Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 488
November 21, 2022
Court Orders CDC to Release Data Pointing to 18 Million Vaccine Injuries in America
American Liberty Report
More than 18 million people were injured so badly by their first COVID shot from Pfizer or Moderna that they had to go to the hospital. That’s according to the CDC’s own internal data, which a court just ordered the federal agency to release to a watchdog group.
Instead of alerting the public to the incredible dangers of these shots and completely shutting down Joe Biden’s mass vaccination mandates, the CDC covered up the info until it was forced to release. Everyone in a position of authority at the CDC should be fired for this. What good is a “public health” agency if it fails to alert the public that 8% of vaccine recipients are being hospitalized?
The CDC started a vaccine monitoring program back at the very beginning of the COVID shot rollout in December of 2020. You might remember it. The program was called V-safe. People were asked to install the V-safe app on their smartphones and then self-report if they have any negative effects from the experimental mRNA shots, which were released to the public under an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA.A lot of people were eager to help, because world governments had scared many folks very badly over the virus. Many thought that the COVID shots were a medical miracle in late 2020. So, more than 10 million people downloaded V-safe on their smartphones, and then proceeded to get vaccinated.
That’s a huge sample size for a medical study. With 10 million people participating in the V-safe self-reporting system, it gives us an extremely accurate statistical model to use when studying the 230 million Americans who have had at least one COVID shot.
The CDC tracked data in the V-safe program for the first 18 months of the vaccine’s public availability, up through July of this year. But then, strangely, the CDC never published any data from V-safe. We couldn’t see it. We just had to trust the CDC, which had been caught lying repeatedly.
The CDC’s main webpage about the mRNA COVID shots still says, to this very day, “COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and free.” That’s the very first sentence on the website. Safe and effective! That’s been the CDC’s position for the entire time. The vaccines are safe, and they cannot hurt you.
If that’s true, then why wouldn’t the CDC release the data until a court ordered it to do so following a lawsuit by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN)? The data speaks for itself.
Of the 10 million people who participated in V-safe – again, a massive sample size – 3.3 million reported Adverse Health Impacts (AHIs) immediately after their first vaccination. That’s 33% or one-in-three. Of those 3.3 million people, 1.2 million reported that they were unable to perform daily activities for a time after vaccination. 1.3 million reported getting so sick from the shots that they had to miss school or work. And about 800,000 reported being hospitalized by their COVID vaccination.
That last figure is the most worrisome. 800,000 hospitalizations out of 10 million people? That’s an 8% hospitalization rate. It means that as many as 18 million of the 230 million people who received at least one shot may have been hospitalized with an adverse reaction.
A study published in June of 2021 by the National Institutes of Health – where Tony Fauci works – found that the hospitalization rate from COVID-19 for the total population was 2.1%. If you are under the age of 40, the hospitalization rate from COVID-19 is just 0.4%.
For the shots, the hospitalization rate has been 8%.
This means that:
YOU ARE 4 TIMES AS LIKELY TO BE HOSPITALIZED BY THE VACCINES THAN BY COVID ITSELF, NO MATTER WHAT AGE GROUP YOU ARE IN.
YOU ARE 20 TIMES AS LIKELY TO BE HOSPITALIZED BY THE SHOTS IF YOU ARE UNDER AGE 40 THAN BY COVID ITSELF.
You can read the NIH-published study HERE.
ICAN has set up a website where you can finally view the CDC’s V-safe data online. The data was released on October 3, 2022, under a court order. You can see the data for yourself HERE.
The CDC has been lying to the American people about the vaccines all this time. There need to be legal consequences for this. Public trials and long jail sentences are necessary for anyone at the CDC who participated in this cover-up.
[…]
Is the CIA Supporting Another Color Revolution in Iran—Like the One that Installed the Shah in 1953?
[Source: npr.org]Jeremy Kuzmarov
Covert Action Magazine
CIA offshoot, National Endowment for Democracy, spent $631,500 in Iran in 2021.In late September, protests erupted in Iran following the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, after she had been arrested by morality police in Tehran purportedly for not wearing the hijab.
Amini died allegedly of a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke after, eyewitnesses claimed, she was beaten while incarcerated
The Iranian government, however, released a video which appeared to show that Amini merely got in a dispute with a police officer about the way she wore the hijab and that the police officer walked away.
Amini subsequently collapsed in the Tehran police station and died two days later after having a heart attack allegedly caused by prior health problems (Amini allegedly underwent open brain surgery as a child in 2006).[1]
U.S. President Joe Biden was very supportive of the protests from the outset, announcing intensified sanctions on Iran while assigning restrictions on the export of software and hardware to make it easier for Iranians to communicate with each other and the outside world.
Biden said that he was “gravely concerned about reports of the intensifying violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in Iran, including students and women, who are demanding their equal rights and basic human dignity,” and that for decades “Iran’s regime has denied fundamental freedoms to its people and suppressed the aspirations of successive generations through intimidation, coercion and violence.”
Are Iranian Leaders Paranoid?Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, claimed that outside forces led by the U.S. had ignited the protests and were trying to bring down the Iranian regime.
The Iranian government was particularly vulnerable because of severe economic problems—caused in no small part by U.S. sanctions—and reports about the declining health of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is allegedly making preparations for his son, Mojtaba, to succeed him and sustain Iran’s commitment to Islamic ideology.
The U.S. has a track record of supporting regime-change operations like in Libya, Syria and Iraq among other countries.
The CIA also orchestrated a coup in Iran in 1953 that resulted in the overthrow of democratic reformer Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed the pro-Western Shah who terrorized his opposition and enabled foreign control of Iran’s oil industry.
That 1953 coup significantly started when the CIA paid off gangs and labor leaders to initiate protests against Mosaddegh.
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah, the U.S. has repeatedly tried to overthrow the Iranian government, which famously took U.S. Embassy officials hostage and frequently supported U.S. adversaries such as Hezbollah; the Houthi in Yemen; the Palestinians; and the Assad government in Syria.[2]
In 2007, President George W. Bush openly endorsed a CIA plan for propaganda and disinformation targeting Iran, and approved the mounting of black operations designed to destabilize Iran’s government.
The Obama administration followed suit by a) encircling Iran with missiles placed in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE); b) strengthening Bush’s economic sanctions and pushing Saudi Arabia to drive up its oil production to push oil prices down; and c) removing the Mujahedin e-Khalq—a dissident group that plotted sabotage operations against the Iranian government—from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.[3]
The Trump administration ratcheted up sanctions even further and assassinated General Qasem Soleimani, famed commander of the Quds force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
So Iranian leaders clearly are not paranoid in believing that the U.S. is behind the recent protests.
Syria, Libya, Ukraine Redux?Many Iranian women have come out to voice their opposition to the mandatory veil—a measure the majority of Iranians actually support.[4]
As in other “color revolutions,” legitimate grievances can be easily exploited by outside forces and protests can quickly become violent and dominated by extremists bent on regime change.
Images have filled social media of Iranian protesters waving signs such as “death to the dictator” amidst a backdrop of burning cars. One video showed a crowd defacing a billboard depicting Qasem Soleimani, a national hero.
Independent news reports said that terrorist groups led by the Mujahedin e-Khalq—which has carried out bombings and murders—were among the crowds as well as supporters of militant Kurdish parties and other armed rebel groups linked with drug smuggling gangs and Balochi separatists, and that protesters were arrested carrying sharp weapons and explosives.
Killings were carried out including of at least one army General, with the purpose of blaming them on the government and provoking an overreaction among the security forces. Rioters burned banks and other state institutions, looted chain stores and attacked police stations, prompting violent counter-reprisals.[5]
This is all eerily reminiscent of protests in Syria, Libya, Ukraine and elsewhere that resulted in civil wars and violent coups that devastated their societies for years afterwards.
U.S. Agent of Regime ChangeIn an article on the independent Arab webzine Al Mayadeen entitled “Dirty Money: Meet the U.S. Agent Driving the CIA-Led Riots in Iran,” journalist Mona Issa profiles Masih Alinejad, whom Issa calls “Washington’s weapon of choice for flaring up the largest color revolution attempt in Iran today.”
Masih Alinejad—Washington’s weapon of choice. [Source: wikipedia.org]Recipient of a women’s rights prize from the Geneva Summit for Democracy and Human Rights and American Jewish Committee’s moral courage award, Alinejad, 46, published a book in 2018 called The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran that deals with her experiences growing up in Iran, where, she writes, girls “are raised to keep their heads low, to be [as] unobtrusive as possible, and to be meek.”
On her website, Alinejad has posted videos and photos of Iranian women showing their hair—minus the hijab. Then, after Mahsa died, she set up the influential Twitter feed, “#MahsaWasMurdered by the Islamic Republic’s hijab police in Iran.”
Alinejad told The New Yorker: “I’m leading this movement. The Iranian regime will be brought down by women. I believe this.”
Operating from an FBI safe house in New York, Alinejad has been living in the U.S. for the past decade working as a full-timer for Voice of America, Persia, a U.S. propaganda mouthpiece funded by the U.S. Congress.
Alinejad’s coziness with the U.S. power elite was evident in a photo she took in May 2019 with former CIA Director and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a strong advocate of regime change in Iran.
[Source: english.almayadeen.net]Issa uncovered that, between 2015 and 2022, the U.S. Agency for Global Media paid Alinejad more than $628,000 to harass veiled women, spread propaganda, and demand more sanctions against Iran—even though those sanctions were causing vast suffering, especially among women.
When Alinejad takes on Islamic regimes for oppressing women, generally, she targets only enemies of the U.S.—Iran primarily and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan—and not U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, which is most notorious for its mistreatment of women.
Alinejad curiously has never sought to rally behind feminists in Saudi Arabia—only U.S. enemy states like Iran and Afghanistan. [Source: humanists.international][…]
What Role the NED?The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a CIA offshoot which supports civil society groups worldwide with the aim of ‘strengthening capitalism and democracy’ and overthrowing governments the U.S. does not like.
In 2021, it provided $631,500 to Iran. Part of the sum went to human rights groups that document abuses by the Iranian government with the goal of discrediting it. Other grants went to media groups that spread negative stories about the Iranian government, and yet more toward supporting dissident political groups under the guise of democracy promotion.
The NED has tweeted out support for Alinejad’s book, and on its website includes articles that support regime change. On September 22, for example, the NED’s “Democracy Digest” ran an article entitled “Iran Protests Pose New Test for Failed Regime.”[6]
[…]
Via https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/10/10/is-the-cia-supporting-another-color-revolution-in-iran-like-the-one-that-brought-in-the-shah-in-1953/The Last Qing Emperor
Resisting further European colonization, the Qing Dynasty limited all foreign merchants to the city of Guanzhou. Dismayed by the low Chinese demand for their products and the huge outflow of silver from their coffers (The Ming Empire Monopolizes Silver Bullion and Ban the Jesuitsesuits/), the British East India Company came up with the brilliant solution of purchasing opium from India and illegally smuggling it into China.
By the late 1830s, China had an estimated 12 million Chinese opium addicts. In 1839, Governor General Lin Zexu endeavored to shut down the illegal opium trade by confiscating 20,000 chests of opium and arresting 1600 foreign merchants and their Chinese accomplices.
Britain’s response (predictably) was to declare war. With their swords, knives and a few muskets, the Chinese were no match for British rifles and gunboats. Under the punitive Treaty of Nanking, which ended the First Opium War (1839-42), China was forced to cede Hong Kong to the British, open five ports to British merchants and residents, exempt British residents from Chinese law and pay $9 million in reparations (for the opium they had burned).
When the Chinese ban on opium trading continued, Britain launched a Second Opium War (1856-1860), forcing China to legalize the opium, ban tariffs on all imported goods and permit Christian missionaries to operate throughout China.
After France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, the US, Russia and Japan imposed similar treaties on China, by 1900 90 Chinese ports were under foreign control, foreign fmerchants controlled the Chinese economy and Russia was the de facto ruler of Manchuria.
Growing poverty and government corruption led to numerous 19th century uprisings. The largest, the 1851 Taiping Rebellion, nearly brought the Qing dynasty down.
Taiping demands foreshadowed those Chinese peasants would make 100 years later under Mao Zedung:
abolition of private property.communal wealth shared according to needa ban on foot binding and concubinage.free public educationsimplification of Chinese written languageincrease government support for literacycreation of democratic political institutionstransformation to an industrial societyequality under law for men and womenA rebel force of one million eventually captured Nanjing, which became the capitol of rebel-controlled Taiping. With European support, regional Qing officials built armies, slaughtered 100,000 rebels and gradually reconquered their territory.
Between 1835 and 1908, China’s de facto ruler was the dowager empress Cixi, who was regent to two boy emperors. Totally opposed to reform, in 1893 she staged a coup to crush China’s gradual transformation to a a constitutional monarchy. She eventually threw her support behind the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), in which Chinese rebels engaged in the mass slaughter of foreigners.
After crushing the rebellion, in 1901 China’s foreign occupiers stationed armed troops along all major inland seaport routes. In response to continuing revolutionary activity continued, the dynasty abolished the Confucian exam system in 1905.
In 1908 Cixi died one day after the emperor himself died of arsenic poisoning. His heir, two-year old Puyi was declared the new emperor.
Ultimately victorious, rebels declared the Republic of China In 1912. Puyi, the last Qing emperor, abdicated at age six.*
*Eventually rehabilitated by China’s communist government, Puyi died in 1967.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/5808608/5808689
November 20, 2022
Arizona Attorney General’s Office Fires Off Letter to Maricopa County Regarding 2022 Midterm Election Day Voter Suppression
Posted BY: Jim Hoft
NWO Report
The letter is signed by Jennifer Wright, the Assistant Attorney General from the state of Arizona.
In the letter, Jennifer Wright explains that the Attorney General’s Elections Integrity Unit has received HUNDREDS of complaints by concerned citizens pertaining to issues related to the administration of the 2022 General Election in Maricopa County. The complaints include first-hand accounts from witnesses raising concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with the Arizona election code.
The Attorney General’s office also includes how at least 60 voting locations out of 230 in the county had tabulators and printing machines that were not working on Election Day.
The Attorney General’s office demanded that Maricopa County provide a comprehensive list of the equipment failures on Election Day.
The AG’s office admits that the machines were allegedly working the night before the election but that 25-30 percent of the machines were down hours later on Election Day morning.
Based on the plethora of reports from election workers, poll observers, and voters, combined with Maricopa County’s admission that there were in fact widespread problems related to non-uniform BOD printer configuration settings, the Unit requests that Maricopa County provide a comprehensive report detailing with specificity:
(1) the voting locations that had problems with either BOD printers or tabulation;
(2) the specific problems at each voting location;
(3) any other issues related to BOD printers and/or tabulators that may have contributed to the problems at voting locations;
(4) a comprehensive log of all changes to the BOD printer configuration settings (to include the identity of individuals making changes);
(5) MaricopaCounty’s standards for the BOD printer configuration settings as specified in internal technical specifications and/or manufacturer technical specifications;
(6) the precise time the non-uniform printer configuration settings were found to be the root cause of the problem; and
(7) the method used to update or reconfigure the printer configuration settings at each voting location(specifically, if technicians were sent to the voting location, when were they deployed in the field and when did they make the changes at each voting location; alternatively, if the network administrator was able to make universal changes, please detail when and how the printer configuration settings were corrected).
Maricopa County must also explain election “check-out” procedures including why Maricopa County election workers publicly encouraged voters to leave a voting location.
Maricopa County is also being asked to explain the “Door 3” procedures.
The request by the Attorney’s General office must be completed by Monday, November 28, 2022.
[…]
Twitter Reinstates Trump’s Account
Blogging Hounds
It’s kind of hard to lead an “insurrection” when you are telling everyone to “remain peaceful,” and to “support Capitol Police,” and to “stay peaceful.”
Last night Elon Musk reinstated President Trump’s Twitter account.
This came hours after a poll of Twitter users asked if the 45th president should be reinstated.
More than 15 million people participated in the Twitter poll.
51.8% voted yes and 48.2% voted no (probably mostly bots voted no).
Trump’s Twitter account was up and running shortly after Elon Musk agreed to reinstate it.
And since his account was taken down on January 8, 2021, his tweets from that week were the last messages he posted on Twitter before the left silenced him.
And look at what popped up!
President Trump called for protesters to remain peaceful and to stay peaceful.
Trump even asked the protesters to “support Capitol police” after they fired gas cannisters, rubber bullets, and mace at the crowds without warning.
The Biden regime is currently running a special counsel on Trump for leading an insurrection. All of the evidence they have is manipulated, incomplete, or outright lies.
Let’s pray the real perpetrators are someday caught and punished for planning and instigating the attacks on January 6th.
[…]
How the Covid Shots Cripple Immune Function
By Dr Joseph Mercola
In “Innate Immune Suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccinations: The Role of G-quadruplexes, Exosomes and MicroRNAs,” Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and Drs. Peter McCullough, Greg Nigh and Anthony Kyriakopoulos explain how the COVID shots suppress your innate immune function, and how they may cause neurological diseasesTheir landmark paper was the source of major controversy in that the prominent journal in which it was published receive much negative feedback and the editor of the journal was forced to resign although the paper has not been retracted at this timeG4s are genome-wide targets of transcriptional regulation. The “G” stands for guanine. G4 is DNA sequence of four guanines, which plays an important role in diseases such as cancers and neurological disorders. The COVID jab spike protein produces far more G-quadruplexes (G4) than the virus. The G4 causes prion protein to misfold, which can result in prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Alzheimer’sTwo specific microRNA have been found in people who got the jab, and these microRNA’s interfere with Type 1 interferon response, which is a key part of your immune system. When Type 1 interferon is suppressed, you become more prone to infection and chronic diseaseThe COVID jab produces high levels of immunoglobulin (IgG) antibodies, which are associated with autoimmune disease. It does not produce mucosal antibodiesAntibodies against the spike protein may be responsible for cases in which patients developed highly aggressive prion disease after their second jab.In this interview, return guest Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at MIT for over five decades,1 discusses her paper,2 “Innate Immune Suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccinations: The Role of G-quadruplexes, Exosomes and MicroRNAs,” published in the June 2022 issue of Food and Chemical Toxicology.
The paper was co-written with Drs. Peter McCullough, Greg Nigh and Anthony Kyriakopoulos. In May 2021, Nigh and Seneff published a paper3 detailing the differences between the spike protein and the COVID jab spike protein.
In the “Innate Immune Suppression” paper, they and their other co-authors delve deep into the mechanisms of the COVID shots, showing how they suppress your innate immune system.
The paper caused quite a stir when it was first posted, prior to publication. A campaign was launched to have it retracted on the premise that it would discourage people from getting these life-saving shots — regardless of whether the mechanisms described were true or not.
Ultimately, the controversy led to the resignation of the editor of the journal. Many have also tried to discredit Seneff, and McCullough has since been stripped of his medical credentials.4
Understanding G-QuadruplexesG-quadruplexes (G4) are genomewide targets of transcriptional regulation, and as such as a novel target for drug design. The “G” in G4 stands for guanine, so G4 is DNA sequence of four guanines. It’s one of the four nucleotides — the basic code — in DNA, and it’s known to play an important role in diseases such as cancers and neurological disorders.5
As explained by Seneff, prions, when misfolded, build beta sheets and precipitate out of the cytoplasm, causing plaque to form. This plaque is a hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases in animals and humans, such as Mad Cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, scrapie (which affects sheep) and chronic wasting disease in deer.
[…]
How the COVID Jab Can Induce Autoimmune DiseaseAs explained by Seneff, the mRNA in the jab is taken into your lymph system and spleen, germinal centers where antibodies are produced, and in order to produce the antibodies, these germinal centers release exosomes. This can help explain the phenomenon of “shedding,” but it also helps explain the immune destruction we see occurring.
[…]
Mechanism of ActionSwiss researchers recently reported finding elevated troponin levels in 100% of COVID jabbed individuals, indicating everyone is suffering some degree of heart damage, even if they’re asymptomatic.6,7
[…]
The Role of MicroRNAsAnother piece of the puzzle is related to the role of microRNAs, which are embedded in the exosomes that travel to the tissues. MicroRNAs should not be confused with mRNA. They’re two different things. The microRNAs are short pieces of RNA, about 22 nucleotides long. Unlike mRNA, microRNA do not code for protein.
The mRNA in the jabs are designed to be extremely resilient. Normally, mRNA lasts a few hours, but the mRNA in the jabs stick around producing protein in cells for several months, at minimum primarily because of the substitution of the nucleotide uridine with pseudouridine.
Because the mRNA is so resilient, spleen cells have to try to cope with all the spike protein that they cannot stop making, and one way they do that is by pushing the spike protein out in the form of exosomes. Those exosomes also contain microRNAs. Indian researchers found two specific microRNAs in people who got the jab, and these microRNAs interfere with Type 1 interferon response.
[…]
Hypothesis to Explain Post-Jab Sudden DeathSeneff goes on to cite animal research from 2005, in which mice were exposed to a virus that causes myocarditis. They wanted to see what would happen if the mice were suffering from myocarditis and then got a shot of adrenaline. So, the mice were infected with the myocarditis-inducing virus, and then, 120 days later, they injected them with adrenaline.
The dose given killed 70% of them. Meanwhile, control mice that did not have myocarditis suffered no ill effect when injected with the same dose of adrenaline. The mice that died, died of heart failure. Basically, their hearts were too damaged to withstand the adrenaline rush. Today, we’re seeing a similar effect in athletes, who are dropping dead while exerting themselves.
Digging for other papers, Seneff found one that detailed the Type 1 interferon response in chromaffin cells, the cells that make adrenaline. Type 1 interferon inhibits and reduces their production of adrenaline.
Seneff’s theory is that the COVID jabs interferes with your body’s ability to respond to Type 1 interferon, thereby allowing too much adrenaline to be released. If your heart has been damaged by the spike protein, the outcome could be lethal, as we’ve seen.
[…]
At the same time, microthrombi (micro blood clots) are activated by the spike protein, which could have lethal effects, and endothelial cells (the cells lining your blood vessels) are also inflamed. So, there’s not just one mechanism by which the jabs could kill you.
Spike Protein Creates Incredibly Tough Blood ClotsAccording to Seneff, blood clots are also connected to the prion aspect. Many different proteins are amyloidogenic and can misfold, causing them to precipitate out, including proteins in your blood. Blood clots are tough to break down, and when you add spike protein into them, they become even tougher.
Seneff suspects the spike protein binds to fibrin, causing it then to misfold in a way that makes it very resistant to breaking down. The same thing happens with prion proteins. When they misfold, they create a gel that becomes denser over time, eventually becoming completely inaccessible to the water base.
Link to video
Link to paper
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9012513/
[…]
November 19, 2022
Twitter lives as Musk pulls all-nighter… Banned accounts reappearing…
Posted BY: Bill | NwoReport
The naysayers said Twitter would go dark, but Musk has put himself in tight spots before and knows how to manage a crack team.
Twitter is alive
More alive at 1 am than it used to be during the daytime pic.twitter.com/kXAsOConnI
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) November 19, 2022
Just leaving Twitter HQ code review pic.twitter.com/pYcXRTJm14
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Musk offers some more clarity on censorship policy. Question is, how do you define negative/hate tweets? This policy is not exactly in line with the 1st Amendment, as we were promised.
We also see those Orwellian fact-checks are still there promoting official truths:
.@ElonMusk, @Twitter is vandalizing (using hotly disputed language that election technology is "safe and secure") and suppressing this educational tweet on the debate on voting machines. https://t.co/uiorbrjyGg
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 19, 2022
[…]
Via https://nworeport.me/2022/11/19/twitter-lives-as-musk-pulls-all-nighter-banned-accounts-reappearing/
Roundup Linked to Antibiotic Resistance in Deadly Infections Commonly Acquired in Hospitals
A study published late last month in the journal Scientific Reports is the latest to link commonly used herbicides to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Roundup and other glyphosate weedkillers induce antibiotic resistance in deadly hospital-acquired bacteria, according to a study published late last month in the journal Scientific Reports.This is the latest finding connecting commonly used herbicides to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, with prior research showing glyphosate, 2,4-D and dicamba are able to create resistance in Salmonella and E. coli.
While federal regulatory agencies continue to ignore the role of pesticides in the development of antibiotic resistance, it is critical for states and localities to take action to protect their most vulnerable both from toxic exposure to these herbicides and the multitude of indirect effects caused by their use.
This is all happening as antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world, according to the World Health Organization.
In the May 1 issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Samira Choudhury, Ph.D., et al. write, “Often referred to as the silent pandemic, antimicrobial resistance claims the lives of over 700,000 people annually.”
The authors continue, “A study suggests that if no actions are taken, antimicrobial resistance will cause 10 million deaths per year by 2050 and an economic impact of over 100 trillion United States dollars.”
Scientists focus their research on Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacteria commonly found in the environment, but able to cause serious disease in humans. Healthy people can be infected from improperly cleaned hot tubs or swimming pools, resulting in skin rashes and eye and ear infections.
However, the greatest risk of P. aeruginosa is in the hospital setting. The bacteria is well known to infect those suffering from burn wounds, on a ventilator or other invasive medical device and/or with a catheter. Hospital-acquired P. aeruginosa is deadly in large part due to the wide spectrum of multi-drug antibiotic resistance the bacteria possess.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that in 2017 32,600 Americans hospitalized came down with a P. aeruginosa infection, with 2,700 passing away as a result.
To better understand the role pesticides like glyphosate are playing in these deadly infections, scientists examined five different strains of P. aeruginosa, four retrieved from the environment and one from a clinical setting. All represented strains that were initially sensitive to antibiotics.
These strains were exposed to both technical grade glyphosate and a range of glyphosate-based herbicide (GBH) formulations, including the products Roundup Mega, Dominator Extra 608 SL and Gladiator 480 SL (which are sold only in Europe).
P. aeruginosa was exposed to 0.5% of glyphosate and GBH products per the volume of the medium (equivalent to 1.8-2.8 g/L [glyphosate] acid depending on the type of formulation).
“This concentration falls within the recommended dilution range of GBHs [0.2-3.5% (v/v)] for agricultural and household use and similar to those found in water after agricultural practices,” the study notes.
At this level, glyphosate and its formulated products significantly increase the minimum inhibitory concentration (the lowest concentration of an antibiotic that would inhibit the growth of a given bacteria) of P. aeruginosa to the carbapenem-type antibiotic imipenem by between 2-32 fold. This occurred in all strains and under different exposure scenarios.
“Considering the worldwide use of [glyphosate] and GBHs, and the simultaneous emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in environmental matrices, the detected interactions between these chemicals may affect microbial communities and possess a potential environmental and human health risk,” the authors explain.
Future studies will likely determine the mechanism through which this problem is occurring.
It is becoming increasingly evident that glyphosate is creating resistance problems in more than merely the weeds on which the chemical is being applied to control. Initial reports on glyphosate’s antibiotic resistance properties came in 2015, a week after the chemical was deemed a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization.
Two years later these reports were confirmed in greater detail by the same team of scientists. In 2018, researchers found that bacteria exposed to glyphosate-based Roundup can develop antibiotic resistance 100,000 times faster than average.
The most recent findings indicate that this resistance is developing directly in the field, with soils sprayed with weedkillers likely to contain higher amounts of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The regulatory response to this near decade of research on the antibiotic resistance properties of commonly used herbicides has been nil. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires herbicide product labels to include information on abating weed resistance, antibiotic resistance is not mentioned.
If anything, the EPA uses the phenomenon of antibiotic resistance as a comparison point to weed resistance, without any mention of the role glyphosate and other herbicides could be playing in both phenomena.
With inaction from federal regulators, it is up to states and localities to protect their residents from the rise of pesticide-induced antibiotic-resistant bacteria. P. aeruginosa is known to attack the most vulnerable at its weakest stage.
Yet, it is perfectly possible for a landscaper to be spraying glyphosate outside of the room of a patient suffering from a P. aeruginosa infection.
Despite the high level of care that doctors, nurses and custodial staff may put into deterring the spread of P. aeruginosa infections within a hospital, pesticide use outside may be resulting in patients and staff tracking in resistant bacteria, acting as a steady source of environmental exposures.
Resistant bacteria travels throughout the environment through a process called horizontal gene transfer, causing widespread resistance even if the use site of the chemical does not come into direct contact with someone suffering from or vulnerable to an infectious disease.
The human pathogenic organisms themselves do not need to be directly sprayed by the antibiotic because the movement of genes in bacteria is not solely “vertical” — that is from parent to progeny — but can be “horizontal” — from one bacterial species to another.
Stopping the use of carcinogenic, antibiotic resistance forming pesticides outside hospitals where individuals are suffering from the diseases these chemicals can cause is common sense.
[…]
The Qing Dynasty: Nomads Return from the North
Episode 37: The Qing: Nomads Return from the North
Foundations of Eastern Civilization
Dr Craig Benjamin (2013)
Film Review
During the early 17th century, warring Manchu tribes [1] became unified into a single confederation under Nurhachi. After expelling the Ming from Manchuria, they proceeded to conquer parts of North Korea and eventually (in 1644) Beijing. Numerous Han generals, who detested the corrupt eunuchs running the country, defected and facilitated the Manchu conquest. Nurhachi’s son Dorgon declared himself the first Qing emperor, though it would be 40 years before southern China would be fully integrated.
Viewing their main duty as looking after their subjects, the Qing Dynasty ruled according to Confucian principles. Although they outlawed Han Chinese from intermarrying with Manchu or traveling to Manchuria, they used a well-organized central bureaucracy to ensure effective and peaceable management of a majority Han population.
Some Han loyalists fled or were exiled to Taiwan. Moreover there was active burning and suppression of books concerning frontier or defense problems or hostile to the notion of nomadic rulers.
China experienced its greatest military expansion under the Qing dynasty, with Tibet becoming a protectorate and Vietnam and Nepal becoming vassal states. The Qing stationed military garrisons as far west as Turkistan and encouraged merchants to settle there to help spread Chinese language and culture. Qing expansion into Central Asia brought Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Mongols under Chinese control. It also led to border conflicts with Russia over the Amur River Valley.[2] Although the Qing failed in their attempt to conquer Burma, they eventually conquered Taiwan in 1683.
One major weakness of Qing rule was the relative absence of industrial expansion Europe was experiencing. Although only 11% of China’s terrain is suitable for farming, agriculture remained the primary base its economic wealth.
Even though Chinese agriculture (according to Benjamin) was the most successful preindustrial farming system,[3] poupation growh began to outstrip food production as 19th centry Qing emperors became more focused on their harems and hunting and began delegating their power to their eunuchs. Food shortages were aggravated by various Qing laws forbidding maritime activity and restricting international trade.
Qing rulers clearly favored stability over innovation, which they feared might lead to unsettling political change. Skyrocketing population growth made labor so cheap, they had no incentive to invent labor saving machines or even canon and firearms, which the Qing military could easily import them from Europe.
[1] Manchu were descended from Jurchen nomads who adopted sedentary lifestyles after migrating to modern day Mancuhria.
[2] A 1689 treaty assigned the Amur to China.
[3] Chinese population levels:
1500 – 100 million1600 – 160 million1650 – 140 million (population reduced due to war)1700 – 160 million1750 – 225 million1800 – 360 million[4] Especially after introduction of New World maize, sweet potatoes and peanuts allowed farmers to produce food in previously unproductive areas.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/5808608/5808687
November 18, 2022
FDA Declares Lab-Grown Chicken ‘Safe to Eat’ — But Scientists, Food Safety Advocates Have Questions
Image credit: UPSIDE Foods
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.Describing the development as “a food revolution,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday said chicken produced using animal cell culture technology that takes living cells from chickens and grows the cells in a controlled environment is safe for human consumption.
Describing the development as “a food revolution,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday declared lab-grown chicken meat developed by Berkeley, California-based food-tech firm Upside Foods is safe for human consumption.Upside Foods “will use animal cell culture technology to take living cells from chickens and grow the cells in a controlled environment to make the cultured animal cell food,” the FDA said.
The news — widely reported as an FDA “approval” of lab-grown meat — signifies the completion of the first, and biggest, of the three regulatory steps Upside Foods must complete before its “cultivated” chicken attains full approval and can be sold to the public, according to TIME.
Although two more steps must follow before the FDA can grant the product full approval, the agency’s language suggests the approval is a foregone conclusion.
[…]
The FDA and some media outlets cheered the news — but others, including scientists and food safety advocates, expressed concerns about the adequacy of the FDA’s preliminary review process.
Experts who spoke to The Defender also questioned the safety of lab-grown meat, which is produced with gene-edited cells, and some scientists argued that, despite claims to the contrary, the production process for lab-grown “meats” is energy-intensive and not, as advertised, beneficial to the environment.
Some also questioned Upside Foods’ connections to figures and entities such as Cargill, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Kimbal Musk, brother of Elon Musk and co-founder of The Kitchen, “a growing family of businesses that pursues an America where everyone has access to real food,” and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
[…]
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the Center for Food Safety, questioned the FDA’s “pre-market consultation:”
“The FDA regulatory process in general relies on company testing of their products.
“The FDA, in this case, seemed to mostly review what the company sent them, but did not require additional tests and did not require the company to disclose its methods in a complete and transparent manner.”
The next steps in the regulatory process involve the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) before full approval is granted.
[…]
“In short, the documents shared by the FDA and the Upside Foods Co. show us where more research and more transparent data are needed, but this is a woefully deficient review by the FDA.
[…]
“The FDA’s review of the first-ever cell-cultured food for U.S. approval is a start, but grossly inadequate. In this ‘pre-market consultation,’ neither the company nor the FDA presented the actual data from tests looking at the effects of raising these cells in fetal bovine serum and enzymes from the intestines and pancreas of animals.
“Likewise, while the company notes that it uses genetic engineering to keep the cells growing, it fails to share which genes are being used. This is vital information that consumers and policymakers need to know to make informed decisions in the best interests of public health. We should make certain that genes linked to cancer are not being used.”
Experts raise alarm about genetically engineered cells and risk of cancer
Hanson also questioned the use of genetically engineered cells as part of the production process: “The company also notes that it is using genetic engineering to promote continuous growth of the cells. This is disturbing, in that it is likely that the genes being manipulated can promote cancers.
“Medical cell cultures use cancer cells for testing of drugs, etc., but cancer-causing genes should not be used in food production. Food additives that cause cancer are illegal. Unfortunately, the company does not list exactly which genes it is using for genetically engineered cells.”
The genetic engineering process employed by Upside Foods appears to involve CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a gene-editing technology that acts as a “precise pair of molecular scissors that can cut a target DNA sequence, directed by a customizable guide.”
[…]
As recently reported by The Defender, while CRISPR has been touted as a potential solution to global hunger and food shortages, many scientists question this claim.
In an October 2022 interview with The Defender, Claire Robinson, M.Phil., managing editor of GMWatch, said the gene editing process may have unintended effects that can adversely impact human health:
“These were also risks with the old-style GMOs [genetically modified organisms], and they are still risks with these gene-edited GM plants with animals.
“The risks, if you’re gene editing them … are that there will be knock-on effects on the animals, welfare or health that we can’t anticipate, such as deformities or changes in the function of certain genes in the animal.”
Michael Antoniou, Ph.D., in an October 2022 interview with The Defender, agreed, stating that, “innately, gene editing also can bring about unintended DNA damage … even at the site of your intended edit or elsewhere in the DNA of your target cells, with unknown downstream consequences.”
A report published in the Journal of Genetics and Genomics in 2020 found CRISPR gene-editing in rice resulted in numerous unintended and undesirable on-target and off-target mutations.
[…]
“Scientists know that these things are not ready yet to go into clinical trials,” she added. “On the whole, they’re certainly not ready to be used on [the public].”
[…]
The company also claims that “at scale, we project cultivated meat will use 77% less water and 62% less land than conventional meat. And we expect these numbers to get better over time. We currently use 100% renewable energy at our production facility.”
[…]
Scientists and experts who spoke to The Defender argued, however, that the process of cultivating lab-grown meat is heavily energy-intensive. According to Hanson:
“Many proponents of cell-cultured meat and poultry argue that it is a way of avoiding climate change. However, this ignores that cell-cultured processes are incredibly energy-intensive.”
In her recent interview with The Defender, Robison expressed a similar perspective, describing such claims of environmental friendliness as:
“A pipe dream, because the energy costs and the resource costs of bioreactor technologies are actually huge, and it simply won’t be possible, especially in a climate of rising energy bills.
“It simply won’t be possible to feed thousands or millions of people on the products of these technologies.”
Aside from high energy consumption, Hanson raised other potential environmental concerns involved with the process of developing lab-grown meat.
Hanson told The Defender:
“Cell cultures require the use of antibiotics to assure that the culture is not overtaken by pathogens. It is difficult to be sure that the cells that the company would take from poultry or meat animals are not infected with prions, viruses or bacteria.
“Finally, the waste produced by the culturing process needs to be disposed of. The chemicals from the waste will likely be dumped into local sewer systems. Without more data on the chemicals being used and the amounts of electricity being used, it is difficult to know how much environmental impact this production system has.”
Indeed, the FDA’s scientific memo accompanying its recent announcement, contained a three-page list of “potential identity, quality, and safety issues” involved with Uphill Foods’ manufacturing process, including:
Cells from different line or species inadvertently used.Carryover of adventitious agents such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, parasites, and prions during isolation.Introduction of contaminants in laboratory reagents.Introduction of contaminants from animal-derived reagents (e.g. bovine serum, trypsin).Unintended effects of immortalization.Contamination, and facility environment contamination, with adventitious agents through inadequate sterilization of bioreactors.Presence of elemental contaminants (toxic heavy metals) after harvest.Presence of residual unintended material from genetic engineering.[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/lab-grown-chicken-meat-fda-safety/
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