Health & Fitness

The evidence continues to accumulate that avoiding toxic industrially processed seed oils, often referred to as “vegetable oils,” is essential to protecting your health, and recent research adds dietary iron to the increased health risks as well, particularly for those with Type 2 diabetes.¹

Examples of seed oils high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) include soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, rapeseed (canola), corn and safflower.² Omega-6 is considered to be proinflammatory because of the most common variety, linoleic acid, which will radically increase oxidative free radicals and cause mitochondrial dysfunction.³

But all seed oils have linoleic acid, even “healthy” ones like avocado and olive oil, both of which have the majority of commercially available products adulterated with other seed oils that have even higher levels of linoleic acid. So, only purchase trusted and tested brands and once you have them put the oil in the fridge. The linoleic acid will remain liquid. Simply pour that oil in the trash and your olive or avocado oil will be healthier.

The intake of omega-6 seed oils may also promote inflammation through arachidonic acid by increasing the production proinflammatory compounds. Further, as researchers noted in the journal Nutrients, “In addition, a few studies suggested that omega-6 PUFA is related to chronic inflammatory diseases such as obesity, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and cardiovascular disease.”⁴

Iron, meanwhile, while necessary for oxygen delivery, mitochondrial electron transport, DNA synthesis and more, can generate oxidative stress that leads to tissue damage, and previous research has found dietary iron intake may be associated with the risk of diabetes. Now, researchers have demonstrated a connection between the intake of iron and PUFAs with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) in people with Type 2 diabetes.⁵

Link Found Between PUFAs, Iron Intake and DPN

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy is a form of nerve damage that may occur in people with diabetes. The damage occurs, most often, in your legs and feet and is a significant cause of falls and fractures in this population. In addition to long-term diabetes, other risk factors for DPN include insulin resistance, high blood pressure, obesity and high blood sugar, and oxidative stress is believed to be a key contributing factor.⁶

For the featured study, Korean researchers looked into the association of iron intake and the ratio between iron intake and PUFA intake (iron/PUFA) with DPN in 147 people with Type 2 diabetes. Both high dietary iron intake and an elevated iron/PUFA ratio were associated with DPN, suggesting “the importance of the dietary pattern of iron and PUFA intake in individuals with type 2 diabetes.”⁷

Iron overload has previously been found to make oxidative stress injury in neurons worse in the presence of high sugar concentrations, and the researchers suggested that insulin resistance and pancreatic beta cell dysfunction, which are caused by oxidative stress, could be behind the association between iron and DPN.⁸

The study had limitations, however, particularly in regard to PUFAs, as it did not interpret the study results in relation to omega-6 and omega-3 separately. Omega-3s have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory role that’s been linked to many health benefits.

Most people get far too much omega-6 and too little omega-3, thus ending up with a lopsided ratio, and this ratio is what impacts health. Ideally, this ratio would be close to 1-to-1. The key, however, is not to necessarily increase omega-3, but to decrease omega-6 to improve the ratio. The featured study evaluated PUFA intake of omega-6 and omega-3 together, but noted that it was the ratio of iron/omega-6 that showed a significant association with DPN:⁹

“Considering the PUFA-related antioxidant effect observed in an iron-related, pro-oxidant environment, we calculated the iron/PUFA ratio and found that a higher iron/PUFA ratio was associated with a higher OR (odds ratio) of DPN. This finding suggests that the ratio of iron to PUFA might be an important marker of DPN and can be used as an indicator to screen for or prevent DPN in individuals with type 2 diabetes.

In addition, even though the ratio iron/omega-6 PUFA, rather than the ratio iron/omega-3 PUFA, showed a statistically significant association with DPN after adjusting for confounders, we need to be cautious in interpreting these data. A relatively small amount of omega-3 PUFA compared with omega-6 PUFA might bring about these non-significant results.”

The Importance of Carnosine, Especially if You’re Vegan

One way to help stop the oxidative damage caused by iron intake in the presence of too many omega-6s is to take carnosine or its primary precursor, beta-alanine. Carnosine is a dipeptide composed of two amino acids: beta-alanine and histidine. It's a potent antioxidant, the highest concentrations of which are found in your muscles and brain.

If you're a vegetarian or vegan, you will have lower levels of carnosine in your muscles. This is one reason why many strict vegans who do not properly compensate for this and other nutritional deficiencies tend to have trouble building muscle. Carnosine itself is not very useful as a supplement as it is rapidly broken down into its constituent amino acids by certain enzymes. Your body then reformulates those amino acids back to carnosine in your muscles.

A more efficient alternative is to supplement with beta-alanine, which appears to be the rate limiting amino acid in the formation of carnosine. Eating beef is known to efficiently raise carnosine levels in your muscle,¹⁰ which is why if you’re a vegetarian or vegan this supplement may be particularly important.

Chronic Disease Rooted in Long-Term Consumption of Seed Oils

Many chronic diseases appear to be the result of a catastrophic cascade of health declines triggered by the long-term consumption of seed oils (omega-6). For instance, Dr. Chris Knobbe, an ophthalmologist and the founder and president of the Cure AMD Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the prevention of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), believes age-related macular degeneration (AMD) should be called diet-related macular degeneration instead.

Knobbe has studied the toxic aldehydes that result from omega-6 fats. When you consume an omega-6 fat, it first reacts with a hydroxyl radical or peroxide radical, producing a lipid hydroperoxide.

This lipid hydroperoxide then rapidly degenerates into toxic aldehydes, of which there are hundreds, which in turn lead to cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, mutagenicity carcinogenicity and more, along with being obesogenic, at very low doses. Knobbe explained the complex process in his presentation at the ALLDOCS annual 2020 meeting:¹¹

“Here's what excess omega-6 does in a westernized diet: induces nutrient deficiencies, causes a catastrophic lipid peroxidation cascade, is what this does … This damages … a phospholipid called cardio lipid in the mitochondrial membranes. And this leads to electron transport chain failure … which causes mitochondrial failure and dysfunction.

And this leads first to reactive oxygen species, which feeds back into this peroxidation cascade. So, you're filling up your fat cells and your mitochondrial membranes with omega-6, and these are going to peroxidize because of the fact that they are polyunsaturated.

All right, next thing that happens, insulin resistance, which leads to metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. When the mitochondria fail you get reduced fatty acid, beta oxidation, meaning you can't burn these fats properly for fuel.

So now you’re … carb dependent and you're heading for obesity. So, you're feeling tired. You're gaining weight. Your mitochondria are failing to burn fat for fuel … this is a powerful mechanism for obesity.

So, the energy failure at the cellular level leads to nuclear mitochondrial DNA mutations, and this leads to cancers. Three weeks on a high-PUFA diet causes heart failure in rats — three weeks. And this also leads to apoptosis and necrosis. And of course, that's how you get disorders like AMD, Alzheimer's.”

The Problem With Linoleic Acid

At the root of the harmful biochemical reactions triggered by seed oils is linoleic acid, which is an 18-carbon omega-6 fat. As mentioned, linoleic acid is the primary fatty acid found in PUFAs and accounts for about 80% of the fatty acid composition of vegetable oils. Omega-6 fats must be balanced with omega-3 fats in order not to be harmful, but this isn’t the case for most Americans.

To make matters even worse, most of the omega-6 people eat has been damaged and oxidized through processing. "Most of this linoleic acid, when it oxidizes, it develops lipid hydroperoxides and then these rapidly degenerate into … oxidized linoleic acid metabolites," says Knobbe.¹²

OXLAMs (oxidized linoleic acid metabolites) create a perfect storm, as they are cytotoxic, genotoxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, atherogenic and thrombogenic, according to Knobbe. Their atherosclerosis and thrombogenic actions are especially concerning because they can produce strokes and clots, however metabolic dysfunction can also occur.

During the lipid peroxidation cascade caused by the excess consumption of omega-6 seed oils, PUFAs accumulate in your cell membranes, leading to a peroxidation reaction. As mentioned, because there are so many reactive oxygen species it leads to the development of insulin resistance at the cellular level.

Dr. Paul Saladino, a physician journalist, in a podcast, also explained that linoleic acid "breaks the sensitivity for insulin at the level of your fat cells,”¹³ essentially making them more insulin sensitive — and, since your fat cells control the insulin sensitivity of the rest of your body by releasing free fatty acids, you end up with insulin resistance.

Unfortunately, even eating conventionally raised chicken, which is fed corn, is problematic, as the meat becomes high in omega-6 linoleic acid.¹⁴ As Saladino points out, eating a lot of chicken adds to your vegetable oil consumption and further skews your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

Avoiding Processed Seed Oils Will Protect Your Health

To protect your health, it is vital that you reduce your intake of industrially processed seed oils as much as you can. This means eliminating all of the following oils:

Soy	Corn
Canola	Safflower
Sunflower	Peanut

Even too much organic, biodynamic olive oil can shift your ratio in the wrong direction, as olive oil is also a source of omega-6 linoleic acid, so be sure you use the trick I described above to lower the LA content of olive oil. It’s also important to avoid nearly all processed foods and fast foods, as virtually all of them contain these toxic oils. The easiest way to do this is to prepare the majority of your food at home so you know what you are eating.

If you want to know how much linoleic acid you’re eating, simply go to cronometer.com and enter your food, making sure that it is accurately weighed. For optimal health, try to get your intake under 10 grams per day.

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In a study published in The Lancet Oncology, scientists analyzed the effectiveness of breast cancer screening in Great Britain.¹ The researchers concluded that mammograms beginning at age 40 or 41, as opposed to the recommended age 50 by the NHS, were associated with a relative reduction in breast cancer mortality.

They noted that a 2010 study² found that early screening in ages 40 or 41 to 48 resulted in an 18.1% false positive rate which resulted in cytology and surgical and nonsurgical biopsies in women who ended up not actually having cancer. Even so, they still reported that their own study showed a statistical reduction of mortality in the first 10 years.

Other experts found the data from this study showed no statistical differences, and even the study’s researchers noted, “the absolute reduction remained constant.”³ They also admitted that “after more than 10 years of follow-up, no significant reduction was observed” and that “overall, there was no significant difference” in breast cancer deaths — just as their critics said.

According to the American Cancer Society, 73% of women over 45 had a screening mammogram within the past two years.⁴ In the U.S., these percentages add up to an overwhelming number of women. There were 61.91 million women from age 40 to 70 in July 2019.

Assuming a woman stops having mammograms at age 70, there may have been 45.19 million women who have had a mammogram in the past two years.⁵ When you consider the average cost of a mammogram is $100,⁶ the total revenue generated may be close to $4.5 billion. Although your out-of-pocket expense may not be $100 per test, someone is paying the charges.

This may be one explanation for why women continue to get recommendations for screening mammograms, despite a lack of evidence these tests can reduce mortality and mounting evidence they may in fact cause harm.

No Answers From New Study About Early Mammograms

The UK Age trial was designed to compare annual mammograms in women who begin getting the test at age 40 to those beginning them at age 50, against cancer mortality. The first results of the trial were published in The Lancet in 2015 after 17 years of follow-up.⁷

The study enrolled 160,921 women from October 1990 to September 1997. Of these women 53,883 joined the intervention group in which they received a mammogram nearly every year until age 48. Another 106,953 women were in a control group who received usual medical care, in which they did not receive their first mammogram until at least age 50.

The results published after a median follow-up of 17 years were similar to those published five years later in the final results.⁸ While the participants were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group, the researchers chose to include 33.5% in the intervention group and 66.5% in the control group.

From the start of the study until February 28, 2017, the women were followed for a median of 22.8 years. During this time, the researchers believe their statistics showed a reduction in breast cancer mortality at 10 years of follow-up but no significant reduction after age 50.

Yet, not every expert interpreted the results the same. One paper, titled “Breast Cancer: Study Claiming That Screening Women in Their 40s Saves Lives ‘Found the Opposite,’ Say Critics,” was published behind a paywall in the BMJ.⁹ A second opinion was published in The Lancet, in which the author said:¹⁰ 

“No difference in mortality from breast cancer was found between the group that began yearly mammography screening at age 39-41 years until they entered the National Health Service (NHS) Breast Screening Programme at age 50-52 years, and a group that did not begin mammography screening until they entered the NHS Breast Screening Programme.

… overall there was no mortality reduction in the intervention group compared to the control group by the end of follow-up.

One surprising aspect of the report by Duffy and colleagues is the conclusion that no overdiagnosis of breast cancer occurred in either group beyond that which would occur when screening those aged 50 years and older. Because overdiagnosis appears to increase with age, it is possible that overdiagnosis occurred in both groups after the age of 50 years, but could not be detected because of the design of the trial.”

Data Show Screening Asymptomatic Women Isn’t Saving Lives

The third response to this research paper, also published in the BMJ, was written by Hazel Thornton, honorary visiting fellow, department of health sciences at the University of Leicester. In it, she also finds the statistics do not support the conclusion reached and reports on her testimony before the House of Commons Health Committee on breast cancer services as a witness.¹¹

She was asked why she thought the NHS Breast Screening Programme was “a costly trawl of an asymptomatic public group … creating huge costly psychological and physical morbidity”? To which part of her answer was that it:

“… focuses on the women who benefit, in other words, the one life that is saved, and it overlooks the hundreds of women that go through the process and in some cases suffer psychological harm for that one. It is unbalanced and disproportionate and should be reviewed, in my opinion, at the moment.”

There are critics who claim arguments like Thornton's overestimate the potential harm associated with overscreening for breast cancer.¹² Yet their arguments have no answer for the numerous studies that demonstrate overscreening and overdiagnosis of breast cancer is a significant emotional and financial issue.¹³

In 2014, the BMJ published a 25-year follow up from the Canadian National Breast Screening Study in which the researchers found 22% of the screening-detected invasive breast cancers were overdiagnosed and they concluded:¹⁴

“Annual mammography in women aged 40-59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care when adjuvant therapy for breast cancer is freely available.”

In a Cochrane review of the literature to analyze the efficacy of screening mammograms, researchers found eight trials that met the criteria, which included 600,000 women from ages 39 to 74.¹⁵ After an analysis of the data they discovered — as Thornton testified — for every 2,000 women screened over 10 years, one avoids dying of breast cancer, and 10 will be treated unnecessarily.

Additionally, over 200 women will undergo psychological distress and uncertainty for years after receiving false-positive findings. A cohort study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine engaged participants in Denmark from 1980 to 2010.¹⁶

They also found screening did not lower the incidence of advanced tumors and concluded it was likely ”that 1 in every 3 invasive tumors and cases of DCIS [ductal carcinoma in situ] diagnosed in women offered screening represent overdiagnosis (incidence increase of 48.3%).”¹⁷

Overdiagnosis, Overtreatment and Overexposure

In 2012, The New England Journal of Medicine published a research paper by two scientists who examined over 30 years of data trends looking at the incidence of early- and late-stage breast cancer in women 40 years and older.¹⁸ What they found caused some controversy, which led one of the authors to produce this short video explaining the results.

The expectation that doctors would find a greater number of early-stage cancers should have been accompanied by a comparable reduction in the number of women who presented with advanced cancer. This was not the case, suggesting there is a substantial number of women who are overdiagnosed, and “… that screening is having, at best, only a small effect on the rate of death from breast cancer.”¹⁹

In this video, the presenter makes the point that nearly “half of screen-detected breast cancer now represent overdiagnosis.” The harm from overdiagnosis does not stop with the psychological distress it causes a woman and her family. It also leads to overtreatment, and treatment often begins with a biopsy.

The most common type of biopsy for breast cancer is a needle biopsy. The doctor has a choice between a fine needle aspiration (FNA) or a core needle biopsy of the breast tissue. According to the American Cancer Society, a core needle biopsy is the preferred type when breast cancer is suspected since it removes more tissue than an FNA without needing surgery.²⁰ 

However, research published in their journal in 2017 concluded that core needle biopsies increase the risk of distant metastasis five to 15 years after breast cancer had been diagnosed.²¹ This happened at higher rates than in women undergoing an FNA. A second study published earlier concluded both types of biopsies put a woman at risk for metastasis, concluding:²²

“Manipulation of an intact tumor by FNA or large-gauge needle core biopsy is associated with an increase in the incidence of SN [sentinel node] metastases, perhaps due in part to the mechanical disruption of the tumor by the needle.”

False-positive mammograms cost the U.S. $4 billion²³ each year when treatment has started after a misdiagnosis,²⁴ including chemotherapy and mastectomies, only to find the tumor is benign.²⁵ This places an extraordinary emotional, mental and financial burden on the woman and her family.

The mammogram itself does not come without risk. Mammograms use ionizing radiation in relatively high doses, which contributes to the development of breast cancer. In a 2016 study, the authors write, “… ionizing radiation as used in low-dose X-ray mammography may be associated with a risk of radiation-induced carcinogenesis.”²⁶

According to one study, annual screening using digital or screen-film mammography on women aged 40 to 80 years is associated with a lifetime risk of increased induced cancer and a fatal breast cancer rate of 20 to 25 cases per 100,000 mammograms.²⁷ In other words, for every 100,000 women who get an annual mammogram, there will be 20 to 25 cases of fatal cancer in their lifetimes as a result.

You Have Choices

Although mammography is most often recommended, women have choices for diagnostic tests that do not use radiation. Women should be provided with information to make informed decisions and be allowed to use their choice. Other potentially safer options include self and clinical breast exams, thermography, ultrasound and MRI.

Thermography and ultrasound use no radiation and can detect abnormalities that mammograms may miss, especially in women who have dense breast tissue. While effective, these tests can be difficult to access in the U.S. since the billion-dollar mammography industry prevents their widespread use.

It's also important to understand that screening does not prevent breast cancer. Instead, prevention involves healthy lifestyle choices, avoiding toxins and paying attention to certain nutritional factors. Vitamin D is a vital nutritional factor that can radically reduce your risk of breast cancer.

It's crucial you know your vitamin D level, which is vital to several health conditions, and optimize it to protect your health. Conventional medicine may have led women to believe that simply getting an annual test will protect them from breast cancer. However, leading a healthy lifestyle and getting informed of your screening options can help you avoid this potentially deadly pitfall.

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Researchers have found new forms of tau protein that become abnormal in the very early stages of Alzheimer's disease before cognitive problems develop. The scientists developed new tools to detect these subtle changes and confirmed their results in human samples.

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In a new study, researchers surveyed pregnant women and those who had recently given birth, finding concerning rates of depression, generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, which were found to be exacerbated by COVID-19-related grief and health worries.

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From Adele to Rebel Wilson, these celebrities have made the most out of COVID isolation by focusing on their health. They're the inspiration we all need right now.

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Occasionally, following a transplant procedure, the donor's immune cells recognize the recipient's tissues as foreign and trigger a multisystem disorder called graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Occurring commonly after bone marrow or stem cell transplants performed to treat some blood cancers, GVHD may even follow solid organ transplants and is, in essence, the reverse of transplant rejection. Now, researchers have clarified the pathogenesis of the characteristic skin changes in chronic GVHD.

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Researchers have developed a method to produce engineered lysins that can be used to selectively kill bacteria of interest while leaving others unharmed. The discovery presents a promising alternative to antibiotics for treating existing drug-resistant bacteria without the risk of causing resistance.

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A research team uncovers the mechanism that regulates local expression of key molecules in brain development and neurodegenerative diseases.

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For centuries humans were using willow barks to treat a headache or an inflamed tooth. Later, the active ingredient, the plant hormone salicylic acid, was used to develop painkillers like Aspirin. But what happens, if plants are treated with these painkillers? By doing so, scientists discovered an unexpected bioactivity of human pharmaceuticals in plants.

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Researchers report that deleting one of the inhibitors of the RPE65 gene in a mouse model that carries a human disease mutation prevents degeneration of cone photoreceptors that are used for daytime high-resolution color vision.

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Meningococcus group B, the most prevalent strain of meningococcal infection, is prevented with 79 per cent effectiveness in children and young adults inoculated with the 4CMenB vaccine, also known as Bexsero, according to a new collaborative study which evaluated the vaccine's performance in a real-world setting.

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Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis, study suggests. Lab studies were done of children at ages 4 and 6.

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Operation Warp Speed (OWS), a joint operation between U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense, continues to be shrouded in secrecy, but little by little information is emerging that long-term monitoring of the U.S. public is part of the plan.

At face value, OWS is a public-private partnership tasked with producing therapeutics and a fast-tracked COVID-19 vaccine¹ — 300 million doses' worth that are intended to be made available starting in January 2021.²

But it appears the involvement doesn't end there. Rather than just ensuring a vaccine is produced and made available for those who want it, Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, dubbed the coronavirus vaccine czar,³ said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the rollout will include "incredibly precise … tracking systems."^4,5

Their purpose? "To ensure that patients each get two doses of the same vaccine and to monitor them for adverse health effects."⁶ In an interview with The New York Times, Slaoui described it as a "very active pharmaco vigilance surveillance system."⁷

What Will the Vaccine Monitoring System Entail?

This is the No. 1 question, and one that hasn't been answered, at least not officially. "While Slaoui himself was short on specifics regarding this 'pharmacovigilance surveillance system,'" news outlet Humans Are Free reported, "the few official documents from OWS that have been publicly released offer some details about what this system may look like and how long it is expected to 'track' the vital signs and whereabouts of Americans who receive a Warp Speed vaccine."⁸

One of the documents, titled "From the Factory to the Frontlines: The Operation Warp Speed Strategy for Distributing a COVID-19 Vaccine," was released by HHS.⁹ It also mentions the use of pharmacovigilance surveillance along with Phase 4 (post-licensure) clinical trials in order to assess the vaccines' long-term safety, since "some technologies have limited previous data on safety in humans."¹⁰

The report, which lays out a strategy for distributing a COVID-19 vaccine, from allocation and distribution to administration and more, continues:¹¹

"The key objective of pharmacovigilance is to determine each vaccine's performance in real-life scenarios, to study efficacy, and to discover any infrequent and rare side effects not identified in clinical trials. OWS will also use pharmacovigilance analytics, which serves as one of the instruments for the continuous monitoring of pharmacovigilance data.

Robust analytical tools will be used to leverage large amounts of data and the benefits of using such data across the value chain, including regulatory obligations. Pharmacovigilance provides timely information about the safety of each vaccine to patients, healthcare professionals, and the public, contributing to the protection of patients and the promotion of public health."

Similar language was reiterated in an October 2020 perspective article published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), written by Slaoui and Dr. Matthew Hepburn.¹²

Hepburn is a former program manager for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he oversaw the development of ProfusA,¹³ an implantable biosensor that allows a person's physiology to be examined at a distance via smartphone connectivity. ProfusA is also backed by Google, the largest data mining company in the world.

Writing in NEJM, the duo writes, "Because some technologies have limited previous data on safety in humans, the long-term safety of these vaccines will be carefully assessed using pharmacovigilance surveillance strategies."¹⁴

'Traceability' a Key Tenet of Operation Warp Speed

Humans Are Free also references an OWS infographic,¹⁵ which details the COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration process. One of the four key tenets is "traceability," which includes confirming which of the approved vaccines were administered regardless of location (public or private), reminding recipients to return for a second dose and ensuring that the correct second dose is administered.

That word — pharmacovigilance — is used again, this time as a heading inferring that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be involved in "24-month post trial monitoring for adverse effects/additional safety feature." Pharmacovigilance, also known as drug safety, generally refers to the collection, analysis, monitoring and prevention of adverse effects from medications and other therapies.¹⁶

Passive reporting systems for adverse events, like the Vaccines Adverse Event Reporting System, already exist and are managed by the FDA and CDC.

However, a report released by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Health Security suggests that passive systems that rely on people to send in their experiences should be made into an "active safety surveillance system directed by the CDC that monitors all vaccine recipients — perhaps by short message service or other electronic mechanisms — with criteria based on the World Health Organization Global Vaccine Safety Initiative."^17,18

What's more, according to Humans Are Free, "Despite the claims in these documents that the 'pharmacovigilance surveillance system' would intimately involve the FDA, top FDA officials stated in September that they were barred from attending OWS meetings and told reporters they could not explain the operation's organization or when or with what frequency its leadership meets."¹⁹ STAT News further reported:²⁰

"The Food and Drug Administration, which is playing a critical role in the response to the pandemic, has virtually no visibility into OWS — but that's by design … The FDA has set up a firewall between the vast majority of staff and the initiative to separate any regulatory decisions from policy or budgetary decisions.

FDA officials are still allowed to interact with companies developing products for OWS, but they're barred from sitting in on discussions regarding other focuses of OWS, like procurement, investment or distribution."

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Health Security, by the way, has ties to Event 201, a pandemic preparedness simulation for a "novel coronavirus" that took place in October 2019, along with Dark Winter, another simulation that took place in June 2001, which predicted major aspects of the subsequent 2001 anthrax attacks.

Hepburn also reportedly "ruffled feathers" during a June 2020 presentation to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices because he offered no data-rich slides, which are typically part of such presentations, and, STAT News reported, "Several members asked Hepburn pointed questions he pointedly did not answer."²¹

Google and Oracle Contracted to Collect Vaccine Data

Google and Oracle, a multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, have been contracted to "collect and track vaccine data" as part of OWS' surveillance systems,²² a partnership Slaoui reportedly revealed in his Wall Street Journal interview.²³ According to Humans Are Free:²⁴

"If the Warp Speed contracts that have been awarded to Google and Oracle are anything like the Warp Speed contracts awarded to most of its participating vaccine companies, then those contracts grant those companies diminished federal oversight and exemptions from federal laws and regulations designed to protect taxpayer interests in the pursuit of the work stipulated in the contract.

It also makes them essentially immune to Freedom of Information Act requests. Yet, in contrast to the unacknowledged Google and Oracle contracts, vaccine companies have publicly disclosed that they received OWS contracts, just not the terms or details of those contracts. This suggests that the Google and Oracle contracts are even more secretive."

In an interview with investigative journalist Whitney Webb (see Mercola hyperlink above under "Dark Winter"), it's also revealed that Slaoui, a long-time head of GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine division, is a leading proponent of bioelectronic medicine, which is the use of injectable or implantable technology for the purpose of treating nerve conditions.

The MIT Technology review has referred to it as hacking the nervous system. But it also allows you to monitor the physiology of the human body from the inside.

Slaoui is also invested in a company called Galvani Bioelectronics, which was cofounded by a Google subsidiary. "So, you have Google being contracted to monitor this pharmacovigilance surveillance system that aims to monitor the physiology and the human body for two years," Webb says.

"And then you have the ties to the ProfusA project," she adds, "which oddly enough is supposed to work inside the human body for 24 months — the exact window they've said will be used to monitor people after the first [vaccine] dose."

The conflict of interest is massive, in part because Google owns YouTube, which has been banning our videos, a majority of which are interviews with health experts sharing their medical or scientific expertise and viewpoints on COVID-19, since June 2020. As noted by Humans Are Free:²⁵

"With Google now formally part of OWS, it seems likely that any concerns about OWS's extreme secrecy and the conflicts of interest of many of its members (particularly Moncef Slaoui and Matt Hepburn) as well as any concerns about Warp Speed vaccine safety, allocation and/or distribution may be labeled 'COVID-19 vaccine misinformation' and removed from YouTube."

Is Total Surveillance Set to Become the New Normal?

OWS, rather than being directed by public health officials, is heavily dominated by military, technology companies and U.S. intelligence agencies, likening it to a successor for Total Information Awareness (TIA), a program managed by DARPA that sprang up after the 9/11 attacks.

At the time, TIA was seeking to collect Americans' medical records, fingerprints and other biometric data, along with DNA and records relating to personal finances, travel and media consumption.²⁶ According to Webb (again, refer to the Mercola hyperlink earlier, "Dark Winter"):

"We now know, for example, that the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security are directly involved in Operation Warp Speed, but they won't really say exactly what parts they're doing. But there are some indications as to what they could be involved with.

And the fact that Silicon Valley companies that have been known to collaborate with intelligence [agencies] for the purpose of spying on innocent Americans — Google and Oracle, for example — are going to be involved in this surveillance system … for everyone that gets the vaccine.

It's certainly alarming, and it seems to point to the fulfillment of an agenda that was attempted to be pushed through or foisted on the American public after 9/11, called Total Information Awareness, which was managed, originally, by DARPA.

It was about using medical data and non-medical data — essentially all data about you — to prevent terror attacks before they could happen, and also to prevent bioterror attacks and even prevent naturally occurring disease outbreaks.

A lot of the same initiatives proposed under that original program after 9/11 have essentially been resurrected, with updated technology, under the guise of combating COVID-19."

A key difference is that TIA was quickly defunded by Congress after significant public backlash, including concerns that TIA would undermine personal privacy. In the case of OWS, there's little negative press and media outlets are overwhelmingly supportive of the operation as a way to resolve the COVID-19 crisis.

But what if it's not actually about COVID-19 at all, but represents something bigger, something that's been in the works for decades? As Humans Are Free puts it:²⁷

"The total-surveillance agenda that began with TIA and that has been resurrected through Warp Speed predated COVID-19 by decades.

Its architects and proponents have worked to justify these extreme and invasive surveillance programs by marketing this agenda as the 'solution' to whatever Americans are most afraid of at any given time. It has very little to do with 'public health' and everything to do with total control."

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I’ve been warning you about the seeming inevitability of mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for several months now, and have discussed the ever-tightening grip of media and online censorship even longer. As an independent source of health news, Mercola.com has been in the crosshairs of globalist interests for years, and the attacks are intensifying with each passing day.

While, on the surface, health recommendations and geopolitics may appear to have nothing in common, they are in fact intertwined.

As more and more information about the Great Reset and the 4th Industrial Revolution is starting to surface, we can clearly see that eliminating medical freedom is a central part of the plot, and mandatory vaccination will be used as a tool to usher in biometrical surveillance and enslavement through a centrally-controlled all-digital finance and identification system.

Intelligence Collective Unleashes Cyberwarfare on Public

While censorship has reached new heights this year, that’s likely only the tip of the iceberg. According to recent media reports,^1,2,3 intelligence agencies are now collaborating to eliminate “anti-vaccine propaganda” from public discussion using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools.

As reported by independent investigative journalist Whitney Webb in an article for Unlimited Hangout:⁴

“British and American state intelligence agencies are ‘weaponizing truth’ to quash vaccine hesitancy as both nations prepare for mass inoculations, in a recently announced ‘cyber war’ to be commanded by AI-powered arbiters of truth against information sources that challenge official narratives …

Cyber tools and online tactics previously designed for use in the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ are now being repurposed for use against information sources promoting ‘vaccine hesitancy’ and information related to COVID-19 that runs counter to their state narratives …

The UK’s GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters⁵] ‘has begun an offensive cyber-operation to disrupt anti-vaccine propaganda being spread by hostile states’ and ‘is using a toolkit developed to tackle disinformation and recruitment material peddled by Islamic State’ to do so.⁶

In addition, the UK government has ordered the British military’s 77th Brigade, which specializes in ‘information warfare,’ to launch an online campaign to counter ‘deceptive narratives’ about COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

The newly announced GCHQ ‘cyber war’ will not only take down ‘anti-vaccine propaganda’ but will also seek to ‘disrupt the operations of the cyberactors responsible for it, including encrypting their data so they cannot access it and blocking their communications with each other.’

The effort will also involve GCHQ reaching out to other countries in the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance (U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Canada) to alert their partner agencies in those countries to target such ‘propaganda’ sites hosted within their borders.”

Vaccine Discussion — A National Security Risk?

According to a November 9, 2020, report in The Times,⁷ the British “government regards tackling false information about inoculation as a rising priority as the prospect of a reliable vaccine against the coronavirus draws closer.”

In July 2020, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, told The Independent⁸ he considers anti-vaxxers “an extremist group that pose a national security risk,” because “once someone has been exposed to one type of conspiracy it’s easy to lead them down a path where they embrace more radical world views that can lead to violent extremism.”

In other words, Ahmed implies that people who question the safety and necessity of a COVID-19 vaccine might be prone to violent extremism. His statement is no small matter, considering Ahmed is also a member of the Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government’s Commission for Countering Extremism.

“It seems that, from the perspective of the UK national-security state, those who question corruption in the pharmaceutical industry and its possible impact on the leading experimental COVID-19 vaccine candidates (all of which use experimental vaccine technologies that have never before been approved for human use) should be targeted with tools originally designed to combat terrorist propaganda,” Webb writes.⁹

Government With Help of Big Tech Is Seizing Online Domains

U.S. intelligence is also part of this campaign. According to Webb, the U.S. government will help the GCHQ determine whether a website is part of a foreign disinformation operation or not. While the GCHQ claims that only foreign state actors will be targeted, and not “ordinary citizens,” there’s little evidence to suggest citizens won’t be swept up in this information blackout operation.

For example, November 4, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had seized 27 online domains — including that of the American Herald Tribune — suspected of being founded by Iranian interests.^10,11 The domain seizures are said to be part of the U.S. enforcement of sanctions against Iran.

In early September 2020, 92 online domains suspected of belonging to Iraqi government-backed militia were similarly seized.¹² All of these DOJ seizures were done in collaboration with the FBI, Google, Facebook and Twitter.¹³ As reported by Webb:¹⁴

“The U.S. government made this claim about the American Herald Tribune after the cybersecurity firm FireEye, a U.S. government contractor, stated that it had ‘moderate confidence’ that the site had been ‘founded in Iran’ …

It is certainly plausible that GCHQ could take the word of either an allied government, a government contractor, or perhaps even an allied media organization such as Bellingcat or the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab that a given site is ‘foreign propaganda’ in order to launch a cyber offensive against it.

Such concerns are only amplified when one of the main government sources … bluntly stated that ‘GCHQ has been told to take out antivaxers [sic] online and on social media. There are ways they have used to monitor and disrupt terrorist propaganda,’ which suggests that the targets of GCHQ’s new cyber war will, in fact, be determined by the content itself rather than their suspected ‘foreign’ origin.

The ‘foreign’ aspect instead appears to be a means of evading the prohibition in GCHQ’s operational mandate on targeting the speech or websites of ordinary citizens.”

Clues that U.S. intelligence supports this cyberwar against the public can also be found in a white paper¹⁵ published in the InfraGard Journal in June 2019. InfraGard, founded in 1996, is a nonprofit national security group affiliated with the FBI.¹⁶ They collaborate on a variety of educational and information-sharing initiatives “that help mitigate threats.”¹⁷

The InfraGard paper¹⁸ claims the American anti-vaccine movement is being orchestrated by Russian government-aligned organizations seeking to “sow discontent and distrust in topics and initiatives that serve U.S. interests,”¹⁹ and that “The biggest threat in controlling an outbreak comes from those who categorically reject vaccination.”²⁰

Does InfraGard speak for the FBI? Not directly, but considering it serves as “a public-private partnership among U.S. businesses, individuals, and the FBI,” according to an FBI spokesperson,²¹ it’s bound to have some degree of influence.

According to The Guardian, the unnamed FBI spokesperson noted that “It is important to distinguish among the statements, views and comments made by official FBI representatives and InfraGard Members.” He or she declined to comment on or clarify the FBI’s stance on whether vaccine safety advocates might be classified as a national security threat.

This Site Identified as a Cyberwar Target

Five sites specifically targeted by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate as promoting extremism that poses a national security risk to the U.K. are:

• Mercola.com
• Children’s Health Defense (run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
• The Informed Consent Action Network
• The Organic Consumers Association
• The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)

In fact, the organization specifically named yours truly as being one of just two people responsible for funding the “anti-vaxx nonprofits” that have the greatest reach. Financier Bernard Selz is the other. Selz allegedly finances The HighWire and Physicians for Informed Consent, as well as “some of the tech giants that make the modern anti-vaxx movement possible.”²²

It was really entertaining to read what the Centre for Countering Digital Hate wrote about me in their report, as I consider their disparagement a badge of honor. I encourage you to read it.²³ For example, they commented that we have a decreasing Facebook following. Well that isn’t surprising at all as we haven’t posted for 18 months as a part of our “Forget Facebook” campaign. As noted by Webb in her article:²⁴

“It is worth pointing out that many so-called ‘anti-vaxxers’ are actually critics of the pharmaceutical industry and are not necessarily opposed to vaccines in and of themselves, making the labels ‘anti-vaxxer’ and ‘anti-vaccine’ misleading.

Given that many pharmaceutical giants involved in making COVID-19 vaccines donate heavily to politicians in both countries and have been involved in numerous safety scandals, using state intelligence agencies to wage cyber war against sites that investigate such concerns is not only troubling for the future of journalism but it suggests that the UK is taking a dangerous leap toward becoming a country that uses its state powers to treat the enemies of corporations as enemies of the state.”

Intelligence Apparatus Weaponizes ‘Truth’

Indeed, it certainly appears as though the U.K. and U.S. are now lumping enemies of the state and enemies of private companies into the same category. If you criticize one you criticize the other. In short, if you impede or endanger the profitability of private companies, you are now viewed as a national security threat.

Importantly, the right and freedom to critique one’s government is a hallmark of democracy, so this state-sponsored war against truthful information is in turn evidence of a radical detour from democratic rule. Technocratic totalitarianism is quite literally banging at our front door. As reported by Webb:²⁵

“Similar efforts are underway in the United States, with the U.S. military recently funding a CIA-backed firm — stuffed with former counterterrorism officials who were behind the occupation of Iraq and the rise of the so-called Islamic State — to develop an AI algorithm aimed specifically at new websites promoting ‘suspected’ disinformation related to the COVID-19 crisis and the U.S. military-led COVID-19 vaccination effort known as Operation Warp Speed …

In early October, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command announced that they had awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to the U.S.-based ‘machine intelligence’ company Primer. Per the press release,²⁶ ‘Primer will develop the first-ever machine learning platform to automatically identify and assess suspected disinformation …

Primer’s ultimate goal is to use their AI to entirely automate the shaping of public perceptions and become the arbiter of ‘truth,’ as defined by the state …

According to Primer’s director of science, John Bohannon, ‘Primer will be integrating bot detection, synthetic text detection and unstructured textual claims analysis capabilities into our existing artificial intelligence platform currently in use with DOD … This will create the first unified mission-ready platform to effectively counter COVID-19-related disinformation in near-real time …

Given that the Covid-19 vaccine candidate produced by Pfizer is expected to be approved by the end of November, it appears that the U.S. national-security state, which is essentially running Operation Warp Speed, along with ‘trusted messengers’ in mass media, is preparing to enter the second phase of its communications strategy, one in which news organizations and journalists who raise legitimate concerns about Warp Speed will be de-platformed to make way for the ‘required’ saturation of pro-vaccine messaging across the English-speaking media landscape.”

Protect Your Human Rights

As mentioned at the beginning, health and geopolitics are far from separate issues. One is feeding into the other, as mass vaccination is being used as a way to implement a whole host of “new world order” directives, including the introduction of an all-digital centralized currency model tied to digital IDs and a social credit system.

Together, all of these bits and pieces will allow an unelected technocratic elite to dictate every facet of your life, from where you live to what you own (which according to the World Economic Forum will be nothing). For an introduction to this globalist takeover, which is now being rolled out at a rapid clip, see James Corbett’s report featured in “What You Need to Know About the Great Reset.”

As for the sharing of information, it seems inevitable that the attacks on Mercola.com will intensify. Already, Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have either throttled down or banned our online presence, making it very difficult to find and share our content.

So, if you find value in these articles, be sure to subscribe, encourage your friends and family to subscribe, and share articles via email. At the bottom of each page, you’ll find an “Email Article” button that makes it easy to share. Also consider eliminating Facebook and all Google-based services from your life to cut down on their data mining of your personal information.

Remember, your personal data is being used against you. It’s fed into machine learning programs that train artificial intelligence, which is then used to manipulate you and shape your perception of the world. This technology is so sophisticated, most don’t even realize it’s happening in general, let alone that it’s happening to them specifically.

To say that we’re living in extraordinarily dangerous times would be an understatement, but if we keep our wits about us and continue to share the facts and coordinate our resistance, we still have a chance to turn away from the dystopian future that has been planned for us. For some encouragement, listen to Kennedy Jr.’s speech in “Hope Despite Censorship.”

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