a dedicated multi-page section on P-26’s relationship with US and British intelligence is wholly redacted.
Still, the report acknowledged the unit’s operatives were trained in Britain – Gladio’s secret “headquarters” – and remained in regular, covert contact with London’s embassy in Bern.
Oddly, a 13-page summary of Cornu’s report, published in September 1991, was far more revealing. It noted that British intelligence “collaborated closely” with P-26, “regularly” tutoring its militants in “combat, communications, and sabotage” on its home soil. British advisers – likely SAS fighters – also visited secret military sites in Switzerland.
Numerous formal agreements were signed between the clandestine organization and London, the last being inked in 1987. These covered training, and supply of weapons and other equipment.
Describing collaboration between British intelligence and P-26 as “intense”, the summary was deeply scathing of this cloak-and-dagger bond, describing it as wholly lacking “political or legal legitimacy” or oversight, and thus “intolerable” from a democratic perspective.
Until P-26’s November 1990 exposure, elected Swiss officials were purportedly completely unaware of the unit’s existence, let alone its operations. “It is alarming [MI6] knew more about P-26 than the Swiss government did,” the summary appraised.
P-26 was moreover backed by P-27, a private foreign-sponsored spying agency, partly funded by an elite Swiss army intelligence unit. The latter was responsible for monitoring and building up files on “suspect persons” within the country, including; “leftists”; “bill stickers”, Jehovah’s Witnesses, citizens with “abnormal tendencies”; and anti-nuclear demonstrators.
To what purpose this information was put isn’t clear. Many documents detailing the activities of both P-26 and P-27 and the pair’s coordination with British intelligence, apparently couldn’t be located while Cornu conducted his investigation.
Obfuscating the picture even further, in February 2018 it was confirmed 27 separate folders and dossiers amassed during Cornu’s probe had since mysteriously vanished.
Local suspicions this trove was deliberately misplaced or outright destroyed to prevent embarrassing disclosures about “neutral” Switzerland’s relationship with US and British intelligence, and NATO, emerging abound to this day.
At the time, Josef Lang, a left-leaning former Swiss lawmaker and historian, who had long called for the Cornu report to be released in unredacted form, declared:
“There are three possibilities: the papers were shredded, hidden, or lost, in that order of likelihood. But even if the most innocent option is the case, that’s also a scandal.”
‘Clandestine Networks’
The unsolved murder of Herbert Alboth amply reinforces the conclusion that shadowy elements within and without Switzerland were sure that certain facts about the country’s involvement with Operation Gladio would never be known.
A senior intelligence operative who commanded the “stay behind” unit during the early 1970s, in March 1990 Alboth secretly wrote to then-Defence Minister Kaspar Villiger, promising that “as an insider” he could reveal “the whole truth” about P-26. This was right when Swiss parliamentarians began investigating the secret maintenance of files on “subversives”.
Alboth never had an opportunity to testify. A month later, he was found dead in his Bern apartment, having been repeatedly stabbed in the stomach with his own military bayonet.
Contemporary media reports noted a series of indecipherable characters were scrawled on his chest in felt pen, leaving police “puzzled”.
Strewn around his home were photographs of senior P-26 members, “stay behind” training course documents, “exercise plans of a conspiratorial character,” and the names and addresses of fellow Swiss spies.
On November 22nd, 1990, one day after P-26 was formally dissolved, the European Parliament passed a resolution on Operation Gladio.
It called for the then-European Community, and all its member states, to conduct official investigations “into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned,” their involvement in “serious cases of terrorism and crime,” and “collusion” with Western spying agencies.
The resolution warned:
“These organizations operated and continue to operate completely outside the law since they are not subject to any parliamentary control and frequently those holding the highest government and constitutional posts are kept in the dark as to these matters… For over 40 years [Operation Gladio] has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO… Such clandestine networks may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states or may still do so.”
Yet, outside formal inquiries in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, nothing of substance subsequently materialized. Today, we are left to ponder whether Gladio’s constellation of European “stay behind” armies was ever truly demobilized, and if British intelligence still directs the activities of foreign security and spying agencies under the noses of elected governments.
Given London’s intimate, active complicity in the Gaza genocide and ever-ratcheting war on Palestine solidarity at home, Abunimah is an obvious target for the MI6 spy agency.
So too Richard Medhurst, a British-born, Vienna-residing independent journalist arrested upon arrival at London’s Heathrow airport in August 2024 on uncertain “counter-terror” charges.
On February 3rd, Austrian police and intelligence operatives ransacked his home and studio, confiscating many of his possessions, including all his journalistic materials and tools, before detaining and questioning him for hours.
Believing this to be no coincidence, Medhurst asked the officers if London had ordered the raid. An officer replied, “No, Britain doesn’t talk to us.”
Coincidentally, Austria is another ostensibly “neutral” country in which MI6 was embroiled in Operation Gladio. Following World War II, British intelligence armed and trained a local “stay behind” cell comprised of thousands of former SS personnel and Neo-Nazis.
Innocently named the Austrian Association of Hiking, Sports and Society, like its Swiss counterpart, the unit operated with such secrecy that “only very, very highly positioned politicians” were aware.
For his part, Medhurst is absolutely convinced London is behind his persecution:
“Some of these Austrian accusations are very similar to the British ones… I think it’s being coordinated with Britain… British police seized a Graphene OS device from me and [it’s] very unlikely they’d be able to crack it… I suppose that’s why Britain asked the Austrians to raid me, grab anything they could find and go on this massive fishing expedition,” he said.
“The warrant even mentions my arrest in London to try and bolster their case.”
US to propose own UN resolution on Russia-Ukraine conflict
Press TV – February 22, 2025
For the first time since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in 2022, the US has refused to cosponsor a United Nations General Assembly resolution put forward by Europe and Kiev, saying it will instead propose its own resolution.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on his X account that on February 24 (the anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war) his country will submit to the UNGA a resolution on the settlement of the issue.
“The US will propose to the United Nations a landmark resolution the entire UN membership should support in order to chart a path to peace.”
A statement from the US State Department attached to the announcement said that US President Donald Trump is seeking “a resolution to the conflict that would ensure long-term peace.”
According to the US State Department, the resolution is consistent with Trump’s position, and with the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes enshrined in the UN Charter.
According to media reports, the language of the resolution has been significantly softened towards Russia compared to the wording used in earlier documents.
For the first time since the start of the military operation, the resolution does not describe Russia as the original aggressor.
The text of the document expresses grief over the tragic conflict and calls for a speedy end to it.
It “reaffirms the urgent need to end the war this year and redouble diplomatic efforts to reduce the risks of further escalation and achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace on the Ukraine.”
In response to years of military and political provocations by the US and European countries, Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine in 2022.
Russia has managed to gain control of a fifth of Ukraine and has been slowly advancing in the east for months. Ukraine’s military, supported by the US and European countries, grapples with manpower shortages and tries to hold a chunk of territory in western Russia.
Russia has demanded an end to the West’s military and political provocations on its borders and Ukraine’s permanent neutrality under any peace deal. Ukraine on the other hand has demanded Russia’s withdrawal from the captured lands and wants NATO membership.
The End of College Vaccine Mandates
By Lucia Sinatra | Brownstone Institute | February 18, 2025
With one stroke of his pen, President Trump accomplished what we have been fighting for over the last 4 years – an end to college and university Covid-19 vaccine mandates. He signed an executive order to halt federal funding to all schools, including colleges and universities, that still impose Covid-19 vaccine mandates on students. While there are only 15 colleges and universities left mandating these shots, the magnitude of his message to higher education leaders should not be underestimated.
Covid-19 vaccine mandates on healthy young adults were never based on scientific data or sound reasoning, but they were harshly implemented nonetheless. These policies coerced a captive population of students to choose between abandonment of their college programs and dreams for the future or complying with decisions over bodily autonomy made by the “experts.”
Beginning in the spring of 2021, colleges and universities mandated students to take shots that never protected against infection or transmission of Covid-19. These mandates were imposed with the mantra that injections were the best way to “protect our community” from severe illness and death – a claim that proved false by the summer of 2021 just prior to mandated compliance for fall 2021 enrollment.
In fact, colleges that never had Covid-19 vaccine mandates had less infections and have no recorded history of severe illnesses or death among their campus communities as compared to colleges that did. It was easy to analyze these data using the colleges’ own Covid infection and vaccination rate dashboards until most of them scrubbed the dashboards from their college websites.
Over 1,000 colleges announced Covid vaccine mandates by the summer of 2021. After a concerted campaign by No College Mandates and other advocacy groups, by the spring of 2022, colleges had slowly begun dropping them. By the summer of 2023, very few colleges imposed the mandates on faculty and staff, but students were still required to comply.
Until this executive order, which tasked our new Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to develop a plan to end these coercive policies, our nation’s entire academic apparatus seemed perfectly fine with the continued application of these mandates on students. For example, at CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Cal Poly Humboldt, only residential students are required to show proof of Covid vaccination prior to enrollment. At Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges only students are required to take Covid vaccines. No other members of the college community must comply.
Coercive and mandatory policies such as these alerted many of us to the fact that student health was not at the forefront of administrators’ concerns. Somehow, they perpetuated the draconian notion that only students were to blame for spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus and that only students must comply to put an end to the pandemic. College leaders knew such strategies were incoherent and illogical, yet they persisted almost entirely unchallenged.
From the very start, many of us lost trust in the hypocrisy of such inconsistencies. It was downright crazy for students to have to put up with such nonsense and risk injury from taking novel and needless medical treatments in the name of “protecting the community.” This is why we refused to stop shining a light on the injustice of it all.
It is with deep gratitude to President Trump and his team for keeping his promise and ending all federal funding to colleges and universities that continue these unnecessary and dangerous Covid-19 vaccine policies. There was zero science or reasoning to support them, and this new executive order might just prevent similar dictates from ever happening again.
But our work is far from done.
Healthcare students are still being forced to choose between their dreams and their autonomy to access hospitals and clinical facilities. To graduate, healthcare students must complete their clinical rotations, and hospitals and clinical facilities have required that these students take updated Covid vaccines even when faculty and staff no longer must comply. There is zero rationale for this patently retaliatory discrepancy.
In Florida, it is against the law for any “a business entity [to] require any person to provide any documentation certifying vaccination…or postinfection recovery from COVID-19, or require a COVID-19 test, to gain access to, entry upon, or service from the business operations in this state or as a condition of contracting, hiring, promotion, or continued employment with the business entity.”
When I called the University of Florida Nursing Program a few weeks ago, however, I was told students are required to receive updated Covid vaccines to complete clinical programs with some providers. Making matters worse, some colleges smugly refuse to disclose these requirements to prospective or even enrolled students, often leaving them to learn about them in the final year of their program.
Ironically, but perhaps not unexpectedly, UF Nursing posted on X just last week that there is a nationwide nursing shortage including in the State of Florida. It blows my mind that those who determine policies affecting the training of our nation’s nurses were somehow unaware that their coercive and nonsensical policies would likely lead to such shortages. After No College Mandates drew attention to this on X, UF Nursing deleted the post.
In Montana, there is a similar problem. Montana law prohibits discrimination based on Covid vaccine status yet the Emergency Medical Technician program at Helena College still requires students to take Covid vaccines to enroll.
I have reached out to representatives in both states to report the college programs that are not following state law because if there is anything I have learned over the past several years, colleges and universities will get away with these discriminatory and punitive policies for as long as they can until someone steps in to put an end to them.
It is uncertain what will happen to healthcare majors whose colleges and universities no longer require injections to enroll but whose clinical partner assignments are still requiring them to complete clinical rotations to graduate. So, while President Trump took a huge step forward to end federal funding to colleges and universities that perpetuate unscientific and unreasonable Covid vaccination, it is not nearly enough to end the coercive policies at partner facilities when the unreasonable and unconstitutional mandates remain for many healthcare students who need to complete clinical rotations at those facilities.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention that there are legislative efforts in at least 9 states* to completely ban mRNA shots. Such efforts promise to stop remaining Covid vaccine mandates dead in their tracks. Until we see those efforts make more progress, we will keep pressuring healthcare programs to end partnerships with hospitals and clinics when those facilities require students to receive Covid injections, and we will keep working with state representatives to hold clinical partners accountable for refusing to follow state law.
It is long overdue that our nation’s healthcare academies leave our healthcare students alone to make their own private decisions over what medical measures to take so they can pursue their dreams and help heal our very sick nation.
*On February 15, 2024, the Idaho Senate blocked the vote to ban mRNA vaccines so as of right now Bill S1036 is dead, and Idaho should no longer be on the map of 9 states.
Lucia Sinatra is a recovering corporate securities attorney. After becoming a mother, Lucia turned her attention to fighting inequities in public schools in California for students with learning disabilities. She co-founded NoCollegeMandates.com to help fight college vaccine mandates.
New HHS Secretary Curtails US Government Role as Drug Promoter
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | February 21, 2025
It has been commonplace for so long that most Americans cannot remember a time before the United States government was out running public relations campaigns urging Americans to take this or that vaccine or other pharmaceutical industry product. Now, an early action by new US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suggests this practice may be coming to an end.
Helen Branswell reported Thursday at STAT News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “was ordered to shelve promotions it developed for a variety of vaccines, including a ‘Wild to Mild’ advertising campaign urging people to get vaccinated against flu” and that the CDC was informed that Kennedy “wanted advertisements that promote the idea of ‘informed consent’ in vaccine decision-making instead.”
What a major change — a transition from being a pharmaceutical company product promoter to being a promoter of, as Branswell describes informed consent in her article, “the principle that people should be notified of all the risks, as well as benefits, of any medical intervention they receive or any drug they are prescribed.”
This is a good early step by Kennedy. It clarifies a new orientation placing focus on advancing information and choice instead of pushing product. If Kennedy continues on this course, he can accomplish major advancement for health and freedom in America as his appointment suggested would be possible.
VP JD Vance Criticizes European Censorship, Calls for Free Speech as Basis for US-Europe Alliances at CPAC
Vance warns European allies that censorship threatens the foundation of Western alliances
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | February 21, 2025
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance sharpened his criticism of America’s European allies while issuing a strong warning against censorship. His speech, which kicked off the three-day gathering, echoed the assertive stance he took at the Munich Security Conference last week.
Vance took aim at one of America’s closest international partners, highlighting growing ideological rifts over free speech. He criticized restrictive online censorship laws in the European Union, arguing that such measures could drive a wedge between the US and its allies under President Trump’s leadership.
“We’re going to continue to have important alliances with Europe, but I really do think the strength of those alliances is going to depend on whether we take our societies in the right direction,” Vance stated.
“You have to allow free speech to debate this stuff,” Vance declared, emphasizing the importance of open discussion on controversial issues, particularly immigration. “You have to stop doing things to the populations of the world. You’ve gotta give the populations of the world the opportunity to speak up and say, no more of this BS.”
The Vice President did not hold back in his criticism of the previous US administration, stating, “The Biden administration did more to destroy free speech, not just in the United States, but also in Europe, than any administration in American history.”
Vance also took direct aim at Germany, highlighting the contradiction of American taxpayers funding the country’s defense while its government cracks down on free expression. “Germany’s entire defense is subsidized by the American taxpayer,” he said. “Do you think the American taxpayer is gonna stand for that if you get thrown in jail in Germany for posting a mean tweet? Of course, they’re not.”
The Vice President framed his argument in terms of shared values, asserting that true alliances are built on a foundation of democratic freedoms. “You do not have shared values if you’re jailing people for saying we should close down our border,” he warned. “You don’t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don’t like the result. You do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up.”
His message resonated with conservative leaders attending CPAC’s international summit, where discussions focused on resisting censorship and preserving national sovereignty.
Vance closed with a call for unity among Western nations based on principles of democracy and free speech. “Let’s have shared values. Let’s defend democracy. Let’s have free expression, not just in the United States, but all over the Western world. That is the path to strong alliances in Europe.” His words were met with enthusiastic applause from the CPAC audience.
Covert Crusade: Washington’s $600m digital war on Iran
By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | February 21, 2025
Earlier this month, The Cradle exposed how in 2023, the US State Department’s shadowy Near East Regional Democracy (NERD) fund earmarked $55 million to stoke unrest in Iran during the following year’s elections.
This was part of a wider US campaign of interference designed to disrupt and destabilize the Islamic Republic. As that investigation noted, details on where this money goes – and who benefits – are strictly confidential as a matter of policy. Still, there are clues in the public domain pointing to at least some recipients.
Regime change by another name
As a US Congressional Research Service report records, due to hostile US–Iran relations, and Tehran’s well-founded view of NERD “as a means of financing regime change,” its programs rely on “third-country training” as well as “online training and media content.”
The report further confirms that despite NERD being Washington’s primary “foreign assistance channel” for projects targeting Iran, “activities, grantees, [and] beneficiaries” are not advertised “due to the security risks posed by the Iranian government.” It continues:
“NERD was created in 2009 as a ‘line item for Iran democracy’ but was not (and is still not) technically Iran-specific … For 2024, the Biden Administration requested $65 million for NERD … to ‘foster a vibrant civil society, increase the free flow of information, and promote the exercise of human rights,’ including at least $16.75 million for internet freedom.”
What was unstated in the report is that NERD represents a simple rebranding of the Iran Democracy Fund, created by former president George W. Bush in 2006 with the explicit goal of toppling the Islamic Republic.
The initiative was ostensibly shut down under Barack Obama three years later, eliciting bitter condemnation from much of the western media, neoconservative pundits, and lawmakers. However, as the BBC acknowledged at the time, the move was in fact “welcomed by Iranian human rights and pro-democracy activists”:
“These US funds are going to people who have very little to do with the real struggle for democracy in Iran and our civil society activists never received such funds,” a Tehran-based human rights lawyer told the British state broadcaster. “The end to this program will have no impact on our activities whatsoever.”
Internet interference
In reality, the program never ended – it was merely repackaged. White House officials maintained the fiction that NERD was focused on democratization rather than regime change, a claim undermined by a June 2011 New York Times exposé.
That investigation revealed the Obama administration’s so-called “Internet Freedom” initiative aimed to “deploy ‘shadow’ internet and mobile phone systems dissidents can use to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria, and Libya.”
In other words, Washington sought to build a covert legion of regime change operatives in Tehran, and provide them with the technology to coordinate in secret. It is clear from the Congressional report’s marked reference to “internet freedom” that these machinations continue today.
Moreover, as a 2020 report by the DC-based Project on Middle East Democracy noted, organizations genuinely committed to advancing Iranian rights still steer well clear of NERD. An anonymous NGO worker described its “style” as “aggressive.” Another implied NERD is engaged in deeply dirty work:
“We choose not to apply for NERD grants because we do not want to get pulled into [anything] crazy.”
‘Non-Iranian’
The same year, the Financial Times (FT) reported how NERD efforts had become turbocharged under US President Donald Trump’s administration, explicitly to facilitate and encourage “anti-Tehran protests.”
This included “providing apps, servers, and other technology to help people communicate, visit banned websites, install anti-tracking software,” and more in the Islamic Republic, in order to offer “Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other and the outside world.”
Curiously, while portraying Iran as a digital prison, the FT admitted that major western social networks remain accessible in the country, and Iranians can easily view western media. As usual, recipients of NERD funds remained unnamed – except for Psiphon, a VPN provider long-associated with discredited exiled Iranian opposition figures and, by then, controlled by the Open Technology Fund (OTF). The FT estimated that just three million Iranians used Psiphon, less than four percent of the population.
OTF was an “Internet Freedom” product – one of its board members has openly admitted the Fund’s agenda is “regime change.”
Fast forward to September 2024; as former US president Joe Biden’s administration was seeking increased funds for NERD – mere months after the $55 million invested the previous year failed to produce desired mass unrest and upheaval around that year’s elections in Iran – a White House meeting was convened with major tech giants, encouraging them to offer more “digital bandwidth” for OTF-bankrolled apps and tools.
As fund chief Laura Cunningham explained, a “sizeable chunk” of OTF’s budget was taken up by the cost of hosting all the network traffic generated by its vast array of digital destabilization apps, which included Signal and Tor.
While OTF sought to support “additional users” of these products, it lacked resources to keep up with “surging demand.” What came of this meeting, which was attended by representatives of Amazon, Cloudflare, Google, and Microsoft, is not clear.
Yet, if further “digital bandwidth” was granted to OTF, it is clear the Trump administration’s “pause” in overseas aid funding has thrown all NERD’s meddling efforts in Iran into total – and potentially permanent – disarray.
A 27 January report in the Saudi-funded, anti-Islamic Republic Iran International quoted numerous anonymous beneficiaries of US financing bemoaning how grantees, including foreign-run Persian-language media outlets and organizations documenting purported “abuses” to keep the Islamic Republic “accountable,” had been abruptly shuttered.
An anonymous “human rights activist” told the outlet Washington’s freeze on aid spending “(will) impose restrictions on projects that address human rights violations or investigate governmental and military corruption which have impacted Iran’s economy and social conditions in favor of foreign terrorist activities and money laundering.”
They said “several non-Iranian American institutions [emphasis added] have been using these funds to investigate corruption and money laundering.” Now though, “these organizations will be forced to halt their activities.”
‘Severe implications’
US-supplied Virtual Private Network (VPN) services also loomed large among the malign resources impacted by the aid “pause.” A nameless “activist” told Iran International that 20 million Iranians used such tools “to bypass Tehran’s internet curbs.”
The outlet further quoted an article published by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a US-funded NGO not based in the Islamic Republic, but Virginia, near the CIA’s Langley headquarters: “In today’s Iran, the internet has no meaning without VPNs.”
Such dire warnings were echoed by Ahmad Ahmadian, head of California-based tech firm Holistic Resilience, which “aims to advance internet freedom and privacy by developing and researching censorship circumvention.”
An Iranian expat and alumni of Tehran University, Ahmadian warned major US tech firms “may not be willing or able to continue their support for providing anti-censorship tools” without government support. Such remarks highlight how these supposedly popular resources lack grassroots backing or financing, being wholly dependent on Washington’s sponsorship to operate:
“The leadership of the US government has been crucial in urging big tech companies to provide public services. Without the encouragement of the US government, these companies wouldn’t take the initiative on their own.”
Other unnamed activists further warned Iran International, “the consequences of Trump’s executive order will not remain limited to internet censorship circumvention tools.” They believe that if NERD’s activities “do not receive an exemption within the next month” – by the end of February – “they will either collapse entirely or be deeply curtailed.”
One declared, “the impact of this freeze might not be immediately noticeable, but its severe implications will become evident over time.”
Meanwhile, “internet experts” cautioned that “even if US aid starts again” after the 90-day pause, “the damage is irreversible since many people … might never fully return to using US-backed secure services.”
As The Cradle noted on 11 February, Washington’s forced withdrawal from meddling in Iran could create fresh opportunities for genuine diplomatic engagement between the two long-time adversaries. But another possibility looms: after spending $600 million over a decade with little success, the US may simply be preparing to test out new, potentially more malign regime-change strategies.
