Health & Fitness

Think about the person you could be without alcohol. That's why it's worth it. 

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/2YiCqXn

Unvaccinated pregnant women are increasingly being hospitalized with COVID-19 during a nationwide surge of the Delta variant, according to researchers.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3CVNwAi

Researchers have mapped out how hundreds of mutations involved in two types of cancer affect the activity of proteins that are the ultimate actors behind the disease. The work points the way to identifying new precision treatments that may avoid the side effects common with much current chemotherapy.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3A455fW

Researchers have designed new antibodies that might provide more effective treatment methods for Alzheimer's disease. By designing antibodies that bind even to the smaller aggregates, or clumps, of the amyloid-beta protein, it may be possible to check the progress of the disease.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3AXKxXB

In geographic atrophy, a late form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), reading ability is closely related to the altered retinal structure. Reading speed makes everyday functional impairment measurable, which the most common functional test in ophthalmology -- the best-corrected visual acuity assessment - cannot reflect. Retinal imaging can be used to assess loss of reading ability even when central visual acuity is still good.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3BcXD3v

A team of bioengineers has invented a novel soft and flexible self-powered bioelectronic device. The technology converts human body motions -- from bending an elbow to subtle movements such as a pulse on one's wrist -- into electricity that could be used to power wearable and implantable diagnostic sensors.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3zVQFyk

New research shows that the use of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT -- also known as hormone replacement therapy, HRT) is not linked to an increased risk of developing dementia.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2Y6QvHD

It’s a moment you can’t comprehend.

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/3olyEXQ

Despite smoking's well-known role in causing lung cancer, a significant number of patients who develop lung tumors have never smoked. While scientists are still working to understand what spurs cancer in so-called 'never-smokers,' a study suggests that 78% to 92% of lung cancers in patients who have never smoked can be treated with precision drugs already approved by the Food and Drug Administration to target specific mutations in a patient's tumor.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3imMSEb

Opioid receptors play key roles in regulating our senses and emotions. Recently, their discovery outside the nervous system raised several questions about the effects of opioids on the immune system. Now, researchers have shown that KNT-127 -- a drug that targets delta opioid receptors -- can reduce pro-inflammatory signals in the colon. Their research highlights the immunomodulatory properties of opioids and indicates their therapeutic potential in inflammatory bowel disease and other related disorders.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3kWJYI7

A new study on foot-and-mouth disease among buffalo in South Africa could help explain how certain extremely contagious pathogens are able to persist and reach endemic stage in a population, long after they've burned through their initial pool of susceptible hosts.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3DfXVHt

A study found that pregnancy intentions often change over as short as a 12-month time period, and that they specifically vary with partner status, household income, and employment status.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3F4ASB1

Nerve cells (neurons) send signals throughout the brain and the body along long processes called axons; these communication and information processes consume high levels of energy. A recent study shows that the support cells around axons provide a way to boost local energy production. The new findings help explain how long axons maintain sufficient energy levels and could have implications for the treatment of several neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), linked to disruptions in axonal energy supply.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3mjG77s

Scientists have detailed the effects of copper cysteamine, a next-generation cancer photo-drug.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3zRAS3z

Using the relatively simple clocks found in fruit flies, researchers reveal that the subcellular location of clock proteins and genes fluctuates with the daily passage of time, indicating that spatial information is translated into time-related signals.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3B2GBVu

What makes pancreatic cancer so deadly is its covert and quick spread. Now, a 'time machine' has shown a way to reverse the course of cancer before it spreads throughout the pancreas.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3kVNBxE

Researchers can now rapidly isolate and chemically characterize individual organelles within cells. The new technique tests the limits of analytical chemistry and rapidly reveals the chemical composition of organelles that control biological growth, development and disease.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3kXNqSQ

Cancer immunotherapy seeks to turn 'cold' tumors into 'hot' tumors -- those that respond to immunotherapy -- by awakening and enlisting the body's own immune system.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3D1IvX6

Corneal defects often heal themselves, but serious injuries that are left untreated can result in inflammation, infection, ulceration and even blindness. A new study provides exciting evidence supporting the involvement of aquaporins in corneal cell proliferation and nerve regeneration and suggests aquaporin 5 (AQP5) induction as a potential therapy to accelerate the resurfacing of corneal defects, report scientists.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3meZ5Me

The World Economic Forum’s 2030 agenda includes the strangely ominous dictum that you will “own nothing and be happy.” The unstated implication is that the world’s resources will be owned and controlled by the technocratic elite, and you’ll have to pay for the temporary use of absolutely everything.

Nothing will actually belong to you. All items and resources are to be used by the collective, while actual ownership is restricted to an upper stratum of social class. Just how will this imposed serfdom make you happy?

Again, the unstated implication is that lack of ownership is a convenience — they’re just making your life easier. Rent a pot and then return it. You don’t need storage space! Imagine the freedom! They even promise the convenience of automatic drone delivery straight to your door.

Artificial intelligence — which is siphoning your data about every aspect of your existence through nearly every piece of technology and appliance you own — will run your life, predicting your every mood and desire, catering to your every whim. Ah, the luxury of not having to make any decisions!

Planned Theft Under the Cover of a Pandemic

This is the mindset they’re trying to program into you. As just one example, in a mid-November 2020 video announcement, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said:¹

“This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to re-imagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change.”

Some, however, are starting to realize that these narratives of “building back better” and “resetting” the economy to ensure “equity” are proverbial mouse traps. Once you bite the cheese, you’ll be stuck, robbed of your freedom forevermore.

In the video above, author Douglas Kruger explains why freedom is impossible without the right to private ownership. The technocratic elite of course do not want you to understand the real-world ramifications of what they have planned, which is why they try to sell this diabolical idea as something that will benefit society and finally make life fair for everyone. It’s an attractive narrative, but a dangerous fantasy to buy into. As noted November 16, 2020, by National File:²

“… Trudeau suggested the COVID-19 virus provided an ‘opportunity for a reset … to re-imagine economic systems.’ This was taken as an endorsement of a World Economic Forum plan to concentrate most private property in the hands of Big Tech mega-corporations.

The ‘Great Reset’ plan involves a collaboration between national governments and international bodies to ‘reset capitalism’ with an integrated transnational technocratic welfare/surveillance state by the year 2030 …

WEF member corporations and government partners would accomplish the ‘reset’ by using economic policy to virtually abolish individual property and concentrate nearly all wealth in the hands of international mega-corporations.

The idea would be to leverage the welfare state and gig economy to replace the economic status quo of individual ownership with one where the majority of individual needs are rented instead.”

Learn to Recognize the Great Reset Catchphrases

The WEF’s 2030 agenda is part and parcel of what is now advertised as The Great Reset,³ a plan that originated in something called the Global Redesign Initiative, drafted by the WEF in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. The Transnational Institute’s website describes the initiative as “multi-stakeholderism” as a “new form of global governance.”⁴

On a side note, as I was entering the Transnational Institute reference, I noticed the URL included the words “taxonomy term backup delete later.” I don’t know if that means anything, but I archived⁵ the page just in case. Other terms and slogans that describe various facets of this global takeover agenda include:

• The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is part of the transhumanist movement.⁶ In the video above, WEF founder Klaus Schwab describes these plans
• Building Back Better
• The Green New Deal
• “Equity”
• Stakeholder capitalism

In recent days, we’ve seen a slew of world leaders come out in lockstep to denounce capitalism, saying we need “stakeholder capitalism.” Among them is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who September 17, 2021, spoke out against capitalism at a meeting in London.^7,8

"In America, capitalism is our system, it is our economic system, but it has not served our economy as well as it should,” she said. "So what we want to do is not depart from that, but to improve it.

You cannot have a system where the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest, and we have to correct that."

President Biden is the first U.S. president to embrace stakeholder capitalism by name,⁹ and leading Democrats, including Vice-President Kamala Harris and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have presented policy proposals that would write stakeholder capitalism into law.¹⁰

What Is Stakeholder Capitalism?

But just what is stakeholder capitalism? If it’s fairer and makes everyone more prosperous than the shareholder capitalist system we currently have, shouldn’t we all support it? The problem is that the way it’s described is not how it actually works in the real world. It sounds great in theory, but the end result is not going to benefit the average person.

As reported by Ivan Wecke on Open Democracy, in an article titled “Conspiracy Theories Aside, There Is Something Fishy About the Great Reset”:¹¹

“The set of conspiracy theories around the Great Reset are nebulous and hard to pin down, but piecing them together gives us something like this: the Great Reset is the global elite’s plan to instate a communist world order by abolishing private property while using COVID-19 to solve overpopulation and enslaving what remains of humanity with vaccines.

Intrigued … I decided to find out what the WEF’s Great Reset plan was really about. At the heart of conspiracy theories are supposed secret agendas and malicious intent.

While these may be absent from the WEF’s Great Reset initiative, what I found was something almost as sinister hiding in plain sight. In fact, more sinister because it’s real and it’s happening now. And it involves things as fundamental as our food, our data and our vaccines.

The magic words are ‘stakeholder capitalism’, a concept that WEF chairman Klaus Schwab has been hammering for decades and which occupies pride of place in the WEF’s Great Reset plan from June 2020.

The idea is that global capitalism should be transformed so that corporations no longer focus solely on serving shareholders but become custodians of society by creating value for customers, suppliers, employees, communities and other ‘stakeholders.’

The way the WEF sees stakeholder capitalism being carried out is through a range of ‘multi-stakeholder partnerships’ bringing together the private sector, governments and civil society across all areas of global governance.

The idea of stakeholder capitalism and multi-stakeholder partnerships might sound warm and fuzzy, until we dig deeper and realize that this actually means giving corporations more power over society, and democratic institutions less.”

Stakeholder Capitalism Increases the Power of Corporations

The Global Redesign Initiative, which served as the basis for the Great Reset, has been described as “the most comprehensive proposal for redesigning global governance since the formulation of the United Nations during World War II.”¹² So, this is no minor tweak. It’s a complete overhaul of how we do business and govern nations, not only in the U.S. but globally.

In this multi-stakeholder model, government is just one stakeholder among many. Other stakeholders that would have to be taken into account include nongovernmental organizations such as the WEF itself and multinational corporations. In other words, these other stakeholders will have a say in how nations are governed.

Notice that world leaders will stress that the stakeholders include the environment and workers. The truth, however, is that the needs and desires of workers and the natural world are hardly at the center of this model. As explained by Wecke:¹³

“Instead of corporations serving many stakeholders, in the multi-stakeholder model of global governance, corporations are promoted to being official stakeholders in global decision-making, while governments are relegated to being one of many stakeholders.

In practice, corporations become the main stakeholders, while governments take a backseat role, and civil society is mainly window dressing.”

Stakeholder Capitalism Is Taking Over by Stealth

Wecke points out that this multi-stakeholder ecosystem has already been implemented and is expanding with each passing day. It’s not something that they’re proposing to implement in the future. Instead, they’re basically just telling us now what they’ve been doing for years already.

“Multi-stakeholder groups have spread across all sectors of the global governance system,” Wecke says, noting there are already “more than 45 global multi-stakeholder groups that set standards and establish guidelines and rules in a range of areas.”

These groups, which have no democratic accountability, consist of large multinational corporations, which recruit insiders within government, civil society and educational institutions. Together, they claim to solve all sorts of problems that plague society.

Essentially, they believe they know what’s best for everyone, and without having been elected to speak and act on our behalf, they are making unilateral decisions that will dictate how we live, grow and prosper.

As just one example of a multi-stakeholder “ecosystem” that is already up and running is the COVAX initiative, the aim of which is to accelerate the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. This initiative was created by two multi-stakeholder groups, GAVI and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), in partnership with the World Health Organization and funded by governments.

GAVI and CEPI are both tied to the WEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a long list of drug companies. As noted by Wecki, while governments are funding the COVAX initiative, corporate-centered coalitions (GAVI and CEPI) are overseeing and reaping the profits from the work.

We’ve already been given a glimpse of the core problem with this system, which is that it’s entirely profit-driven. In 2020, South Africa and India sought to lift intellectual property rules on COVID-19 vaccine technologies to boost manufacturing in developing countries. GAVI, Gates himself and the drug industry strongly opposed, as you’d expect they would.

Why? Because public health is not their prime incentive or motivation. Profit is. Profit is their main interest, and as a primary “stakeholder,” their interests must be weighed against other stakeholder interests, such as people’s want and desire to not get sick and die. And, well, they’re at the center of the power structure, so guess whose interest wins, and will always win?

Stakeholder Capitalism Will Destroy Freedom

Wecke describes multi-stakeholderism as “the WEF’s update of multilateralism,” which is the system by which nations of the world are currently working together. At the core is the United Nations.

So far, this system is still democratic, at least in theory, as elected leaders are the ones brought together to make global decisions. The problem we’re facing is that the stakeholder capitalism now proposed is not going to deepen democracy but rather eliminate it altogether.

Its design sidelines governments and places unelected stakeholders, primarily transnational corporations, in the driver’s seat, giving them ultimate authority to make decisions for the world as a whole, which is precisely what we’ve increasingly started to experience during this pandemic. As explained by Wecke:¹⁴

“Put bluntly, multi-stakeholder partnerships are public-private partnerships on the global stage. And they have real-world implications for the way our food systems are organized, how big tech is governed and how our vaccines and medicines are distributed.”

We’re in for a Medical Reset as Well

Since the first quarter of 2020, we’ve already gotten a taste of what The Great Reset will mean for public health. It’s basically founded on the premise that we live in a biosecurity state, where these unelected “stakeholders” decide what is best for us, regardless of how we feel about it.

For example, hospitals around the U.S. are all instructed to use the deadliest COVID treatments imaginable, and doctors who defy the guidance and actually do what is best for their patients are having their medical licenses threatened. Merely speaking out about effective COVID treatments will put a bullseye on a physician’s back.

In countries everywhere, people are told COVID shots are the only way forward, and vaccine passports — once derided as a paranoid conspiracy theory — are being implemented. Who made these decisions? No one is admitting the real source of these lockstep decisions, but we can be sure they’re coming from a central hub, run by people no one ever voted into power.

Around the world, a twisted mind game is being played out, where world leaders are now telling us that vaccine passports are our “ticket to freedom,” completely ignoring the fact that our freedom is not, and cannot be, predicated on our medical choices.

Trudeau, for example, recently stated that vaccine passports are “all about” letting you know that “if you’ve done the right things, you get to be safe” wherever you go.¹⁵ And those who refuse to do “the right thing,” well, they simply aren’t entitled to those same “freedoms.”

Video may not work on all browsers

That the disease countermeasures we currently see for COVID-19 won’t end with COVID-19 is clear. Already, President Biden has signed an executive order adding measles to the list of diseases for which a person can be quarantined and/or forced to self-isolate “to protect public health.”¹⁶

Again, what’s being built all around us is a biosecurity state that will control every aspect of our lives under the auspice of “protecting public health,” all while doing no such thing. It’s undeniable that the COVID countermeasures have wrought far more destruction than the virus actually did, and these countermeasures continue to destroy lives and kill people unnecessarily, all under the banner of keeping us “safe” from disease.

The fact that people are dying from suicide, starvation, untreated medical problems and vaccine injuries, well, that doesn’t count. They’re protecting us from COVID! Of course, that’ll be expanded to protecting us from other infections du jour.

In closing, stakeholder capitalism is essentially a form of global fascism, where nations are run not by elected governments alone, but by unelected corporations in partnership with government. As for “equity,” I wouldn’t hold my breath for that to come true. The equity they’re talking about is all of us being in the same miserable position of owning nothing and having no human rights.

from Articles https://ift.tt/3kTGo1p
via IFTTT

2021 has been a most extraordinary year, and the filing and passage of state-based vaccine legislation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be historic as well. Even in spite of the sometimes divisive and hostile political climate, active citizen involvement in the legislative process to protect the human right to exercise informed consent to vaccination was the most successful it has ever been.

The nonprofit educational charity National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) reports that during the 2021 legislative session, NVIC analyzed, tracked and issued positions on an unprecedented 473 vaccine related bills in 49 states through the NVIC Advocacy Portal. This was the highest number of bills in the history of NVIC’s advocacy program, which was established in 2010, and more than double the bills last year.

NVIC provides well-referenced, accurate information to the public about vaccine science, policy and law but does not make vaccine use recommendations. In 2010, NVIC launched the NVIC Advocacy Portal (NVICAP), a free online vaccine choice advocacy network, for the purpose of securing and defending informed consent protections in vaccine policies and laws.

Over the last 12 years, the NVIC Advocacy Program has analyzed, tracked and issued positions on close to 2,000 vaccine-related bills. NVICAP staff work alongside and share legislative information with many health freedom groups that support NVIC’s four-decade call for the protection of vaccine informed consent rights in America.

The NVIC Advocacy Portal team, including NVIC Advocacy state directors and aligned groups, work with families and enlightened health care professionals to educate legislators and protect vaccine informed consent rights. NVIC issues action alerts and sends them through email, posts them online and shares them through social media and our text alert program.

>>>>> Click Here <<<<<

At the time this report was written, many states still have active vaccine-related bills filed in regular or special sessions; have bills prefiled for next legislative session or are in recess and will come back to work on bills; or have bills that carry over until next session, so it is especially important for everyone who uses the Portal to check in regularly.

Bills referenced in this report are published on the NVIC Advocacy Portal. Registered users can obtain a more detailed bill analysis, including current status, as well as NVIC’s position on the bill and recommended action.

Many bills published on the NVICAP also contain language that falls outside of NVIC’s mission, but analysis and positions published on the Portal are only focused sections of these bills that fall within NVIC’s mission.

Additionally, states and local regions both gained and lost rights this session from executive and local orders, but these orders were not tracked on the Portal attached to grassroots advocacy action items because they were not voted on, so there was no way for citizens to affect the outcome.

Highlights From 2021 to Date

There are significant positive take-away points from the initial outcomes of the 2021 legislative session:

The vaccine-related bills for the 2021 session that passed are broken out and described below by category.

2021 Passed Bill Analysis by Category

NVIC Advocacy has categorized the 55 bills that passed so far in 2021 in the following categories:

COVID-19	Censorship	Vaccine Exemptions and Mandates
Informed Consent	Minor Consent	Vaccine Tracking
Expanding Vaccine Administrators	Unnecessary Bills	Vetoed Bills

Some bills may be included in multiple categories. The NVIC Advocacy Team provides referenced, accurate vaccine information and talking points for NVICAP users to background legislators. Some of the position statements NVIC posted on the Advocacy Portal in 2021 were listed as bills to “watch.”

Sometimes this is done because our analysis indicated that the bill was well-intentioned, but contained some problems needing amending before we could support. Sharing this information resulted in many positive changes to bills.

The breakout and analysis of bills that passed in these different categories identifies trends across the states. This serves as a guide to educating your state legislators and community in 2021, and it shows why it is so important to speak up and protect vaccine informed consent rights. Your voice is making a difference!

COVID-19 Related Bills (30)

Many of the bills filed in 2021 attempted to protect people from being mandated to take a COVID-19 vaccine or being discriminated against for not showing proof of vaccination or post-infection recovery, including bills opposing vaccine passports in some form.

In November of 2020, NVIC Advocacy created and shared model language to address the real threat of vaccine mandates and forced vaccination in the states in all areas (society, employment, health care, emergency powers etc.) with NVIC state directors and leaders of groups that work closely with NVIC.

NVIC hosted a leader training session and, subsequently, these dedicated freedom and informed consent leaders reached out to their legislators, which assisted in the filing of bills in 49 states with various types of protection from COVID-19 vaccine passports or COVID-19 vaccine mandates. One of these bills, which was derived from NVIC model language — Texas SB 1669 — offered the most comprehensive protections of all state bills filed this legislative session.

Although SB 1669 did not pass in Texas, the amazing statements, which were made in public hearings by the bill's author, Texas doctors and citizens opposing proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates, helped shift the public conversation for the country. Read NVIC’s full report on the May 6, 2021 historic hearing, which includes transcripts of selected testimony.

So far, 20 states have passed some form of protective language that prohibit COVID-19 vaccine passports or COVID-19 vaccine mandates in some capacity. These states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Of the 30 COVID-19 related bills that passed, 29 were bills that had positive elements that protected informed consent rights and only one restricted informed consent rights. Importantly, no state legislature passed bills with COVID-19 mandates.

Regarding employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Montana passed legislation prohibiting this and Arizona passed legislation prohibiting teachers from being forced to be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs.

Prohibiting discrimination or segregation against those declining COVID-19 vaccines or preventing citizens from being required to show documentation of proof of COVID-19 vaccination (or showing a vaccine passport) has been included in bills passed in many states this year.

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas all passed various types of bills prohibiting discrimination or a requirement to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination in certain circumstances.

Students have gained protection from school COVID-19 vaccine mandates in certain circumstances in Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana (disclosure of existing right to decline) Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Requirements to obtain parental consent to vaccinate minor children in certain circumstances have been added in North Carolina and Ohio.

COVID-19 vaccine mandates have been prohibited outright in certain circumstances in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Utah, and new rights to decline COVID-19 vaccines in certain circumstances were added in Arizona, Kentucky and Montana.

Citizens of Iowa and Indiana are protected from having their vaccine status tied to their drivers’ licenses or state identification, and Utah has prohibited specified financial incentives to vaccinate with taxpayer money. The only state to pass a bill limiting rights was Virginia, which penalizes unvaccinated workers in workman’s compensation benefits if they have COVID-19.

It is important to note that the COVID-19 mandates that are being implemented today have all been through orders by governors, state health or local officials, or by private employers. None has been enacted through passage of legislation by elected representatives in state legislatures. Some of the state governors have issued executive or emergency orders for COVID-19 mandates. These include:

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont — Executive Order 13D — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for state employees and schools;

Hawaii Gov. David Ige — Emergency proclamation — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for state and county employees;

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — Executive Order 22 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers and school personnel;

New Jersey Gov. Philip Murphy — Executive Order 253 — COVID-19 vaccines for all school workers;

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown — Executive Order 29 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employees of the executive branch;

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam — Executive Directive 18 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for state worker; and

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee — Executive Order 21-14.1 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for state workers and health care providers.

Some state health agencies have issued rules or orders for COVID-19 vaccine mandates. These include:

• California Department of Public Health director and state public health officer Dr. Tomás J. Aragón — Public Health Order — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers;
• Colorado Board of Health — Emergency Rule 6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 2, General Licensure Standards and the COVID-19 Vaccine — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers;
• Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC) — Emergency Order — COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers; and
• New York State Department of Health Board and commissioner of health Howard Zucker — order for summary action — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for staff and volunteers at hospitals and nursing homes.

Some local governments or departments have issued rules or orders for COVID-19 mandates. These include:

Denver Department of Public Health and Environment — Denver Public Health Order — August 2, 2021 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for city and county employees;

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi — Emergency Order NO. 2021-11 — COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees and customers of restaurants, bars, gym and fitness facilities, and entertainment and recreational settings and proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter;

Los Angeles Unified School District School Board — School Board File #: Rep-091-21/22, Version: 1 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for students over age 12;

Los Angeles City Council — Council File Number: 21-0921 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for all city employees;

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio — Emergency Executive Order 225 — COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all entry into indoor entertainment, recreation, dining and fitness settings;

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell — emergency order — COVID-19 vaccine mandate for indoor dining, indoor fitness, indoor entertainment and performance spaces and certain outdoor performance spaces;

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser — Mayor’s Order 2021-099 — COVID-19 vaccine mandates for all D.C. employees including health professionals, contractors, grantees, and interns.

Some private employers who are already mandating COVID-19 vaccines are Facebook, Google, Microsoft, United Airlines, CNN, Ascension Health, Disney, Amtrak, and Goldman Sachs. Mixing government mandates with employer mandates, the San Antonio Independent School District and superintendent Pedro Martinez enacted an employment policy that all district employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The state of Texas is suing the school district to stop implementation of the mandatory vaccination policy because it is in violation of the Texas governor’s executive order that prohibits COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the state. There are multiple lawsuits challenging these types of COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Looming on the horizon are threats of more COVID-19 vaccine mandates from President Joe Biden for federal workers in the executive branch, employers with 100 or more employees and military personnel in the armed forces.

Now more than ever, it is critical that people continue to be involved in the legislative process at all levels of city, county, state and federal government, which includes learning where candidates stand on issues important to your family and voting accordingly, and continuing to educate legislators, your governor and local officials in order to protect informed consent and reject discrimination, segregation and forced vaccination.

Your voices are making a huge difference as you can see in this report, including all the positive bills that were passed protecting informed consent rights listed below.

Passed Bills Improving Rights to Refuse COVID-19 Vaccines

Alaska HB 76 adds the right of an individual, as well as the parent or legal guardian of a minor child, to object to the administration of a COVID-19 vaccine based on religious, medical, or other grounds. Additionally, the legislation prohibits requiring a person, who is declining the COVID-19 vaccine for themselves or a child, to provide justification or documentation for that declination.

Alabama SB 267 prohibits entities from denying benefits, services and access based on vaccination status.

Arizona SB 1825 prohibits public universities or community colleges from requiring or showing proof of receiving COVID-19 vaccines, with the exception of studies being done at a health care institution.

Arizona HB 2898 prohibits school district and charter schools from requiring teachers or students to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

Arizona SB 1819 allows individuals to decline vaccination orders based on personal beliefs during state of emergency declarations.

Arizona SB 1824 prohibits state and local government from requiring a COVID-19 vaccine or establishing a vaccine passport, and it prohibits EUA vaccines from being mandated.

Arkansas HB 1547 prohibits the mandating of COVID-19 vaccines for two years after FDA licensure.

Arkansas SB 615 prevents any state or local government official from requiring a vaccine passport and prohibits the use of a vaccine passport as a condition for entry into stores or other public venues, travel, education, or services.

Florida SB 2006 prohibits government, business and educational institutions from requiring proof of COVID vaccination or post infection recovery. The bill, however, exempts health care facilities, which could leave Floridians vulnerable to being denied health care because of vaccination status.

Indiana HB 1405 prohibits the state from issuing and requiring an immunization passport. This bill was not limited to just COVID vaccines.

Iowa HB 889 prohibits the state from including vaccination status of COVID-19 vaccines on state-issued ID cards. The bill would also prohibit a business or governmental entity from requiring a customer, patron, client, patient or other person invited onto the premises from having to furnish proof of having received a COVID-19 vaccine. However, NVIC opposed that bill because it specifically excludes health care facilities. This makes people vulnerable to being denied healthcare over a COVID-19 vaccination status. The only penalty in the bill for a business in violation is that it can be denied grants or contracts funded by the state. There would be no penalty for a business that does not utilize state grants or contracts.

Kansas SB 159 prohibits the use of state general funds to issue or require a COVID-19 vaccine passport without an individual’s consent or deny access because of COVID-19 vaccine status. This was an appropriations bill affecting fiscal years ending through June 30, 2023, for state agencies.

Kentucky SB 8 adds vaccination exemptions for all and for children attending school during a declared emergency, and requires the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to make vaccine exemption forms available.

Louisiana HR 20 directs each licensed day care center, kindergarten, elementary or secondary school, college, university, proprietary school, or vocational school that requires a vaccine for COVID-19 being distributed under and Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to fully inform each student or parent or legal guardian of a student that a COVID-19 vaccine, which has not yet been fully licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration, is experimental, and that he or she has a right to refuse the vaccine for reasons of health, religion, or conscience. Because it is a resolution, it does not enact a new law, nor does it carry any mechanism for enforcement or imposition of a penalty for not complying with the law. This could be helpful if any daycares, schools or colleges try to require COVID-19 vaccines being distributed under an EUA.

Missouri HB 271 prohibits a county, city, town or village which receives public funds from requiring documentation of an individual having received a vaccination against COVID-19 in order for the individual to access transportation systems, services or any other public accommodation. This section would only apply to local government entities receiving public funds and it does not prohibit private businesses or state government entities from requiring documentation of COVID -19 vaccination.

Montana HB 435 grants COVID-19 liability limits and protects people’s right to refuse a COVID-19 vaccine. If a federal or state statute, regulation, order or public health guidance related to COVID-19 recommends or requires a vaccine, an individual is not required to receive a vaccine and a government entity is not required to ensure employees or agents are vaccinated to meet the standard of care.

Montana HB 501 prevents people from being charged with a criminal trespass violation for not having a vaccine, not providing vaccination status or [not] wearing a mask in a public place by adding a new section to the existing criminal trespassing statute.

Montana HB 702 protects those not wanting to be vaccinated with any vaccine, including COVID-19 vaccines, in many areas by prohibiting government, private employers or a public accommodation from penalizing, segregating, discriminating, withholding goods or services or privileges based on the person's vaccination status or whether the person has an immunity passport. There are several exceptions to the protections in Montana HB 702 that NVIC does not support. The law exempts health care facilities from having to comply. Health facilities could require employees, patients or visitors who are not vaccinated or unable to prove immunity to divulge their private vaccination status. Based on that information, they could implement “reasonable” accommodation measures. There are no definitions or limits for exactly what those reasonable accommodations would look like. Permitting a medical facility to require visitors to divulge their vaccination status to have access to visit family or friends is discrimination and this new law permits that type of discrimination. The legislation also exempts nursing homes or long-term care and assisted living facilities from complying with informed consent protections for individuals when compliance would result in a conflict with guidance or regulations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. The bill also exempts the protections from applying to schools or day care.

New Hampshire HB 220 establishes limited medical freedom regarding vaccination and prohibits governments from compelling a person to receive a COVID-19 vaccine to secure, receive or access any public facility, any public benefit, or any public service from the state of New Hampshire or any subdivision. There are exceptions for which these protections do not apply, including schools or state or municipal health facilities, which can still require vaccination for treatment or for inmates, who can still be compelled to be vaccinated. There are no protections from vaccine mandates by private employers or businesses.

North Carolina HB 96 requires parental consent for minors to be vaccinated with vaccines being distributed under an EUA. COVID-19 vaccines are already starting to receive full FDA approval, so this offers no additional parental consent requirements to COVID-19 vaccines that have been fully licensed. Current law 90-21.5 in North Carolina already allows any minor to consent to medical health services for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of venereal disease and other diseases reportable under G.S. 130A-135. Parents in North Carolina should be warned that the North Carolina Health Department is using this current law, that was intended for communicable diseases such as sexually transmitted diseases, to allow doctors to give minors COVID-19 vaccines without parental consent. The parental consent protection passed in HB 96 will become nonapplicable for any vaccine that moves from an EUA to full licensure.

North Dakota HB 1465, for vaccines being distributed under an EUA, prohibits a state or government entity or private business from requiring documentation of administration of a vaccine, the presence of antibodies or evidence of post transmission recovery, in exchange for access to goods or services. The limited protections do not apply during a public health disaster or emergency declaration and do not apply to any fully licensed vaccine. The bill also does not apply to a health care provider, including a long-term care provider, or to vaccines required for schools or colleges.

Ohio HB 6 requires written parental consent before a minor can be vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines.

Ohio HB 244 prohibits schools from requiring a vaccine that has not been fully licensed by the FDA and prevents discrimination against those who have not received such a vaccine. This bill will not provide protections from COVID-19 vaccine mandates in schools once the vaccines are fully licensed by the FDA. The protections provided in the bill do not apply to colleges owned or operated by hospitals. HB 248 is still moving in Ohio and deserves support because it provides protections missing in HB 244.

Oklahoma SB 658 prohibits school requirements for COVID-19 vaccines or vaccine passports as a condition of admittance to or attendance in schools, and prohibits masks for those who have not received COVID-19 vaccine. It also requires the State Department of Education to require schools to educate parents about vaccine exemptions each time references are made to vaccination requirements.

Tennessee HB 13 prohibits government entities from forcing, requiring or coercing a person to receive COVID-19 vaccines. The protections don’t apply to higher education students in health care, dentistry or pharmacy.

Tennessee SB 858 prohibits a government entity from mandating that a private business or government entity require proof of a COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of entering the premises of the business or government entity, or utilizing services provided by the business or government entity.

Texas SB 968 prohibits all government entities in Texas from issuing a vaccine passport, vaccine pass, or other standardized documentation to certify an individual’s COVID-19 vaccination status or to publish or share a person’s COVID-19 vaccine record for a purpose other than health care. It also prohibits all businesses from requiring a customer to provide any documentation certifying the customer’s COVID-19 vaccination or post-transmission recovery on entry or access to or to receive service from the business. A business that fails to comply is not eligible to receive a state grant or enter into a contract payable with state funds. Each appropriate state agency shall ensure that businesses in Texas comply and they may require compliance as a condition for a license, permit, or other state authorization necessary for conducting business in Texas. What the new law does not cover is a prohibition on COVID-19 vaccine mandates by private employers. Texas vaccine informed consent advocates are working to pass a bill in special session to stop private employer mandates.

Utah HB 308 prohibits government mandates for emergency use COVID-19 vaccine only, except for certain individuals in section 4 of the new law, who are subject to mandates even with vaccines being distributed under an EUA. Also, the prohibition of mandates will expire July 1, 2024. Once the available vaccines are fully licensed by the FDA, protections will not apply. Also, this does not protect employees from employer mandates.

Utah SB 1001 prohibits monies appropriated by the legislature from American Rescue Plans federal funding, or by any other appropriation relating to COVID-19 vaccines, from being used to provide financial incentives, awards, drawings or prizes, or any similar incentive to anyone for receiving a vaccination.

Passed Bills Limiting Rights of those Refusing COVID-19 Vaccines

Virginia HB 1985 allows discrimination against and economic sanction for unvaccinated employees by removing presumption for coverage in workmen's compensation law for employees, who decline to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Censorship Bills (1)

For a significant win passed in a second special session, Texas HB 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users from banning users simply based on their viewpoints.

The law also requires social media sites to disclose their content management and moderation policies; implement a complaint and appeals process for content they remove, and provide a reason for the removal and a review of their decision. The law prohibits email service providers from impeding the transmission of email messages based on content.

A social media user could bring an action against a social media platform that violated the bill by censoring and banning the user from the platform. A user proving a violation would be entitled to recover declaratory relief, including costs and reasonable attorney's fees, and injunctive relief. The attorney general can also take action.

NVIC has been a victim of the type of censorship this new law will prevent in Texas. NVIC’s Facebook page grew from 800 followers in 2008 to 218,000 in 2020. After 39 years of being a highly respected well-known nonprofit charity advocating for vaccine safety and informed consent, NVIC’s 13-year-old Facebook page with over 200,000 followers was permanently deplatformed in March 2021.

NVIC’s Instagram account was eliminated in April 2021 and NVIC’s Twitter account was eliminated in May 2021. Some of NVIC Advocacy’s email subscribers have reported that their email provider has censored email subscription verifications and action alerts.

Vaccine Exemptions and Mandate Bills (5)

Legislators fought hard to stop bills attempting to add more vaccine mandates or restrict or remove vaccine exemptions. Out of 38 bills filed attempting to add more vaccine mandates, restrict or remove vaccine exemptions, only two of the proposed bills passed.

• Connecticut HB 6423 eliminates the religious exemption for public and private schools, colleges and day care for the 2022-2023 school year. The act grandfathers into the exemption individuals enrolled in grades kindergarten or higher who submitted a religious exemption prior to April 28, 2021. It also adds data collection and a review of medical exemptions.
• Washington SB 5151 requires outdoor “nature-based” child care provider employees and volunteers to have MMR vaccine.

Oregon HB 2359B would have required health care interpreters to be registered and receive all recommended vaccines. Opposition helped get this offensive section removed before passage of the bill.

On the other hand, three good bills passed that expanded informed consent protections in specialized circumstances.

Informed Consent Bills (5)

In the 2021 legislative session so far, five bills have passed making improvements to securing the legal right to informed consent to vaccination. This is a significant gain over 2020 where 30 bills were filed attempting to improve informed consent protections with none of those bills passing last year.

Minor Consent Bills (3)

In our 2020 NVIC State Legislative Report, issued in September of 2020, we reported that in the troublesome new category of doctors allowing minor children to consent to vaccination on their own without the knowledge of their parents, there were 39 bills filed across 2019 and 2020, but none had yet passed at the time we released our report.

In October 2020, the worst minor consent bill of them all, DC B23-0171 started to move, and was ultimately passed and allowed to go into effect by Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser effective December 23, 2020. A lawsuit was filed in federal court by the Parental Rights Foundation in July of 2021 to halt D.C.’s Minor Consent Act of 2020.

To read more about this, please link to an article written by NVIC Co-Founder and president, Barbara Loe Fisher, entitled "Doctors Given Power to Vaccinate Young Children Without the Knowledge of Parents.”

In the 2021 legislative session to date, the six states of Colorado (1), Minnesota (3), New Jersey (1), New York (4), Pennsylvania (1) and Vermont (1) have bills filed to allow for minor consent. So far, only one has passed. Colorado SB 16 allows minors to be vaccinated with vaccines for sexually transmitted infections without parental knowledge or consent.

Parents in Oregon should be aware of a bill that passed this session, which puts their children in danger of being pressured to consent to vaccination without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

Oregon HB 2591A expands funding for mobile medical vans to provide vaccines at schools. The problem with this bill is that in Oregon, children 15 years and older can consent to medical treatment, including vaccination, without parental consent.

While NVIC does not take a position on school-based health clinics or funding for them, when laws and policies are expanded to exert more pressure on minor children to get vaccinated behind parents’ backs, we speak out. Vaccination vans will be appearing at schools and parents need to be prepared to respond if their children are targeted for coercion into receiving vaccines without the knowledge or consent of parents.

On a positive note, Ohio HB 6 requires written parental consent before a minor can be vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines. This bill was also listed above in the COVID-19 vaccine section.

Vaccine Tracking Bills (6)

NVIC has opposed the forced inclusion of Americans in government operated electronic vaccine and health records tracking systems since the 1990s. Once personal medical information is put into a state database, federal law allows that information to be shared without knowledge or consent for conducting public health surveillance, investigations, research or interventions and public health purposes.

See 45 CFR 64.512(b)(2) and see a list of core data elements that can be gathered and put into vaccine tracking registry systems. Forced inclusion, forced reporting and opt-out electronic vaccine tracking registries and enforcement systems continue to threaten the medical privacy of citizens and their legal right to refuse vaccines without being subjected to harassment or punishment.

Making all vaccine tracking registries opt-in informed consent and prohibiting public funding for vaccine registries that do not adhere to opt-in informed consent for inclusion should be a priority. Four bills were passed by state legislatures this session that NVIC opposed that expanded vaccine tracking.

Vaccine tracking tied to state identification was successfully limited in two states.

• Indiana HB 1285 prohibits the Division of Motor Vehicles from collecting or indicating vaccine status on state credentials (identification documents).
• Iowa HB 889 (already mentioned in the above COVID-19 section), prohibits the state from including vaccination status of COVID-19 vaccines on state issued ID cards, such as driver’s licenses.

Authorizing More Professions to Administer More Vaccines (3)

Three states passed bills that NVIC was watching that expanded the professionals who can administer vaccines. Our concern with these bills passing is that often health care workers, such as pharmacists, have less training for identifying and screening out those, who should not be vaccinated, and for recognizing and ultimately reporting vaccine reactions to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

• Indiana HB 1079 allows dentists to administer vaccines to patients. The bill does not restrict the vaccines that are allowed to be given or the age of the patients.
• Iowa SF 296 allows pharmacists to administer all vaccines, including COVID-19, to children ages 3 years old and up.
• New Hampshire SB 155 allows pharmacy technicians to administer COVID-19 vaccines to adults.
• California AB 526 allows dentists and podiatrists to administer flu and COVID-19 vaccines to children. It passed the legislature, but is not officially enrolled and is waiting on the governor to take action to let it go into effect or veto it.

There were other states that passed bills to expand who can give vaccines that we did not track for different reasons, including if there were consent provisions or they did not include young children.

Unnecessary Bills (1)

Sometimes bills are passed that don’t do anything useful and are a waste of time.

Governors in Three States Veto Passed Vaccine Bills (5)

Three governors were responsible for knocking down five passed bills with their veto powers. John Bel Edwards, governor of Louisiana, vetoed the following bills:

• Louisiana HB 498 prohibited state and local government agencies from discriminating against unvaccinated citizens based on Emergency Use Authorization COVID-19 vaccines. Read his veto statement.
• Louisiana HB 103 created liability protection for businesses that do not require COVID-19 vaccines. Read his veto statement.
• Louisiana HB 349 prohibited including vaccination or immunity status on a driver's license or state ID. Read his veto statement.

Tom Wolf, governor of Pennsylvania, vetoed Pennsylvania SB 618 which prohibits government entities and state funded colleges from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Read his veto statement.

Tony Evers, governor of Wisconsin, vetoed Wisconsin AB 23 which prohibits the Department of Health and local health officials from mandating COVID-19 vaccines. Read his signed veto letter.

Comparing Recent Sessions to 2021

473 bills represent the most proposed vaccine-related bills NVIC has recorded in the history of the NVIC Advocacy Portal, surpassing the previous all-time high of 232 bills introduced in 2020 and 221 in 2019. It is important to note that four states (Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas) meet biennially to consider new bills and do not hold a legislative session in even numbered years.

The biennial sessions that include these states contribute to the sharp rise in bills in odd years. 2020 was the first even year where there was still an increase in vaccine-related bills proposed, even though these four states were not participating in that session.

In 2021, 49 states proposed vaccine-related bills falling under NVIC’s mission. This is the highest number of states involved in one session in the history of the NVIC Advocacy program, with the only state not having a bill this year being Nevada. The highest number of states before was 40 plus Washington, D.C. in 2019 and 39 plus DC in 2020.

There was a similar number of bills that NVIC opposed in 2021 — 130 — compared to the last two years, 137 and 123 respectively.

There were far more bills filed that NVIC supported in 2021 than in any other session. NVIC supported 278 bills this session, which is more than two times the 99 bills we supported in 2020, and more than three times the 77 we supported bills in 2019. We are happy to report that the gap between supported and opposed bills has officially been closed in 2021!

Enlightened legislators are not only listening to concerned constituents in greater numbers, but many more are continuing or beginning to resist aggressive lobbying efforts by the vaccine industry, medical trade and other groups, whose positions and profits benefit from laws that force children and adults to use every vaccine sold by pharmaceutical companies and recommended by public health officials.

Only 14 bad vaccine bills passed out of the 130 proposed bills that NVIC opposed in the 2021 legislative session, which is only three more bills than the average of 11 bills over the last seven years.

Individual citizen involvement in the legislative process, through personal communications and education of legislators, continues to make a tremendous impact on the outcomes of vaccine related bills in state legislatures.

As the federal government is attempting to insert itself in state vaccine policy decisions for COVID-19, NVIC predicts this will drive even more Americans in every state to get more involved in the legislative process at every level in the years to come to protect their informed consent rights.

What Can You Do?

NVIC expects that the federal government, the vaccine industry and their medical trade association partners will continue to step up efforts to force COVID-19 vaccination and restrict or remove vaccine exemptions in 2022 since all COVID-19 vaccine mandate bills failed in the states and many protective bills were passed in 2021.

We have to hold the line in the states and we need you. Please become a registered user of the free online NVIC Advocacy Portal and check in often to learn about ways to personally educate your legislators when vaccine bills that affect your rights are moving in your state. Please encourage your family and all of your friends to do the same. Also, register for our text alerts by texting the full name of your state to (202) 618-5488.

Clearly your efforts are making a much more significant difference than the mainstream media and those pushing “no exceptions” forced vaccination policies and laws are willing to admit, and your active participation is vital to protecting informed consent rights and vaccine choices in America.

If you see inaccurate information in the media, please take the time to respond by making a constructive comment online. You can also email the journalist or call the media outlet and provide accurate, well-referenced Diseases and Vaccines information and accurate state vaccine law information, which you can find on our website NVIC.org.

NVIC’s illustrated and fully referenced Guide to Reforming Vaccine Policy and Law is another good vaccine education tool for legislators and friends and family, too. We have many excellent referenced articles you can use published on current issues, including those on COVID-19 in our free weekly journal newspaper The Vaccine Reaction.

The same holds true if you are censored online for providing accurate information about vaccination, infectious diseases and health. Contest it and educate those doing the censoring. The information seeds you plant today can make a difference tomorrow and into the future.

Yes, the challenges are great, but so are the opportunities to educate and empower legislators and residents of every state to defend vaccine freedom of choice. NVIC is committed to continuing to make that happen, and we look forward to working with you through the NVIC Advocacy Portal to help you protect vaccine informed consent rights in your state in the remaining days of 2021, and 2022 and beyond.

from Articles https://ift.tt/3zTzldk
via IFTTT

This article was previously published March 11, 2021, and has been updated with new information.

While the casualties of government-imposed COVID-19 countermeasures are manifold, the biggest and most tragic of them all is the loss of individual freedoms. As noted by Jonathan Sumption in his February 15, 2021, Telegraph commentary:¹

"What makes us a free society is that, although the state has vast powers, there are conventional limits on what it can do with them. The limits are conventional because they do not depend on our laws but on our attitudes.

There are islands of human life which are our own, a personal space into which the state should not intrude without some altogether exceptional justification.

Liberal democracy breaks down when frightened majorities demand mass coercion of their fellow citizens, and call for our personal spaces to be invaded. These demands are invariably based on what people conceive to be the public good. They all assert that despotism is in the public interest."

A Fragile Freedom

As Sumption points out, "We cannot switch in and out of totalitarianism at will." We either choose freedom, or we choose to live under authoritarian rule. Even if (and that's a big if, at this point) restrictions are lifted, public attitude can place freedom on shaky ground, as public acceptance of overreach will allow for the same to occur again and again at a moment's notice.

This is a serious problem, as there will always be other epidemics and pandemics. There is always the threat of terrorism and climate change. There will always be a public health calamity, be it obesity or diabetes, that can be used as justification for government intrusion into our private lives.

"A threshold has now been crossed," Sumption writes.² "A big taboo has gone. Other governments will say that the only question that matters is whether it works and whether they can 'get away with it' … We already have a striking example. The vaccine, which was supposed to make the lockdown unnecessary, has become a reason for keeping it in force ...

Infections, hospitalizations and deaths are plunging, but millions who are at virtually no risk are being kept in house imprisonment. This is being done mainly because a selective regime of controls would be too difficult for the state to enforce. Coercion quickly becomes an object in itself."

Personal Liberty Is Worth Fighting For

Personal liberty, as Sumption points out, is critically important, and perhaps most important of all, for our mental and physical health, is the freedom to interact with other human beings. It is an absolutely crucial and most basic of human needs. Infants robbed of physical interaction fail to thrive and are at increased risk of death.

But children, adolescents, adults and the elderly have no lesser need for it. We may tolerate it for longer without marked ill effect, but over time, it takes its toll on health, emotional stability and longevity. The fact that we're allowing government to ban human interaction is a dire sign of a society at the brink of self-destruction.

"I do not doubt that there are extreme situations in which oppressive controls over our daily lives may be necessary and justified," Sumption writes.³

An epidemic of Ebola, with a death rate of 50%, for example, might qualify. However, COVID-19 is nowhere near that serious a threat. As noted by Sumption, COVID-19 "is well within the range of perils which we have always had to live with, and always will."

Data⁴ show the overall noninstitutionalized infection fatality ratio is 0.26%. People under the age of 40 have a mere 0.01% risk of dying from the infection. The vast majority that test positive for SARS-CoV-2 have no symptoms at all, and most do not get seriously ill.

We Must Relearn to Accept the Inevitabilities of Life

What's more, the average age of death from COVID-19 is somewhere between 76.9, according to one study,⁵ and 82, according to U.K. government data cited by Sumption.⁶

Either way, this is right around the average age of death from any cause anyway, and therefore not an outrageous threat to public health. Yet, the public willingly relinquishes the freedom to live a normal life, somehow oddly convinced that by trading in their freedom, people at the end of their life will be spared the pain of death. They won't. None of us will.

The inevitabilities of life — which include uncertainty, moment-to-moment risk and the surety of death — demand that we not require people to cease living in order to "save" others from the ramifications of ill health, regardless of their age. It's as inhumane as it is illogical.

Rather, the answer, if we really want to protect the masses, is to educate and promote healthy living at all stages of life. Improving your health through a healthy lifestyle, sunshine, fresh air and real food, is the best way to protect the most people. Quarantining and shunning human interaction are probably the worst things you can do for yourself and society at large.

And let's not go down the road of all the psychological devastation caused by teaching children to fear their own hands, other people, the air they breathe, and that their very presence poses a lethal threat to others.

The Press Has Become an Instrument of Control

Historically, the press has been viewed as a crucial instrument for a well-informed public, and thus supportive of a free and democratically-run society. Indeed, this is why journalists and news outlets were known as "the Fourth Estate." It was an acknowledgement of their societal influence. To be effective, the press had to develop a certain amount of public trust. Today, trust in mainstream media has dramatically eroded, and for good reason.

Time and again, reporters and entire news outlets have been caught peddling fake news, and when the press misleads rather than informs the public of the facts, they become tools for tyranny. Their viewers become more ignorant by the day rather than more informed, and thus more easily controlled and manipulated.

In a recent Substack article,⁷ independent journalist Matt Taibbi addresses the attempt by UCLA professor and co-leader of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, Sarah Roberts, to shame readers away from Substack. "Substack is a dangerous direct threat to traditional news media," Roberts tweeted.

According to her half-baked reasoning, journalists who leave mainstream newsrooms for Substack and other independent portals are taking unfair advantage of the trust they earned while gainfully employed within the Fourth Estate. Then, once on their own, they can print whatever they want without having to go through the onerous chore of fact checking and other standard checks and balances.

"To imply that trust is a thing that can only be conferred by a mainstream newsroom is beyond insulting, especially since mainstream news organizations already long ago started to become infamous for betraying exactly those hallowed 'norms' to which Roberts refers," Taibbi writes.⁸

"Why did a source like former NSA contractor Edward Snowden choose to come forward to Glenn Greenwald in particular? He surely wasn't bothered by the fact that Glenn didn't come up through the ranks of a paper like the New York Times or Washington Post.

The answer connects to one of the primary reasons audiences are moving to places like Substack: the perception that traditional news outlets have become tools of the very corporate and political interests they're supposed to be overseeing.

Roberts complains about lines between opinion and reporting being blurred at Substack (an absurd comment on its own, but that's a separate issue), but the 'blurring' problem at those other organizations is far more severe. Are newspapers like the New York Times checks on power, or agents of it?"

A Century of Controlled Media

Infiltration and manipulation of the media have been routine occurrences since 1915, when J.P. Morgan interests, including the steel and shipbuilding industries, purchased editorial control of 25 of the most influential newspapers, thereby allowing them to control news about military preparedness, financial policies and other stories deemed crucial to their private and corporate interests.

Then, in 1948, the CIA launched Operation Mockingbird, a clandestine media infiltration campaign that allowed the agency to control and inject its own propaganda into the mainstream press. Today, several decades later, it's clear that Operation Mockingbird never ceased. As noted by Taibbi:⁹

"The major 'traditional' cable networks, as well as many of the bigger daily newspapers, have for years now been engaged in mad hiring sprees of ex-spooks, putting whole nests of known perjurers and Langley goons on their payrolls as contributors, where they regularly provide 'commentary' on news stories in which they themselves have involvement."

The modern propaganda machine also includes Big Tech, which allows for previously unthinkable information control through automated censorship across a much broader spectrum of sources.

Literally overnight, an individual or company involved in the dissemination of truthful information that goes against the status quo can have their website shadow banned by search engines, their social media accounts eliminated, their web hosting and email services canceled and their online payment systems shut down. From one day to the next, you, your thoughts, opinions and all your hard work can be effectively erased.

Political Powerbrokers Call for Massive Censoring

We're now even seeing politicians starting to throw their weight around, demanding censoring of political opponents and news outlets that fail to properly toe the political line.

U.S. House Democrats from California — Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney — went so far as to send a letter to a dozen cable, satellite and streaming TV companies, basically telling them to censor or remove Fox News, Newsmax and OANN. As noted by Glenn Greenwald in an article¹⁰ on the rapid escalation of government calls for censorship:

"Democrats' justification for silencing their adversaries online and in media — 'They are spreading fake news and inciting extremism' — is what despots everywhere say ... Since when is it the role of the U.S. Government to arbitrate and enforce precepts of 'journalistic integrity'?

Unless you believe in the right of the government to regulate and control what the press says — a power which the First Amendment explicitly prohibits — how can anyone be comfortable with members of Congress arrogating unto themselves the power to dictate what media outlets are permitted to report and control how they discuss and analyze the news of the day?"

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has strongly denounced the Democrats' actions, calling it a "marked departure from First Amendment norms," adding that the demands are "a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys … No government official has any business inquiring about the 'moral principles' that guide a private entity's decision about what news to carry."¹¹

But Carr’s comments apparently had no influence on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who followed up in September 2021 with a letter¹² to Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy, demanding that he review Amazon algorithms and use them to basically censor or ban certain books that contain what she believes are “misleading posts” about vaccines and COVID-19.

Specifically, she named my latest book, “The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal,” for Jassy to target.

Two days later, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., followed in Warren’s footsteps, sending letters¹³ to Facebook and Amazon, calling for more prolific censorship of vaccine information.¹⁴

To What Aim Control?

It's important to realize that authoritarian dictators are not, in fact, trying to help you. They're trying to change you. Censorship does not protect the public. It's a control mechanism, as you are unlikely to rebel against an injustice that you don't even know exists, or if you know about it, your understanding of the problem is diametrically opposed to the truth; hence, you'll support a "solution" that will perpetuate or deepen the problem.

At an even deeper level, censorship and information suppression are efforts to alter your cognitive faculties, because how do you even define people and things that you are not allowed to criticize? As noted by Taibbi, Big Tech and media are tools for politicians, corporations and the intelligence industry, the interests of which are frequently diametrically opposed to that of the people.

Chemical companies cannot sell their toxic wares if an informed public shuns them. The fake food industry cannot flourish if the public understands the basics of health. Technocracy cannot be implemented if an informed public opposes the agenda, and so on.

What we see clearer than ever these days, is the schism in journalism where the old-school norms of gathering data and then delivering it to the audience and allowing them to make up their own minds as to whether it's good or bad has been replaced by subjective interpretation of the data.

Essentially, most mainstream reporters now tell you how to think about a given topic. They even tell us how to think about people who refuse to think the way they're instructed to think. That way, the public ends up doing the dirty work of censoring, canceling and dehumanizing the undesirables for them.

Rule Through Medicine

While the rise of dictatorships has historically involved the use of armed forces to subdue an unruly public, the budding dictatorship of today relies heavily on weaponized medicine and the control of information. If you've taken the time to familiarize yourself with the concept of technocracy, which has a distinct transhumanist component to it, you will see why this makes perfect sense and was, in fact, entirely predictable.

By tying the issue of health care into the digital surveillance apparatus, you end up with a very robust platform for automated mass control. The use of fear also works well in this scenario, since most are keen to stay alive and don't want their loved ones to die. So, they fall for lies like "we have to shut down the world and sequester indoors for months on end or else we all die."

A leading figure in this medical dictatorship scheme is Bill Gates, who now wields a dominating influence over not just Big Tech but also global health policy, agriculture and food policy (including biopiracy and fake food), weather modification and other climate technologies,¹⁵ surveillance, education and media. As reported by The GrayZone:¹⁶

"Beyond the public relations bonanza about Gates lies a disturbing history that should raise concerns about whether his foundation's plans for resolving the pandemic will benefit the global public as much as it expands and entrenches its power over international institutions.

The Gates Foundation has already effectively privatized the international body charged with creating health policy, transforming it into a vehicle for corporate dominance. It has facilitated the dumping of toxic products onto the people of the Global South, and even used the world's poor as guinea pigs for drug experiments.

The Gates Foundation's influence over public health policy is practically contingent on ensuring that safety regulations and other government functions are weak enough to be circumvented … Strong evidence suggests that the Gates Foundation functions as a Trojan horse for Western corporations, which of course have no goal greater than an increased bottom line."

Indeed, Gates donates billions to private companies, and is invested in the very products and businesses he donates money to and otherwise promotes as solutions to the world's problems, be they hunger, disease, pandemic viruses or climate change.

As suggested by The GrayZone, Gates' global health empire is more about building an empire for himself and his technocrat cronies than promoting public health.¹⁷

The Great Reset — A Plan to Capitalize on COVID-19 Pandemic

For a time, there was so much uncertainty about SARS-CoV-2 and the infection it causes, you're forgiven if you opted to err on the side of caution. Now, however, a full year later, it's become obvious that this pandemic was never as serious as portrayed by the media, and that it is being used (whether preplanned or not) as a convenient vehicle for a radical overhaul of just about every aspect of life. And not for the better.

In a recent report, independent journalist Johnny Vedmore delved into the professional history and personal background Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, who wrote the books "The Fourth Industrial Revolution" (2016), "Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution" (2018) and "COVID-19: The Great Reset," thereby cementing his role as a leading figurehead for the modern technocracy movement. Vedmore writes:¹⁸

"As the driving force behind the World Economic Forum … Schwab has courted heads of state, leading business executives, and the elite of academic and scientific circles into the Davos fold for over 50 years.

More recently, he has also courted the ire of many due to his more recent role as the frontman of the Great Reset, a sweeping effort to remake civilization globally for the express benefit of the elite of the World Economic Forum and their allies …

Like many prominent frontmen for elite-sponsored agendas, the online record of Schwab has been well-sanitized, making it difficult to come across information on his early history as well as information on his family.

Yet, having been born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938, many have speculated in recent months that Schwab's family may have had some tie to Axis war efforts, ties that, if exposed, could threaten the reputation of the World Economic Forum and bring unwanted scrutiny to its professed missions and motives …

Digging even deeper into his activities, it becomes clear that Schwab's real role has long been to 'shape global, regional and industry agendas' of the present in order to ensure the continuity of larger, much older agendas that came into disrepute after World War II, not just nuclear technology, but also eugenics-influenced population control policies …

Is Klaus Schwab trying to create the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or is he trying to create the Fourth Reich?"

Is Depopulation Part of the Agenda?

Gates' family history is also heavy on eugenics,¹⁹ as is the Club of Rome's agenda,²⁰ another technocratic power center. The United Nation's Agenda 21 also hints at the need for a dramatic reduction in population size in the coming decade.²¹

The idea that eugenics might make a comeback may seem like a remote possibility, but considering the history of using vaccinations to secretly inhibit fertility in native populations, it would be naïve to dismiss the possibility out of hand. As reported in a 2014 paper written by researchers at the University of Louisiana and the University of British Columbia:²²

"Published research shows that by 1976 WHO researchers had conjugated tetanus toxoid (TT) with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) producing a 'birth-control' vaccine.

Conjugating TT with hCG causes pregnancy hormones to be attacked by the immune system. Expected results are abortions in females already pregnant and/or infertility in recipients not yet impregnated. Repeated inoculations prolong infertility. Currently WHO researchers are working on more potent anti-fertility vaccines using recombinant DNA.

WHO publications show a long-range purpose to reduce population growth in unstable 'less developed countries.' By November 1993 Catholic publications appeared saying an abortifacient vaccine was being used as a tetanus prophylactic.

In November 2014, the Catholic Church asserted that such a program was underway in Kenya. Three independent Nairobi accredited biochemistry laboratories tested samples from vials of the WHO tetanus vaccine being used in March 2014 and found hCG where none should be present …

Given that hCG was found in at least half the WHO vaccine samples known by the doctors involved in administering the vaccines to have been used in Kenya, our opinion is that the Kenya 'anti-tetanus' campaign was reasonably called into question by the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association as a front for population growth reduction."

Certain vaccines have also been found to cause infertility as an unexpected side effect. For example, a 2018 study published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health²³ found that women who received HPV vaccinations suffered higher rates of infertility.

According to this study, "if 100% of females in this study had received the HPV vaccine, data suggest the number of women having ever conceived would have fallen by 2 million." In another type of censorship, after "skeptic" critics of scientific evidence that vaccines have significant health risks publicly attacked the study, the paper was withdrawn by the publisher.²⁴

What We Lose Is Exponentially Harder to Get Back

Safeguarding our Constitutional rights and civil liberties against unlawful government overreach is essential. Yet many are willingly giving up freedoms that, once gone, may be difficult, if not impossible, to get back. Vaccine passports are just one example.

By showing proof through a digital certificate or app on your phone that you've received a COVID-19 vaccine, the hope is that you can once again board an airplane and travel freely, attend a concert or enjoy a meal in your favorite restaurant, just like you used to.

Except, being required to present your "papers" in order to live your life isn't actually freedom at all — it's a loss of personal liberty that you once had, one that disappeared right before your eyes and one that's setting the stage for even more intrusive surveillance and privacy erosion.

While government has a duty to protect the health and welfare of its citizens, this duty must be balanced against the loss of individual rights and liberties. Right now we're facing a battle of freedom versus tyranny. Long term lockdowns are clearly not in the public's best interest. Rather, it's tantamount to abuse.

from Articles https://ift.tt/39PYVVT
via IFTTT