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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

Facebook faces a future of more legal woes and falling revenues

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Arthur Sullivan

DW

Meta, formerly Facebook, is in crisis mode as value plummets in 2022. Weak revenues, regulatory woes, and costly metaverse bet are to blame. 2023 doesn’t seem any better.

Since Facebook officially became Meta in October 2021, the company has lost more than two-thirds of its stock market value.

Its difficulties can’t all be attributed to the name change, but the “Meta era” has so far brought little but bad news for Mark Zuckerberg and his company’s shareholders.

Just over a month before the rebrand, Meta, which controls the platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, hit an all-time stock market high. Just a few weeks later, the revelations of whistleblower and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen proved hugely damaging.

Haugen leaked thousands of internal company documents to The Wall Street Journal, revealing the extent to which the company had prioritized profit over dealing with hate, violence and misinformation on its platforms.

In the midst of dealing with that, Facebook became Meta with Zuckerberg selling the change as a reflection of the company’s increased focus on the so-called “metaverse,” a hypothetical 3D network based on virtual and augmented reality.

Throughout 2022, the problems kept piling up. The share price has been on a sharp downward spiral for 15 months now. Its revenues and ad sales are falling while regulatory scrutiny is intensifying. Then there’s the massive spending on the metaverse, which is increasingly spooking investors.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp apps on a mobile phone
Meta’s core businesses are Facebook, Instagram and WhatsAppImage: M. Chang/ZUMA Press/picture alliance

Hard numbers

Meta was officially the worst performing company on the S&P 500 index in 2022. Amid a wider sell-off among the major tech firms, Meta is the one struggling most of all.

Its most recent quarterly results, posted at the end of October, revealed a 4% fall in revenues. That’s the slowest pace of growth in a decade and can be linked to Meta’s declining importance in the critical area of advertising.

Along with Google’s parent company Alphabet, Meta has dominated the digital advertising market for years. However, its share of overall ad revenues is falling fast amid rising competition from the likes of TikTok, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.

As well as the competition, Meta has been hit by the fact that companies worldwide have slashed advertising budgets in response to soaring inflation and rising interest rates.

3D or not 3D, that is the question

Despite the poor numbers and difficult economic climate, Meta has continued to ramp up spending on its metaverse projects, worrying its investors in the process.

Meta has pumped tens of billions over the past few years into Reality Labs, its metaverse unit, although the exact number is not known. At the quarterly earnings results in October, Meta revealed that losses from Reality Labs would grow “significantly” in 2023, having already reached close to $10 billion (€9.29 billion) by the end of September 2022.

Zuckerberg told investors in a call at the time that the company would continue to invest heavily in the idea. The Financial Times quoted several investors who said they made their opposition to that course very clear on the call.

Zuckerberg has majority control of the company’s voting shares, however, and insists the company will stick with its metaverse bet.

The spiraling costs and a growing sense of uncertainty around the future viability and use case of the metaverse has added to doubts about Meta’s prospects in 2023 and beyond.

“There’s a lot of potential there, but unfortunately getting it off the ground is astronomically expensive,” Sophie Lund-Yates, an equity analyst with Hargreaves Lansdown, told DW. “What people are seeing is that actually you’re pouring money into an unproven concept and there’s not really any stringent plans around how things are going to work.”

Regulatory scrutiny and a societal backlash

Meta is also under increasing legal pressure. In early January, the Irish Data Protection Commission fined Meta almost €400 million ($430 million) for breaches of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation in relation to both its Facebook and Instagram services.

The ruling ordered Meta to comply with EU law within three months, the latest example of the company’s uphill battle to maintain the way it uses its users’ data for targeted advertising.

Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who has challenged Meta several times over the way it handles user data, said in response: “This is a huge blow to Meta’s profits in the EU. People now need to be asked if they want their data to be used for ads or not.”

The ruling came just weeks after Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class-action lawsuit in California that argued the company had given third parties access to user data without their consent.

Shoshana Zuboff, the author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” told DW that companies like Meta are increasingly facing a backlash from society over their use of private data.

“They are destroying our ability to communicate as a coherent people with common aims, common sense and common purpose,” she said. “And our populations are definitely registering their sense of outrage that this must be changed.”

Technically, 2023 will be Facebook’s 20th birthday. It was in 2003 when Zuckerberg built “FaceMash” at Harvard University, the platform which eventually was restarted as Facebook in 2004.

It will be a critical year. The company revealed last year that capital spending could be as high as $39 billion in 2023, as it seeks to intensify its investment in Reality Labs and the metaverse. The company’s shares fell by 25% in just one day when that news was revealed in October.

Overall spending is expecting to cross the $100-billion mark, despite the fact that the company is, in its own words, “making significant changes across the board to operate more efficiently.”

Meta already laid off more than 11,000 workers last November, and it has reportedly begun to rescind job offers already made as it initiates a hiring freeze.

The next big date for Meta observers is February 1, when the company will reveal its fourth-quarter and full year 2022 financial results.

Zuckerberg has made it clear that such results will not sway him from the path he has chosen for the company, despite growing clamor from the company’s backers to change course.

[…]

Via https://www.dw.com/en/meta-faces-a-future-of-more-legal-woes-and-falling-revenues/a-64352968?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

The Catastrophic Rise of Egg Prices

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Michael Snyder

Economic Collapse Blog

Do you remember when you could buy a dozen eggs for 99 cents?  It seems like it was only yesterday, but unfortunately, those days are now gone for good.  Thanks to a variety of factors, egg prices have risen to levels that we have never seen before, and in some areas of the country, significant shortages are being reported.

In fact, things are so bad that Whole Foods is apparently “now limiting egg carton purchases to two per person”.  This is extremely alarming because millions of U.S. households have traditionally relied on eggs as a cheap source of protein.  Unfortunately, it appears that eggs will not be “cheap” for the foreseeable future.  According to an article that originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the average price of a dozen eggs in California actually reached $7.37 this week…

Egg cases were bare across Los Angeles County this week, from Trader Joe’s in Long Beach to Amazon Fresh in Inglewood, Target in MidCity to Ralphs in Glendale. Those such as Hodges who found cartons were shocked by the sudden spike in price.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Anna Sanchez, 32, who scoured the half-empty shelves at a Smart & Final in University Park looking for a dozen eggs for less than $10. “The cheaper ones just aren’t there.”

The average retail price for a dozen large eggs jumped to $7.37 in California this week, up from $4.83 at the beginning of December and just $2.35 at this time last year, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show.

Can you imagine paying 7 dollars for a carton of eggs?

I certainly cannot.

Thankfully, prices are not quite as high elsewhere in the nation.  One of the reasons why egg prices in California are so absurd is because of a new law that went into effect last January…

Since the law went into effect last January, all eggs sold in California have to be produced in cage-free settings. But cage-free production takes much more space than conventional egg production, and California producers aren’t able to keep up with demand.

“They’re selling everything they can possibly grow,” Mattos said.

Of course egg prices have also been skyrocketing in states that do not have such laws.

All over the nation, people are now paying 4 or 5 dollars for a dozen eggs, and many believe that our ongoing bird flu pandemic is the primary factor that is causing prices to go completely nuts…

But egg prices are up significantly more than other foods — even more than chicken or turkey — because egg farmers were hit harder by the bird flu. More than 43 million of the 58 million birds slaughtered over the past year to control the virus have been egg-laying chickens, including some farms with more than a million birds apiece in major egg-producing states like Iowa.

More than 50 million chickens and turkeys have also been wiped out in Europe.

So when you combine the two totals, so far well over 100 million chickens and turkeys have been killed in just the United States and Europe.

And there is no end to the bird flu pandemic in sight.

This is a major crisis, but up to this point, the mainstream media has not been focusing on it very much.

On top of everything else, egg farmers have had to deal with rapidly rising costs in recent months.

In fact, there are some in the industry that insists that the huge cost increases that egg farmers have been hit with over the past year are even a bigger factor than the bird flu…

But the president and CEO of the American Egg Board trade group, Emily Metz, said she believes all the cost increases farmers have faced in the past year were a bigger factor in the price increases than bird flu.

“When you’re looking at fuel costs go up, and you’re looking at feed costs go up as much as 60%, labor costs, packaging costs — all of that … those are much much bigger factors than bird flu for sure,” Metz said.

Many anticipate that these costs will only go higher in 2023.

And that will mean even higher prices for the rest of us.

I really feel bad for small bakeries.  They use lots and lots of eggs, and if egg prices continue to go up many small bakeries could soon be forced to close…

“Small businesses especially, you live and die by what your food costs are,” said Tracy Ann Devore, owner of KnowRealityPie in Eagle Rock, who recently let go a dishwasher to stem rising costs. “If this keeps up for another three to six months, it could be a tipping point for some bakeries to close.”

For Devore and many others, the new egg crisis, combined with uncertainty about when it could ebb, has been more unsettling than the gradual price creep of dairy products, flour and produce.

“At some point, you can’t raise the price anymore,” Devore said. “There’s been points where I’ve cried recently, because I thought, ‘How are we going to keep going with this?’”

Our food industry was stable for so many years, but now we are witnessing a dramatic shift.

Costs are going through the roof, and supply problems just keep popping up.

Just like we have witnessed at other times, empty shelves are starting to be reported at certain supermarkets around the nation…

Social media is brimming with reports of missing food items at Kroger supermarket locations across the country.

A repeat of early 2020 when toilet paper and other essentials ran bare, the start of 2023 is seeing “a lot of empty shelves” at Kroger, according to numerous reports, some containing video evidence of lingering supply chain problems.

[…]

Via http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/lets-talk-about-the-catastrophic-rise-of-egg-prices/

Nixon Threatened to Reveal CIA Involvement in JFK Assassination

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So... this is Nixon’s fault?
By Roger Stone

A stunning, long-overlooked Nixon Watergate-era tape shows Richard Nixon warning CIA Director Richard Helms that he knows of CIA involvement in the murder of John F. Kennedy- “I know who shot John.”

This shocking new tape depicts Nixon increasingly besieged by Watergate but unaware that at least four of the Watergate burglars were still on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in, and that the CIA had thus infiltrated the burglary team. Recently declassified documents reveal that Watergate Special Prosecutor Nick Akerman was aware of both the CIA’s advance knowledge and involvement in the break-in — but said and did nothing.

Senator Howard Baker, the Republican Leader on the Senate Watergate Committee and his counsel Fred Thompson himself, a future U.S. Senator from Tennessee, like Baker, stumbled on the CIA’s deep advanced knowledge and direct involvement in the Watergate break-in. Baker and Thompson both knew that at least four of the Watergate burglars were on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in and that through CREEP Security Director James McCord, had infiltrated the burglary team. Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin stoutly refused to allow Baker and the Committee Republicans including Edward J. Gurney of Florida the right to publish a Minority Report which noted this stunning information regarding the CIA.

Nixon deeply distrusted the CIA because he knew that President Eisenhower had ordered the agency to give top secret briefings to both Nixon and Kennedy after both were the certain nominees of their parties. Nixon was sore that Kennedy utilized the information in their debates, attacking Nixon for being “soft” on communist Cuba, knowing full well that Nixon had chaired a working group as Vice President overseeing preparations for the “Bay of Pigs” invasion. Nixon, of course, could not reveal this upcoming attempt to topple Castro in the details.

[…]

Listen to tape at https://rogerstone.substack.com/p/nixon-threatened-to-reveal-the-cias#play

Why Has COVID Spared Africa?

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Dr Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance

  • There are clear contradictions between the World Health Organization’s directives regarding the need for COVID shots in Africa and the actual situation on the ground
  • The WHO is still calling on all countries to get the COVID jab into at least 70% of their populations, and warns that developing countries are at grave risk due to low jab rates. Meanwhile, Africa, where less than 6% of the population is jabbed, has fared far better than countries with high injection rates. A large-scale survey in Uganda also shows COVID is no longer a clinical issue
  • Variants have also gotten milder (less pathogenic) with each iteration, yet the WHO warns that new variants may create “large waves of serious disease and death in populations with low vaccination coverage”
  • The explanation for the disconnect between the WHO’s priorities and what’s happening in Africa can be explained when you look at the focus of the WHO’s Catastrophic Contagion exercise. It focused on getting African leadership trained in following the pandemic script. The WHO needs additional pandemics in order to justify its pandemic treaty, which will give it sole power to dictate countermeasures, and it needs to eliminate the African control group, which shows the COVID “vaccines” do more harm than good
  • The WHO also has every intention of implementing climate lockdowns once it has the power to do so. To that aim, the WHO’s director of Environment and Health has suggested combining health and climate issues into one

In the video above, John Campbell, Ph.D., a retired nurse educator, compares the contradictions between the World Health Organization’s directives regarding the need for COVID shots in Africa and the actual situation on the ground.

As of December 12, 2022, the WHO was still calling on all countries to get the COVID jab into at least 70% of their populations.1 Its original deadline for meeting this 70% threshold was mid-2022, but by June 2022, only 58 of 194 member states had reached this target.2

[…]

Low Jab Rates Threaten Low-Income Countries, WHO Claims

[…]

In short, the WHO is really concerned that countries with low COVID jab rates will suffer lest they meet or exceed the target goal of jabbing 70% of their populations. But what is that concern based on? Certainly not the real world.

WHO’s Statements Contradict Real-World Situations

The statements made by the WHO contradict a number of real-world situations. For starters, while developed nations with high jab rates struggled with COVID-19 throughout much of 2021 and 2022, Africa avoided this fate, despite its single-digit jab rate.

Scientists are said to be “mystified” as to how Africa fared so well, completely ignoring data showing that the more COVID shots you get, the higher your risk of contracting COVID and ending up in the hospital.

Over the past year, researchers have been warning that the COVID jabs appear to be dysregulating and actually destroying people’s immune systems, leaving them vulnerable not only to COVID but also other infections.5 It stands to reason, then, that Africa with its low injection rate would not be burdened with COVID cases brought on by dysfunctional immune systems.

Secondly, variants have gotten milder (less pathogenic) with each iteration, albeit more infectious (i.e., they spread easier). So why is the WHO worried about “the risk of new variants creating large waves of serious disease and death in populations with low vaccination coverage”? What is that “risk” based on?

[…]

As a reminder, according to a September 2, 2020 study in Annals of Internal Medicine, the overall noninstitutionalized infection fatality ratio for COVID was a mere 0.26%. Below 40 years of age, the infection fatality ratio was just 0.01%. Meanwhile, the estimated infection fatality rate for seasonal influenza is 0.8%.11

Report From Uganda

Campbell goes on to cite a large-scale survey by a community health partner in Uganda, which surveyed doctors, nurses and medical officers across the country, and “basically, they don’t see any COVID anymore,” he says.

[…]

What Uganda does need is malaria treatments, mosquito nets, clean drinking water and antibiotics. “That is what the priorities on the ground seem to be,” Campbell says. So, what’s with the apparent disconnect between the WHO’s priorities and what’s actually happening in areas with low COVID jab rates? The WHO’s Catastrophic Contagion exercise12,13 clues us in.

The Disconnect Reveals the WHO’s True Intentions

October 23, 2022, the WHO, Bill Gates and Johns Hopkins cohosted a global challenge exercise dubbed “Catastrophic Contagion,”14,15 involving the outbreak of a novel pathogen called “severe epidemic enterovirus respiratory syndrome 2025” (SEERS-25).

Tellingly, this tabletop exercise was focused on getting African leadership involved and trained in following the pandemic script. Participants included 10 current and former health ministers and senior public health officials from Senegal, Rwanda, Nigeria, Angola and Liberia. (Representatives from Singapore, India and Germany, as well as Gates himself, were also in attendance.)

African nations just so happened to go “off script” more often than others during the COVID pandemic and didn’t follow in the footsteps of developed nations when it came to pushing the jabs. As a result, vaccine makers now face the problem of having a huge control group, as the COVID jab uptake on the African continent was only 6%.16

The WHO desperately needs to get rid of this control group, so they’re enlisting and training African leaders how to push for widespread vaccination using the WHO’s talking points. This, I believe, is the only reason the WHO is still speaking about COVID-19 in catastrophic terms.

The WHO Needs Additional Pandemics to Secure Its Power Grab

[…]

So, the reason we can be sure there will be additional pandemics, whether manufactured using fear and hype alone or an actual bioweapon created for this very purpose, is because the takeover plan, aka The Great Reset, is based on the premise that we need global biosecurity surveillance and a centralized response.

Biosecurity, in turn, is the justification for an international vaccine passport, which the G20 just signed on to, and that passport will also be your digital identification. That digital ID, then, will be tied to your social credit score, personal carbon footprint tracker, medical records, educational records, work records, social media presence, purchase records, your bank accounts and a programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC).

[…]

The WHO’s pandemic treaty is what sets this chain of events off, as it will have the power to implement vaccine passports globally once the treaty is signed. The WHO will also have the power to mandate vaccines, standardize medical care and issue travel restrictions.

[…]

The Pandemic Treaty Is the Death Knell to Freedom Worldwide

[…]

Once signed, all member nations will be subject to the WHO’s dictates. If the WHO says every person on the planet needs to have a vaccine passport and digital identity to ensure vaccination compliance, then that’s what every country will be forced to implement, even if the people have rejected such plans using local democratic processes.

[…]

Officials Around the World Have Suggested Climate Lockdowns

As noted by The Pulse, a number of officials around the world have voiced support for climate lockdowns, completely ignoring the devastating effects the COVID lockdowns have already had. This just goes to show lockdowns were never about public health and never will be.

[…]

What Can You Do?

Stopping the WHO pandemic treaty will be difficult, as the World Health Assembly may or may not even accept public comment before making a decision. Your best bet right now is to sign up for the World Council for Health’s (WCH) newsletter.

The last time the World Health Assembly met to discuss the treaty, the WCH issued links and instructions on how to submit your comment. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page, or on the WCH’s home page. I and the CHD will also share details if they become available, so subscribing to our newsletters can give you a heads-up as well.

[…]

Via https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/01/12/why-has-covid-spared-africa.aspx

7 Facts Fauci Knew But Hid from Public

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anthony fauci hid pandemic facts feature

By  James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) this week listed seven key facts about the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s response to it that, according to Jordan, Dr. Anthony Fauci knew but didn’t tell the public.

Editor’s note: House Republicans on Monday commissioned a special investigative panel focused on the coronavirus pandemic during which they hope to press scientists and federal officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, about the origin of the public health crisis and the government’s response to it.

The following is a paraphrase of the opening round — the warning shot — by U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Tuesday in which he used his time to outline seven facts that Dr. Anthony Fauci knew, and, more importantly, what Fauci did, and did not do, when he was made aware of these facts.

This does not bode well for Fauci and those involved in the cover-up.

  1. Fauci understood that American tax dollars went to EcoHealth Alliance and that money was then funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab in China.
  2. Fauci knew EcoHealth Alliance was given an exemption from the pause on gain-of-function research.
  3. Fauci knew that the security standards at the WIV lab in China were deficient.
  4. Fauci knew that EcoHealth Alliance was not in compliance with its grant reporting requirements and wasn’t adhering to the contract.
  5. Fauci knew that gain-of-function research was in fact being conducted in
    the WIV lab in China.
  6. Fauci knew that the standard P3CO interagency review process wasn’t followed in approving the grant to EcoHealth Alliance.
  7. Fauci knew that the virus likely came from the lab where U.S. taxpayer dollars were sent … the very city where that lab is at, a deadly virus breaks out that would ultimately kill six million people around the world.

Importantly, what did Fauci do when he had this information?

On Feb. 1, 2020, what did Fauci do with this information?

Did he tell the president of the U.S., commander in chief, and say hey we’ve got a deadly virus that’s broken out in China in Wuhan where we’ve been sending American tax dollars to a lab that’s not up to code that’s doing gain-of-function?

Did he tell the chief of staff?

Did he tell his boss, former Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar?

Did he tell Dr. Robert Redfield? Dr. Deborah Birx? Dr. Brett Giroir?

No, he organized a conference call Feb. 1, 2020, at 2 p.m., with him, Francis Collins and 11 virologists from around the world to who he had been handing out American tax dollars for years and years and years …

Before that call, virologists including Kristian Andersen said things like “virus looks engineered, virus not consistent with evolutionary theory.” On the day of the call, Andersen said, “I don’t know how this gets done in nature but it would be easy to do in a lab.”

On this conference call, they get their story straight and three days later the very people who said this thing came from a lab change their tune and say that anyone who thinks that is crazy …

In an email from EcoHealth Alliance, Fauci received gratitude: “This is terrific, we are happy to hear that our gain-of-function research funding pause has been lifted” …

Over the last several years, Fauci told us:

  • it wasn’t our tax dollars.
  • it wasn’t gain-of-function.
  • it wasn’t a lab leak.
  • the vaccinated can’t get COVID-19.
  • the vaccinated can’t transmit the virus.
  • there is no such thing as natural immunity when it came to this virus.

We can’t trust some of the folks who were supposed to give us accurate information because they didn’t … they knew from the start.

If you’ve got a government not giving it to you straight, that’s something that you have to make sure we understand so it doesn’t happen again.

Not only we don’t want a terrible virus to happen again, we don’t want the government misleading us about a virus that could happen.

Starting next month we’ll look into it. We’ll make sure the country gets the facts like they should have had on Feb. 1, three years ago.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/anthony-fauci-hid-covid-pandemic-facts/

Hundreds of ‘Tylenol Lawsuits’ Allege Retailers, Manufacturers Knew Acetaminophen During Pregnancy Could Cause Autism, ADHD

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tylenol acetaminophen lawsuit pregnancy feature

By  Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Hundreds of “Tylenol lawsuits” already have been filed against retailers and manufacturers of acetaminophen — but that number could soon reach into the thousands, according to an attorney who spoke to The Defender.

Hundreds of “Tylenol lawsuits” already have been filed against retailers and manufacturers alleging they sold products containing acetaminophen to pregnant women knowing the medications could harm the developing fetus — but the number of lawsuits could soon reach into the thousands, according to an attorney who spoke to The Defender.

Attorney W. Mark Lanier described the lawsuits, which allege acetaminophen use during pregnancy can cause children to be born with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), “some of the most important health litigation pending in the United States right now.”

Lanier, founder and CEO of the Houston-based Lanier Law Firm involved in several high-profile product litigation lawsuits, told The Defender:

[…]

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) late last year appointed Senior U.S. District Judge Denise Cote to oversee the growing number of lawsuits brought by families, resulting in all of the claims being transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Cote last month appointed a special master to preside over all federal Tylenol autism and ADHD lawsuits.

The lawsuits allege retailers, including Walmart, CVS, Walgreens and others, falsely advertised products that contain acetaminophen as being safe for pregnant women and did not warn them about the risks posed to fetal development.

Lawsuits also are expected against Johnson & Johnson for its alleged role in encouraging widespread acetaminophen use during pregnancy, which could send the number into the thousands.

Products that contain the drug include Tylenol, Alka-Seltzer Plus, DayQuil, Excedrin, Goody’s, Mucinex, NyQuil, Robitussin and some generic and store-brand equivalents.

The lawsuits allege the products have been marketed as safe for pregnant women since the 1950s, despite the existence of dozens of peer-reviewed studies showing acetaminophen poses serious risks to pregnant women and unborn children.

Lawsuits are being pursued on behalf of children under age 15 who were diagnosed with ASD between the ages of 1 and 10, and children under age 15 who were diagnosed with ADHD between the ages of 8 and 14.

[…]

Lanier, one of the attorneys appointed as lead counsel in the Tylenol multidistrict litigation (MDL), told The Defender, “I think at this point we’re in the hundreds that have been filed. I think when all is said and done, we’ll be talking about thousands, tens of thousands” of cases.

[…]

The growing number of lawsuits has captured the attention of renowned consumer advocate Erin Brockovich, spokeswoman for Autism Justice, who launched a project to help mothers sue the manufacturers and retailers of acetaminophen products.

[…]

Studies clearly show link between acetaminophen and autism, ADHD

As previously reported by The Defender, referencing a JAMA Pediatrics research letter stating 1 in 30 children born in the U.S. in 2020 were diagnosed with autism, and there was a 53% increase in ASD among young Americans since 2017. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported similar statistics.

A growing number of scientific, peer-reviewed studies identified links between acetaminophen use by pregnant women and the onset of ASD and ADHD, and other developmental problems, in their children.

Acetaminophen became the preferred drug to treat fevers and pain in children in the early 1980s, after aspirin became associated with Reye’s syndrome. An increase in ASD has been documented as having begun during this time period.

In January 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an acetaminophen pregnancy warning, stating expectant mothers should be cautious when using such products. The FDA, however, claimed there is “not enough research” to confirm safety risks for unborn children from acetaminophen exposure.

However, numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies appear to show such a link:

  • Data from the ongoing Boston Birth Cohort Study, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has indicated that “exposure to acetaminophen in the womb may increase a child’s risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder.”
  • A July 2022 study of acetaminophen published in Minerva Pediatrics “offers 17 lines of evidence that the commonly used remedy for pain and fever may be contributing to the autism epidemic,” as previously reported by The Defender. Dr. William Parker, lead researcher on the study, told The Defender at the time that “acetaminophen would never be approved for pediatric use by today’s regulatory standards.”
  • A February 2022 study published in the European Journal of Pediatrics found that acetaminophen use in infants and children has never been shown to be safe for their neurodevelopment.
  • In September 2021, a consensus of 91 scientists, clinicians and public health professionals published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology journal called for the FDA’s 2015 recommendations to be updated. The consensus stated that “increasing experimental and epidemiological research suggests that prenatal exposure to [acetaminophen] might alter fetal development, which could increase the risks of some neurodevelopmental, reproductive and urogenital disorders.” This study also found that acetaminophen was, in fact, never assessed for impact on neurodevelopment.
  • A June 2021 study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology found that children exposed to Tylenol and acetaminophen during pregnancy were significantly more likely to develop ASD and ADHD symptoms.
  • A September 2020 study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggested that the use of Tylenol and acetaminophen during pregnancy may impair the brain of a developing fetus. This could result in ADHD symptoms and other neurological disorders.
  • A January 2020 study published in European Psychiatry found that girls whose mothers took acetaminophen during pregnancy were six times more likely to suffer from delayed language development, and used fewer words than normal by the age of 30 months.
  • An October 2019 Johns Hopkins study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that exposure to acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase a child’s risk of developing autism and ADHD, as the children that had the highest acetaminophen metabolite levels in their blood showed the highest risk of developmental disorders. This study was published in JAMA Psychiatry.
  • A November 2017 study published in Pediatrics, based on data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, found that there is a possible association between short-term acetaminophen use during pregnancy and the risk of giving birth to a child who will later develop ADHD.
  • An October 2017 NIH study linked acetaminophen use by pregnant women to “lower performance intelligence quotient (IQ) … autism spectrum disorder, neurodevelopmental problems (gross motor development, communication), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, poorer attention and executive function, and behavioral problems in childhood.”
  • A 2017 study published in the Journal of International Medical Research by renowned autism researchers from Duke, Harvard and the University of Colorado found that “the long-term effects of acetaminophen exposure on neural development have never been evaluated in humans.” The study’s authors stated that even at very low doses, acetaminophen “triggers immune system activation and oxidative stress responses” — both potential warning signs of autism.
  • An October 2016 study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggested that the side effects of acetaminophen, when used during pregnancy, may increase the risk of children being born with behavioral problems such as hyperactivity and emotional difficulties.
  • A June 2016 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was linked to a higher risk of autism among males, and an increased prevalence of ADHD cases among both boys and girls.
  • An October 2013 study in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that children whose mothers took acetaminophen products during pregnancy for more than 28 days exhibited poorer than normal gross motor development, communication, externalizing behavior and internalizing behavior.
  • A May 2013 study funded by the NIH found a link between circumcision-related acetaminophen use and the increased prevalence of autism.

 

Pentagon Controlled ‘Vaccines’ From the Start Under National Security Program

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Armed Forces Press

New Docs Reveal Department of Defense Controlled COVID-19 Program from the Start. FDA Vaccine Approval Process was Theater. A combination of the PREP Act, Emergency Use Authorization, and Other Transactions Authority (OTA) Shielded Big Pharma, Agencies, and Medical Participants that Delivered Unregulated Vaccines from Any Liability

WASHINGTON, DC – According to congressionally passed statutes, research of active laws,and extra details obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the Department of Defense owns, implements, and oversees the COVID-19 vaccine program as a“Countermeasure” to foreign attack. While the public was bombarded with an orchestrated fear campaign, the U.S.Government managed the Covid response as a national security threat.

The research and documents were obtained by a former executive of a pharmaceutical Contract Research Organization (CRO), Sasha Latypova, and intensive legal researcher Katherine Watt.

The Three-Legged Stool

The undercover operation was orchestrated utilizing three critical legal maneuvers:

1. Emergency Use Authorization EUA.

2. Prep Act,

3. Other Transactions Authority

President Trump declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE) on March 13, 2020, under the Stafford Act, putting the National Security Council in charge of the Covid policy.Covid-19 vaccines are “medical countermeasures” – a grey area of products that are not regulated as vaccines or medicines.

“They put the National Security Council in charge and treated it as an act of war,” said Latypova.

According to Operation Warp Speed/ASPR reports, the DoD ordered, oversaw, and tightly managed the development, manufacture, and distribution of Covid countermeasures, mainly utilizing the DoD’s previously established network of military contractors and consortia.

Department of Defense, BARDA, and HHS ordered all Covid countermeasures, including “vaccines” as prototype demonstrations of large-scale manufacturing, avoiding regulations and transparency under Other Transaction Authority. As prototypes used under EUA during PHE, Covid countermeasures, including “vaccines,” need not comply with the U.S. laws for manufacturing quality, safety, and labeling.

“The implication is that the US.Government authorized and funded the deployment of noncompliant biological materials on Americans without clarifying their “prototype” legal status, making the materials not subject to normal regulatory oversight, all while maintaining a fraudulent pseudo-“regulatory” presentation to the public,” said Latypova.

“Most incredible is the fact that current Laws enacted by the United States Congress appear to make the coverup actions LEGAL!”

Under the PHE, medical countermeasures are not regulated or safeguarded as pharmaceutical products (21 USC 360bbb-3(k).

The American people were led to believe that the FDA, CDC, and figureheads like Anthony Fauci oversaw the COVID-19 vaccine program.Their involvement was an orchestrated information operation. All decisions concerning the COVID-19 vaccine research, materials acquisition, distribution, and information sharing were tightly controlled by the DoD.

Hundreds of Covid countermeasures contracts have been uncovered. Many disclosures are in redacted form. However, Latypova and Watt have found sources to fill in the details. A review of these contracts indicates a high degree of control by the U.S. Government (DoD/BARDA). It specifies the scope of deliverables as “demonstrations” and “prototypes” only while excluding clinical trials and manufacturing quality control from the scope of work paid for by the contracts. To ensure that the Pharma is free to conduct the fake clinical trials without financial risk, the contracts include the removal of all liability for the manufacturers and any contractors along the supply and distribution chain under the 2005 PREP Act and related federal legislation.

Why is no action by regulators or courts? According to Latypova and Watt, a combination of recently passed legislation and executive orders make it LEGAL to LIE! The HHS Secretary is accountable to no one if the Health National Emergency continues to be extended by Congress every three months.

A significant information operation was set in motion the minute COVID-19 hit. The U.S. government, the intelligence community, the media, and Big Tech colluded to orchestrate and implement an intense pressure campaign designed to get the vaccine legally designated under the Emergency Use Authorization Act while vilifying dissenting doctors, critics, and viable alternative treatments. This designation allowed for speedy manufacturing devoid of the standard safety and public health protocols.

For a vaccine to receive designation under the EUA, there can be no other known treatments or cures. Therefore, many proven treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were blacklisted in the media and dismissed as “horse dewormers” when these cheap, readily available drugs were in the past heralded for their effectiveness.

[…]

Via https://armedforces.press/2023/01/05/breaking-dod-controlled-covid-vaccines-from-the-start-under-national-security-program-lied-the-entire-time-were-never-safe-and-effective/

URGENT: WHO Meeting in Secret to convert themselves to Enforceable Law under EXISTING Treaty

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The International Health Regulations Review Committee (IHRRC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to meet in secret from Monday, January 9, 2023 to Friday January 13, 2023. The IHRRC will be working to finalize what is now a 46 page document that includes proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).

The proposed amendments would:

  • Change the overall nature of the World Health Organization from an advisory organization that merely makes recommendations to a governing body whose proclamations would be legally-binding. (Article 1)
  • Greatly expand the scope of the International Health Regulations to include scenarios that merely have a “potential to impact public health.”
  • Seek to remove “respect for dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of people.” (Article 3)
  • Give the Director General of the WHO control over the means of production through an “allocation plan for health products” to require developed states parties to supply pandemic response products as directed. (Article 13A)
  • Give the WHO the authority to require medical examinations, proof of prophylaxis, proof of vaccine and to implement contact tracing, quarantine and TREATMENT. (Article 18)
  • Institute a system of global health certificates in digital or paper format, including test certificates, vaccine certificates, prophylaxis certificates, recovery certificates, passenger locator forms and a traveller’s health declaration. (Articles 18, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 35, 36 and 44 and Annexes 6, 7 and 8)
  • Redirect unspecified billions of dollars to the Pharmaceutical Hospital Emergency Industrial Complex with no accountability. (Article 44A)
  • Allow the disclosure of personal health data. (Article 45)
  • Greatly expand the World Health Organization’s capacity to censor what they consider to be mis-information and dis-information. (Annex 1, page 36)
  • Create an obligation to build, provide, and maintain, IHR infrastructure at points of entry TO ENABLE THE WHO TO UNDERTAKE THIS CENSORSHIP (Annex 10)

The 76th World Health Assembly is scheduled to occur from Sunday May 21, 2023 to Tuesday May 30, 2023. In order for the proposed amendments to be considered during the 76th World Health Assembly, they must be submitted to the World Health Organization at least 4 months in advance.

The IHRRC plans to submit these proposed amendments to the WHO by Sunday, January 15, 2023.

The International Health Regulations are existing, legally-binding international law. If the proposed amendments are presented to the 76th World Health Assembly, they could be adopted by a simple majority of the 194 member nations. According to the already agreed upon rules of the IHR, if the proposed amendments are adopted, the member nations would not need to take any additional actions.

The United States Senate would not be required to provide a two-thirds vote to give their “advice and consent.” No signatures by national leaders would be needed.

Hal Turner Editorial Opinion

This is precisely how all the elected politicians around the world intend to FORCE Vaccines on everyone, FORCE Vaccine Passports, and FORCE quarantines; by DELEGATING those powers to unelected people at the World Health Organization, then telling YOU “Our hands are tied, this is required by International Law and Treaty, we have no power to stop it.”

Worse, the WHO deems to decide for you and me, what constitutes “disinformation and misinformation, and they are giving themselves power to not only decide that, but to be able to actively CENSOR all of us, to prevent us from getting information out to the public when WHO and their pals are all wrong . . .  as in the just recently proved “COVID-19” nonsense, and their phony “vaccines” that are causing people to drop dead in public.

Because they are making changes within an EXISTING TREATY, no vote by the US Senate is needed and nothing can be done (other than abrogate the Treaty and quit the WHO) to stop these FORCED changes.

[…]

Via https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/bulletin-flash-urgent-w-h-o-meeting-in-secret-to-convert-themselves-to-enforceable-law-under-existing-treaty

JP Morgan Hit with Lawsuit for Facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s Crime Network

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J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon talks Amazon at JPM 2019 private dinner

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO JP Morgan Chase

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Wall Street on Parade

Making headlines around the world last week was the news that the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Denise George, was fired just days after she filed a federal lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, charging it with facilitating the sex trafficking of children by Jeffrey Epstein. George was fired by the Governor of the Virgin Islands, Albert Bryan Jr.

Unfortunately, those headlines and the mainstream news articles that accompanied them, fail to capture the worst parts of this story, which includes the following:

the 30-page lawsuit filed by Attorney General George on December 27 in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York includes a “Sealed Document Placed in Vault” according to the Docket Sheet in the case; after the paragraph headlined as “JP Morgan Ignored Obvious Red Flags Relating to Epstein’s Accounts,” large segments of the lawsuit have been redacted with black lines covering full paragraphs; pages 15 through 22 of the lawsuit are completely white, with no black line redactions and no text; the case has been assigned to Judge Jed Rakoff, who lately seems to be the only Judge in that large courthouse that is allowed to oversee sensitive matters pertaining to JPMorgan Chase – the largest bank in the U.S. which has a rap sheet that reads like the Gambino crime family and which has racked up five criminal felony counts – to which it pleaded guilty. (See Judge Rakoff Signs a Dangerous Protective Order in Whistleblower Case Against 5-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase.)

In November, two Jane Doe cases were filed individually against JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank for facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. Those cases were also assigned to Judge Jed Rakoff and have now been consolidated with the Virgin Islands case. The lead attorney in both Jane Doe cases is the prominent attorney, David Boies, of law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP.

And, finally, the charges being leveled by the now sacked Attorney General of the Virgin Islands involving JPMorgan Chase facilitating the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein have a distinctly familiar ring to the charges brought in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Justice against JPMorgan Chase for facilitating the massive Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff. Compare the similarities:

Virgin Islands Attorney General’s lawsuit filed December 27, 2022:

“…JP Morgan knowingly facilitated, sustained, and concealed the human trafficking network operated by Jeffrey Epstein from his home and base in the Virgin Islands, and financially benefitted from this participation, directly or indirectly, by failing to comply with federal banking regulations. JP Morgan facilitated and concealed wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of—and were in fact part of—a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude of dozens of women and girls in and beyond the Virgin Islands. Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JP Morgan.”

U.S. Department of Justice Charges filed on January 7, 2014:

“Since 1986, JPMorgan and its predecessor institutions served as the primary bank through which Madoff ran his Ponzi scheme. Madoff Securities maintained a series of linked checking and brokerage accounts at JPMorgan – collectively referred to as the ‘703 Account.’…Early on in its relationship with Madoff Securities, JPMorgan, because of its unique vantage point as the firm’s banker, had reason to be suspicious about Madoff. For example, in the early 1990s the Bank learned that Madoff and a prominent client of JPMorgan’s Private Bank (the ‘Private Bank Client’) were engaged in what looked like round-tripping, check-kiting transactions. Another bank involved in these transactions (‘Madoff Bank 2’) recognized them as suspicious and without any legitimate business purpose. In or about 1996, unlike JPMorgan, Madoff Bank 2 not only filed a suspicious activity report (SAR’) with law enforcement, but it actually closed down Madoff’s account. As a result, Madoff moved all of his accounts from Madoff Bank 2 to JPMorgan, where the size of these transactions became much larger. For example, in December 2001 alone, the Private Bank Client engaged in approximately $6.8 billion worth of transactions with Madoff through a series of circular $90 million transfers.”

Just like Madoff, Epstein held a multitude of accounts at JPMorgan Chase. Attorney General George wrote this in her lawsuit:

“This illicit association of Epstein, businesses, and his associates constitutes what is referred to herein as the ‘Epstein Enterprise.’ Specifically included in the Epstein Enterprise were the following companies and non-profit organizations, all of which had accounts with JP Morgan: 2013 Butterfly Trust, Coatue Enterprises, LLC, C.O.U.Q. Foundation, Enhanced Education, Financial Trust Company, Inc., HBRK Associates, Inc., Hyperion Air, Inc, JEGE, Inc., JEGE, LLC, NES, LLC, Plan D, LLC, Southern Financial, LLC, and Southern Trust Company.”

Attached to the lawsuit filed by ousted Attorney General George is an Exhibit 1, which is the text of the lawsuit the Virgin Islands recently settled against the Jeffrey Epstein estate. That lawsuit provides the following insight into the bank account operated by Southern Trust Company, which was supposed to be an information technology company:

“Despite having no visible clients and only one full-time employee working on information technology during the bulk of the period, Southern Trust Company reportedly generated net income of $50.3 million in 2013, $67.5 million in 2014, $52.8 million in 2015, and $4.8 million in 2016 and $17.1 million in 2017, with aggregate income of $117.8 million in 2014, $170.6 million in 2015, $175.3 million in 2016 and $192.4 million in 2017, or aggregate income for the period of $656 million…

“In fact, the main source of funds for the Epstein Enterprise came from Southern Trust. Between 2013 and 2017, Southern Trust reported approximately $184 million in revenues.

“Bank records show that virtually all of Southern Trust Company’s income came from a single source (including related entities).”

According to media reports, the vast majority of Southern Trust Company’s income came from Leon Black, the billionaire co-founder of private equity firm, Apollo Global Management. Black was sued last November by Cheri Pierson, who alleges he raped her at Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan in 2002. Another woman, Guzel Ganieva, has also alleged rape against Black.

Last November, Attorney General George settled her earlier lawsuit against the estate of Jeffrey Epstein for $105 million in cash, plus half the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James, the notorious private island where Epstein lived and allegedly molested an endless stream of underage girls. The settlement includes the disgorgement of $80 million in tax benefits that the Southern Trust Company fraudulently obtained from the Virgin Islands by characterizing itself as a legitimate technology company.

Epstein died of a reported suicide in a Manhattan jail on August 10, 2019 as he awaited trial on charges of engaging in the sex trafficking of underage girls.

[…]

Via https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/01/jpmorgan-chase-hit-with-lawsuit-for-facilitating-jeffrey-epsteins-crime-network-similar-charges-were-brought-against-it-for-facilitating-madoffs-ponzi-scheme/

The Engineering Marvel of Rome’s Public Baths

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Caraculla Baths

Lecture 15: Paradigm and Paragon—Imperial Roman Baths

Understanding Greek and Roman Technology: From the Catapult to the Pantheon

Dr Stephen Ressler (2013)

Film Review

According to Ressler, the first public baths appeared in Minoan Crete during the Bronze Age (3500 – 1000 BC) and served a ritual function for the elite. The Greek city states built the first baths for the public at large. Numerous persons sat in individual tubs in the same room while an attendant poured cold water over them. Plato asserted that warm baths were only for the old and sick.

During the Hellenistic Period (post Alexander the Great 323 – 33 BC) public baths began offering saunas and bathtubs began appearing in private homes.

The first hot water baths in the Republic of Rome emerged during the third century BC in southern Italy, perhaps in imitation of nearby natural hot springs. Between 200 and 100 BC, public baths featuring a sauna, hot bath, cold plunge and massage became extremely popular. Emperors built baths to manifest their power and to curry public favor. By 30 BC, there were 170 baths in the city of Rome alone.

Today the best preserved Roman baths those in Caraculla, south of the Palatine Hill. Construction on the Caraculla baths, which were larger than four football fields, began in 213 AD. Opening in 216 AD and serving 6,000 bathers a day, they provided exercise areas and changing rooms, as well as saunas and communal baths with hot (calderia), tepid (tepidaria) and cold water (fridgidarium).

Structural engineer Janet Delaine has published detailed schemata of the complex process required to construct the baths, which Ressler recreates with detailed drawings and scale models. The first step was to build a new aqueduct to supply the sites cistern with three million gallons of water a day to mix the tons of cement required for the foundations and walls. Doubling as a retaining wall, the Carucalla cistern was an exception to the continuous flow featured in other public baths and fountains. Once the baths began operating, the cistern was filled at night to avoid disrupting the city’s water supply.

Construction workers began by digging a subterranean terrace they used to lay a 15-20 foot foundation made of standard opus testaceum.* They used a timber frame, which eventually rotted away, to pour concrete mixed with basalt for etra strength. Next came the bath’s subterranean structures: the sewer (a vaulted brick gallery), lead pipes to supply water, vertical drain pipes for rainwater and waste, maintenance galleries and multiple passage ways. The maintenance galleries were necessary to access the 50 furnaces heating the paths. They had to be 20 feet wide to support horse drawn wagons carrying wood, while simultaneously incorporating skylights for illumination, feedings troughs for horses and storage rooms accommodating 2,000 tons of firewood.

Next 4,000 masons and bricklayers and stone masons used wooden scaffolding to build the the 80 foot walls, which used embedded relieving above doors and windows to provide additional support. The walls also included built-in roof drain pipes, channel supply pipes, interior staircases and heating flues. Building used a wide variety of barrel vaults, groin vaults and semi-vaults supported by substantial buttress vaults to create separate bathing chambers.

from a barrel vault to a groined vault – GeoGebra

The subterranean hypocaust (a central heating system used throughout the empire to heat public buildings and elite homes) comprised three elements: 1) a wood burning furnace, 2) a floor raised on stacks of bricks and 3) rectangular terracotta heating flues. embed into the walls.

Baths of Caracalla | Roman history, Ancient rome, Roman architecture

The building was incredibly energy efficient, facing the southwest to receive direct sunlight and incorporating glazed glass windows to trap heat. After the calderium water cooled, it was rechanneled to the tepidarium with some wastewater diverted to public toilets. Some waste water was also to power a grain mill located an underground chamber.

Although the building employed no new technologies or innovations, existing technology made it possible to rely on mainly (85%) skilled labor to to complete the building.

*See https://stuartbramhall.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/the-first-roads-in-the-ancient-world/

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