“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” - Plato
Seeking Truth in a World of Propaganda. Links do not necessarily indicate agreement with stories or perspectives.
It would be naive to think that the FDA endeavors to protect the public’s health as its primary focus. Indeed, that would be a conflict of interest, as it serves its master, the pharmaceutical industry. Has the Food and Drug Administration engineered a shortage of intravenous vitamin C as part of an overall attack on natural and non-toxic approaches to healing that compete with prescription drugs? An analysis by Natural Blaze would suggest that the answer is yes.
Witness statements and reports which conflict with the Canadian government’s account of what occurred during the tragic January 29th, 2017 Quebec terror attack at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City raise questions about what actually happened the night of the tragedy. The evidence indicates that contrary to the official narrative, there was more than one gunman and multiple weapons were captured in the possession of arrestees. Media outlets also were so eager to claim the incident was caused by white supremacists that they were fooled into reporting false information from parody news accounts on twitter.
I. Multiple Media Sources Cited Witness Statements Claiming There Were Multiple Gunmen, Number Of Weapons Seized Inconsistent With "Lone Wolf" Narrative
The Canadian government’s claims that the Quebec shooting was a "lone wolf" incident is not consistent with multiple media reports and witness statements that there were at least two gunmen participating in the incident. Canadian news source Le Soleil reported that “at least one gunman” participated in the attack. A witness told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that they saw two masked gunmen enter the building, shout the Takbir (Islamic phrase “Allahu akbar” which means “God is great” in Arabic) and open fire on worshippers. The Sun also ran a statement from a 22 year old student named Abdi, who was reading the Koran with his friends at the time of the attack. Abdi similarly said he was convinced he had seen two attackers and that they shouted the Takbir before opening fire. Reuters also ran an additional report citing another witness statement which said that three attackers had taken part in the incident.
Additionally, the number of weapons reported as having been captured indicates that there was likely more than one attacker. Daily Mail mentioned that weapons captured included an AK-47 assault rifle and two other rifles of unidentified make. The Telegraph also listed two rifles and a handgun as having been confiscated. Both accounts indicate that the number of arms captured are more than could be used by one attacker. Additionally, the multitude of weapons are strange when considered in the context of witness statements which specifically mention that the attackers reloaded several times. This would have been unnecessary in a situation where a lone gunman was using multiple weapons.
The witness statements which established that two or more attackers participated in the Quebec mosque shooting and the accounts about the large number of weapons captured are not consistent with the Canadian government’s position that the attack was perpetrated by one single attacker.
II. The Canadian Government Censored News Outlets Amid Confusion Over Second Suspect’s Identity
There was immediate confusion online over the true identities of the attackers. An unverified post to Reddit claimed that citizens listening to police scanners picked up chatter indicating that two of the suspects were Syrian refugees who had entered the country last week. That report was not corroborated by any official news sources. Fox News also ran a report stating that one of the suspects arrested was of Moroccan origin. The Moroccan suspect was confirmed by the Toronto Metro as being a local university student by the name of Mohamed el-Khadir.
In the aftermath of the report by Fox, Justin Trudeau's office personally intervened and pressured Fox News to retract their statement about the ethnicity of the Mohamed el-Khadir. While official denials of false information by government offices are standard, it is not common to actively intervene and raises questions about the motives behind Trudeau’s desire to limit public access to this information. The Canadian authorities now insist that el-Khadir was a witness and not a suspect. Information that the shooters were Islamic would have been a major embarrassment to Trudeau, who had only days before stated on Twitter that Canada would accept immigrants fleeing "persecution, terror & war."
III. Media Outlets Published False Information Indicating The Attackers Were White Supremacists
Media outlets were so eager to paint the incident as a terror attack by white supremacists that troll accounts on Twitter were able to fool them into running false information. The Daily Beast ran a story stating that two “white supremacists” named David M. J. Aurine and Mathieu Fornier had been arrested in connection with the attack. That information was immediately revealed to be false, and had come from a blatantly obvious Reuters parody account on Twitter. The Daily Best retracted the information and issued an apology.
Other news organizations were quick to note that the mosque had been the victim of an apparent hate incident where a pig’s head was left outside the door of the facility. No attention was given to the apparent efforts of the Canadian government to contradict the testimony of witnesses or push a “lone wolf” explanation for the incident.
IV. Canada's Government And Press Have Historically Minimized Islamic Terror Involvement In Crime
Canada has a history of covering up and minimizing criminal incidents where the identity of the suspects would be likely to generate resistance among Canadians to government initiatives and policies. On January 8th, 2016, two Islamic males were arrested for shooting up the Ten X nightclub in Calgary. The Canadian Broadcasting Company speculated that the shooting may have been connected to an earlier incident in the city where another man was injured in a drive by shooting. As is common in criminal cases, the victim refused to cooperate with authorities investigating the crime. Shockingly, the charges against the driver in the incident were stayed despite his involvement as an accessory to the crime.
In July 2016, Le Journal De Québec reported that a letter was distributed around the city warning that the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City was in league with the Muslim Brotherhood and was guilty of “crimes against humanity.” The letter was dismissed as “Islamaphobic” by the press despite an absolute lack of evidence about who had authored it. The authors were more than likely not white supremacists, as the letter denounced supposed links which the Muslim Brotherhood had to Adolf Hitler.
Incidents such as these demonstrate a clear lack of interest by the Canadian government and press in acknowledging or investigating potential involvement of Islamic terrorism in organized crime. In January 2017, Disobedient Media reported on studies indicating that ISIS is using its involvement with international crime syndicates to move operatives and command figures from battlefields in the Middle East to the Western Hemisphere. The insistence of the Canadian government that the Quebec mosque shooting was perpetuated by a "lone wolf" stands in opposition to statements made by eyewitnesses at the event and information about the number of weapons confiscated by police after the tragedy. It also raises broader questions about Justin Trudeau's determination to prioritize the safety of the Canadian people.
This article was originally posted to www.disobedientmedia.com
(Japan Times) The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor 2 at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant has reached a maximum of 530 sieverts per hour, the highest since the triple core meltdown in March 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. said Thursday.
The reading means a person could die from even brief exposure, highlighting the difficulties ahead as the government and Tepco grope their way toward dismantling all three reactors that suffered core meltdowns in the March 2011 disaster.
Tepco also announced that, based on image analysis, it has discovered a 2-meter hole in the metal grating beneath the pressure vessel inside reactor 2’s containment vessel, and discovered a portion of it is warped.
More Americans Doubt the 9/11 Official Story Than Believe It
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/09/12/new-poll-finds-most-americans-open-alternative-911/
The post More Americans Doubt the 9/11 Official Story Than Believe It appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.
Big banks paid tens of billions of dollars in fines for alleged fraud and misrepresentation after the U.S. mortgage crisis. But not one top banker has been indicted or gone to prison. Some call it The Immaculate Corruption. Sunday on Full Measure, I’ll investigate why the Congressionally-appointed panel convened to look into the crisis sealed its records — and what was in them. A former top Citigroup executive-turned-whistleblower, Richard Bowen, helps us navigate through the paperwork.
Former Citigroup executive-turned-whistleblower Richard Bowen
Back in 2005, I broke the news about a possible link between Viagra and blindness. This week, I speak to the eye doctor who was the first to publicize the issue, Dr. Howard Pomeranz, for an update.
Dr. Howard Pomeranz
I’ll also speak to the architect of the plan to withhold funding from sanctuary cities, Congressman John Culberson.
Congressman John Culberson (R-Texas)
And Scott Thuman reports from a restaurant in Russia — on Obamapizza.
Support #originalreporting. Watch us each Sunday on TV or online.
The War Against Ordinary Americans
Paul Craig Roberts
The Saker is a level-headed person. I take it seriously when he spells out the threat to Trump’s presidency presented by the paradoxical alliance of the ruling oligarchs with what purports to be the “liberal/progressive/left.” It is amazing that the “liberal/progressive/left” are aligned with war and not with peace and are aligned with the OnePercent against the working class, whom they despise as “Trump deplorables.”
The Saker believes that Trump is under serious threat of being overthrown and that he must strike first or go down. http://www.unz.com/tsaker/a-color-revolution-is-under-way-in-the-united-states/
As my readers are highly intelligent, I am not surprised that some of them have arrived at the same conclusion as The Saker. Here is what one had to say:
I am totally astounded by the madness–even at formerly reasonable left-liberal websites. Alternet is one big hysteria factory. Although Counterpunch has had good articles by Mike Whitney, you (I presume, since I read your articles on your website), Diana Johnstone and a few others, I can’t believe how they’ve jumped in, too. I’ve been reading CP since the beginning of the newsletter in the 90s. Until this year, they were (after yours) my go-to website when I turned the computer on. I can’t believe they have a new article titled “Beyond Resistance – Defeating Trump’s Burgeoning Dictatorship”. And another: “Democracy in Exile and the Curse of Totalitarianism”. And another: “Muslim Bans, White Supremacy and Fascism in Our Time”. Patrick Cockburn has an article titled: “Trump’s Muslim Ban Will Only Spark More Terrorist Attacks”. Even the World Socialist Website has gone bananas.
Almost all of the German left-mainstream sites have gone insane. On the one hand, it seems like almost every protest group, in the end, has a source of money from Soros. On the other, it seems like 40% of the population must have been put through an MK-Ultra program. How could such mass hysteria otherwise be produced?
This is the level of argument with which protesters oppose Trump’s presidency: http://ijr.com/2017/01/790842-protester-calls-on-crowd-to-start-killing-people-wait-till-you-find-out-what-she-does-for-a-living/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=morning-newsletter&utm_medium=owned
Readers share my amazement that there are large numbers of people so stupid as to think that a ban on Muslim immigrants is far worse than murdering Muslims in seven countries for fifteen years. Bush and Obama conducted genocide against Muslims over the course of four presidential terms, and no protesters sought their impeachment for what are most certainly war crimes and crimes against humanity. But Trump’s perfectly legal immigration action is alleged to be grounds for impeachment!
The protesters are completely nonsensical, so much so that it must be an orchestration. As the protesting websites, if not all of the protesters in the streets, accept the 9/11 storyline and the hoax “war on terror” that the storyline justifies, it follows logically that Muslims, already “terrorists” by definition (just ask the neoconservatives and Israel), fleeing their death and destruction by Washington might harbor thoughts of harm to Americans. Considering the ruling storyline, to let them in would be irresponsible.
But not to the protesters. It wasn’t the killing of their families and destruction of their homes and counries that might make Muslims into terrorists. It is banning them from entry as refugees that turns them into terrorists!
Try to imagine the absurdity of political leadership in the US and Europe during the 21st century. Western governments inflicted so much death and destruction that they created millions of Muslim refugees in order to accept as immigrants peoples who might harbor thoughts of revenge.
Are we to conclude that there is no such thing in the US and Europe as a liberal/progressive/left, only Soros-funded protesters for hire, as in the orchestrated Maiden protests in Kiev and today in Macedonia and Hungary?
Correct or not, this is the conclusion of many.
Illegitimate protests discredit all protests. Could we be witnessing the ruling oligarchy using its pawns to discredit in advance valid protests at the time when they move to reassert their control?
An astute citizen of Hungary sees similarity between the protests against Trump in the US and the Soros-orchestrated protests against the government of Hungary:
Dear Dr. Roberts, Being the citizen of Hungary, a country heavily infested by Soros-financed NGO’s, and with a government that is openly anti-Soros, it breaks my heart to see the USA in a situation very much like what we have had to put up with since 2010, the year when Viktor Orban won a two-thirds majority, which he won again in 2014. Today, there is one piece of experience that is, I think, crucial for us, Hungarians, to share with the USA. It is this: nothing is sacred or too dear for Soros, his NGO’s and associates of all stripes in their fight for power. This has been a concept quite hard to come to terms with for many of us in Hungary. They will sacrifice the country, the future, the people, they will sacrifice anything, just to (re-)gain power. As I follow news from the USA, I see photos of crowds that appear to be filled with hatred. They are like the (fortunately quite diminished) crowds paraded around by the Hungarian opposition parties, who like to call themselves “democratic” as opposed to the government elected to office by the people, which they refer to as “fascist, nazi, anti-democratic, anti-semitic” etc. These crowds are the embodiment of hypocrisy. Chanting slogans of “love”, they act out of pure hatred, for power, and refuse to be reasoned with. They refuse to consider facts. They call themselves liberals, but act against liberty through exercising total intolerance. I assume that the people who voted for President Trump are patriotic. If my assumption is correct, this also means that it will take quite some time, until the reality sinks in that Soros, his NGO’s and allies will trample down, unhesitatingly, the nation and the empire that they seek to rule unchallenged. This is because they do notrule for the people. They need the power to be in the position to exploit the nation and the empire, for their own benefit. This is not an easy thought to come to terms with for a patriot. The sooner the US electorate understands this, the more resistant it can become against the propaganda campaign and high visibility demonstrations so happily covered by the mainstream media. It is important to keep in mind that the room to maneuver President Trump has is directly proportionate to the popular supporthe enjoys, at any given time. Dr. Roberts, thank you for all your valuable work invested into making the world a better – and safer – place, for the benefit of all Mankind. Kind regards, Anita
The post The War Against Ordinary Americans — Paul Craig Roberts appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”
-Ayn Rand
The torch has been passed to a new president.
All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush - to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability - have been inherited by Donald Trump.
Whatever kind of president Trump chooses to be, he now has the power to completely alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.
He has this power because every successive occupant of the Oval Office has been allowed to expand the reach and power of the presidency through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements that can be activated by any sitting president.
Those of us who saw this eventuality coming have been warning for years about the growing danger of the Executive Branch with its presidential toolbox of terror that could be used—and abused—by future presidents.
The groundwork, we warned, was being laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the president—or whoever happens to be occupying the Oval Office at the time—thinks. And if he or she thinks you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides. In effect, you will disappear.
Our warnings went largely unheeded.
First, we sounded the alarm over George W. Bush’s attempts to gut the Constitution, suspend habeas corpus, carry out warrantless surveillance on Americans, and generally undermine the Fourth Amendment, but the Republicans didn’t want to listen because Bush was a Republican.
Then we sounded the alarm over Barack Obama’s prosecution of whistleblowers, targeted drone killings, assassinations of American citizens, mass surveillance, and militarization of the police, but the Democrats didn’t want to listen because Obama was a Democrat and he talked a really good game.
It well may be that by the time Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—stop playing partisan games and start putting some safeguards in place, it will be too late.
Already, Donald Trump has indicated that he will pick up where his predecessors left off: he will continue to wage war, he will continue to federalize the police, and he will operate as if the Constitution does not apply to him.
Still, as tempting as it may be, don’t blame Donald Trump for what is to come.
If this nation eventually locks down... If Americans are rounded up and detained based on the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, or their political views... If law-and-order takes precedence over constitutional principles...
If martial law is eventually declared... If we find that there really is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from the surveillance state’s prying eyes and ears... And if our constitutional republic finally plunges headlong over the cliff and leaves us in the iron grip of totalitarianism...
Please, resist the urge to lay all the blame at Trump’s feet.
After all, President Trump didn’t create the police state.
He merely inherited it.
Frankly, there’s more than enough blame to go around.
So blame Obama. Blame Bush. Blame Bill Clinton.
Blame the Republicans and Democrats who justified every power grab, every expansion of presidential powers, and every attack on the Constitution as long as it was a member of their own party leading the charge.
Blame Congress for being a weak, inept body that spends more time running for office and pandering to the interests of the monied elite than representing the citizenry.
Blame the courts for caring more about order than justice, and for failing to hold government officials accountable to the rule of law.
Blame Corporate America for taking control of the government and calling the shots behind the scenes.
Most of all, blame the American people for not having objected louder, sooner and more vehemently when Barack Obama, George W. Bush and their predecessors laid the groundwork for this state of tyranny.
But wait, you say.
Americans are mobilizing. They are engaged. They are actively expressing their discontent with the government. They are demanding change. They are marching in the streets, picketing, protesting and engaging in acts of civil disobedience.
This is a good development, right? Isn’t this what we’ve been calling on Americans to do for so long: stand up and push back and say “enough is enough”?
Perhaps you’re right.
Perhaps Americans have finally had enough. At least, some Americans have finally had enough.
That is to say, some Americans have finally had enough of certain government practices that are illegal, immoral and inhumane.
Although, to be quite fair, it might be more accurate to state that some Americans have finally had enough of certain government practices that are illegal, immoral and inhumane provided that the ruling political party responsible for those actions is not their own.
Yes, that sounds about right. Except that it’s all wrong.
We still haven’t learned a thing.
Imagine: after more than eight years in which Americans remained largely silent while the United States military (directed by the Obama Administration) bombed parts of the Middle East to smithereens—dropping nearly three bombs an hour, and left a trail of innocent civilian deaths in its wake—suddenly, Americans are outraged by programs introduced by the Trump Administration that could discriminate against Muslim refugees. Never mind that we’ve been killing those same refugees for close to a decade.
Certainly, there was little outcry when the U.S. military under Obama carried out an air strike against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan. Doctors, patients—including children—and staff members were killed or wounded. There were also no protests when the Obama Administration targeted Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen in Yemen, for assassination by drone strike. The man was killed without ever having been charged with a crime. Two weeks later, Obama—the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize—authorized another drone strike that killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, also an American citizen.
Most recently, picking up where President Obama left off, President Trump personally authorized a commando raid on a compound in Yemen suspected of harboring Al Qaeda officials. Among those killed were “at least eight women and seven children, ages 3 to 13,” including Nora, the 8-year-old sister of the teenager killed by Obama years before.
Likewise, while most Americans failed to show much opposition to the government’s disregard for Americans’ bodily integrity, shrugging their collective shoulders dismissively over reports of their fellow citizens being subjected Americans to roadside strip searches, virtual strip searches, cavity searches and other equally denigrating acts, hundreds of thousands mobilized to protest policies that could be advanced by the Trump administration that might demean or deny equal rights to individuals based on their gender or orientation or take away their reproductive planning choices. Similarly, while tens of thousands have gathered annually for a March for Life to oppose abortion, many of those same marchers seem to have no qualms about the government’s practice of shooting unarmed citizens and executing innocent ones.
This begs the question: what are Americans really protesting? Is it politics or principle?
Or is it just Trump?
For instance, in the midst of the uproar over Trump’s appointment of Steven Bannon to the National Security Council, his detractors have accused Bannon of being a propagandist nationalist, and a white supremacist. Yet not one objection has been raised about the fact that the National Security Council authorizes secret, legal, targeted killings of American citizens (and others) without due process, a practice frequently employed by Obama.
The message coming across loud and clear: it’s fine for the government to carry out secret, targeted assassinations of American citizens without due process as long as the individuals advising the president aren’t Neo-Nazis.
Of course, this national hypocrisy goes both ways.
Conveniently, many of the same individuals who raised concerns over Obama’s “lawless” use of executive orders to sidestep Congress have defended Trump’s executive orders as “taking us back to the Constitution.” And those who sounded the alarm over the dangers of the American police state have gone curiously silent in the face of Trump’s pledge to put an end to “the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America.”
We can’t have it both ways.
As long as we continue to put our politics ahead of our principles—moral, legal and constitutional—“we the people” will lose.
And you know who will keep winning by playing on our prejudices, capitalizing on our fears, deepening our distrust of our fellow citizens, and dividing us into polarized, warring camps incapable of finding consensus on the one true menace that is an immediate threat to all of our freedoms? The U.S. government.
In her essay on “The Nature of Government,” Ayn Rand explains that the only “proper” purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights. She continues: “The source of the government’s authority is ‘the consent of the governed.’ This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose.”
When we lose sight of this true purpose of government—to protect our rights—and fail to keep the government in its place as our servant, we allow the government to overstep its bounds and become a tyrant that rules by brute force.
As Rand explains:
Instead of being a protector of man’s rights, the government is becoming their most dangerous violator; instead of guarding freedom, the government is establishing slavery; instead of protecting men from the initiators of physical force, the government is initiating physical force and coercion in any manner and issue it pleases; instead of serving as the instrument of objectivity in human relationships, the government is creating a deadly, subterranean reign of uncertainty and fear, by means of nonobjective laws whose interpretation is left to the arbitrary decisions of random bureaucrats; instead of protecting men from injury by whim, the government is arrogating to itself the power of unlimited whim—so that we are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Rule by brute force.
That’s about as good a description as you’ll find for the sorry state of our republic.
SWAT teams crashing through doors. Militarized police shooting unarmed citizens. Traffic cops tasering old men and pregnant women for not complying fast enough with an order. Resource officers shackling children for acting like children. Citizens being jailed for growing vegetable gardens in their front yards and holding prayer services in their backyards. Drivers having their cash seized under the pretext that they might have done something wrong.
The list of abuses being perpetrated against the American people by their government is growing rapidly.
We are approaching critical mass.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it may already be too late to save our republic. We have passed the point of easy fixes. When the government and its agents no longer respect the rule of law—the Constitution—or believe that it applies to them, then the very contract on which this relationship is based becomes invalid.
So what is the answer?
Look to the past if you want to understand the future.
Too often, we look to the past to understand how tyrants come to power: the rise and fall of the Roman Empire; Hitler’s transformation of Germany into a Nazi state; the witch hunt tactics of the McCarthy Era.
Yet the past—especially our own American history—also teaches us valuable lessons about the quest for freedom. Here’s Rand again:
A free society—like any other human product—cannot be achieved by random means, by mere wishing or by the leaders’ “good intentions.” A complex legal system, based on objectively valid principles, is required to make a society free and to keep it free-a system that does not depend on the motives, the moral character or the intentions of any given official, a system that leaves no opportunity, no legal loophole for the development of tyranny. The American system of checks and balances was just such an achievement. And although certain contradictions in the Constitution did leave a loophole for the growth of statism, the incomparable achievement was the concept of a constitution as a means of limiting and restricting the power of the government. Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals—that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government—that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens’ protection against the government.
You want to save America? Then stop thinking like Republicans and Democrats and start acting like Americans.
The only thing that will save us now is a concerted, collective commitment to the Constitution’s principles of limited government, a system of checks and balances, and a recognition that they—the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the police, the technocrats and plutocrats and bureaucrats—work for us.
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(Natural News) It would be naive to think that the FDA endeavors to protect the public’s health as its primary focus. Indeed, that would be a conflict of interest, as it serves its master, the pharmaceutical industry. Has the Food and Drug Administration engineered a shortage of intravenous vitamin C as part of an overall... |
If ever there was a more pertinent threat to individual liberty and the God-given freedom of parents to care for their children how they best see fit, it is the entity known as “Child Protective Services” (CPS), which all across the country has ripped apart the lives of thousands of families. But an Arkansas family that was victimized by the shady and thoroughly corrupt CPS agency in their home state could soon see justice if a landmark lawsuit they recently filed is successful.
A little over two years ago, Hal Stanley and his wife Michelle learned the hard way about how CPS views parents who defy the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) pharmaceutical mandate for treating sick children. When the couple was found to be harboring a dietary supplement known as miracle mineral solution, or MMS, in their home — MMS is not FDA-approved — armed law enforcement and CPS officials raided the home and kidnapped seven of the family’s home-schooled children.
For no other reason than simply to punish the family for possessing a substance that is known to cure serious conditions like AIDS and cancer — because the FDA hates natural cures, after all — state officials abducted the Stanley children at gunpoint and illegally held them for months on frivolous charges, this being the subject of the new lawsuit.
“At issue are allegations that the government agents violated several Constitutional rights, such as due process, familial association, and unlawful seizure, based on the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and that those involved with taking the children lied to the court, fabricated evidence, and suppressed exculpatory evidence,” reports Health Impact News.
A full report by Health Impact News on what happened to the Stanleys are where they are today is accessible HealthImpactNews.com.
It is almost unfathomable to believe that such a scenario can even occur in the “land of the free,” but it happens all the time. In this case, the Stanleys did absolutely nothing other than raise their children mostly off the grid and mind their own business — which often makes one a target in a country like the U.S. that demands total compliance with pharmaceutical, vaccine, and other mandates. (RELATED: Visit Resist.news for daily updates on resisting government tyranny.)
While the Stanleys’ lawsuit stands a real chance at success, it is an uphill battle because the state of Arkansas refuses to relent or admit that it violated the law and committed egregious acts against this innocent family. The state has endless millions to apparently waste on trying to defend itself in court, but the Stanleys’ funds are limited.
This Christian family has been through so much trying to escape the clutches of an out-of-control government apparatus that is shamelessly eager to persecute anyone who veers too far from the fold of politically-correct living and beliefs. They need our help to fight the state and win this victory, which is why they have set up a fundraising page called “But We See Jesus” to see justice served.
“We are seeking redress because we are entitled under the law,” the family’s attorney, Joe Churchwell, wrote in a recent letter. “We will be seeking injunctive relief to force the government to recognize the Bill of Rights.”
“We’re not doing this because we want to or because we think we’re going to get rich,” the letter adds. “This isn’t simply a lawsuit, this is one part of the campaign for accountability and one step in the journey to take back our families’ right to be families.”
Stay informed about the rising police state at Police State News.
Sources for this article include:
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
The mindlessness is unbearable.
Amnesty International tells us that we must “fight the Muslim ban” because Trump’s bigotry is wrecking lives.
Anthony Dimaggio at CounterPunch says Trump should be impeached because his Islamophobia is a threat to the Constitution.
This is not to single out these two as the mindlessness is everywhere among those whose worldview is defined by Identity Politics.
One might think that Amnesty International should be fighting against the Bush/Cheney/Obama regime wars that have produced the refugees by killing and displacing millions of Muslims. For example, the ongoing war that Obama inflicted on Yemen results in the death of one Yemeni child every 10 minutes, according to UNICEF. Where is Amnesty International?
Clearly America’s wars on Muslims wreck far more lives than Trump’s ban on immigrants. Why the focus on an immigration ban and not on wars that produce refugees? Is it because Obama is responsible for war and Trump for the ban? Is the liberal/progressive/left projecting Obama’s monstrous crimes onto Trump? Is it that we must hate Trump and not Obama?
Immigration is not a right protected by the US Constitution. Where was Dimaggio when in the name of “the war on terror” the Bush/Obama regime destroyed the civil liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution? If Dimaggio is an American citizen, he should try immigrating to the UK, Germany, or France and see how far he gets.
The easiest and surest way for the Trump administration to stop the refugee problem, not only for the US but also for Europe and the West in general, is to stop the wars against Muslim countries that his predecessors started. The enormous sums of money squandered on gratuitous wars could instead be given to the countries that the US and NATO have destroyed. The simplest way to end the refugee problem is to stop producing refugees. This should be the focus of Trump, Amnesty, and Dimaggio.
Is everyone too busy hating to do anything sensible?
It is very disturbing that the liberal/progressive/left prefers to oppose Trump than to oppose war. Indeed, they want a war on Trump. How does this differ from the Bush/Obama war on Muslims?
The liberal/progressive/left is demonstrating a mindless hatred of the American people and the President that the people chose. This mindless hatred can achieve nothing but the discrediting of an alternative voice and the opening of the future to the least attractive elements of the right-wing.
The liberal/progressive/left will end up discrediting all critics, thereby empowering those to whom the liberal/progressive/left are most opposed.
By Dr. Mercola
In the wake of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. telling reporters that President Trump asked him to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity, the media is angling to shame and ridicule vaccine safety and informed consent proponents, be they physicians, scientists or parents with the ability to read and think for themselves.
Although Kennedy's appointment has not been confirmed yet by the Trump administration, The Atlantic has gone so far as to suggest that a "shadow network of anti-vax doctors" is being emboldened by questions and concerns the new president has voiced about vaccine safety.1
Like Kennedy and many other critics of vaccine science and policy, President Trump has been outspoken about his suspicions that vaccines and vaccine policies may not be nearly as safe as they're portrayed, and that the science is far from settled.
Meanwhile, Kennedy recently co-wrote an article in which he released documents revealing that officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "knew that infant vaccines were exposing American children to mercury far in excess of all federal safety guidelines since 1999."2
Recent reports also reveal that medical treatment guidelines are frequently influenced by drug industry ties,3 and scientific "citation cartels" are gaming the system by repeatedly citing each other's work,4 thereby making their studies appear more noteworthy and establishing what amounts to a false base of research that becomes difficult to overturn by independent researchers.
In all, there can be little doubt that the drug industry is getting anxious and this is why the heat is being turned up against anyone daring to question the status quo on vaccines.
Clearly, having an open discussion about vaccine safety means opening the door to doubt, and this is something the drug industry simply cannot afford. Meanwhile, avoiding the discussion is something parents, and the health care system as a whole, can no longer afford.
Not surprisingly, The Atlantic and other media outlets have published diatribes attacking President Trump and his staff for meeting with not only Kennedy, but also Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist.
In 1998 Wakefield and 12 colleagues published a case series paper in The Lancet, reporting that parents of 9 of 12 children they'd seen for chronic gastrointestinal symptoms told them that their children's symptoms had begun soon after getting the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.
A case series paper is different from a control study in that it simply describes experiences of a single patient or group of patients with a similar diagnosis. As Wakefield points out in his book, "Callous Disregard," the purpose of a case series paper is to "generate new hypotheses."
It is not supposed to suggest or investigate possible causality — and Wakefield's paper did not make any causal claims. Rather, he and his colleagues concluded:5
"We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immun[iz]ation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.
The world didn't read it that way, however, and the paper was retracted after generating massive international controversy and denials by public health officials and doctors giving vaccines to children.
According to Science Magazine, Trump met with Wakefield and three other vaccine safety activists in August, 2016:6
"Trump chatted with a group of donors that included four antivaccine activists for 45 minutes, according to accounts of the meeting, and promised to watch "Vaxxed," an antivaccine documentary produced by Wakefield …
Trump also expressed an interest in holding future meetings with the activists, according to participants."
Such meetings and discussions are being widely criticized as completely unnecessary and evidence of ignorance and anti-science heresy by anyone involved, on par with believing that the Earth is flat. As noted by The Atlantic:7
"… [M]ost mainstream doctors say the vaccine question is beyond settled: Vaccines are some of the safest and most important preventive-health measures around. There is no evidence they cause autism or any other health problem …
What's more, unvaccinated people don't just threaten their own health. Outbreaks are more likely to occur during dips in the percentage of a population that's immune … A high vaccine uptake rate protects the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike."
The Atlantic goes on to discuss the importance of herd immunity, noting that "not one child under the age of 1 died from the chicken pox between 2004 and 2007, even though the chicken pox vaccine is not given to children that young. They simply benefited from the so-called "herd immunity" of older kids who were vaccinated."
What the writer, Olga Khazan, fails to address is the fact that herd immunity doesn't work the same way for immunizations as it does for naturally-acquired immunity resulting from exposure to, and recovery from, illness.
To understand the difference between natural immunity versus vaccine-induced immunity, please see the video below.
Khazan also makes no effort to explain how the majority of outbreaks occur in areas that are thought to HAVE herd immunity status already, i.e., where the majority of people are fully vaccinated and "should" therefore protect the entire community from infection and transmission of infection.
In his article, Kennedy claims that documentation8 obtained via FOIA proves the FDA and CDC knew childhood vaccines were overexposing children to mercury, which is a well-known potent neurotoxin.
Part of the FDA Modernization Act, passed by Congress in 1997, required the FDA to compile a list of pharmaceutical products that contain mercury.
More than 30 FDA licensed inactivated vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, ended up on this list and included DPT/DTaP, HIB and hepatitis vaccines routinely given to babies between day of birth and 18 months old.
The FDA was also charged with conducting a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the mercury compounds on the list. This responsibility fell on the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER).
Prior to this, no one had ever added up the cumulative mercury exposure resulting from thimerosal-containing infant vaccines. According to Kennedy:9
"When the agency finally performed that basic calculation, the regulators realized that a [6]-month-old infant who received thimerosal-preserved vaccines following the recommended CDC vaccine schedule would have received a jaw dropping 187.5 micrograms of mercury.
Instead of immediately ordering the removal of thimerosal, FDA officials circled the wagons treating the public health emergency as a public relations problem. Peter Patriarca, then director of the FDA Division of Viral Products, warned his fellow bureaucrats that hasty removal of thimerosal from vaccines would:
'… raise questions about FDA being 'asleep at the switch' for decades by allowing a potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products.
It will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use. We must keep in mind that the dose of ethylmercury was not generated by "rocket science."
Conversion of the percentage thimerosal to actual micrograms of mercury involves ninth grade algebra. What took the FDA so long to do the calculations? Why didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?'
Dr. Barry Rumack was one of the consultants hired by the FDA to delve deeper into the cumulative mercury exposure problem from vaccines given to babies in the first few years of life. In 1999, Rumack presented a model of the mercury blood-and-body burden associated with childhood vaccines, showing that:
"… [T]himerosal-containing vaccines was dosing American children with mercury levels far exceeding all three federal safety guidelines established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), FDA and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)," Kennedy writes.
"There was no point in time from birth to approximately 16-18 months of age that infants were below the EPA guidelines for allowable mercury exposure. In fact, according to the models, blood-and-body burden levels of mercury peaked at [6] months of age at a shockingly high level of 120ng/liter. To put this in perspective, the CDC classifies mercury poisoning as blood levels of mercury greater than 10 ng/L."
With the certain knowledge that infants were being exposed to unacceptably high mercury burdens through vaccines, what the FDA did next is unforgivable.
The agency that is supposed to protect the public from unsafe pharmaceutical products concealed these alarming findings about "bolus" (large amount) mercury exposures to infants receiving multiple thimerosal-containing vaccines simultaneously by using a statistical trick in which they simply averaged the mercury exposure over a period of six months.
In reality, the bolus mercury exposures via multiple vaccines given on a single day occurred at four specific times during the first year of a child's life: at birth, and at 2, 4 and 6 months of age. By averaging the exposures over the full six months, the spikes in mercury on the four days of vaccination disappeared. According to Kennedy:
"An analogy would be to compare taking two Tylenol tablets a day for a month to taking 60 Tylenol tablets in one day; the first exposure is acceptable, while the other is lethal."
Using this statistical trickery, mercury levels from childhood vaccinations ended up being lower than FDA and ATSDR guidelines, leading the Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics to report that:
"There is a significant safety margin incorporated into all the acceptable mercury exposure limits. Furthermore, there are no data or evidence of any harm caused by the level of exposure that some children may have encountered in following the existing immunization schedule. Infants and children who have received thimerosal-containing vaccines do not need to be tested for mercury exposure."
It would seem the last sentence was added as a protective buffer to prevent people from actually conducting further testing of actual mercury levels in children following repeated injections with mercury-containing vaccines in the first few years of life.
Remarkably, even with this statistical trick, "The levels were still above EPA guidelines which were the most stringent of the three," Kennedy writes,10 adding that "Numerous toxicologists have reported that the FDA's calculation, averaging these high bolus dose exposures, was not appropriate." Moreover, it appears the FDA may have misguided the pediatrician, Dr. Leslie Ball, assigned to oversee the public reporting of the ATSDR results.
According to Kennedy, Ball was unfamiliar with toxicology and, when confronted about the statistical manipulation, she replied that she was basically just following orders, saying, "That is what I was told to do." Email correspondence from 1999 shows that even Ball herself questioned the rationale behind averaging the exposures. In a July, 1999 email to Norman Baylor, Ph.D., director of the Office of Vaccines Research Review, marked "confidential," Ball asked:11
"Has the application of these calculations as exposure guidelines received the sign off by toxicologists? In prior discussions, the toxicologists seemed reluctant to state any Hg (mercury) level was 'safe.'"
Kennedy has also reported that the CDC owns more than 20 different vaccine patents and sells $4.1 billion in vaccines each year, noting that those patents create a significant undisclosed conflict of interest when it comes to the agency's involvement in vaccine safety.12
Mark Blaxill, who specializes in intellectual property law, in 2010 wrote about the fact that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), holds patent rights to the HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix, and receives a percentage of the profits from the administration of these vaccines on a global scale.13
In a recently released report, Ginger Taylor, M.S., director of the Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice, lists the human vaccine-related patents held by the CDC, which currently total 27, plus another five patents for veterinary vaccines.14 (For links to the actual patents, please see the reference hyperlink to the original report.)
"Does this seem like a public health agency making "independent" vaccine recommendations, or a private company with an impressive portfolio to which one might look for investment opportunities?" she writes.15 Yet, "Nowhere on the CDC's website can I find the disclosure that the agency is a profit partner with the vaccine makers for whom it is supposed to be providing safety oversight.
Kennedy is in very safe territory by reporting that the CDC has over 20 patents that create vast, undisclosed conflicts of interests in vaccine safety. He is understating the problem by more than half … The vaccine business is currently a $30 billion per year industry … the World Health Organization … project[s] that it will become a $100 billion per year industry by 2025.
Thus, it is evident that the CDC and their business partners need the public to not only be [OK] with the 69 doses of recommended childhood vaccines, but to begin to adhere to the additional 100-plus doses of vaccines recommended by the new adult schedule, and to be ready to inject their families with the additional 271 vaccines in the development pipeline.
That profit boom can't happen if the corruption in the industry, and the vast, unassessed damage that it has done to the health of children (and now adults) is laid open for all to finally see.
The $30 billion per year industry will become a sub $10 billion per year industry, with a cap on how much it can make. Because there is a cap on how much the human body can process. We must continue to press the Trump administration for comprehensive vaccine safety review and reform, including the universal right to forgo any and all vaccines without coercion."
Back in 2008, veteran CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson asked the question in her investigative report, "How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?" She found extensive financial ties between vaccine manufacturers and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Every Child by Two (ECBT) and Merck vaccine developer Paul Offit.16 The AAP, ECBT and Offit all lobby for elimination of vaccine exemptions for religious, conscientious or philosophical beliefs.
The CDC is also a primary funding source for the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO),17 an organization whose mission "is to be a leader, partner, catalyst and voice for local health departments." While its name and mission statement would make you think it's a member-funded organization, it actually operates primarily on government grants, and the CDC is a primary source. Seven of 11 funding priorities for NACCHO programs also come from the CDC.
In July, 2011, NACCHO issued a policy statement urging state legislators to remove vaccine exemptions for religious, conscientious and philosophical beliefs.18 During the 2013 fight in the Oregon state legislature to eliminate the religious belief vaccine exemption (S.B. 132), NACCHO heavily lobbied for the bill and did it again in 2015 with another bill to eliminate all but medical vaccine exemptions granted by a doctor (SB442).
In fact, NACCHO was portrayed as a primary supporter of the bill,19 and also has put its weight behind eliminating personal belief vaccine exemptions in other states.
Moreover, NACCHO policies not only favor mandatory use of vaccines from cradle to grave, but also support the creation of national electronic registries of the vaccination status of all citizens, including adults. It's worth noting that in addition to the 69 doses of vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule, the CDC recommends no less than 72 vaccinations between the ages of 19 and 65 for adults.
It would appear as though NACHHO is little more than a front group for the CDC, and through use of federal tax dollars, the CDC is actively undermining vaccine exemptions and civil liberties, including freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief. Could one reason be because the CDC is an agency that is financially profiting from promoting mandatory vaccination policies and laws?
Again, in reality, the CDC is hardly an impartial agency, and it does not appear to have safety at the core of its operation when it comes to vaccines. Rather it seems to be an integral part of the vaccine industry machine.
Another front group for the vaccine industry — and the CDC — is Voices for Vaccines, which "advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease." Its administrators are portrayed as two concerned mothers, who founded the blog Moms Who Vax. However, Voices for Vaccines is actually an "administrative project" of the Task Force for Global Health, the third largest charity in the U.S., which has deep ties to CDC and pharmaceutical industry funding.
A 2013 article by News from Underground explained that the Scientific Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines includes Merck vaccine developers and mandatory vaccination proponents Paul Offit and Stanley Plotkin; former CDC immunization director Alan Hinman, who is an Emory University professor and heads the Center for Vaccine Equity at the Task Force for Global Health; Vanderbilt professor William Schaffner; and director of the Immunization Action Coalition, Deborah Wexler. The Immunization Action Coalition is funded by pharmaceutical companies through the CDC Foundation.20
In 2014, the online blog VacTruth also detailed the many connections between Voices for Vaccines, the Task Force for Global Health, Emory University, the CDC, vaccine makers and other pro-vaccine organizations and promoters, including Dr. Paul Offit.21
The Atlantic may want you to think there's a shadow network of anti-vaccine doctors out there, determined to undermine the health of the world. But it's ironic, considering that, in reality, there is a vast, undisclosed, yet well-documented pharma-driven network using every propaganda tactic in the book to squash freedom of thought and speech about vaccination — all in the name of protecting profits.
Not surprisingly, corporate media pundits are all too willing to point out how many minutes President Trump might have spent face-to-face with Andrew Wakefield, a physician they did everything in their power to discredit, and the influence he might have on the president. However, they rarely, if ever, talk about the extraordinary conflicts of interest of another physician, Paul Offit, who is one of the most prominent vaccine propagandists typically cited by the media whenever vaccine safety questions arise.
As noted by Taylor, Offit has asserted that "holding vaccine patents, being funded by Merck and having Merck buy and distribute, to physicians, his book extolling the virtues of vaccines, does not compromise his objectivity as a member of the committee that determines what is and is not sound vaccine practice."22 In one instance, Offit said:
"I am a co-holder of a patent for a (rotavirus) vaccine. If this vaccine were to become a routinely recommended vaccine, I would make money off of that. When I review safety data, am I biased? That answer is really easy: absolutely not."
Ironically, the corporate media are now alleging that Kennedy — who has been outspoken about the toxicity of mercury in vaccines and conflicts of interest within the vaccination system for the last decade — is so tremendously biased that he could not possibly contribute anything worthwhile to the discussion, while Offit, who has made a small fortune off his promotion of mandatory vaccine use, is presented as the non-conflicted, objective and most respected authority in the vaccine field.
How does that work? Offit's proclamations of impartiality are ludicrous in the extreme and so are media reports claiming anyone but doctors like Offit is too biased to lead an investigation on vaccine safety.
I've written about how industry money can taint recommendations by individuals and health organizations alike on many occasions, and now yet another study has confirmed the power and influence of funding. According to Susannah Rose, a social worker and scientific director of research for the Cleveland Clinic's office of patient experience in Ohio, who led the study:
"Relationships with industry might bias advice, and I don't think anyone is immune to that. If they're getting funding and advocating for certain medications, there's a potential for undue risk of influence."23
Her study found that more than 67 percent of 245 patient advocacy groups received industry funding in the past year, and evidence suggests the source of funding played a role in recommendations made by such organizations.
In a best-case scenario, we would have accurate information about vaccine side effects. Unfortunately, we do not, and this has seriously undermined efforts to push for greater vaccine safety. In a recent paper published in PLOS Medicine, Dr. Gordon Schiff discusses the need for better prescription drug adverse event reporting. While he does not single out vaccine reactions, there's cause to believe vaccine reactions are even more underreported than other drug reactions.
"While not a pediatrician, as a primary care physician and patient safety researcher I have spent considerable time both submitting and reviewing safety reports. At one point, I had filed more error and adverse drug reactions reports than all the other physicians at my public hospital in Chicago combined, making me either the institution's most dangerous prescriber or its most diligent reporter," he writes.
What he describes about underreporting of drug adverse events by physicians cuts to a core problem of vaccine safety. On the one hand, the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is specifically set up to record adverse events related to vaccines in the U.S. On the other hand, it's criticized as being unreliable due to severe underreporting.
The answer is obvious: insist on mandatory reporting. But that's not happening. On the contrary, there appears to be a concerted effort to control and manipulate statistics by discouraging and minimizing reports, effectively sweeping problems — no matter how severe or widespread — under the proverbial rug.
Parents of vaccine injured children were the ones who secured vaccine safety informing, recording and reporting provisions in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The law's vaccine reaction reporting requirement directed doctors and all vaccine providers to report adverse events following vaccination to VAERS, which is jointly operated by the CDC and the FDA.
This is NOT a prerequisite for the person making a vaccine reaction report to VAERS to personally make a judgment about whether or not he or she believes the adverse event was caused by the vaccination. Rather, a report is supposed to be filed for any and all hospitalizations, injuries, deaths and serious health problems following vaccination. Period. It's not up to the vaccine provider to decide whether a reaction is related to the vaccine or not.
Despite this legal requirement, most vaccine providers are unfamiliar with the reporting process, are confused about who should be doing the reporting, and/or are unwilling to file a report. Each year, VAERS receives about 30,000 reports, and studies into reporting habits suggest adverse reactions are only filed in 1 to 10 percent of all cases.24
In a 2015 article, an ER nurse and former police officer described his experiences with vaccine reactions. He said he's seen first-hand how many doctors not only refuse to report vaccine reactions, but actually go through extra trouble to cover them up by altering the medical records and removing mention of recent vaccinations.25,26
Meanwhile, recent research27 reveals that clinicians frequently overestimate benefits and underestimate harms of medical treatments, tests and screenings. When it comes to vaccines, there's little doubt the same pattern is to be found. According to the authors:
"In this systematic review of 48 studies (13, 011 clinicians), most participants correctly estimated 13 percent of the 69 harm expectation outcomes and 11 percent of the 28 benefit expectations. The majority of participants overestimated benefit for 32 percent of outcomes, underestimated benefit for 9 percent, underestimated harm for 34 percent, and overestimated harm for 5 percent of outcomes.
Meaning: Clinicians rarely had accurate expectations of benefits or harms, with inaccuracies in both directions, but more often underestimated harms and overestimated benefits … Inaccurate perceptions about the benefits and harms of interventions are likely to result in suboptimal clinical management choices."
To finish where I started, I believe it's imperative we start having an open public discussion about vaccine safety and conflicts of interest in the mandatory vaccination system. The industry does not have the right to shame doctors and patients for wanting to be safe rather than sorry.
The vaccine industry and the federal agencies charged with vaccine safety oversight are rife with conflicts of interest, as the National Vaccine Information Center and other individuals and organizations have pointed out over the past three decades.28,29 It's time to get to the bottom of it. Profit cannot be allowed to continue being the sole driving force of government health recommendations. Our society simply cannot afford to pay that price any longer.
The Forgotten History of Vaccinations You Need to Be Aware Of Vaccines — Are They Still Contributing to the Greater Good? Groundbreaking Study: Vaccines Cause Children More Adverse Reactions Than Any Other DrugBy Dr. Mercola
The rise of chronic metabolic disease in the U.S. follows the growth of the U.S. sugar industry and increases in per capita sugar consumption.
Today, we consume about 20 times more sugar than our ancestors did, and we have very little control over the amount since what was once a condiment has now become a dietary staple added to countless processed and fast foods.1
Yet, if you were to visit with a conventional nutritionist, you'd likely still hear rhetoric that's been parroted since the 1950s — incorrect and misleading rhetoric at that — that "a calorie is a calorie" and obesity is the result of consuming more calories than you expend.
Gary Taubes, co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative and the author of "The Case Against Sugar," wrote in The New York Times:2
"When it comes to weight gain, the sugar industry and purveyors of sugary beverages still insist, a calorie is a calorie, regardless of its source, so guidelines that single out sugar as a dietary evil are not evidence-based.
Surprisingly, the scientific consensus is technically in agreement. It holds that obesity is caused 'by a lack of energy balance … '"
Yet, as Taubes pointed out, researchers have known since the 1960s that your body metabolizes different types of carbohydrates, like glucose and fructose, in different ways, causing very different hormonal and physiological responses that absolutely may influence fat accumulation and metabolism.3
"In light of this research, arguing today that your body fat responds to everything you eat the exact same way is almost inconceivably naïve," Taubes said, "But don't blame the sugar industry for perpetuating this view. Blame the researchers and the nutrition authorities."4
Many conventional nutritionists are among the top supporters of the energy balance theory, which still suggests that weight gain is simply a matter of consuming more calories than you burn off.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is among those prominent government organizations still perpetuating this myth5 — alongside soda giants who obviously have a vested interest in keeping sugar's "OK-in-moderation" reputation.
In 2015, for instance, Coca-Cola Co. was outed for secretly funding and supporting the Global Energy Balance Network, a nonprofit front group that promoted exercise as the solution to obesity while significantly downplaying the role of diet and sugary beverages in the weight loss equation.6
Public health authorities accused the group of using tobacco-industry tactics to raise doubts about the health hazards of soda, and a letter signed by more than three dozen scientists said the group was spreading "scientific nonsense."7
By December 2015, the Global Energy Balance Network announced it would be shutting down, with Coca-Cola claiming it was working on increased transparency.
However, as reported by CrossFit bloggers Russell Berger and Russ Greene, the soda industry maintains many close ties with organizations that continue to promote the energy balance myth (and directly funds such organizations).8 Among them:
• The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), which was funded by Coca-Cola until 2015.
They also founded a program called "Energy Balance 4 Kids With Play" in partnership with the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF), "an industry organization representing Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, General Mills and other distributers of sugar-sweetened products."9
"The program promotes the concept of energy balance among children and parents through registered dietitians," Berger noted.10
• The International Food Information Council Foundation, which is funded by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, promotes the idea that "when it comes to weight management or weight loss, it's the total calories that matters most."
• The National Institutes of Health "We Can!" Campaign. Coca-Cola has channeled millions of dollars to the NIH Foundation. The campaign advises drinking soda only "once in a while" and suggests balancing out days when kids eat lots of high-sugar foods/drinks with more physical activity.
• The American College of Sports Medicine, which is also funded by Coca-Cola, suggests that while water should be your first choice of beverage, "there is no harm in drinking juice or even soda in moderation."
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which also receives funding from Coca-Cola via the CDC Foundation, also promotes "energy balance," assuring that: "Healthy eating is all about balance.
You can enjoy your favorite foods even if they are high in calories, fat or added sugars. The key is eating them only once in a while … "
While leveraging the energy balance theory via public health organizations, the soda industry also uses a variety of other smoke-and-mirrors tactics to distract the public from the true health risks of consuming sugary beverages.
One of their favorites is blaming obesity on lack of exercise and suggesting that you can somehow out-exercise the effects of a poor diet, which you cannot. Berger noted:11
"Perhaps the biggest trick of Big Soda nutrition science is to promote physical activity instead of fitness and weight loss. Weight loss and fitness require limiting the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Generic references to physical activity, however, may actually encourage the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, especially when the same organizations promote the idea of "earning" sugar by burning off additional calories through daily activity."
There are other stealthy tricks too, like industry-funded health organizations suggesting metabolic syndrome is the result of obesity and can be remedied with physical activity.
But independent studies have suggested insulin resistance, caused by overconsumption of sugars, especially fructose, may, in fact, be a primary cause behind metabolic syndrome.
For instance, a meta-review published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that once you reach 18 percent of your daily calories from added sugar, there's a two-fold increase in metabolic harm that promotes pre-diabetes and diabetes.12
Moreover, research suggests sugary beverages are to blame for about 183,000 deaths worldwide each year, including 133,000 diabetes deaths, 44,000 heart disease deaths, and 6,000 cancer deaths.
By focusing on obesity and physical activity, the soda industry very carefully avoids bringing attention to the role sugar and insulin resistance play in this increasingly common chronic condition.
Another common tactic, as Berger pointed out, is describing chronic disease and obesity as "complex" issues. While it's true that disease can be complex, the soda industry uses this term as a form of false nutritional propaganda. Berger wrote:13
"Big Soda speaks of the complexity of addressing and identifying the causes of chronic disease. The label of complexity rules out simple treatments like 'stop drinking sugar' and makes models of chronic disease based on overconsumption of sugar seem oversimplified and rash."
Dr. Timothy Noakes, is a professor of exercise science and sports medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and a long-time low-carb advocate.
He is perhaps best known for the book, "Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports," which suggests that overhydrating will actually worsen athletic performance, not improve it.
He also widely promotes a low-carb, high-fat diet, including for children. In 2014, he tweeted the recommendation that babies should be weaned onto low-carbohydrate diets — a far cry from the processed cereals most dieticians and pediatricians recommend.
The advice resulted in backlash from Claire Julsing Strydom, the president of South Africa's dietetics association, ADSA, (and also a consultant for Kellogg's) and others who reported him for "unprofessional conduct."
ADSA itself also has additional ties to cereal giant Kellogg's and reportedly gets more than one-third of its revenue from corporate sponsors such as Nestle, Unilver and Huletts Sugar.
South Africa's Health Professions Council (HPCSA) is reviewing whether to strip Noakes of his medical license, but there's much more to this story than meets the eye.
Greene uncovered an elaborate backstory that reveals the case against Noakes to be nothing more than a witch hunt aimed at protecting the interests of the junk food industry, which exerts major influence over South Africa's dietary guidelines. I will also be interviewing Noakes in April, so watch for what I'm sure will be a revealing interview in the months to come. In short, Greene reported:14
"To summarize: [A] former ILSI [International Life Sciences Institute, a Coca-Cola proxy organization] South Africa president convinced the HPCSA to charge Noakes, another former ILSI South Africa president testified as an expert witness against him, and an ILSI-funded researcher consulted for the legal team prosecuting him. And yet, not a single news story has connected ILSI to the Noakes trial.
… The HPCSA will release its final decision on Noakes on April 21, 2017. Noakes is cautiously optimistic. It seems unlikely that HPCSA will rule that his 2014 tweet constituted a doctor-patient relationship. Strydom herself has admitted that Noakes' tweet did not qualify as such a relationship.
The case against Noakes falls apart without that crucial element. Noakes even thinks it's possible that his 900 slides and 30-[plus] hours of testimony will convince South Africa to discard its industry-corrupted dietary guidelines. Perhaps."
Taubes' excellent book, "The Case Against Sugar," expertly documents sugar's link to chronic disease and much more, including whether sugar should more aptly be described as a drug instead of a food.
It doesn't cause the immediate symptoms of intoxication, like dizziness, staggering, slurring of speech or euphoria, associated with other "drugs," yet perhaps this only allowed its long-term medical consequences to go "unasked and unanswered." "Most of us today will never know if we suffer even subtle withdrawal symptoms from sugar, because we'll never go long enough without it to find out," Taubes wrote, continuing:15
"Sugar historians consider the drug comparison to be fitting in part because sugar is one of a handful of 'drug foods' … that came out of the tropics, and on which European empires were built from the 16th century onward — the others being tea, coffee, chocolate, rum and tobacco."
Interestingly, Taubes claims that sugar has likely killed more people than tobacco, and that tobacco wouldn't have killed as many people as it did without sugar. This is a fascinating story in and of itself, which Taubes details in greater depth in his book.
" … [S]ugar was, and still is, a critical ingredient in the American blended-tobacco cigarette, the first of which was Camel. It's this 'marriage of tobacco and sugar,' as a sugar-industry report described it in 1950, that makes for the 'mild' experience of smoking cigarettes as compared with cigars and, perhaps more important, makes it possible for most of us to inhale cigarette smoke and draw it deep into our lungs."16
It's also known that sugar induces similar responses in the "reward centers" of the human brain as other additive substances, like nicotine, cocaine, heroin and alcohol. The 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program even recommends consuming sweets in lieu of alcohol to ward off a craving for a drink.
Today, "Sugar has become an ingredient in prepared and packaged foods so ubiquitous it can only be avoided by concerted and determined effort," Taubes wrote, which is, of course, precisely the problem, especially as realization grows that simply "moderating" sugar may not be enough. Taubes continued:17
"The traditional response to the how-little-is-too-much question is that we should eat sugar in moderation — not eat too much of it. But we only know we're consuming too much when we're getting fatter or manifesting other symptoms of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome … Any discussion of how little sugar is too much also has to account for the possibility that sugar is a drug and perhaps addictive.
Trying to consume sugar in moderation, however it's defined, in a world in which substantial sugar consumption is the norm and virtually unavoidable, is likely to be no more successful for some of us than trying to smoke cigarettes in moderation — just a few a day, rather than a whole pack … If sugar consumption is a slippery slope, then advocating moderation is not a meaningful concept."
Once you understand the close ties between the soda and junk-food industries and public health organizations' dietary recommendations, it becomes clear that relying solely on them for nutritional advice puts your health at risk. And once you understand the health risks of sugar, including the fact that it's not an issue of extra calories but the kind of calories, it may motivate you to want to cut back, or eliminate, this substance from your diet and that of your children.
The bright side is that once you cut down on added sugars and other net carbs (total carbs minus fiber), which will allow your body to start burning fat as its primary fuel again, the sugar cravings will disappear and avoiding it won't feel like such a struggle. In the meantime, if a sugar craving strikes, fit in a quick workout, drink a cup of organic black coffee, or eat something sour (like fermented vegetables or lemon water). All can help you kick your sugar cravings to the curb.
"To the sugar industry, the nutritionists' dogmatic belief that obesity is a calorie overconsumption problem and a calorie is a calorie has been the gift that keeps on giving. So long as nutrition and obesity authorities insist that this is true, then the sugar industry can rightfully defend its product on the basis that the calories from sugar are no better nor worse than those from steak or grapefruit or ice cream — perhaps even kale or quinoa. We can't have it both ways," Taubes concluded.18
How Soda Companies Influence Policy Through Ties With Public Health Organizations How Sugar Destroys Your Liver and Brain Sugar Industry Secrets Exposed
Repayment rates on student loans have been grossly exaggerated.
The new study suggests the theory is mathematically consistent.
