Zero Hedge

In a shot across the bow against Scientific American’s continued descent into unscientific twaddle, a BMJ investigation documented over a dozen social media posts by editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth promoting transgender care for children, despite scientific evidence showing such treatment has had “devastating consequences” for minors.

“Laws preventing trans kids from getting gender-affirming treatment are dangerous and abusive, as well as against all medical evidence,” Helmuth posted on X in late 2022, one of many examples that The BMJ sent to Scientific American and its publisher Springer Nature, asking them to explain Helmuth’s trans advocacy which runs contrary to medical evidence.

In other social media posts, Helmuth has labeled critics of dangerous trans gender medicine for children “biased,” “bigoted,” “antiscience,” “misinformation,” “cruel,” and compared them to Nazis.

Last year, Helmut promoted false news in Scientific American that argued, “The research is clear and all the relevant medical organizations agree: Gender-affirming care is evidence-based & medically necessary & leads to much better outcomes for trans kids than refusing them care.”

Six days later, The BMJ released an investigation of new research finding that the evidence for trans gender care for children lacked evidence and that medical authorities were urging caution.

England, Scotland, Wales, and Sweden have all ceased prescribing puberty blockers for children, except for research studies, and the Finnish psychiatrist who first founded the field of transgender care for children now calls it “dangerous.” Many countries’ medical authorities have concluded that studies promoting trans treatment for children were either biased or of low quality.

The BMJ’s targeting of Laura Helmuth was a warning, of sorts—an admonition that Helmuth should focus on science, cease the advocacy, and stop saying stupid things. But if you continue to read Scientific American, expect Helmuth to continue saying stupid things.

Last month, Harvard’s Steven Pinker labeled Helmuth a “woke fanatic” on X and promoted an article discussing Scientific American’s descent into progressive ideology. “Another noble American institution run into the ground when clueless trustees handed over the keys to a woke fanatic,” Pinker posted.

The article Pinker promoted appeared in City Journal (“Unscientific American”) and carefully documented the magazine’s decline into a political rag since Helmuth took the reins in early 2020. Other outlets have also cast a disapproving eye on Helmuth’s political crusades.

The Wall Street Journal noted that Helmuth tweeted last year that “sparrows have four different chromosomally distinct sexes,” forcing the community notes on X to correct Helmuth’s error.

“It’s just incredible how far @sciam — a periodical I admired — has fallen from its mission to provide accurate, clear, and vivid coverage of science,” Yale professor and physician Nicholas Christakis, posted on X.

“EXCLUSIVE: unScientific American! Popular magazine is slammed by experts over ‘woke’ article titled ‘Why Human Sex is Not Binary’,” reported The Daily Mail, a few months prior to Christakis’ criticism of Helmuth. Dr Carole Hooven, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, told The Daily Mail that Scientific American’s unscientific claims could put women in danger.

“On average, men are bigger and stronger than women, and commit the overwhelming majority of rapes and murders. Most men could kill most women with their bare hands,” Hooven explained. “These facts have informed the establishment of laws and social policies that protect female spaces, particularly those where women are in vulnerable positions such as where they sleep or shower (prison cells and locker rooms, for example).”

Chicago University emeritus professor of ecology and evolution, Jerry Coyne, has written several times about Helmuth promoting factually inaccurate claims in Scientific American, which he labeled “Scientific Pravda.”

Somebody called my attention to three new articles and op-eds in Scientific American that have no science in them, but are pure ideology of the “progressive” sort.  I agree with some of the sentiments expressed in them, as in the first one. But my point is, as usual, to show how everything in science, including its most widely-read “popular” magazine, is being taken over by ideology. Not only that, but it’s ideology of only one stripe: Leftist “progressive” (or “woke,” if you will) ideology, so that the “opinion” section is not a panoply of divergent views, but gives only one view, like a Scientific Pravda.  Remember that the editor refused when I offered to write an op-ed expressing different (but of course not right-wing) views.

In a previous City Journal article in 2022, science writer Nicholas Wade called Scientific American’s shift away from science a “new Lysenkoism” referring to the Soviet doctrine that forced biologists to ignore evolution and the genetics of plants to conform to political ideology.

And in an investigation I conducted for the BMJ(“The covid-19 lab leak hypothesis: did the media fall victim to a misinformation campaign?”) I noted that Helmuth harassed CDC Director Robert Redfield for telling CNN he thought the COVID virus may have come from a Wuhan lab:

The growing tendency to treat the lab leak scenario as worthy of serious investigation has put some reporters on the defensive. After Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appeared on CNN in March, Scientific American’s editor in chief, Laura Helmuth, tweeted, “On CNN, former CDC director Robert Redfield shared the conspiracy theory that the virus came from the Wuhan lab.” The following day, Scientific American ran an essay calling the lab leak theory “evidence free.”

In short, Helmuth is a political fanatic who doesn’t care much for science, unless it’s science that fits her personal politics.

The BMJ’s investigation highlighted the Cass Review which found little evidence to support Helmuth’s claims that the puberty blockers or other trans therapy for children are safe, including surgery. Dr. Hilary Cass is a British physician and former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who spent three years examining the evidence for treating gender questioning young people.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Dr. Cass said that doctors in the United States are “out of date” with understanding trans care for children. “But what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good,” Dr. Cass told the New York Times. “And I think that’s where you’re misleading the public.”

And in podcast for the BMJ, Dr. Cass noted that of the 100 studies for puberty blockers and hormone treatment, only two were of passable quality. She also dismissed claims by activists such as Helmuth that trans care lowers risk of suicide in children.

“There, unfortunately, is not evidence that gender affirming treatment in its broadest sense reduces the suicide risk,” Dr. Cass said, during The BMJ podcast.

Below are several social media posts by Laura Helmuth crusading for trans care for kids—many of them dangerous messages for children, all lacking quality medical evidence.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/top-medical-journal-slaps-down-scientific-americans-laura-helmuth-unscientific-trans

(Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Yuval Abraham and Meron Rapoport

Top Israeli government and security officials have overseen a nine-year surveillance operation targeting the ICC and Palestinian rights groups to try to thwart a war crimes probe, a joint investigation reveals.

For nearly a decade, Israel has been surveilling senior International Criminal Court officials and Palestinian human rights workers as part of a secret operation to thwart the ICC’s probe into alleged war crimes, a joint investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal.

The multi-agency operation, which dates back to 2015, has seen Israel’s intelligence community routinely surveil the court’s current chief prosecutor Karim Khan, his predecessor Fatou Bensouda, and dozens of other ICC and UN officials. Israeli intelligence also monitored materials that the Palestinian Authority submitted to the prosecutor’s office, and surveilled employees at four Palestinian human rights organizations whose submissions are central to the probe.

According to sources, the covert operation mobilized the highest branches of Israel’s government, the intelligence community, and both the civilian and military legal systems in order to derail the probe.

The intelligence information obtained via surveillance was passed on to a secret team of top Israeli government lawyers and diplomats, who traveled to The Hague for confidential meetings with ICC officials in an attempt to “feed [the chief prosecutor] information that would make her doubt the basis of her right to be dealing with this question.” The intelligence was also used by the Israeli military to retroactively open investigations into incidents that were of interest to the ICC, to try to prove that Israel’s legal system is capable of holding its own to account.

Additionally, as the Guardian reported earlier today, the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, ran its own parallel operation which sought out compromising information on Bensouda and her close family members in an apparent attempt to sabotage the ICC’s investigation. The agency’s former head, Yossi Cohen, personally attempted to “enlist” Bensouda and manipulate her into complying with Israel’s wishes, according to sources familiar with his activities, causing the then-prosecutor to fear for her personal safety.

Our investigation draws on interviews with more than two dozen current and former Israeli intelligence officers and government officials, ex-ICC officials, diplomats, and lawyers familiar with the ICC case and Israel’s efforts to undermine it. According to these sources, initially, the Israeli operation attempted to prevent the court from opening a full criminal investigation; after a full probe was set in motion in 2021, Israel sought to ensure that it would come to nothing.

Moreover, according to several sources, Israel’s underhanded efforts to interfere with the investigation — which could amount to offenses against the administration of justice, punishable by a prison sentence — have been managed from the very top. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to have taken a keen interest in the operation, even sending intelligence teams “instructions” and “areas of interest” regarding their monitoring of ICC officials. One source stressed that Netanyahu was “obsessed, obsessed, obsessed” with finding out what materials the ICC was receiving.

The prime minister had good reason to be concerned: last week, Khan announced that his office is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three leaders in Hamas’ political and military wings, in relation to alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on or since October 7. The announcement made clear that additional warrants — which expose prosecuted individuals to arrest should they visit any of the ICC’s 124 member states — may yet be pursued.

For Israel’s top brass, Khan’s announcement was no surprise. In recent months, the surveillance campaign targeting the chief prosecutor “climbed to the top of the agenda,” according to one source, thus giving the government advance knowledge of his intentions.

Tellingly, Khan issued a cryptic warning in his remarks: “I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately.” Now, we can reveal details of part of what he was warning against: Israel’s nine-year “war” on the ICC.

‘The generals had a big personal interest in the operation’

Unlike the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which deals with the legality of states’ actions — and which last week issued a ruling seen as calling on Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, in the context of South Africa’s petition accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Strip — the ICC deals with specific individuals suspected of having committed war crimes.

Israel has long held that the ICC has no jurisdiction to prosecute Israeli leaders because, like the United States, Russia, and China, Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute which established the court, and Palestine is not a full UN member state. But Palestine was nevertheless recognized as an ICC member upon signing the convention in 2015, having been admitted to the UN General Assembly as a non-member observer state three years prior.

[…]

Immediately after becoming a member of the court, the PA asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate crimes committed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, starting from the date on which the State of Palestine accepted the court’s jurisdiction: July 13, 2014. Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor at the time, opened a preliminary examination to determine whether the criteria for a full investigation could be met.

Fearing the legal and political consequences of potential prosecutions, Israel raced to prepare intelligence teams in the army, the Shin Bet (domestic intelligence), and the Mossad (foreign intelligence), alongside a covert team of military and civilian lawyers, to lead the effort to forestall a full ICC investigation. All this was coordinated under Israel’s National Security Council (NSC), whose authority is derived from the Prime Minister’s Office.

“Everyone, the entire military and political establishment, was looking for ways to damage the PA’s case,” said one intelligence source. “Everyone pitched in: the Justice Ministry, the Military International Law Department [part of the Military Advocate General’s Office], the Shin Bet, the NSC. [Everyone] saw the ICC as something very important, as a war that had to be waged, and one that Israel had to be defended against. It was described in military terms.”

The military was not an obvious candidate for joining the Shin Bet’s intelligence-gathering efforts, but it had a strong motivation: preventing its commanders from being forced to stand trial. “The ones who really wanted to [join the effort] were the IDF generals themselves — they had a very big personal interest,” one source explained. “We were told that senior officers are afraid to accept positions in the West Bank because they are afraid of being prosecuted in The Hague,” another recalled.

According to numerous sources, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, whose stated goal at the time was to fight against the “delegitimization” of Israel, was involved in the surveilling of Palestinian human rights organizations that were submitting reports to the ICC. Gilad Erdan, head of the ministry at the time and now Israel’s representative to the UN, recently described the ICC’s pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli leaders as “a witch-hunt driven by pure Jew-hatred.”

‘The army dealt with things that were completely non-military’

Israel’s covert war on the ICC has relied centrally on surveillance, and the chief prosecutors have been prime targets.

Four sources confirmed Bensouda’s private exchanges with Palestinian officials about the PA’s case in The Hague were routinely monitored and shared widely within Israel’s intelligence community. “The conversations were usually about the progress of the prosecution: submitting documents, testimonies, or talking about an event that happened — ‘Did you see how Israel massacred Palestinians at the last demonstration?’ — things like that,” one source explained.

The former prosecutor was far from the only target. Dozens of other international officials related to the probe were similarly surveilled. One of the sources said there was a large whiteboard with the names of around 60 people who were under surveillance — half of them Palestinians and half from other countries, including UN officials and ICC personnel in The Hague.

Another source recalled surveillance on the person who wrote the ICC’s report on Israel’s 2014 Gaza war. A third source said Israeli intelligence monitored a UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry into the occupied territories, in order to identify what materials it was receiving from the Palestinians, “because the findings of commissions of inquiry of this kind are usually used by the ICC.”

In The Hague, Bensouda and her senior staff were alerted by security advisers and via diplomatic channels that Israel was monitoring their work. Care was taken not to discuss certain matters in the vicinity of phones. “We were made aware they were trying to get information on where we were with the preliminary examination,” a former senior ICC official said.

[…]

Because Palestinian human rights groups were frequently providing the prosecutor’s office with materials about Israel’s attacks on Palestinians, detailing incidents they wanted the prosecutor to consider as part of the probe, these organizations themselves became key targets of Israel’s surveillance operation. Here, the Shin Bet took the lead.

In addition to monitoring materials that the PA submitted to the ICC, Israeli intelligence also monitored appeals and reports from the human rights groups that included testimonies of Palestinians who had suffered attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers; Israel then surveilled these testifiers, too.

[…]

Omar Awadallah and Ammar Hijazi, who are in charge of the ICC case within the PA’s Justice Ministry, also discovered that Pegasus had been installed on their phones. According to intelligence sources, the two were simultaneously targets of different Israeli intelligence organizations, which created “confusion.” “They’re both super impressive PhDs who deal with this subject all day, from morning to night — that’s why there was intelligence to be gained [from tracking them],” said one source.

Hijazi isn’t surprised that he was surveilled. “We don’t care if Israel sees the evidence we submitted to the court,” he said. “I invite them: Come, open your eyes, see what we presented.”

[…]

“People are afraid to file a complaint [to the ICC], or to mention their real names, because they fear being persecuted by the military, of losing their entry permits,” Hamdi Shakura, a lawyer at PCHR, explained. “A man in Gaza who has a relative sick with cancer is scared the army will take his entry permit and prevent his treatment — this sort of thing happens.”

[…]

Soon after Bensouda announced that her office was opening a preliminary examination, Netanyahu ordered the formation of a covert team of lawyers from the Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and Military Advocate General’s Office (the Israeli army’s highest legal authority), which regularly traveled to The Hague for secret meetings with ICC officials between 2017 and 2019. (Israel’s Justice Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.)

[…]

According to the source, the goal was to “feed [Bensouda] information that would make her doubt the basis of her right to be dealing with this question. When Al-Haq collects information on how many Palestinians have been killed in the occupied territories in the past year and passes it on to Bensouda, it’s in Israel’s interest and policy to pass her counterintel, and to try to undermine this information.”

[…]

In 2021, the court’s judges ruled that the ICC does have jurisdiction over all war crimes committed by Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as crimes committed by Palestinians on Israeli territory. Despite six years of Israeli efforts to forestall it, Bensouda announced the opening of a formal criminal investigation.

[…]

Among the dozens of incidents currently under investigation by the FFAM are the bombings that killed dozens of Palestinians in the Jabaliya refugee camp last October; the “flour massacre” in which more than 110 Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza upon the arrival of an aid convoy in March; the drone strikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen employees in April; and an airstrike in a tent encampment in Rafah that ignited a fire and killed dozens last week.

[…]

Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/05/28/surveillance-and-interference-israels-covert-war-on-the-icc-exposed/

REUTERS/Alex Filipe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

By Julie Steenhuysen and Jennifer Rigby

Some healthcare analysts have raised their annual sales forecast for weight loss drugs by around 50% to about $150 billion by the early 2030s.

A Midwestern Doctor

The Risks and Benefits of Vaccines

From looking into this question at length, much as is in the case for the COVID vaccines, I have concluded that for many of the widely used vaccines:

•Many of the benefits attributed to a vaccine (e.g., preventing the disease, preventing transmission of it, or preventing severe complications of it) are much less than the public (or the medical field) is led to believe.

•Many of the justifications used to justify vaccination are based on historical realities that no longer apply today.

•In cases where a vaccine actually “works” natural selection will quickly make the vaccine stop working.

•Side effects from vaccination are so frequent and varied that any assessment of a vaccine’s risks will inevitably miss many of the actual problems vaccination entails.

In short, I feel a very high bar must be met for vaccination, but as we saw with COVID-19, it often is not.

To accurately determine the risks and benefits of a vaccine, you need to consider all of the following

This is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber (and to see how others have benefitted from this Newsletter click here).

To accurately determine the risks and benefits of a vaccine, you need to consider all of the following:

Disease Risk

If you review the vaccine schedule, very few of the diseases in it have both a significant likelihood that you will get them and a significant likelihood that they will develop into a severe condition. Many of the diseases believed to fall into this category are no longer an issue in the United States (e.g., polio or smallpox). Unfortunately, people who look at this question are often fixated on the past presentations of the disease when it was far more pathogenic or when we did not have a way to treat it. Let’s now look at some of the specific questions one might ask to evaluate this question.

 How likely is it for a person to get the disease?

Some diseases we vaccinate against are incredibly rare (e.g., tetanus or polio) while others are now non-existent (e.g., diphtheria).

How likely is the disease to cause a negligible, minor, moderate, severe, or fatal complication?

It is very important to distinguish between these categories because, for most infections, the risk of catching it and then subsequently getting a severe case of the condition is extremely low. For example, a Neisseria meningitidis infection (which can cause septic meningitis) is really bad and can progress very quickly, but also very rare for people to develop (one in ten people are asymptomatic Neisseria meningitidis carriers whereas approximately one in a million get septic meningitis from it each year).

Likewise, we vaccinate everyone against chickenpox despite the fact it almost never causes issues (e.g., only 1 in 100,000 children who get it die from it, many of whom are individuals with pre-existing immune suppression).

How likely is it that the severity of the disease can be improved with an existing medical treatment?

Most of the infections we vaccinate against (e.g., pertussis) are very easy to treat. Unfortunately, the focus is always on vaccinating against the disease rather than providing treatment for it (especially if the treatment is something more unorthodox than an antibiotic). In the case of COVID-19, while severe complications represent the minority of cases, they (and the more minor ones) can in most cases easily be prevented by early outpatient treatment. Unfortunately, the Federal government has refused to sanction effective treatments for COVID-19 and instead keeps pushing an endless number of unsafe and ineffective boosters for the disease.

How likely is it that you will have access to the necessary treatment before you get seriously ill?

While I have many criticisms of the vaccine approach, I have to acknowledge that this area is one of the strongest arguments for it. With rapidly progressing diseases, those in isolated areas, those unable to recognize their need to seek medical care, and those of limited economic means, often cannot get the necessary treatment for the disease before it is too late to prevent a severe complication. Hence, if the disease can be “prevented” through mass immunization, it mitigates the unfortunate circumstances that arise when care for a dangerous infection is not immediately available.

Vaccine Efficacy

How likely is the vaccine to be effective in preventing the disease, and does the presence of vaccine antibodies correlate with a decreased risk of the disease?

Many vaccines fail to do one or both of these. COVID-19 has provided the greatest red pill in history on this topic, especially since successive COVID-19 vaccines, despite increasing antibody levels, actually increase your risk of catching the disease.

[…]

How long does the vaccine’s protection last following immunization?

Many vaccines suffer from declining immunity, hence needing repeated boosters, which re-expose the recipient to the vaccine’s risks. COVID-19 again has provided the greatest red pill in history on this topic, as immunity from it wanes approximately three months after the most recent injection. Many other vaccines also suffer from this issue, which must be taken into account when assessing their risk to benefit ratio.

To illustrate, if something has a 10% chance of injuring you and only protects you for 3 months after which point it must be taken again, it’s hard to justify taking it, whereas if something has a 10% chance of injuring you but it protects you for life, the justification is stronger. Unfortunately, many vaccines that only provide temporary immunity are marketed in a manner that implies they provide permanent immunity (e.g., this is what was initially done with the COVID-19 vaccines).

How likely will it be for the vaccine to prevent you from getting the disease when you need to be protected?

The hepatitis B vaccine is routinely given at birth, and then twice more very early in life. This is nonsensical for two reasons. First, at the time of birth, infants lack an immune system that can mount a proper antibody response to the vaccine. Second, hepatitis B is spread by blood-to-blood contact (e.g., sharing heroin needles or having unprotected sex), both things are very unlikely to happen in early childhood. This is important because the hepatitis B vaccine typically only lasts for around 6-7 years (estimates vary). The best explanation I have seen for why the vaccine is given immediately following birth (despite being completely unjustifiable) is that it habituates parents to come in for regular well-child vaccination visits starting at two months of age.

[…]

Vaccine Side Effects

An explosion of chronic illness (particularly of neurological and autoimmune nature) in our society has paralleled the mass vaccination of society. This has been most apparent at three times in history: the period of the smallpox vaccines, after 1986 when Congress passed legislation to shield manufacturers from liability for producing dangerous vaccines (which led to a rapid increase in the number of childhood vaccinations and no motivation to ensure their safety), and following the COVID-19 vaccines. In each case, we’ve tragically become acclimated to an increase in baseline levels of chronic illness which never existed in the past, and we have simply assumed that the current disease burden is normal, when in reality it is not.

[…]

Does the vaccine priming your immune system to target one pathogen reduce its ability to respond to other pathogens or cancerous cells within the body?

Off-target immunity is a frequent but under-appreciated consequence of vaccination (discussed further here). As far as I know, the worst offender in this regard has been the COVID-19 vaccines, which have been linked to an explosion of cancers and unusual diseases typically only seen in immune-suppressed individuals.

[…]

Does the vaccine cause the immune system to attack the body and give rise to chronic illnesses?

All vaccines work by provoking the immune system to go into overdrive to attack the vaccine antigen that is present. The downside to this is that it typically also causes the immune system to attack other proteins in the vicinity (e.g., a mice study showed that mice develop allergies to pollen that is in the air at the time of their vaccination). Autoimmunity is especially likely to happen if the vaccine shares antigen sequences with human tissue (homologies) and contains a very strong adjuvant (the vaccine component that stimulates the immune system). Before the COVID-19 vaccines (which have a remarkable number of homologies with human tissue), Gardasil (the HPV vaccine) was the greatest offender here as it had to use a very strong adjuvant and had homologies to human tissue.

[…]

Via https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-are-the-risks-and-benefits-of

By Jim Hoft

It’s been nearly four years since Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election after several days of locked rooms, late-night ballot deliveries, and triple-counting ballots.

On November 18, 2020, The Gateway Pundit first posted the impossible numbers that swung the election to Old Joe.

Mysterious late-night ballot drops in every battleground state swung the election to Joe Biden. And subsequent ballot drops in perfect ratios of ballots to Trump and Biden solidified the results.

Wisconsin:

Michigan:

Every 2020 battleground state followed this same pattern.

The Gateway Pundit called this phenomenon the “Drop and Roll.”

No election expert has ever explained this because they cannot explain it without raising the likely possibility of fraud.

Following the election, The Gateway Pundit published several reports on how the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and the American people.

The numbers don’t lie.
The election was stolen.

On November 18, 2020, just days after the election, TGP put our findings in an easy-to-follow video titled “The Drop and Roll.”

We are reposting it so you can enjoy it again.
Please pass it on!

This video has over 3.6 million views so far on Rumble.

And here is the video on YouTube — although people are having trouble seeing it for some reason. The YouTube video is hidden from the public (It’s Google after all!) and has 284,000 views.

[…]

Via https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/never-forget-not-single-election-expert-has-been/

Steve Kirsch

Executive summary

One person has died from measles in the last 10 years. Is this a sign that everyone who has not been infected or vaccinated for measles should get vaccinated?

According to all health authorities the answer is yes.

According to your friendly neighborhood misinformation superspreader (me), the answer is a big NO.

Why? Because you’re more likely to die or be seriously injured for life from these shots than benefit from them.

Here’s how the math works out today

Today, the math is obvious: even if the vaccine is 100% effective, we’d save 1 life every 10 years. But in 10 years, injecting 3M kids a year, even with a 1 in 1M death rate from the vaccine (which would be unbelievably safe), we’d have 30 deaths from the vaccine and 1 from the disease. So it’s a no-brainer today to avoid the shots. The same argument can be made for morbidity since if we just look at autism alone, there’s no question. But “science” isn’t able to make this very obvious association and none of the scientists are willing to be publicly challenged.

The math will be different 70 years from now. Should you get it then?

Let’s look at another scenario. Suppose we stop vaccinating kids tomorrow. Then in around 70 years, most everyone will be unvaccinated and we’ll probably have more measles deaths because the NIH will still never let people know about any early treatment with repurposed drugs.

So we should end up with somewhere around 450 deaths a year which is what it was before we had a measles vaccine.

So you have roughly a 1 in a million chance of dying from the measles each year, but your probability of dying from the shot, assuming it is AMAZINGLY safe at 1 death per million, is about the same. It’s a wash.

Generally, you only want to risk a medical intervention when you are absolutely certain that the benefits way outweigh the risks.

Is the MMR vaccine safe?

The health authorities are nearly completely blind to any of the risks associated with any vaccine.

For example, there is plenty of evidence that COVID vaccine kills around 1 person per 1,000 injected, yet the vaccine is deemed as perfectly safe with not a single death ascribed to any of the mRNA vaccines.

That doesn’t inspire confidence in the medical community that they cannot detect a signal of 1 death per 1,000.

There is a precautionary principle of medicine that says basically if something is unknown, the safest thing to do is assume the worst.

VAERS tells us there were 92 deaths in the last 10 years associated with the MMR vaccine. That’s just 9 deaths a year, i.e., around 3 deaths per M kids vaccinated a year.

But VAERS is at least 40 times under reported so to be safe, let’s pick an underreporting factor (URF) of 100. So, at worst 900 potential deaths a year on around 3M vaccinations a year (since 3M new babies are born a year a year and 99% of them get the shots). So we’re looking at up to 300 deaths per M vaccinations which is 300X worse than we assumed in the calculations above.

Could I be putting people in harm’s way by advising against the measles vaccine? NO! Here’s how I know that

I know a pediatric clinic in the US that has not vaccinated kids for 25 years with any vaccine and they have absolutely NO REGRETS; the kids there are far healthier than pretty much any other clinic in the US.

How is that possible if the authorities are telling you the truth? It’s a real life clinical trial that shows that people have been gaslit into believing all the vaccine scare tactics.

Summary

Today, there is absolutely no question that nobody should be getting the MMR vaccine.

If we immediately ceased giving the MMR vaccine, and the death toll per year climbed above 1,000 deaths per year, then, and only then, should we even consider changing that guidance.

I doubt that day will ever come. And if it does, it’s highly unlikely to come within the next 30 years.

I am not anti-vax. If there is a breakthrough new technology which creates a truly SAFE vaccine, then none of this applies. A safe vaccine with no downsides is a NO BRAINER. The problem is that nobody has figured out how to create such a vaccine and prove that it is safe.

Bottom line: Just say NO to the MMR. It’s just not worth the risk.

[…]

Via https://kirschsubstack.com/p/measles-vaccine-math

Google’s hastily rolled out AI Overview feature is disastrously broken, returning searches claiming that people should spread glue on pizzas, eat rocks, and that it’s safe for pregnant women to smoke cigarettes.

The Verge reports that Google is scrambling to manually disable the AI Overview feature for certain searches after users found it giving our some truly bizarre advice, and information that is just made up nonsense.

Apparently cockroaches are so named because they live in penis holes.
Smoking is recommended when pregnant, who would have known?

[…]

Via https://modernity.news/2024/05/28/googles-woke-ai-is-hilariously-but-frighteningly-broken/

Dr Meryl Nass

Governor Landry signs SB133, which goes into effect immediately

Here’s the bill:

https://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1376456

It is very like a model resolution I drafted, based on the best of existing bills and resolutions, in late 2023. But the Louisianans had the brilliant idea to add the WEF and the UN to their bill.

Here is a press release about it:

For immediate release

May 28, 2024

Contact: 

                  Joe Gebbia, Founder and CEO

                  State Shield

                  joe@state-shield.org 

Governor Landry and the Louisiana Legislature Say “NO” to the World Health Organization

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed SB 133 into law this week. SB 133 is a legislative measure affirming that neither the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, nor any other unelected international body has jurisdiction to override the will of the people of Louisiana.   Senator Thomas A. Pressly sponsored the bill along with Sen. Valarie Hodges and Rep. Kathy Edmonston, addressing the threat head-on.

This action is particularly timely, as the World Health Assembly is meeting Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss a proposed Pandemic Treaty and amended International Health Regulations.  These proposed agreements would dramatically increase the authority of the World Health Organization over federal and state public health policy and grant WHO broad powers to dictate healthcare policy, threaten our rights to be free from international mandates, and endanger the sovereignty of every state in our nation.

With Governor Landry’s signature, Louisiana becomes the first state in our nation to reject the authority of the WHO over state healthcare policy and reassert Louisiana’s rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to manage its own public health system.

“State laws should be made by our state’s elected officials, not international organizations. The Louisiana Legislature and Governor Landry recognize the importance of sovereignty on behalf of Louisiana,” Sen. Pressly said.

State Shield congratulates these Louisiana leaders for their bold action to keep unelected, international bureaucracies out of Louisiana’s business.  The measure represents a loud cry for freedom from imposed mandates and sends the federal government a much-needed reminder that it has no right to surrender our freedom of choice over healthcare decisions to an unelected international organization such as the WHO.

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Via https://merylnass.substack.com/p/today-louisiana-became-the-first?

Episode 25:  What Mummies Tell Us

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

The process of mummification changed over time in ancient Egypt. Old Kingdom (2618-2181 BC) mummies were coated with plaster and painted with facial features with no attempt to preserve the bodies.* Archeologists found a sarcophagus of Hetafarus, the wife of the first pyramid builder Snefaru, under a paving stone adjacent to the Great Pyramid. Her sarcophagus was empty, as her descendants buried her mummy in the tomb of her husband Snefaru, along with a cnoptic chest divided into four sections for her internal organs (lungs, liver, kidneys and intestines).

Archeologists found a cache of pharaoh mummies (including Tuthmosis I and II, amnd Ramses the Great) in 1880 that had been disturbed during tomb robberies and ordered repaired and reburied during the 21st Dynasty. From studying these mummies, they learned that brain removal began during the 18th dynasty, with embalmers pouring molten resin into the empty skull to cauterize any remaining tissue.

In most mummies, the small incision to remove the viscera was on the left side of the abdomen to facilitate removal of the descending colon. During the 21st Dynasty, embalmers began dehydrating and replacing abominal organs with small cnopitc amulets of the sons of Horus (to protect them from grave robbers). They also began making skin incisions on mummy faces, arms and armpits and stuffing them with rags to make them look less gaunt.

*Some 16th century Vietnamese mummies were lacquered and painted.

**Once Egyptian embalmers began preserving the body itself, they would preserve the organs in separate cnoptic jars with lids carved to represent the four sons of Horus (who guarded the organs).

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492851

For example, an intelligence contractor once exploited data reaped from dating app Grindr to track movements of gay US government employees. RTB data has also been used by anti-abortion groups to track women who visit Planned Parenthood clinics in the US. More positively, RTB data has helped construct a dossier on child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s associates, tracing smartphone device owners who visited his private island to addresses in the US and other countries.

‘Personal Attributes’

As Haines’ framework notes, “commercial entities are collecting and aggregating unprecedented amounts of personal data” presently, “from a variety of sources.” This includes “cell phones, cars, household appliances, and other personal devices.” This information is then made available “to a diverse set of purchasers, including for-profit and nonprofit entities, foreign adversaries, and domestic and transnational organizations.” The US “intelligence community”, the Director admits, routinely avails itself of the opportunity to “access, collect, and process” this CAI.

CAI is routinely used “in pursuit of mission imperatives, and the information often provides critical intelligence value,” Haines claims. Yet, “these datasets can reveal sensitive and intimate personal details and activities,” she concedes. The admitted wealth of data the CIA et al can access on private citizens via third party brokers is nothing short of disturbing. For example:

Furthermore, CAI can include “data that captures the sensitive activities” of target individuals and groups. “Sensitive activities” are defined as any “that over an extended period of time establish a pattern of life; reveal personal affiliations, preferences, or identifiers; facilitate prediction of future acts; enable targeting activities; reveal the exercise of individual rights and freedoms.” Terrifying stuff – but Haines’ framework offers little to no clear guidance on how the purchase and use of CAI by US intelligence agencies will be restricted.

‘Geolocate Individuals’

The document claims “additional clarity” will protect citizen privacy, although none is offered in its contents. Disquietingly too, spy agencies themselves are tasked with formulating “safeguards that are tailored to the sensitivity” of CAI they collect, and produce annual reports on their use of this data. There is no requirement for intelligence services to delete any old purchased data under any circumstances – even if it was erroneously collected – and most concerningly of all, no restrictions on what information can and can’t be purchased.

This is particularly concerning, given it is clear certain smartphone apps have been willing to take directions from private intelligence firms and data brokers on what information to collect on their users, which is then passed via the third parties to US spying entities. It has been confirmed that MuslimPro, which offers a daily prayer calendar and a compass pointing towards Mecca, surreptitiously started tracking users’ locations at the direct request of a broker, which subsequently sold this information on to government clients.

Other brokers predominantly, or exclusively, serve state organisations. This includes Babel Street – an “AI-enabled data-to-knowledge company” – which provides US agencies including the DEA, ICE, IRS, Secret Service, and Treasury Department with location data, and “integrated communications” firm Barbaricum. A $5.5 million contract the company was awarded by ICE in 2020 refers to its ability to “geolocate individuals beyond standard geotagging,” “monitor and analyze all social media activities” across every platform, including “foreign/dark web/deep web social media networks in REAL-TIME [emphasis in original],” while producing “psychological profiles” of targets.

Elsewhere, the contract refers to how Barbaricum can create “psychological profiles” of targets, and “identify whether a user has deleted messages and provide content from deleted accounts and/or deleted messages.” Prior to publication of the Director of National Intelligence’s “policy framework”, the extent of CAI spying activities by US spies was unknown. It was necessary for independent researchers and campaign groups to piece together a rough outline from limited publicly available records.

Now, the same agencies that used and abused private user data with total impunity for years are being granted responsibility for crafting their own internal policies for what is and isn’t acceptable to intercept, analyse, exploit, and act upon. Foxes guarding hen houses has never ended well.

[…]Via https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/cia-targeting-smartphone-app-data