Photo Credit: pixabay.com

A preregistered systematic review in Expert Review of Vaccines found 70 vaccinated transmitters, 812 downstream cases, and one small study underneath the claim that MMR reduces onward spread.

A new peer-reviewed study by CDC, WHO, and Johns Hopkins leadership found that nearly 8 out of every 100 vaccinated people who catch measles pass it to someone else. Almost a third of them had received two doses. And the world has exactly one study, of 137 people, trying to measure how much the vaccine actually reduces onward spread.

For a generation, the public message about the measles shot has been simple. If you are vaccinated, you cannot spread it. A new study, written by the people who run the global measles elimination program, quietly says otherwise.

View and share the X thread dedicated to this post:

Who wrote this

Not activists. Not skeptics. The paper is co-authored by the former director of the entire U.S. Immunization Program at the CDC, the CDC’s own measles laboratory chief, the head of Johns Hopkins’ vaccine access center, the recent WHO measles program lead who is now Canada’s Acting Chief Public Health Officer, the man who chairs the WHO commission that certifies whether entire regions have eliminated measles, and PAHO’s top immunization official for the Americas. One author is a paid consultant to Merck, Sanofi, Moderna, Dynavax, and Seqirus. Another runs an institute that discloses funding from vaccine manufacturers.

These are not outsiders raising doubts. The people who spent their careers building the measles elimination framework — at CDC, Johns Hopkins, PAHO, RIVM, and the WHO regional verification commissions — are the people who signed this paper.

[…]

Via https://envirowatchnz.com/2026/09/05/breaking-vaccinated-people-spread-measles-the-cdc-the-who-and-johns-hopkins-just-said-so-on-the-record/

An illustration by Fourate Chahal El Rekaby, a French-Lebanese filmmaker, writer, and illustrator based in Beirut, accompanying an article, “Ecocide, Imperialism and Palestine Liberation”, published by the Dutch-based Transnational Institute in September 2025.

Andy Worthington

Many thanks to Dr. Dianne Woodward, a former lecturer in Biological Sciences, and a manager at the Galilee Foundation, a UK charity empowering Palestinian youth since 2007, for writing a compelling article for Al Jazeera, “Toxic waste of war on Gaza reached Israel”, highlighting how the ecocidal impact of Gaza’s genocidal and ongoing 34-month assault on the Gaza Strip is creating a monstrous public health crisis, not just for the Palestinians, but also for the Israelis themselves.

Typically, Israel’s leadership was blinded by its own genocidal fury and its appalling supremacism to such an extent that it never dawned on them that, by bombarding Gaza, its immediate neighbour, with more deadly weapons than have ever been dropped anywhere on earth on an area of comparable size, and by deliberately destroying its entire infrastructure, including the whole of its sewage system, it was paving the way for the impact of this frenzy of unforgivable depravity to, literally, wash up on its own shores.

As Dr. Woodward explained:

Gaza shares the Mediterranean, coastal ecosystems and coastal aquifers with Israel. The destruction of its electric power and sanitation infrastructure forces over 100,000 cubic metres of raw, untreated sewage into the Mediterranean Sea or on land every day. Because in this part of the Mediterranean currents move primarily from south to north, this waste is carried straight up the coast into Israeli waters.

The Ashkelon desalination plant in southern Israel has been forced to shut down multiple times due to high faecal bacteria contamination from Gaza’s wastewater. Raw sewage also triggers toxic algae blooms blocking and damaging desalination filtration systems, as well as creating dead zones where fishing would normally happen.

Wastewater toxins, heavy metals and pathogens are absorbed by local marine life. Because fish migrate across maritime boundaries, contaminated seafood poses a direct health hazard to Palestinian as well as Israeli consumers. Raw sewage carries the same pathogens afflicting Gaza into the shared marine environment. Its northward drift directly impacts Israeli coastal cities.

Although pathogens can persist and migrate under certain conditions, pathogen contaminated groundwater is unlikely to feed into Israeli municipal water supplies, but can still affect the shared aquifer and surrounding environment.

Salts and other chemical contaminants can travel much farther and are often a bigger long-term aquifer concern. They can contaminate a shared groundwater system and reduce the quality and usability of the aquifer over time for irrigation, agriculture and drinking.

Dr. Woodward noted that, earlier this month, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and representatives of the Board of Peace established under Donald Trump to, ostensibly, oversee a new Palestinian-led administration in Gaza, “agreed to set up a working group on sanitation and public health affecting both Israel and Gaza”, although its “membership and detailed operating structure” have not been made public.

It’s a rare example of Israel showing any interest in the Board of Peace, whose UN-backed mandate to entrust the day-to-day running of Gaza to a Palestinian technocratic committee, supported by an international peacekeeping force, has been persistently thwarted by Israel, which perhaps shows how serious the health crisis is.

Dr. Woodward also noted how, ironically, while trying to erase evidence of its genocide, Israel was importing from Gaza, “into undisclosed locations inside Israel and the West Bank”, some of “the estimated 60 million tonnes of rubble from Gaza”, without seeming to be aware that, in doing so, it is “potentially transferring the pollutants in that rubble directly to disposal or storage sites” that will also affect the public health of Israelis.

She noted how, recently, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor “tracked some 100 Israeli trucks daily leaving the Gaza Strip with debris”, which I wrote about at the time, in a post on Substack entitled, “How Israel is seeking to erase evidence of its genocide in Gaza.”

Israel endangers its own people while seeking to erase evidence of genocide

The Euro-Med article highlighted how Israeli contractors have been removing crucial evidence of the genocide from the two-thirds of the Gaza Strip under the control of the Israeli military, as it has steadily increased the amount of land in Gaza under its control from the 50% that was agreed at the time of the ceasefire last October.

As they explained, “Israel is acting unilaterally within closed areas under its military control by demolishing remaining buildings and then crushing, mixing, and transporting the rubble before forensic teams, evidence experts, and unexploded ordnance specialists can examine, document, and preserve the sites, along with the evidence and human remains.”

They also suggested that “at least 10 million tonnes of rubble have been removed, crushed, or moved from their original sites”, and assessed that “approximately 400 heavy pieces of excavation, demolition, crushing, and transport machinery, operated by Israeli civilian companies under military protection, are active across eastern and southern Gaza”, which “demolish remaining structures, crush rubble from destroyed neighbourhoods, and load the debris onto trucks for transportation away from the original sites” into Israel itself, or to locations in the West Bank, although, as they also noted, the Israeli authorities “have not provided details on the quantities removed, the routes taken, the destination sites, or how the material is utilized.”

Israel’s efforts to conceal its genocidal crimes by removing the evidence is truly shocking, and adds to its grotesquely long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but, as with the impact of its destruction of Gaza, Israel’s leadership again seems to have been blithely unconcerned about how its actions would create a health crisis within Israel itself.

As Dr. Woodward explained:

Transferred pollutants may include heavy metals, such as lead, mercury, cadmium and traces of other metals or residues from specialised munitions, as well as white phosphorus particulates, unspent explosives, industrial chemicals, and widespread asbestos fibres from pulverised older buildings. Heavy metals present in dust and rubble may exhibit carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, neurotoxic, nephrotoxic and bioaccumulative properties, posing long-term human health and environmental risks.”

The rubble also contains biological matter, pathogens and fluids from decomposing human remains and accumulated organic waste, as well as insects, rodents, and other disease vectors. Airborne transmission of hazardous dust particles, asbestos fibres and particulate matter degrades the quality of the air while hidden unexploded ordnance in the debris can cause a detonation risk and soil toxicity.

When managing highly contaminated disaster debris, international agencies such as the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and regional environmental authorities like the Gaza Debris Management Working Group (DMWG) stipulate transfers must follow strict protocols and operational procedures to isolate hazards, including an immediate freeze on all operations if human remains are detected. Moving these materials across borders or jurisdictions should also trigger legal frameworks and rigid groundwater protection standards.

As she added, summing up this sickening demonstration of a unique combination of crime scene destruction and toxic threat, “Critics have pointed out that bulldozing sites that contain mass graves is destroying key evidence of genocidal crimes. But apart from that, this transfer of debris in disregard of international rules and regulations is putting at risk the health of people around collection and disposal sites.”

She continued, “If the aim of this structural disparity is to keep Israeli groundwater zones tightly protected and shift the long-term burden of aquifer and soil pollution onto Palestinian communities in the West Bank, it ignores the risks to the Israeli transfer personnel and to all people living there, which includes 700,000 illegal settlers.”

As she also explained, this is not a problem that has been created through the genocide of the last 34 months, although the impact is much more severe than anything that has happened before. She noted how environmental groups, like EcoPeace, “have long warned that the shared environment creates total interdependence, meaning humanitarian and sanitation crises in Gaza directly compromise Israel’s public health”, and referred to an occasion in 1990 when “the former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek candidly admitted that his administration had done little for East Jerusalem beyond extending basic water and sewage lines out of fear that cholera outbreaks in neglected Arab neighbourhoods would spread to West Jerusalem.”

Her conclusion was stark. “Even if Israel is morally incapable of meeting its human rights responsibilities as occupiers to solve the sanitation crisis”, she wrote, “it should understand that if it does not strictly follow environmental protocols, its own population will endure the same consequences as the Palestinians whose welfare it callously and criminally disregards.”

No sympathy for Israel

It’s impossible to feel any sympathy for the Israelis, who have created this ecological disaster through their genocidal arrogance and their inability to recognize that, as Dr. Woodward described it, “the shared environment creates total interdependence, meaning humanitarian and sanitation crises in Gaza directly compromise Israel’s public health.”

This, after all, is a nation state in which numerous officials and pundits, after October 7, were so carried away with their vengeance that they called for a nuclear bomb to be dropped on Gaza, oblivious to the fact that doing so would cause nuclear fallout that would also be almost indescribably devastating for Israel.

Israel’s far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, a member of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, was reprimanded by Benjamin Netanyahu and suspended from cabinet meetings after he said, on November 5, 2023, that “one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip”, as the Times of Israel described it, although Netanyahu was probably more concerned not by his statement, but by how it would be received in the west, and also because it revealed the existence of the nuclear arsenal that Israel possesses, but which it always denies having.

Similar statements were made by the journalist Shimon Riklin, who asked, on October 7, “Why exactly do we have an atomic bomb?”, and by Eliyahu’s father, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyah, the Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, who said, on November 14, 2023, “A nuclear bomb on Gaza is indeed an option! They will not fire me, they wanted my son, but they will not fire me.”

Shamefully, however, although Israel is facing toxic blowback that it deserves, the cost for the Palestinians is immeasurably higher. A devastating analysis of the long-term damage to Gaza was published by the UN Environment Programme last September, just before the ceasefire began, which contained “30 recommendations for reversing the damage to Gaza’s environment”, including “the rapid reconstruction of water and sewage infrastructure, a systemic testing of Gaza’s soil for contamination, the removal — and to the extent possible recycling — of debris and the safe disposal of munitions.”

Estimates for the timescale of reconstruction focus on decades, rather than years, while, in July, an Oxfam-led assessment, “Building Gaza Anew”, estimated that $71.4 billion is needed to rebuild Gaza, which is “seven times the combined cost of reconstruction after every major Israeli military offensive there over the past two decades.”

The UN assessment concluded that “Gaza’s environmental recovery will hinge on careful, inclusive and science-based planning”, but, despite a ceasefire of sorts, absolutely no expert-led programs of land clearance and beginning to deal with the chronic environmental degradation have been allowed by Israel, just as the genocidal oppressor has also defied its obligations, as part of the ceasefire deal, to even allow in sufficient humanitarian aid, including food, water, fuel and medicine, to address the still-unfolding human catastrophe.

Two weeks ago, when I posted How Can the Genocidal State of Israel Be Brought to an End?, my definitive condemnation of Israel’s depravity, I summed up the situation as follows: “As I write this, the surviving Palestinians are still living, permanently and precariously, on the edge of death, beleaguered, bombed and besieged, still half-starved, deprived of almost all necessary medical supplies, and forced to live in medieval squalor in the destroyed remains of their homeland.”

As the journalist Tamer Nahed wrote from Gaza just last week, “Gaza is not coming back to life … we are simply trying not to die.”

[…]

Via https://original.antiwar.com/worthington/2026/09/02/israel-faces-toxic-blowback-from-its-genocide-in-gaza/

Zero Hedge

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator – the second largest US grid operator after PJM Interconnection – on Friday proposed a set of requirements large loads must meet before they can connect to the grid, including ramping and ride-through specifications.

The “interconnection reliability requirements” framework aims to improve MISO’s visibility into large load “characteristics and behavior, support reliable planning and operational decision-making, and establish scalable and technically justified expectations proportional to demonstrated reliability risk,” the grid operator said in its filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The proposal is a part of MISO’s response to FERC’s mid-June “show cause” orders requiring major grid operators to set rules that meet certain criteria for adding data centers and other large loads to the grid. MISO said it plans to make additional proposals by a Nov. 16 deadline.

MISO’s proposal follows similar actions at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the PJM Interconnection aimed at setting reliability standards for large loads after several incidents where data centers suddenly tripped offline, raising concerns about grid stability.

On average, electric demand was relatively flat between 2009 and 2024, growing by about 0.5% a year, MISO told FERC. Now, the grid operator expects 1% to 2% annual growth through 2044, with higher growth rates in the near term, according to MISO, which runs the grid and wholesale power markets from Louisiana to Minnesota.

MISO’s proposal defines “large loads” as those larger than 50 MW, and “computational loads” as large loads that include at least 25 MW of demand from information technology equipment, such as servers, storage and networking hardware.

The separate computational load classification will allow MISO to target certain requirements just to data centers, the grid operator said.

“Computational loads may exhibit rapid and coordinated changes in demand, significant power-electronic behavior, and distinct responses to transmission system disturbances,” MISO said.

MISO’s proposed reliability framework sets requirements for its transmission customers that take service on behalf of large loads. It covers four main areas:

• Visibility requirements

To improve MISO’s visibility into large loads on its system, transmission customers must provide MISO with basic information and modeling data on large load facilities, according to the proposal. They must also provide real-time and day-ahead load forecasts for the facilities.

The information is needed “to support planning studies, operational assessments, and accurate representation of large loads behavior and system impacts,” MISO said.

• Phasor Measurement Unit requirements

The PMU requirements set monitoring expectations for computation loads through high-resolution, time-synchronized measurements, according to MISO.

“PMU data provides MISO with greater visibility into facility behavior during system disturbances and rapid operating changes, supporting model validation, performance verification, disturbance analysis, and identification of potential dynamic interactions with the transmission system,” MISO said.

• Ramp requirements

MISO said its proposed ramp requirements address the rate at which computational loads may increase or decrease electric use during stable-state transitions.

“Managing rapid changes in demand helps reduce real-time supply-demand imbalances, sudden change in transmission power flows, and associated operational impacts, while supporting more reliable system operation,” MISO said.

• Ride-through requirements

The proposed measures set minimum disturbance performance requirements for computational loads during voltage and frequency disturbances to reduce the risk of unnecessary disconnection or customer-initiated rapid reductions in demands during system events, MISO said.

MISO’s proposal includes grandfathering provisions to provide certainty to existing and nearly complete commercial arrangements for large loads. MISO asked FERC to let its proposal take effect on Dec. 4.

MISO plans to file additional large load-related proposals, including for additional transmission products and associated study processes, protections against cost shifts and the treatment of generation service to “electrically proximate” large loads, MISO said.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/second-largest-us-grid-operator-proposes-reliability-rules-data-centers

By NewsWatchmen.com

Turkey has spent years walking a delicate line between East and West. Now, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is signaling that Ankara may be prepared to take that balancing act even further. Following the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Erdogan said Turkey could consider taking its relationship with the China- and Russia-led organization to…

Turkey has spent years walking a delicate line between East and West.

Now, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is signaling that Ankara may be prepared to take that balancing act even further.

Following the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Erdogan said Turkey could consider taking its relationship with the China- and Russia-led organization to a higher level, potentially including full membership.

But Erdogan insists that such a move would not mean abandoning NATO or turning Turkey’s back on the West.

Turkey’s “360-Degree” Foreign Policy

Erdogan attended the SCO gathering in Bishkek on September 1 as Turkey’s president and addressed the organization’s broader role in a changing international system.

Turkey has been a dialogue partner of the SCO since 2012, but it is not currently a full member.

Speaking with journalists aboard his return flight, Erdogan said Turkey’s potential membership should not be interpreted as a departure from existing alliances.

He described Ankara’s objective as increasing Turkey’s international influence through what he called a “360-degree vision.”

That language is significant.

Turkey is already a NATO member. At the same time, Erdogan has cultivated increasingly important relationships with Russia, China and other nations outside the traditional Western alliance structure.

The result is a foreign policy designed to give Ankara options in multiple directions.

The SCO Is Growing in Influence

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has expanded dramatically since its creation.

Its current members include China, Russia, India, Iran, Pakistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

At the Bishkek summit, Erdogan described the organization as an important component of an emerging multipolar international order.

He pointed to its enormous population and economic weight while emphasizing opportunities involving transportation corridors, energy security and trade.

Turkey is particularly interested in connecting the SCO region with Europe through transportation and energy infrastructure.

Erdogan specifically discussed aligning the Caspian-crossing Middle Corridor with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

That could give Turkey an increasingly important position between Europe, Russia, Central Asia and China.

Erdogan Meets Putin

The geopolitical significance became even more apparent when Erdogan held a lengthy meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit.

The discussions included nuclear-energy cooperation.

Russia is already building Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant, and Erdogan said the two nations could pursue additional nuclear projects after Akkuyu becomes operational.

This is another example of the complicated relationship between Ankara and Moscow.

Turkey and Russia have disagreed sharply over issues including Syria and Ukraine, yet economic, energy and diplomatic cooperation has continued.

That relationship could become even more consequential if Turkey moves toward deeper SCO participation.

Does This Mean Turkey Is Leaving NATO?

No—not based on Erdogan’s current statements.

Erdogan explicitly rejected the idea that closer SCO relations require Turkey to abandon the West.

Turkey remains a NATO member, and the president emphasized that pursuing relationships with Eastern powers does not necessarily require breaking existing alliances.

But there is an important distinction between leaving NATO and diversifying strategic partnerships.

Turkey appears to be pursuing the second.

And that may ultimately create difficult questions for the Western alliance.

If Turkey becomes more deeply integrated with an organization containing Russia, China and Iran, NATO policymakers will inevitably have to consider how Ankara’s expanding Eastern relationships affect alliance strategy, intelligence cooperation, military planning and regional security.

The Bigger Geopolitical Picture

Turkey’s move is part of a much larger transformation.

The old post-Cold War assumption of a predominantly Western-led international system is facing increasing competition.

Russia and China are strengthening their partnership.

Iran has moved closer to both Moscow and Beijing.

BRICS has expanded.

The SCO continues developing its political and economic relationships.

And nations such as Turkey are increasingly attempting to maintain relationships with competing power centers simultaneously.

News Watchmen previously examined these developments in A New World Order? The BRICS Summit Could Change Everything This July, where Turkey’s interest in BRICS was identified as another indication of Ankara’s expanding strategic options.

[…]

Via watchmen.com/2026/09/03/erdogan-signals-turkey-could-join-china-and-russia-led-sco-is-nato-facing-a-historic-realignment/