Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 585
March 28, 2022
Arab Emirates Warn Russia Essential for Oil Market
Newsletter“Unless someone wants to step up and contribute 10 million oil barrels a day, we don’t see anyone being able to replace Russia,” Energy Minister Al Mazrouei pointed out.
On Monday, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei warned that Russia remains essential to maintaining the world’s oil supply.
“Unless someone wants to step up and contribute 10 million oil barrels a day, we don’t see anyone being able to replace Russia,” he said during the opening day of “The Global Atlantic Council” energy forum in Dubai.
“Russia is an important member and, leaving politics aside, that volume is necessary today,” Al Mazrouei said, referring to the continuity of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Plus, the group formed in 2016 and which brings together the OPEC countries, Russia, and nine other crude oil producers.
Since August 2021, OPEC+ has maintained an increase in oil production of an additional 400,000 barrels per month, despite pressure from consumer countries to accelerate its increase due to the high price of crude oil in international markets.
Al Mazrouei reiterated his country’s support for the current OPEC+ strategy to balance supply and demand and ensure global market stability.
At the Dubai forum, the Emirati Minister of Industry Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber indicated that the balance between oil supply and demand is expected to reach pre-pandemic levels by the last quarter of the year.
“The decline in long-term investments in oil and gas and an unrealistic approach to keeping pace with the transformation of the energy sector makes markets vulnerable to geopolitical shocks,” he warned.
[…]
Farmers on the Brink
Doomberg
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
It was a spooky time to be out at sea off the US East Coast on Halloween in 1991. A strong storm system over the maritime provinces in Canada merged with the remnants of Hurricane Grace, forming a new, epic, and dangerous Nor’easter. The winds of this new storm breached 70 miles per hour and a wave as high as 100 feet was measured off the coast of Nova Scotia, but the storm was not renamed as either a tropical storm or a hurricane – instead, it is known only colloquially as simply the Perfect Storm. Six fishermen from Massachusetts perished when their vessel Andrea Gail sunk in open waters, and the story of the storm and of that tragedy became the subject of a best-selling book and a blockbuster feature film.
While the concept of a perfect storm is often too casually assigned in popular culture, it is difficult to find a more apt description of what has been unfolding in the global agriculture markets over these past several months. The tempest caused by the European energy disaster has merged with the hurricane of consequences flowing from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, forming the genesis of a generational crisis in food that will leave few unaffected. While we’ve been warning about just such a scenario for some time, after spending the past two weeks traveling across the US Midwest and conferring with our contacts in the agricultural sector, even we are a little spooked by what we’ve learned. In a financial crash, the correlation between all asset classes converges to one. The coming crash in global food supply will be driven by a similar phenomenon across virtually every input into farming – they are all spiking to historic highs simultaneously, supply availability is diminishing across the spectrum, and the time to reverse the worst of the upcoming consequences is rapidly running short.
Other than that, things are great.
We begin with the price of fertilizer, which has been soaring to record highs across the globe. Key sources of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous – important inputs into soil fertility, crop yield, and plant maintenance – have all gone vertical. Ammonia is derived directly from natural gas, and the price of natural gas outside of the US has gone vertical. It’s no surprise that the price of ammonia has tripled over the past twelve months. Belarus is the third-largest supplier of potash in the world and its state-owned miner, Belaruskali, declared force majeure after sanctions were imposed by the US and Europe. The number two supplier of potash globally? Russia. Perhaps front-running the Russian move on Ukraine, China halted phosphate exports last fall in an effort to ensure adequate domestic supply. The combined impact of these events can be seen in the Green Markets North American Fertilize Index, which tracks a blend of fertilizer prices globally:
Weed control is an important element of farming, and herbicides are an irreplaceable tool in the farmer’s repertoire. The most heavily used herbicide in the world is the controversial molecule glyphosate, known widely by its retail brand name Roundup. Invented by Monsanto (which is now owned by Bayer) in the 1970s, glyphosate has been linked to certain blood cancers and is targeted for elimination by many environmental groups. Despite these concerns, glyphosate remains a systemically important molecule – many seeds have been genetically modified to be resistant to it, allowing for its widespread use while minimizing damage to crops, and generics have expanded the market as it came off Monsanto’s patent.
Glyphosate is effectively little more than an elegantly modified fertilizer, containing both phosphorous and nitrogen. It is derived from similar starting materials – including ammonia – and, as such, its price has soared amid chronic supply shortages. This has caused the price of other herbicides to rise as farmers desperately seek substitutes, as described by this article in The Western Producer (emphasis added throughout):
“The much-ballyhooed glyphosate shortage is just the first domino to fall, according to a leading crop protection company.
‘The knock-on effect on basically every other herbicide molecule is starting to manifest itself,’ said Cornie Thiessen, general manager of ADAMA Canada. ‘We are seeing quite a domino effect in the market because of the glyphosate challenges.’
Bayer was already warning customers in late 2021 about a potential glyphosate shortage.”
If farmers skimp on herbicides to get by this season, it only makes dealing with weeds more challenging in the future. As one expert warned us, it only takes one year of negligence to do several years of damage to a field.
[…]
US Senate Expert Testimony: 95% of US Covid Deaths Could Have Been Avoided
URGENT PUBLIC NEWS: U.S. Senate expert witness testimony Dr. Peter McCullough states that 95% of American deaths could have been avoided. Autopsy confirms two teenage boys die on days 3 and 4 after the shot, the parents are horrified. This push is resulting in deaths of children. pic.twitter.com/x49s3IIZR9
— Truth Justice (@LakovosJustice) March 26, 2022
March 27, 2022
Restaurants Now Requiring Proof of Ukraine Support
The 2nd Smartest Guy in the World
Babylon Bee NAILS IT Yet Again
Hat tip Dr Robert Malone
Via https://2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com/p/babylon-bee-nails-it-yet-again/
Battle for Mariupol Ending: Civilian Testimonies Multiplying on Crimes of Azov
Internationalist 360°
As the battle for Mariupol draws to a close and the Russian army and the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) people’s militia have now taken control of most of the city, civilians are evacuating en masse, and stories of the horrors committed by the fighters of the Azov regiment are multiplying.
Thus, on 23 March 2022, we went to Volodarskoye (renamed Nikolskoye by the post-Maidan Ukrainian authorities), where many civilians fleeing western and central Mariupol are sent to be registered and from where they can take buses to Berdiansk, Donetsk or Rostov.
While they wait in the check-in line or on the bus that will take them to their chosen destination, I talk to several of them. All of them confirm that the Azov fighters were evicting Mariupol civilians from their flats and using them as firing points. Worse, they were also setting up near the bomb shelters where women, children and elderly people were to shoot, knowing that they were putting the lives of these civilians in danger!
One woman also told us that the Azov fighters set up near a school to bomb the houses! She and her makeshift neighbor in the bomb shelter described the Azov fighters as real Nazis, explaining that they walked around with swastikas and other Nazi symbols clearly visible on them.
One man also told us how the Azov fighters took all the food that was still being sold to the residents of a neighborhood in Mariupol, leaving them with nothing to eat. He also reported that the families of Azov fighters are in bomb shelters in Mariupol’s metal factories, where they use civilians as slaves, who have to work for them to get some water.
See the report filmed in Volodarskoye, with French subtitles:
Several of these civilians confirmed that Azov fighters and Ukrainian army soldiers were not letting civilians out of Mariupol, using them as hostages and human shields.
One woman said that Ukrainian soldiers had fired on civilian cars trying to leave Mariupol, a testimony confirmed by another civilian who saw her car being targeted by Ukrainian units as she tried to flee the city, despite the fact that the word “Children” was prominently written on the vehicle. Her daughter was wounded by the gunfire.
Unfortunately for the Nazis – a living witness to war crimes.
Just listen to what this woman says – twice they tried to leave Mariupol and were not let out.
The second time they tried to leave – the Bandera people shot at their cars, despite the sign “Children” and clearly civilians in the car.
The house where they lived – was occupied by Azov Nazis, thanks to whom the city is practically destroyed
Zelensky – burn in hell, scum.
https://t.me/breege_time_20zz/2136
Another civilian confirmed that Ukrainian soldiers were even shooting at children, and that they did nothing to help the civilians, who were only able to evacuate thanks to Russian soldiers.
Evacuated residents of Mariupol report how Russian soldiers save people
The woman sent her warmest regards to the escaped mayor of Mariupol, who during the 8 years of the war didn’t prepare a single bomb shelter.
“He abandoned our city, left people without food, water, electricity and gas for a whole month. We didn’t see bread for a month. This bastard fled. He abandoned the people!” she said.
Also, the evacuated resident claims that 85 % of the city destruction is the merit of the Ukrainian troops. She personally witnessed this.
Then the woman added that it was Russian soldiers who get people out of the basements, help them and share their combat rations with hungry children. “They carry them out in their arms. And the Ukrainian militants shoot small children. We saw it with our own eyes. Show it to the whole world! The evacuation of people was carried out by the Russian militaries, not a single Ukrainian military helped us, not a single one. They instead were hiding, using civilians as a human shield”.
https://t.me/ConflictChronicles/554
Yesterday, the DPR flag was installed on top of the Mariupol municipal administration, and the head of the Republic, Denis Pushilin, went there with Russian deputies to deliver humanitarian aid, marking the takeover of the city.
Today in Mariupol together with Andrei Turchak, Secretary of the General Council of the “United Russia” party, and Dmitry Sablin, deputy of the Russian State Duma, visited a humanitarian aid center organized by the “United Russia” party. Mariupol residents were provided with all the necessary assistance in the center.
People are beginning to realize that the worst is over and that Russia has come, which does not abandon its own.
t.me/pushilindenis/2085
According to the latest data, 80% of the city is now under the full control of Russian and DPR forces. The remaining fighters of the Azov Regiment have taken refuge in the USSR-designed bomb shelters in the industrial zones, which offer them a last refuge. Russian forces and the DPR people’s militia are eliminating them in these areas in order to complete the liberation of Mariupol. The battle of Marioupol should therefore be over in a few days, as Denis Pushilin had announced.
[…]
BlackRock Chief Says Ukraine War Marks End to Globalization
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink attends a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on Jan. 23, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
By Tom Ozimek
Epoch Times
Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, says that the war in Ukraine will put an end to globalization as governments and businesses cut ties with Russia, while warning that a large-scale reorienting of supply chains will be inflationary.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades,” Fink wrote in a March 24 letter to shareholders, in which he noted that the Russian offensive in Ukraine had catalyzed nations to sever financial and business ties with Moscow.
“United in their steadfast commitment to support the Ukrainian people, they launched an ‘economic war’ against Russia,” Fink wrote.
Russia has been hit with crippling sanctions over what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine. The measures have targeted Russian banks and wealthy oligarchs, there’s been a closure of airspace to Russian planes, and the export of key technologies has been banned.
The sanctions also include a freeze on around $300 billion of Russia’s central bank hard currency reserves, an unprecedented move that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced on March 23 as “theft.”
Fink noted in his letter that capital markets, financial institutions, and companies have gone beyond government-imposed sanctions, moving quickly to terminate longstanding business and investment relationships.
He predicted that Russia’s decoupling from the global economy will prompt governments and companies to re-evaluate their manufacturing and assembly footprints more generally and reconsider their dependency on other nations.
“This may lead companies to onshore or nearshore more of their operations, resulting in a faster pull back from some countries,” Fink wrote.
There will be challenges for firms as they seek to rejig supply chains, he said.
“This decoupling will inevitably create challenges for companies, including higher costs and margin pressures.”
“While companies’ and consumers’ balance sheets are strong today, giving them more of a cushion to weather these difficulties, a large-scale reorientation of supply chains will inherently be inflationary,” he added.
Fink said central banks find themselves in a challenging moment, weighing how fast to raise rates in a bid to curb surging inflation, which has been exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine and the associated energy price shocks.
“Central banks must choose whether to live with higher inflation or slow economic activity and employment to lower inflation quickly,” he said.
The Federal Reserve last week hiked rates for the first time since 2018 and Fed chair Jerome Powell said on Monday that the U.S. central bank must move “expeditiously” to raise rates and possibly “more aggressively” to keep an upward price spiral from becoming entrenched.
Annual inflation in Russia accelerated to 14.5 percent as of March 18, the fastest pace since 2015, the economy ministry said on Wednesday, as the battered ruble sent prices soaring amid biting Western sanctions.
[…]
Freedom Convoy – Support Black Truckers
Black Caucus Greens
Wrong Kind of Green
The Green Party of the United States Black Caucus (GP-BC) has announced its support for the Freedom Convoy, an educational effort to help the public learn more about vaccine mandates and the best way to respond to government overreach.
“We are calling on all people to unite in solidarity.” says Philena Farley, National Media Co-Chair & Black Caucus Media Coordinator “The time to be divided is over. This is a time to stand together with our sisters and brothers, regardless of race or gender, in this struggle against tyranny. We are under attack by the corporate elites on every level of government. They are robbing us blind. The one thing the elites hate is unity among the working class because they thrive in dividing us by race, gender, politics, religion, class and more.”
Truckers against vaccine mandates is an international movement of citizens and truck drivers who are opposed to the forced use of government vaccines. “Long-distance trucking has been part of my family history since 1975.” Black Caucus Co-Founder George Friday states in remembrance, “My father was a long-distance trucker throughout my high school and college years and all of my brothers have also been truckers. Independence was the reason they chose that profession. A high amount of personal freedom and not too many interactions with racism or discrimination. They got to do things on their own terms and make their own decisions which is important for any of us.”
From Jamil Jivani – debut in Newsweek – Stop Calling Truckers Racist – to correct the record on the trucker convoy in Ottawa, Canada.
A post shared by POC 4 FREEDOMCONVOY (@poc4freedomconvoy)
“We have no reason to believe the majority of truckers in the convoy are racist. In fact, appropriate for the month of February, the trucker convoy is actually a Black history moment.
Countless trucker convoy participants and supporters are Black. A popular Instagram account called “poc4freedomconvoy” (shorthand for People of Color for Freedom Convoy) with over 60,000 followers has documented the outpouring of support that the trucker convoy received from members of Black communities across Canada. The account’s first post is a picture of Chanceline Rukundo that reads, “I am Burundian/Canadian and I support the #freedomconvoy2022.”
This year’s Black History Month is a chance to see that Black people are not merely victims of history, but makers of it—exactly as Dr. Woodson intended. The trucker convoy is an example of Black people playing a meaningful role in shaping their countries. Don’t let liberal politicians or mainstream media corporations convince you of anything less.”
A post shared by POC 4 FREEDOMCONVOY (@poc4freedomconvoy)
The Green Party of the United States Black Caucus calls for the end of vaccine mandates and demands an immediate suspension of all state and federal mandates for vaccinations, including those for children and adults.
The Green Party of the United States Black Caucus, a coalition of Green Party leaders and activists within the African American community.
Please spread the word to fight against these mainstream media blackouts and support our mission to increase the participation and election victories in United States electoral politics of African and African Americans who support the GPUS Platform, and to ensure that the GPUS conducts and implements programs that concretize its platform in the interests of communities of African-American and African descent addressing community needs and disparities.
[…]
Via https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2022/03/27/freedom-convoy-support-black-truckers/
Uruk: The World’s First Big City
Uruk’s Colonies
Episode 5: Uruk: The World’s Biggest City
Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization
Dr Amanda H Podany
Film Review
Founded around 40000 BC, Uruk was the first large city in the world. A walled city, it was approximately 260 hectares (the size of a large university campus) and housed 25,000 residents. It had two distinct temple precincts, one dedicated to Inana, the goddess of love, and the other to Anu, the god of the heavens. Each took 100 years to build, and (to keep the population employed) citizens began rebuilding them once they were completed
The economy was mainly based on farming, with most residents owning or working on farms outside the city walls and coming into the city to sleep. With the invention of the plow (pulled by oxen or donkeys) farming became much more efficient. This period also saw the invention of the wheel, the pottery wheel, cylinder seals (used in place of a signature), a primitive writing system arsenic bronze. Wealthy began using bronze tools (because they were stronger than stone) and bronze dishes instead of ceramic ones.
Irrigation canals were enlarge until they were enough to accommodate sailing vessels.
There is evidence of a centralized government in Uruk that lived more luxurious lives than commoners but no kings. Although most people were illiterate, central government used the new writing system extensively. Scribes who kept governmental records (on clay tablets) learned to write in special schools. Archeologists have discovered clay tablets with lexicons of the proto-cuneiform* words they were expected to learn. Many are bilingual, with Sumerian** and Akkadian** versions of each word.
Uruk had a string of colonies across Mesopotamia and modern-day Syria and Turkey. They gained some via conquest (the first evidence of Middle East warfare. Others were uninhabited land taken up by Uruk settlers. The main purpose of the colonies wasn’t subjugation and exploitation, as with modern colonialism, but to facilitate trade. There is evidence Uruk traded with Egypt during this period.
Elements of modern Western life that derive from fourth millennium Uruk include
rectangular housesstreetsspecialized rooms (ie kitchens)marriagelawscourtsarmiesdiplomatsburial of deadwritten languagestory tellinguse of domesticated animals and plants to make clothes
*Proto-cuneiform – earliest form of writing on Earth, consisting of pictographs or simple drawings.
**Sumerian – language of ancient Sumer (area of southern Mesopotamia from 4500-1900 BC), gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, though it continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states.
***Akkadian – east Semitic language, now extinct, spoken in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa and Babylonia)/
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
March 26, 2022
Pentagon Drops Truth Bombs to Stave Off War with Russia
Joe Lauria
Consortium News
UPDATED: Leaked stories from the Pentagon have exposed how mainstream media reports Russia’s conduct in the Ukraine war, in a bid to counter propaganda intended to get NATO into the conflict.
The Pentagon is engaged in a consequential battle with the U.S. State Department and the Congress to prevent a direct military confrontation with Russia, which could unleash the most unimaginable horror of war.
President Joe Biden is caught in the middle of the fray. So far he is siding with the Defense Department, saying there cannot be a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”
“President Biden’s been clear that U.S. troops won’t fight Russia in Ukraine, and if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier this month. (The administration plan is to bring down the Russian government through a ground insurgency and economic war, not a direct military one.)
But pressure on the White House from some members of Congress and especially the press corps is unrelenting to recklessly bring NATO directly into the war. (Secretary of State Antony Blinken who initially backed a plan to send NATO plans from Poland to Ukraine has backed down and now opposes the no-fly zone.) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, hailed as a virtual superhero in Western media, has vacillated between openness to negotiating a peace settlement with Russia and calling for NATO to “close the skies” above Ukraine. To save his country he appears willing to risk endangering the entire world.
(The Pentagon’s mettle will be tested if there is a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine. Biden has said Russia would be a “severe price” but who the perpetrator would be might be murky.)
Meanwhile, Western corporate media, depending almost exclusively on Ukrainian sources, report that Russia is losing the war, with its military offensive “stalled,” and in frustration has deliberately targeted civilians and flattened cities.
Biden has bought into this part of the story, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.” He has also said that Russia is planning a “false flag” chemical attack to pin on Ukraine.
But on Tuesday, the Pentagon took the bold step of leaking two stories to reporters that contradict those tales. “Russia’s conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader’s strategic balancing act,” reported Newsweek in an article entitled, “Putin’s Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He’s Holding Back. Here’s Why.”
The piece quotes an unnamed analyst at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) saying,
“The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.”
A retired U.S. Air Force officer now working as an analyst for a Pentagon contractor, added:
“We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct. If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict.”
The article says:
“As of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some 1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast, the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war). …
A proportion of those strikes have damaged and destroyed civilian structures and killed and injured innocent civilians, but the level of death and destruction is low compared to Russia’s capacity.
‘I know it’s hard … to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is,’ says the DIA analyst. ‘But that’s what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations.’”
A second retired U.S. Air Force officer says:
“I’m frustrated by the current narrative—that Russia is intentionally targeting civilians, that it is demolishing cities, and that Putin doesn’t care. Such a distorted view stands in the way of finding an end before true disaster hits or the war spreads to the rest of Europe. I know that the news keeps repeating that Putin is targeting civilians, but there is no evidence that Russia is intentionally doing so. In fact, I’d say that Russian could be killing thousands more civilians if it wanted to.”
These Pentagon sources confirm what Putin and the Russian Ministry of Defense have been saying all along: that instead of being “stalled,” Russia is executing a methodical war plan to encircle cities, opening humanitarian corridors for civilians, leaving civilian infrastructure like water, electricity, telephony and internet intact, and trying to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible.
[…]
Via https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/23/pentagon-drops-truth-bombs-to-stave-off-war-with-russia/
BMJ: On the Illusion of Evidence Based Medicine
Principia Scientific
Written by the Naked Emperor
A reader sent me this opinion piece published in the British Medical Journal last week.
The authors argue that evidence based medicine (EBM) has been corrupted by corporate interests, failed regulation and commercialisation of academia.
The article begins by discussing how EBM was meant to improve medicine but as pharmaceutical documents have been released we realise that this remains an illusion.
The advent of evidence based medicine was a paradigm shift intended to provide a solid scientific foundation for medicine. The validity of this new paradigm, however, depends on reliable data from clinical trials, most of which are conducted by the pharmaceutical industry and reported in the names of senior academics.
The release into the public domain of previously confidential pharmaceutical industry documents has given the medical community valuable insight into the degree to which industry sponsored clinical trials are misrepresented. Until this problem is corrected, evidence based medicine will remain an illusion.
They then look at how large corporations have dominated the market and in doing so have slowed scientific progress by supressing information and data and failing to report adverse events.
The philosophy of critical rationalism, advanced by the philosopher Karl Popper, famously advocated for the integrity of science and its role in an open, democratic society. A science of real integrity would be one in which practitioners are careful not to cling to cherished hypotheses and take seriously the outcome of the most stringent experiments.
This ideal is, however, threatened by corporations, in which financial interests trump the common good. Medicine is largely dominated by a small number of very large pharmaceutical companies that compete for market share, but are effectively united in their efforts to expanding that market. The short term stimulus to biomedical research because of privatisation has been celebrated by free market champions, but the unintended, long term consequences for medicine have been severe.
Scientific progress is thwarted by the ownership of data and knowledge because industry suppresses negative trial results, fails to report adverse events, and does not share raw data with the academic research community. Patients die because of the adverse impact of commercial interests on the research agenda, universities, and regulators.
Universities were once respected institutions but by seeking funding from the pharmaceutical industry, they have become corrupted.
The pharmaceutical industry’s responsibility to its shareholders means that priority must be given to their hierarchical power structures, product loyalty, and public relations propaganda over scientific integrity. Although universities have always been elite institutions prone to influence through endowments, they have long laid claim to being guardians of truth and the moral conscience of society.
But in the face of inadequate government funding, they have adopted a neo-liberal market approach, actively seeking pharmaceutical funding on commercial terms. As a result, university departments become instruments of industry: through company control of the research agenda and ghostwriting of medical journal articles and continuing medical education, academics become agents for the promotion of commercial products.
When scandals involving industry-academe partnership are exposed in the mainstream media, trust in academic institutions is weakened and the vision of an open society is betrayed.
Academics no longer succeed because of their achievements but because of what they can offer to the pharmaceutical industry.
The corporate university also compromises the concept of academic leadership. Deans who reached their leadership positions by virtue of distinguished contributions to their disciplines have in places been replaced with fundraisers and academic managers, who are forced to demonstrate their profitability or show how they can attract corporate sponsors. In medicine, those who succeed in academia are likely to be key opinion leaders (KOLs in marketing parlance), whose careers can be advanced through the opportunities provided by industry.
Potential KOLs are selected based on a complex array of profiling activities carried out by companies, for example, physicians are selected based on their influence on prescribing habits of other physicians. KOLs are sought out by industry for this influence and for the prestige that their university affiliation brings to the branding of the company’s products.
As well paid members of pharmaceutical advisory boards and speakers’ bureaus, KOLs present results of industry trials at medical conferences and in continuing medical education. Instead of acting as independent, disinterested scientists and critically evaluating a drug’s performance, they become what marketing executives refer to as “product champions.”
Ironically, industry sponsored KOLs appear to enjoy many of the advantages of academic freedom, supported as they are by their universities, the industry, and journal editors for expressing their views, even when those views are incongruent with the real evidence.
While universities fail to correct misrepresentations of the science from such collaborations, critics of industry face rejections from journals, legal threats, and the potential destruction of their careers. This uneven playing field is exactly what concerned Popper when he wrote about suppression and control of the means of science communication.
The preservation of institutions designed to further scientific objectivity and impartiality (i.e., public laboratories, independent scientific periodicals and congresses) is entirely at the mercy of political and commercial power; vested interest will always override the rationality of evidence.
They discuss how the regulators have been captured without any questions raised by governments.
Regulators receive funding from industry and use industry funded and performed trials to approve drugs, without in most cases seeing the raw data.
[…]
Via https://principia-scientific.com/bmj-on-the-illusion-of-evidence-based-medicine/
The Most Revolutionary Act
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