Health & Fitness

By Dr. Mercola

If you think your birth control pill is the best pregnancy prevention tool there is, you may be surprised by new research looking into its failure rates.

Compared to other forms of protection, the Pill failed miserably, which only adds to the myriad of reasons why you should heavily question its use.

The Pill Fails 20 Times More Often

About 99 percent of sexually active women use at least one method of birth control, the most common of which is the birth control pill (oral contraceptives). The Pill was used by nearly 11 million U.S. women from 2006-2008.ⁱ

Meanwhile, nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended.ⁱⁱ Certainly not all of these are due to a birth control failure, but some of them -- estimates suggest about half -- undoubtedly are. Which brings me to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.ⁱⁱⁱ Out of the 7,500 women in the study, who used various forms of birth control including an intrauterine device (IUD), implant, birth control pills, patch, ring and contraceptive injection, 334 became pregnant, 156 of which were due to birth control failure.

The contraceptive failure rate among pills, patch or ring was 4.55 percent, compared to 0.27 percent among participants using reversible contraception such as intrauterine devices. The effectiveness—or non-effectiveness—was no different in adolescents or young women. The implications—that birth control pills are 20 times more likely to fail than IUDs—should give some women a pause to think about the method of contraception they want to use.

As for the varying degrees of effectiveness, the Pill must be taken daily, preferably around the same time for it to work its best. Study author Dr. Jeffrey Peipert, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, noted:^iv

"This study is the best evidence we have that long-acting reversible methods are far superior to the birth control pill, patch and ring. IUDs and implants are more effective because women can forget about them after clinicians put the devices in place ... If there were a drug for cancer, heart disease or diabetes that was 20 times more effective, we would recommend it first."

Hormone-Based Contraceptives Have Steep Risks

Unintended pregnancy is clearly a big one, but artificially manipulating your hormones using oral contraceptives, the patch or ring, or an injection like Depo-Provera is also a very risky proposition. Most birth control pills are a combination of the derivatives of the hormones estrogen and a synthetic progesterone(progestin). They work by disrupting the hormones in your body, essentially fooling your intricate hormonal reproductive system into producing the following effects:

• Preventing your ovaries from releasing eggs
• Thickening your cervical mucus to help block sperm from fertilizing an egg
• Thinning the lining of your uterus, which would make it difficult for an egg to implant, should it become fertilized

However, it is naive to believe that these are the only impacts the synthetic hormones are having. Your reproductive system does not exist in a bubble ... it is connected to all of your other bodily systems as well. The Pill, too, does not only influence your reproductive status; it's capable of altering much more.

Ten years ago, in 2002, one of the largest and best-designed federal studies of hormone replacement therapy was halted because women taking these synthetic hormones had a such a higher risk of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and blood clots that continuing forward with the study would have been unethical. The news made headlines because millions of women were already taking these synthetic hormones, but fortunately it prompted many of them to quit. And what do you think happened a year after millions of women quit taking hormone replacement therapy? Incidents of breast cancer fell dramatically -- by 7 percent!

What does this have to do with the Pill? Birth control pills contain the SAME type of synthetic hormones -- estrogen and progestin -- that were used in the ill-fated study!

That's just one risk. Oral contraceptives have been linked to more than two dozen conditions, including heart disease, liver cancer, deep vein thrombosis and inflammatory bowel disease.^v Research suggests they are not only carcinogenic (cancer-causing) but also cardiotoxic (toxic to your heart) and endocrine disrupting.

Why I Advise Most Women to Stop Hormonal Contraceptives

Birth control pills are rarely, if ever, necessary or beneficial. In exchange for the convenience of preventing pregnancy (which you can do naturally perhaps even more effectively, and I'll explain how below), you are putting yourself at risk of a myriad of health issues.

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that several types of hormone-based birth control methods increased women's risk of heart attack and stroke.^vi The link was found between oral contraceptives as well as contraceptive patches and the vaginal ring. Women using the ring were found to have a 2.5 times greater risk of stroke compared to those not using hormonal contraceptives, whereas the other methods increased the risk to varying degrees.

Other known health risks of hormone-based birth control include:

Cancer: Women who take birth control pills increase their risk of cervical and breast cancers, and possibly liver cancer as well.	Fatal blood clots: All birth control pills increase your risk of blood clots and subsequent stroke.	Thinner bones: Women who take birth control pills have lower bone mineral density (BMD) than women who have never used oral contraceptives.	Impaired muscle gains: A study found that oral contraceptive use impairs muscle gains from resistance exercise training in women.vii
Long-term sexual dysfunction: The Pill may limit the availability and/or action of testosterone, leading to long-term sexual dysfunction, including decreased desire and arousal.	Heart disease: Long-term use of birth control pills may increase the buildup of arterial plaque, which may raise your risk of heart disease and cardiac mortality.viii	Migraines and nausea	Weight gain and mood changes
Irregular bleeding or spotting	Breast tenderness	Yeast overgrowth	Yeast infection

The other hormonal-based options are not much better. Birth control patches (Ortho Evra) have resulted in an avalanche of lawsuits over the past several years due to the overwhelming health problems women have experienced from using them. One of the reasons the patch is so risky is that you absorb up to 60 percent more synthetic estrogen than if you were taking an oral contraceptive. Side effects of the patch include:

Raised risk of heart attack and stroke	Irregular bleeding	Problems wearing contact lenses	Fluid retention or raised blood pressure
Nausea	Headache	Breast tenderness	Mood changes
Menstrual cramps	Abdominal pain	Skin irritation or rashes at site of patch

As far as injections like Depo-Provera, or depo medroxyprogesterone (DMPA), go, this synthetic analogue of natural progesterone known as a progestin interferes with hormone signaling to prevent your ovaries from releasing eggs. Progestins carry with them a vast array of negative side effects, including:

Side Effects of Depo-Provera
Weight gain Headaches Breast swelling and tenderness Decreased sexual desire Depression Bloating Swelling of the hands and feet Nervousness Abdominal cramps Dizziness Weakness of fatigue Leg cramps Nausea Vaginal discharge or irritation	Backache Insomnia Acne Pelvic pain Lack of hair growth or excessive hair loss Rashes Hot flashes Joint pain Convulsions Jaundice Urinary tract infections Allergic reactions Fainting Paralysis Osteoporosis	Lack of return to fertility Deep vein thrombosis Pulmonary embolus Breast and cervical cancers Abnormal menstrual bleeding Increased risk for STDs Unexpected breast milk production Changes in speech, coordination, or vision Swelling of face, ankles or feet Mood changes Unusual fatigue

Is an IUD a Better Option?

Intrauterine devices are small, plastic, T-shaped sticks with a string attached to the end. The IUD is placed inside the uterus and prevents pregnancy by rendering the sperm unable to fertilize an egg, and by changing the lining of the uterus so that it is less supportive for an embryo. It also works by releasing hormones into your body, specifically a progestin hormone called levonorgestrel, which is often used in birth control pills.

One of its major advantages, and what contributes to its increased effectiveness rate, is that it essentially eliminates the compliance failure issue as all you do is insert it once. There is no daily task to remember to do. However, it, too, carries significant risks, including some that are unique to a foreign body being placed inside your uterus. Among them:

• Pelvic infection: IUDs may lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a serious infection
• The device may attach to or go through the wall of the uterus
• Pregnancy while using an IUD can be life threatening, and may result in loss of the pregnancy or fertility
• Ovarian cysts may occur
• Bleeding and spotting

Take Charge of Your Body Using Natural Birth Control Methods

You may not be aware that there are many effective and safe methods for preventing pregnancy. Some of the more common, barrier methods are:

• Male condoms: Condoms have a 98 percent effectiveness rate when used correctly. A water-based lubricant will increase the effectiveness; do not use an oil-based lubricant, however, as they break the latex and usually are petrochemical in origin.
• Female condoms: These thin, soft polyurethane pouches fitted inside the vagina before sex are 95 percent effective. Female condoms are less likely to tear than male condoms.
• Diaphragm: Diaphragms, which must be fitted by a doctor, act as a barrier to sperm. When used correctly with spermicidal jellies, they are 92 to 98 percent effective.
• Cervical cap: This heavy rubber cap fits tightly against the cervix and can be left in place for 48 hours. Like the diaphragm, a doctor must fit the cap. Proper fitting enhances the effectiveness above 91 percent.
• Cervical sponges: The sponge, made of polyurethane foam, is moistened with water and inserted into the vagina prior to sex. It works as a barrier between sperm and the cervix, both trapping and absorbing sperm and releasing a spermicide to kill them. It can be left in for up to 24 hours at a time. When used correctly, the sponge is about 89-91 percent effective.

Many people are familiar with these barrier methods, and less familiar with natural family planning (NFP) tools, which a woman uses to track when she is ovulating, and then avoid sex during that time (or does so only using a back-up barrier method). Many women feel empowered by NFP because it allows them to get in touch with their fertility cycle.

Some of the most popular methods include:

• Calendar Method: Abstention from sex during the week the woman is ovulating. This technique works best when a woman's menstrual cycle is very regular. The calendar method doesn't work very well for couples who use it by itself (about a 75 percent success rate), but it can be effective when combined with the temperature and mucus methods described below.
• The Temperature Method: This is a way to pinpoint the day of ovulation so that sex can be avoided for a few days before and after. It involves taking your basal body temperature (your temperature upon first waking) each morning with an accurate "basal" thermometer, and noting the rise in temperature that occurs after ovulation.
  
  Illness or lack of sleep can change your body temperature and make this method unreliable by itself, but when it is combined with the mucus method, it can be an accurate way of assessing fertility. The two methods combined can have a success rate as high as 98 percent.
• The Mucus Method: This involves tracking changes in the amount and texture of vaginal discharge, which reflect rising levels of estrogen in your body. For the first few days after your period, there is often no discharge, but there will be a cloudy, tacky mucus as estrogen starts to rise. When the discharge starts to increase in volume and becomes clear and stringy, ovulation is near. A return to the tacky, cloudy mucus or no discharge means that ovulation has passed.

I encourage you to become actively involved in fertility awareness, and embrace natural family planning or barrier methods that will not interfere with your hormones and health. Some excellent reading to get you started on this path include:

1. The Ovulation Method: Natural Family Planning, by John J. Billings
2. Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health, by Toni Weschler
3. Honoring Our Cycles: A Natural Family Planning Workbook, by Katie Singer

References:

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• ⁱ See All References

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More evidence has been uncovered that Alzheimer’s disease may actually be a third form of diabetes, according to researchers from Northwestern University.

Insulin and insulin receptors in your brain are crucial for learning and memory, and it’s known that these components are lower in people with Alzheimer’s disease. In your brain, insulin binds to an insulin receptor at a synapse, which triggers a mechanism that allows nerve cells to survive and memories to form.

The Northwestern University researchers have found that a toxic protein in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients -- called ADDL for “amyloid ß-derived diffusible ligand” -- removes insulin receptors from nerve cells, and renders those neurons insulin resistant.

The findings suggest that ADDLs accumulate at the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease and thereby block memory function.

The process is currently thought to be reversible.

The researchers speculated that drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes, which also causes insulin resistance, may “supercede currently available Alzheimer’s drugs.”

The FASEB Journal August 24, 2007

Physorg.com September 26, 2007

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A question that has lingered since the 2009 mass vaccination campaign against pandemic H1N1 swine flu is whether seasonal influenza vaccination might make pandemic infections worse or more prevalent.¹

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Michael Murray, naturopath and author, confirmed what Judy Mikovits, Ph.D., told me in her second interview with me, namely that seasonal influenza vaccinations may have contributed to the dramatically elevated COVID-19 mortality seen in Italy. In a blog post, he pointed out that Italy had introduced a new, more potent type of flu vaccine, called VIQCC, in September 2019:²

“Most available influenza vaccines are produced in embryonated chicken eggs. VIQCC, however, is produced from cultured animal cells rather than eggs and has more of a ‘boost’ to the immune system as a result.

VIQCC also contains four types of viruses — 2 type A viruses (H1N1 and H3N2) and 2 type B viruses.³ It looks like this ‘super’ vaccine impacted the immune system in such a way to increase coronavirus infection through virus interference …”

Vaccines and Virus Interference

The kind of virus interference Murray was referring to had been shown to be at play during the 2009 pandemic swine flu. A 2010 review^4,5 in PLOS Medicine, led by Dr. Danuta Skowronski, a Canadian influenza expert with the Centre for Disease Control in British Columbia, found the seasonal flu vaccine increased people’s risk of getting sick with pandemic H1N1 swine flu and resulted in more serious bouts of illness.

People who received the trivalent influenza vaccine during the 2008-2009 flu season were between 1.4 and 2.5 times more likely to get infected with pandemic H1N1 in the spring and summer of 2009 than those who did not get the seasonal flu vaccine.

To double-check the findings, Skowronski and other researchers conducted a follow-up study on ferrets. Their findings were presented at the 2012 Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. At the time, Skowronski commented on her team’s findings, telling MedPage Today:⁶

“There may be a direct vaccine effect in which the seasonal vaccine induced some cross-reactive antibodies that recognized pandemic H1N1 virus, but those antibodies were at low levels and were not effective at neutralizing the virus. Instead of killing the new virus it actually may facilitate its entry into the cells.”

In all, five observational studies conducted across several Canadian provinces found identical results. These findings also confirmed preliminary data from Canada and Hong Kong. As Australian infectious disease expert professor Peter Collignon told ABC News:⁷

"Some interesting data has become available which suggests that if you get immunized with the seasonal vaccine, you get less broad protection than if you get a natural infection …

We may be perversely setting ourselves up that if something really new and nasty comes along, that people who have been vaccinated may in fact be more susceptible compared to getting this natural infection."

Flu Vaccination Raises Unspecified Coronavirus Infection

A study^8,9 published in the January 10, 2020, issue of the journal Vaccine also found people were more likely to get some form of coronavirus infection if they had been vaccinated against influenza. As noted in this study, titled “Influenza Vaccination and Respiratory Virus Interference Among Department of Defense Personnel During the 2017-2018 Influenza Season:”

“Receiving influenza vaccination may increase the risk of other respiratory viruses, a phenomenon known as virus interference … This study aimed to investigate virus interference by comparing respiratory virus status among Department of Defense personnel based on their influenza vaccination status.”

While seasonal influenza vaccination did not raise the risk of all respiratory infections, it was in fact “significantly associated with unspecified coronavirus” (meaning it did not specifically mention SARS-CoV-2, which was still unknown at the time this study was conducted) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV¹⁰).

Remember, SARS-CoV-2 is one of seven different coronaviruses known to cause respiratory illness in humans.¹¹ Four of them — 229E, NL63, OC43 and HKU1 — cause symptoms associated with the common cold.

OC43 and HKU1¹² are also known to cause bronchitis, acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia in all age groups.¹³ The other three human coronaviruses — which are capable of causing more serious respiratory illness — are SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2.

Service members who had received a seasonal flu shot during the 2017-2018 flu season were 36% more likely to contract coronavirus infection and 51% more likely to contract hMPV infection than unvaccinated individuals.^14,15

Influenza Vaccination Linked to Higher COVID Death Rates

October 1, 2020, professor Christian Wehenkel, an academic editor for PeerJ, published a data analysis¹⁶ in that same journal, in which he reports finding a “positive association between COVID-19 deaths and influenza vaccination rates in elderly people worldwide.”

In other words, areas with the highest vaccination rates among elderly people also had the highest COVID-19 death rates. To be fair, the publisher’s note points out that correlation does not necessary equal causation:

“What does that mean? By way of example, in some cities increased ice cream sales correlate with increased murder rates. But that doesn't mean that if more ice creams are sold, then murder rates will increase. There is some other factor at play — the weather temperature.

Similarly, this article should not be taken to suggest that receiving the influenza vaccination results in an increased risk of death for an individual with COVID-19 as there may be many confounding factors at play (including, for example, socioeconomic factors).”

That said, one of the reasons for the analysis was to double-check whether the data would support reports claiming that seasonal influenza vaccination was negatively correlated with COVID-19 mortality — including one that found regions in Italy with higher vaccination rates among elders had lower COVID-19 death rates.¹⁷ “A negative association was expected,” Wehenkel writes in PeerJ. But that’s not what he found:

“Contrary to expectations, the present worldwide analysis and European sub-analysis do not support the previously reported negative association between COVID-19 deaths (DPMI) [COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants] and IVR [influenza vaccination rate] in elderly people, observed in studies in Brazil and Italy,” the author noted.¹⁸

“To determine the association between COVID-19 deaths and influenza vaccination, available data sets from countries with more than 0.5 million inhabitants were analyzed (in total 39 countries).

To accurately estimate the influence of IVR on COVID-19 deaths and mitigate effects of confounding variables, a sophisticated ranking of the importance of different variables was performed, including as predictor variables IVR and some potentially important geographical and socioeconomic variables as well as variables related to non-pharmaceutical intervention.

The associations were measured by non-parametric Spearman rank correlation coefficients and random forest functions.

The results showed a positive association between COVID-19 deaths and IVR of people ≥65 years-old. There is a significant increase in COVID-19 deaths from eastern to western regions in the world. Further exploration is needed to explain these findings, and additional work on this line of research may lead to prevention of deaths associated with COVID-19.”

What Might Account for Vaccination-Mortality Link?

In the discussion section of the paper, Wehenkel points out that previous explanations for how flu vaccination might reduce COVID-19 deaths are not supported by the data he collected.

For example, he cites research attributing the beneficial effect of flu vaccination to improved prevention of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 coinfections, and another that suggested the flu vaccine might improve SARS-CoV-2 clearance.

These arguments “cannot explain the positive, direct or indirect relationship between influenza vaccination rates and both COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants and case fatality ratio found in this study, which was confirmed by an unbiased ranking variable importance using Random Forest models,” Wehenkel says.¹⁹ (Random Forest refers to a preferred classification algorithm used in data science to model predictions.²⁰) Instead, he offers the following hypotheses:²¹

“The influenza vaccine may increase influenza immunity at the expense of reduced immunity to SARS-CoV-2 by some unknown biological mechanism, as suggested by Cowling et al. (2012)²² for non-influenza respiratory virus.

Alternatively, weaker temporary, non-specific immunity after influenza viral infection could cause this positive association due to stimulation of the innate immune response during and for a short time after infection.^23,24

People who had received the influenza vaccination would have been protected against influenza but not against other viral infections, due to reduced non-specific immunity in the following weeks,²⁵ probably caused by virus interference.^26,27,28

Although existing human vaccine adjuvants have a high level of safety, specific adjuvants in influenza vaccines should also be tested for adverse reactions, such as additionally increased inflammation indicators²⁹ in COVID-19 patients with already strongly increased inflammation.”³⁰

The Flu Vaccine Paradox

Since Wehenkel’s analysis focuses on the flu vaccine’s impact on COVID-19 mortality among the elderly, it can be useful to take a look at information presented at a World Health Organization workshop in 2012. On page 6 of the workshop presentation³¹ in question, the presenter discusses “a paradox from trends studies” showing that “influenza-related mortality increased in U.S. elderly while vaccine coverage rose from 15% to 65%.”

On page 7, he further notes that while a decline in mortality of 35% would be expected with that increase in vaccine uptake, assuming the vaccine is 60% to 70% effective, the mortality rate has risen instead, although not exactly in tandem with vaccination coverage.

On page 10, another paradox is noted. While observational studies claim the flu vaccine reduces winter mortality risk from any cause by 50% among the elderly, and vaccine coverage among the elderly rose from 15% to 65%, no mortality decline has been seen among the elderly during winter months.^32,33

Seeing how the elderly are the most likely to die due to influenza, and the flu accounts for 5% to 10% of all winter deaths, a “50% mortality savings [is] just not possible,” the presenter states. He then goes on to highlight studies showing evidence of bias in studies that estimate influenza vaccine effectiveness in the elderly. When that bias is adjusted for, vaccine effectiveness among seniors is discouraging.

Interestingly, the document points out that immunologists have long known that vaccine effectiveness in the elderly would be low, thanks to senescent immune response, i.e., the natural decline in immune function that occurs with age. This is why influenza “remains a significant problem in elderly despite widespread influenza vaccination programs,” the presenter notes.

Report All COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

My belief is that current COVID-19 “vaccines,” which use mRNA gene therapy technology, are likely to do more harm than good in most people. There are many reports of elderly in nursing homes dying within hours or days of getting the vaccine. This is likely due to an overwhelming inflammatory response.

If you’re elderly and frail, or have a family member who is elderly and thinking of getting the vaccine, I would urge you to take a deeper dive into the available research, and to review the side effect statistics before making your decision.

Last but not least, if you or someone you love have received a COVID-19 vaccine and are experiencing side effects, be sure to report it:³⁴

1. If you live in the U.S., file a report on VAERS
2. Report the injury on VaxxTracker.com, which is a nongovernmental adverse event tracker (you can file anonymously if you like)
3. Report the injury on the CHD website

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“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Mike Yeadon is a soft-spoken microbiologist and a former vice-president of allergy and respiratory research at Pfizer. He spent 32 years working for large pharmaceutical companies and is a leading expert on viral respiratory infections.

He is also a man on a mission, and his mission is to inform as many people as possible about the elite powerbrokers that are using the pandemic as a smokescreen to conceal their real objectives. Here’s Yeadon in a recent interview:¹

“If you wanted to depopulate a significant portion of the world, and to do it in a way that wouldn’t require destruction of the environment with nuclear weapons, or poisoning everyone with anthrax or something, and you wanted plausible deniability, whilst you had a multi-year infectious disease crisis; I don’t think you could come up with a better plan of work than what seems to be in front of me.

I can’t say that’s what they’re going to do, but I cannot think of a benign explanation for why they are doing it.”

“Depopulation?” Who said anything about depopulation? Isn’t it a bit of a stretch to go from a mass vaccination campaign to allegations of a conspiracy to “depopulate a significant portion of the world?” Indeed, it is, but Yeadon has done extensive research on the matter and provides compelling evidence that such a diabolical objective may, in fact, be the goal.

Humans Are Capable of Unimaginable Viciousness and Cruelty

Moreover, it is not for lack of proof that people are not persuaded that Yeadon is right, but something more fundamental; the inability to grasp that men are capable of almost-unimaginable viciousness and cruelty. Here’s Yeadon again:²

“It’s become absolutely clear to me, even when I talk to intelligent people, friends, acquaintances … and they can tell I’m telling them something important, but they get to the point [where I say] ‘your government is lying to you in a way that could lead to your death and that of your children,’ and they can’t begin to engage with it.

And I think maybe 10% of them understand what I said, and 90% of those blank their understanding of it because it is too difficult. And my concern is, we are going to lose this, because people will not deal with the possibility that anyone is so evil …

But I remind you of what happened in Russia in the 20th century, what happened in 1933 to 1945, what happened in, you know, Southeast Asia in some of the most awful times in the post-war era. And, what happened in China with Mao and so on … We’ve only got to look back two or three generations. All around us there are people who are as bad as the people doing this.

They’re all around us. So, I say to folks, the only thing that really marks this one out, is its scale. But actually, this is probably less bloody, it’s less personal, isn’t it? The people who are steering this … it’s going to be much easier for them. They don’t have to shoot anyone in the face.

They don’t have to beat someone to death with a baseball bat, or freeze them, starve them, make them work until they die. All of those things did happen two or three generations back … That’s how close we are. And all I’m saying is, some shifts like that are happening again, but now they are using molecular biology.”

People ‘Cannot Imagine Anything so Demonic’

He’s right, isn’t he? Whereas, a great many people know that the government, the media and the public health officials have been lying to them about everything from the efficacy of masks, social distancing and lockdowns, to the life-threatening dangers of experimental vaccines, they still refuse to believe that the people orchestrating this operation might be pushing them inexorably toward infertility or an early death.

They cannot imagine anything so demonic, so they stick their heads in the sand and pretend not to see what is going on right beneath their noses. It’s called “denial” and it is only strengthening the position of the puppet masters that are operating behind the scenes. Here’s more from Yeadon:³

“… In the last year I have realized that my government and its advisers are lying in the faces of the British people about everything to do with this coronavirus. Absolutely everything. It’s a fallacy this idea of asymptomatic transmission and that you don’t have symptoms, but you are a source of a virus.

That lockdowns work, that masks have a protective value obviously for you or someone else, and that variants are scary things and we even need to close international borders in case some of these nasty foreign variants get in.”

Many readers may have noticed that this interview appeared on a small Christian website called Lifesite News. Why is that? Shouldn’t the informed observations of a former Pfizer vice president appear on the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post? Wouldn’t you expect the big cable news channels to run a hot-button interview like this as their headline story?

Of course not. No one expects that, because everyone knows that the media honchos reflexively quash any story that doesn’t support the “official narrative,” that is, that COVID is the most contagious and lethal virus of all time, which requires a new authoritarian political structure and the wholesale evisceration of civil liberties.

No One Is Allowed to Refute the Official Propaganda

Isn’t that the underlying storyline of the last year? COVID skeptics and naysayers, like Yeadon, are not allowed to refute the official propaganda or debate the issue on a public forum. They’re effectively banned from the MSM and consigned to the outer reaches of the Internet where only a scattered few will read what they have to say. Here’s more:⁴

“Everything I have told you, every single one of those things is demonstrably false. But our entire national policy is based on these all being broadly right, but they are all wrong. But what I would like to do is talk about immune escape because I think that’s probably going to be the end game for this whole event, which I think is probably a conspiracy.

Last year I thought it was what I called ‘convergent opportunism.’ That is, a bunch of different stakeholder groups have managed to pounce on a world in chaos to push us in a particular direction. So, it looked like it was kind of linked, but I was prepared to say it was just convergence.

I [now] think that’s naïve. There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers around the world have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. One of those two things is true because the reason it must be true is that dozens and dozens of governments are all saying the same lies and doing the same inefficacious things that demonstrably cost lives.”

Let’s pause for a minute, and ask ourselves why a modest, self-effacing microbiologist who operated in the shadows for his entire professional career has thrust himself into the limelight when he knows, for certain, he will either be ridiculed, smeared, discredited, dragged through the mud or killed.

In fact, he openly admits that he fears for his safety and assumes that he could be “removed” (“assassinated”) by his enemies. So, why is he doing this? Why is he risking life and limb to get the word out about vaccines?

A Moral Obligation to Warn People

It’s because he feels a moral obligation to warn people about the danger they face. Yeadon is not an attention-seeking narcissist. In fact, he’d rather vanish from public life altogether.

But he’s not going to do that because he’s selflessly committed to doing his duty by sounding the alarm about a malign strategy that may well lead to the suffering and death of literally tens of millions of people. That’s why he’s doing it, because he’s an honorable man with a strong sense of decency. Remember decency? Here’s more:⁵

“You can see that I am desperately trying not to say that it is a conspiracy, because I have no direct evidence that it is a conspiracy. Personally, all my instincts are shouting that it’s a conspiracy as a human being, but as a scientist, I can’t point to the smoking gun that says they made this up on purpose.”

Many of us who have followed events closely for the last year and have searched the internet for alternate points of view are equally convinced that it is a conspiracy, just as Russiagate was a conspiracy. And while we might not have conclusive, rock-solid proof of criminal activity, there is voluminous circumstantial evidence to support the claim.

By definition, a “conspiracy” is “an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons.”⁶ What is taking place presently across the western world meets that basic definition.

Just as the contents of this article meet the basic definition of a “conspiracy theory,” which is “an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.”⁷

We make no attempt to deny that this is a conspiracy theory, any more than we deny that senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA, DOJ and U.S. State Department were involved in a covert operation aimed at convincing the American people that Donald Trump was a Russian agent.

That was a conspiracy theory that was later proven to be a fact. We expect that the facts about the COVID operation will eventually emerge, acquitting us on that account as well. Here’s more from Yeadon:⁸

“I think the end game is going to be, ‘everyone receives a vaccine’ … Everyone on the planet is going to find themselves persuaded, cajoled, not quite mandated, hemmed-in to take a jab.

When they do that every single individual on the planet will have a name, or unique digital ID and a health status flag which will be ‘vaccinated,’ or not … and whoever possesses that, sort of single database, operable centrally, applicable everywhere to control, to provide as it were, a privilege, you can either cross this particular threshold or conduct this particular transaction or not depending on [what] the controllers of that one human population database decide.

And I think that’s what this is all about because once you’ve got that, we become playthings and the world can be as the controllers of that database want it.”

Mass Vaccination a Pathway to Absolute Social Control

So mass vaccination is actually the pathway to absolute social control by technocratic elites accountable to no one? Are we there yet? Pretty close, I’d say. Here’s more:⁹

“And they are talking the same sort of future script which is, ‘We don’t want you to move around because of these pesky ‘variants’ — (but) ‘don’t worry, there will be ‘top-up’ vaccines that will cope with the potential escapees.’ They’re all saying this when it is obviously nonsense.”

Is he right? Is the variant hobgoblin now being invoked to prolong the restrictions, intensify the paranoia and pave the way for endless rounds of mass vaccination? Judge for yourself, but here’s a sampling of articles that appeared in recent news that will help you decide:

How can people read this fearmongering bunkum and not see that it is designed to terrify and manipulate the masses into sheeplike compliance?

Variant Being Used to Fuel COVID Hysteria

There’s no denying that the variant is being used to fuel the COVID hysteria and perpetuate the repressive social restrictions. So, the question we should be asking ourselves is whether we can trust what we are being told by the media and the public health officials?

And the answer is “No,” we cannot trust them. They have repeatedly misled the public on all manner of topics including masks, asymptomatic transmission, immunity, infection fatality rate, social distancing and now variants. According to Sunetra Gupta, who is professor of theoretical epidemiology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow:¹³

“… some of these variants could be more transmissible, but the truth is … even with a marginal increase in transmissibility … that does not have much of a material effect or difference in how we deal with the virus. In other words, the surge of the virus cannot be ascribed to a new variant …

The other question is are these variants more virulent, and the truth is we don’t know, but it is unlikely because the data don’t seem to say so despite the scary headlines … Pathogens tend to evolve toward lower virulence … because that maximizes their transmissibility … It is much more probable that these strains will not be materially so different that we would have to alter our policies.”

So, according to Gupta, even if the new strains of COVID are more transmissible, it is highly unlikely that they are more lethal. Here’s more on the topic from diagnostic pathologist Dr. Clare Craig, who provides a more technical explanation:¹⁴

“SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence has ~30,000 letters. Alterations in a handful of letters will not change it’s shape much — if it did it wouldn’t function properly anyway. Fear mongering about immune escape is not needed and is irresponsible especially when no evidence to support the claims.”

In essence, Craig is saying the same thing we said earlier, that the slight mutations to the infection will not impact the immune reaction of people who already had the virus. Thus, the current crop of “variants” should not be a cause for alarm. If you have already had COVID or if you already have prior immunity due to previous exposure to similar infections, (SARS, for example) the new strain should not be a problem.

It should also not be a problem if the new vaccines provide the type of broad-based immunity that one should expect of them. Again, the mutations represent only the slightest change in the composition of the pathogen (less than 1%), which means that — if the vaccines don’t work — they are, in effect, useless.

Media Misstating Science to Terrify the Public

Here’s a longer explanation that some readers might find overly technical and perhaps tedious, but it’s worth wading through in order to see that the media is deliberately misstating the science to terrify the public. This excerpt is from an article by Yeadon. Here’s what he said:¹⁵

“The idea is planted in people’s mind that this virus is mutating in such a way as to evade prior immunity. This is completely unfounded, certainly as regards immunity … (that is) gained naturally, after repelling the virus … It’s important to appreciate that upon infection, the human immune system cuts up an infectious agent into short pieces.

Each of these short pieces of protein are presented to other cells in the immune system, like an identity parade … These have a range of functions. Some make antibodies & others are programmed to kill cells infected by the virus, recognized by displaying on their surface signals that tell the body that they’ve been invaded.

In almost all cases … this smart adaptive system overcomes the infection. Crucially … this event leaves you with many different kinds of long-lived ‘memory’ cells which, if you’re infected again, rapidly wipe out any attempt at reinfection.

So, you won’t again be made ill by the same virus, and because the virus is simply not permitted to replicate, you are also no longer able to participate in transmission … The general ‘direction of travel’ (for viruses) is to become less injurious but easier to transmit, eventually joining the other 40 or so viruses which cause what we collectively term ‘the common cold.’

What generally doesn’t happen is for mutants to become more lethal to the hosts (us). But the key point I wanted to get across is just how large SARS-COV-2 is. I recall it’s of the order of 30,000 letters of genetic code which, when translated, make around 10,000 amino acids in several viral proteins.

Now you can see that the kinds of numbers of changes in the letters of the genetic code are truly tiny in comparison with the whole. 30 letter changes might be roughly 0.1% of the virus’s code. In other words, 99.9% of that code is not different from the so-called Wuhan strain.

Similarly, the changes in the protein translated from those letter code alterations are overwhelmed by the vast majority of the unchanged protein sequences. So your immune system, recognizing as it does perhaps dozens of short pieces … will not be fooled by a couple of small changes to a tiny fraction of these.

No: your immune system knows immediately that this is an invader it’s seen before, and has no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with it swiftly & without symptoms. So, it’s a scientifically invalid …

… even if mutations did change a couple of these, the majority of the pieces … of the mutated virus will still be unchanged & recognized by the vaccine-immune system or the virus-infected immune system & a prompt, vigorous response will still protect you.”

Why Are Public Health Officials and the Media Lying?

Let’s summarize: We have presented the informed views of three reputable scientists all of who explicitly refute the idea that the so called “variants:”

1. Are more lethal
2. Have the potential to reinfect people who have already had COVID
3. Have mutated enough to reinfect people who have already been vaccinated (unless, of course) the vaccine does not provide broad-based immunity to begin with (which is possible since Phase 3 long-term trials were never conducted).

So, why are the public health officials and the media lying about this matter, which is fairly clear-cut and uncontroversial? That is the question.

Yeadon concludes that there is something flagrantly diabolical about their denial. He thinks they are lying in order to dupe more people into getting injected with a substance that will either render them infertile, cause them great bodily harm or kill them outright. Take your pick. Here’s more:¹⁶

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power and this is a really artful way of getting you to line-up and receive some unspecified thing that will damage you. I have no idea what it will actually be, but it won’t be a vaccine because you don’t need one. And it won’t kill you on the end of the needle because you would spot that.

It could be something that will produce normal pathology, it will be at various times between vaccination and the event, it will be plausibly deniable because there will be something else going on in the world at that time, in the context of which your demise, or that of your children will look normal.

That’s what I would do if I wanted to get rid of 90 or 95% of the world’s population. And I think that’s what they’re doing.”

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power?” Has Yeadon gone mad?

Has the pressure of the global pandemic pushed him off the deep end or is he “on to something” big, something that no one even dares to even think about; a plan so dark and sinister that its implementation would constitute the most grievous and coldblooded crime against humanity of all time; the injection of billions of people with a toxic elixir whose spike protein dramatically compromises their immune systems clearing the way for agonizing widespread suffering followed by mountains of carnage?

There are others, however, who see a connection between the current vaccination campaign and “the eugenicists.” In fact, Dr. Joseph Mercola points to the link between the lead developer of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Adrian Hill, and the Eugenics movement. According to Mercola:

“Hill gave a lecture at the Galton Institute (which was known as the U.K. Eugenics Society) in 2008 for its 100-year anniversary. As noted in Webb’s article:¹⁷

‘Arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK eugenics movement.

The latter organization, named for the ‘father of eugenics’ Francis Galton, is the renamed U.K. Eugenics Society, a group notorious for over a century for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to ‘improve racial stock’ by reducing the population of those deemed inferior.

The ties of Adrian Hill to the Galton Institute should raise obvious concerns given the push to make the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine he developed with [Sarah] Gilbert the vaccine of choice for the developing world, particularly countries in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, the very areas where the Galton Institute’s past members have called for reducing population growth …

Emeritus professor of molecular genetics at the Galton Institute and one of its officers is none other than David J. Galton, whose work includes ‘Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century.’

David Galton has written that the Human Genome Mapping Project… had ‘enormously increased … the scope for eugenics … because of the development of a very powerful technology for the manipulation of DNA.’

This new ‘wider definition of eugenics,’ Galton has said, ‘would cover methods of regulating population numbers as well as improving genome quality by selective artificial insemination by donor, gene therapy or gene manipulation of germ-line cells.’ In expanding on this new definition, Galton is neutral as to ‘whether some methods should be made compulsory by the state, or left entirely to the personal choice of the individual.

… The Wellcome Centre regularly cofunds the research and development of vaccines and birth control methods with … a foundation (name withheld) that actively and admittedly engages in population and reproductive control in Africa and South Asia by, among other things, prioritizing the widespread distribution of injectable long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).

The Wellcome Trust has also directly funded studies that sought to develop methods to ‘improve uptake’ of LARCs in places such as rural Rwanda…’ LARCs afford women in the Global South ‘the least choice possible short of actual sterilization.’

Some LARCs can render women infertile for as long as five years, and, as Levich argues, they ‘leave far more control in the hands of providers, and less in the hands of women, than condoms, oral contraceptives, or traditional methods.’

… Slightly modified and rebranded as Jadelle, the dangerous drug was promoted in Africa … Formerly named the Sterilization League for Human Betterment, EngenderHealth’s original mission, inspired by racial eugenics, was to ‘improve the biological stock of the human race.’”

Does Eugenics Factor Into the mRNA Vaccine?

So, how does “eugenics” factor into the creation and distribution of the mRNA vaccine? Is there a link or are we grasping at straws? We can’t answer that question, but a recent article by Mathew Ehret at Off-Guardian provides a few interesting clues. Here’s what he said:¹⁸

“The fact that the organizations promoting the rise of this eugenics policy throughout Nazi Germany and North America included such powerhouses as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Human Sterilization League for Human Betterment … which have all taken leading roles in the World Health Organization over recent decades is more than a little concerning.

The fact that these eugenics organizations simply re-branded themselves after WWII and are now implicated in modern RNA vaccine development alongside the Galton Institute (formerly British Eugenics Association), Oxford’s AstraZeneca, Pfizer and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should give any serious thinker pause as we consider what patterns of history we are willing to tolerate repeating in our presently precarious age.”

We’ll end this piece with an excerpt from a 2010 article by Andrew Gavin Marshall at Global Research, who presciently noted that:¹⁹

“Eugenics is about the social organization and control of humanity … (particularly) population control …

The ideas of Malthus, and later Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin were remolded into branding an elite ideology of ‘Social Darwinism,’ which was ‘the notion that in the struggle to survive in a harsh world, many humans were not only less worthy, many were actually destined to wither away as a rite of progress. To preserve the weak and the needy was, in essence, an unnatural act.’

This theory simply justified the immense wealth, power and domination of a small elite over the rest of humanity, as that elite saw themselves as the only truly intelligent beings worthy of holding such power and privilege.

Francis Galton later coined the term “eugenics” to describe this emerging field. His followers believed that the ‘genetically unfit’ ‘would have to be wiped away,’ using tactics such as ‘segregation, deportation, castration, marriage prohibition, compulsory sterilization, passive euthanasia — and ultimately extermination’ …

Sir Julian Huxley was also a life trustee of the British Eugenics Society from 1925, and its President from 1959-62 … ‘Huxley believed that eugenics would one day be seen as the way forward for the human race,’ and that, ‘A catastrophic event may be needed for evolution to move at an accelerated pace’ … It is much the same with ideas whose time has not yet come; they must survive periods when they are not generally welcome.

The 21st-century technologies are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups.

They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them … I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

… Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system.

If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite …

A horrifying vision indeed; but one which builds upon the ideas of Huxley, Russell and Brzezinski, who envisioned a people who — through biological and psychological means – are made to love their own servitude. Huxley saw the emergence of a world in which humanity, still a wild animal, is domesticated; where only the elite remain wild and have freedom to make decisions, while the masses are domesticated like pets.

Huxley opined that, ‘Men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.’”

We must ask ourselves whether the current mass vaccination campaign is a science-based effort to relieve sickness and disease or a fast-track to a dark and frightening dystopia conjured up by evil men seeking to tighten their grip on all humanity?

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Quitting smoking is likely one of the best things you can do for your health as traditional cigarettes cause damage to nearly every organ in your body. Vaping, or using e-cigarettes, is sometimes marketed as a way for adults to quit smoking, but there's not enough evidence to demonstrate it helps.¹

If you're trying to quit smoking, the American Heart Association² endorses using established methods. They suggest you don't try vaping because you think it's “cool” or “safe.” There is a perceived assurance e-cigs are safe and harmless. The vapor is often the odorless, making it difficult to detect once the device has been put away.

In a 2016 report,³ "E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults," the U.S. Surgeon General called the products unsafe and documented an alarming increase in use by young adults. The report also showed e-cigarettes are associated with the use of other tobacco products as well as challenges with brain development affecting the health and mental health of young adults.

In July 2018 the Verge reported⁴ on the difference between Juul salts using freebase nicotine and other e-cigarettes. The combination of freebase nicotine with benzoic acid creates a chemical reaction designed to be as easy to inhale as cigarettes. A company spokesperson, Victoria Davis, called fighting underage vaping a “top priority.” She said:⁵

“Juul is intended for adult smokers only who want to switch from combustible cigarettes. We cannot be more emphatic on this point: No young person or non-nicotine user should ever try Juul.”

Juul spends thousands in schools and camps

Davis’ commentary in 2018 does not line up with information presented to the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, which viewed documents as part of an investigation into the role the company played in the vaping epidemic.⁶

Documents show “Juul spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund” programs, which an employee characterized as⁷ "our new understanding of how much our efforts seem to duplicate those of big tobacco." In the same email thread, another employee expressed concerns about pulling out of the health fair as they would certainly lose the school as part of the pilot program.⁸

In a memo from the Subcommittee,⁹ an examination of the role Juul has played in teenage nicotine addiction was outlined. The memo stated Juul had deployed “a sophisticated program to enter schools” and direct its message at teenage children; it also targeted teenagers in summer camps and public out of school programs.

Internally,¹⁰ Juul maintained a division aimed at recruiting schools to present a program to students. In testimony about one presentation, a representative from Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes said no parents or teachers were allowed in the room and the message from the company was the product was safe. During the presentation, the presenter did a demonstration of how to use the product.

The program paid the school system $10,000 to access the students in class, in summer school or at a Saturday school program.¹¹ Additionally, they targeted teenagers by purchasing access to teens in a public out of school program,¹² in one instance paying the Richmond, California, Police Activities League $89,000 to offer the Juul program.

At another time, the company paid $134,000 for access to children attending a five-week summer camp, recruiting those in grades 3 through 12 and providing them with a “holistic health education program.”¹³

Juul also engaged social media influencers

Over the past decade, there has been a shift from celebrities to social media influencers behind the drive to purchase new beauty products, cars and clothing and to get involved in nonprofit organizations. Whereas before spokespeople have been recognizable celebrities, marketing companies now understand the power that social media influencers wield on personal brand recognition.¹⁴

Audiences appear to be more receptive to social media influencers who often are the first to try products and services.¹⁵ In one survey 70% of brand marketing agencies said they either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” their 2018 budgets aimed at social media influencers would increase; 89% thought this form of marketing could impact how people felt about their product.¹⁶

Juul was no exception. They put into place a sophisticated program used to promote their product online to young people.¹⁷ Documents obtained by the subcommittee show Juul hired the Grit Creative Group to find 280 influencers in the Los Angeles and New York area¹⁸ “to seed Juul product to over the course of three months.”

In a second contract with the same company, Juul sought to secure social media influencers who held a following of at least 30,000 to attend launch events and engage their efforts to establish a network to leverage their influence for the company. Just four months later, the company's marketing update stated:¹⁹

“The Container Tour will get JUUL into the hands of over 12,500 influencers, subsequently introducing JUUL to over 1.5 million people.”

The subcommittee was given further evidence of the program designed by Juul with planning documentation, in an email showing an employee held the title “Influencer Manager” and another email indicating there may be an entire department devoted to addressing social media influencers within Juul.²⁰

Company pushes addictive nicotine but tells teens it’s safe

The subcommittee met in late July 2019,²¹ hearing testimony from research experts, parents and Juul Labs. In addition, the subcommittee heard testimony from two teenagers who told Congress a Juul representative had repeatedly told their ninth-grade classroom the e-cigarette was totally safe and then went on to show the students the device. All the students were underage.²²

One of the teens, 17-year-old Caleb Mintz, told Congress the representative was there as part of a mental health seminar during which teachers were not present. At just 17, Mintz cut to the chase on Juul’s marketing tactics when he said:²³

"I believe the presenter was sending mixed messages by saying Juul was 'totally safe' and following up every totally safe statement with 'but we don't want you as customers.’ I believe that the presenter was playing on the rebellious side of teens, where when teens are told not to do something, they are more likely to do it."

Following Mintz’s testimony, his 16-year-old friend Philip Fuhrman testified. CNN reported Fuhrman told Congress the Juul representative told him the²⁴

“FDA was about to come out and say that Juul was 99% safer than cigarettes, and he said that that would happen very soon, and that it was in FDA approval while the talk was going on.”

In June 2018, Juul Labs was valued at $15 billion.²⁵ While selling tobacco and nicotine to those addicted has been a good business model, Juul innovated the e-cigarette to a product delivering more nicotine than a cigarette and with a sensation similar to smoking. This is all thanks to nicotine salts, a chemical base used to deliver nicotine.²⁶

Each puff from a Juul delivers more nicotine than other e-cigarettes while reducing throat discomfort at higher concentrations. And, because nicotine salts work well in smaller devices, there's no need to opt for a larger, bulkier e-cigarette product. Using new technology, Juul salts in one cartridge delivers roughly the amount of nicotine as found in a pack of cigarettes.²⁷

The vaping community acknowledges nicotine salts are potentially more addictive since they lead to higher blood levels of nicotine over a short amount of time.²⁸ Juul sponsored a study demonstrating their²⁹ "tobacco-flavored nicotine salt-based ENDS were well tolerated and provided similar nicotine exposure and perceptual satisfaction compared to tobacco-flavored combusted cigarettes.”

Reactions in vape juice form airway irritating compounds

The long-term effects of heating e-cigarette juice have not been determined, but researchers have now found these liquids are reacting on the shelf and forming chemicals called acetyls. In a study published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research,³⁰ data show the liquids may form new chemicals as they are sitting on the shelf with unexpected toxicological effects.

The researchers recommended a rigorous process to monitor the changes in chemical composition and continue to analyze the situation in order to identify the potential health hazards to users. In other words, chemical reactions that occur once the liquid is placed in the delivery device and before heating, may increase the potential risk for those using e-cigarettes.³¹

The chemicals in question are from flavorings for vanilla, cherry, citrus and cinnamon. Sven-Eric Jordt, Ph.D., from Duke University, and senior author of the study commented on the results, saying:³²

"These individual ingredients are combining to form more complex chemicals that are not disclosed to the user. When inhaled, these compounds will persist in the body for some time, activating irritant pathways. Over time, this mild irritation could cause an inflammatory response."

Clusters of seizures and pulmonary infections

Doctors and hospitals have found vaping is associated with a cluster of neurological conditions.³³ The FDA has received reports of 127 people who have experienced seizures or other neurological symptoms potentially related to the use of e-cigarettes. Although experts have not yet established a link, they are investigating if the nicotine in e-cigarettes are causing neurological disturbances.

NPR reports³⁴ there have been 15 cases of severe respiratory injury in Wisconsin and 15 more are suspected. Six other cases were reported in Illinois and four in Minnesota, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with health departments to determine the cause.

The problem was first found by Children's Hospital of Wisconsin after eight healthy teenagers were hospitalized with rapid onsets of coughing, weight loss and breathing difficulties. Some were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit for treatment. At this point, Dr. Thomas Haupt from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services says the only common denominator has been vaping.³⁵

Vaping companies sue over regulations to protect kids

In 2009, the law gave the FDA power over combustible cigarettes but not e-cigarettes. In 2016 the agency expanded those regulations but have repeatedly delayed the timeline to review the products that have come to market. Recently, an e-cigarette industry group sued to delay the review arguing the deadline of May 2020 could wipe out many smaller companies.³⁶

Unfortunately, while manufacturers and regulators argue over legalities, children and teens are being caught in the middle. Exposure at a young age to nicotine affects the reward center in the brain and increases their risk of engaging in addictive behavior as they grow into adulthood.

Additionally, addiction at a young age leaves these teens with no good treatment options for the addiction to a product designed specifically to increase the users risk of becoming addicted. In other words, children as young as 11 are becoming addicted to a product for which medical science has yet to come up with a treatment option safe at their age.

If you are addicted to cigarettes or e-cigarettes and would like to take control of your health and quit the habit, I suggest my previous article, “Quitting Smoking Starts in the Brain,” to learn a free technique that may make the process easier. Take the profit out of the tobacco industry’s pocket and put it back in yours.

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According to the most recent data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,¹ 39.8% of all U.S. adults are obese. The same data show the obesity prevalence in children ages 2 to 19 years is 18.5%, and is expected to rise to 20.6% in adolescents from 12 to 19 years.²

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases,³ an individual who weighs more than what's considered normal for their height is described as overweight or obese. According to the CDC, the percentage of youth who are overweight or obese has more than tripled since the 1970s.⁴

There are several factors contributing to these rising percentages, including shorter sleep duration, metabolic inefficiency, poor eating and low levels of physical activity.⁵ Children who are obese are also more likely to develop health conditions such as metabolic syndrome, musculoskeletal disorders, cardiovascular disease and disability.⁶

The growing number of those who are overweight and obese directly feeds the weight loss industry, which market researchers anticipated would grow in 2018 to a value of $70.3 billion.⁷

While the final reports are not yet out on whether those numbers were actually reached, a summary of Marketdata’s research⁸ showed the greatest gains were expected in the commercial chains and meal replacement programs, with a trend toward ketogenic diets as well as diets high in protein. One market that was identified as untapped and underserved included overweight adolescents.

WW losing consumer base opens up to teens

However, even as researchers anticipated strong growth in the weight loss industry, one iconic company has been posting losses. WW, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers, rebranded their company in September 2018 in an effort to become the world's partner in wellness. According to Mindy Grossman, president and chief executive officer:⁹

“No matter what your goal is — to lose weight, eat healthier, move more, develop a positive mind-set, or all of the above — we will deliver science-based solutions that fit into people's lives. This is just the beginning of our journey to become the world's partner in wellness, and I am inspired by the potential for our impact."

The company posted a poor fourth quarter 2018 performance with declining memberships for 2019. One marketing analyst believes this might be in part due to their rebranding, as well as the declining popularity of “dieting.”¹⁰ Early in 2018, the company offered free membership to teens between ages 13 to 17.

While the company said they were aiming at helping children develop good habits at a critical age, CNN¹¹ reported Weight Watchers expected the tactic to engage young customers who could become loyal for years. The company's goal was to impact 10 million lives with 5 million people in the program by the end of 2020 and another 5 million using other company content.¹²

The announcement angered many parents who felt counting calories and engaging in a weight loss program may give rise to unhealthy eating behaviors. However, Time magazine reports WW CEO Mindy Grossman responded by saying,¹³ “It actually strengthened our resolve and made us offensive.”

The answer didn’t go down well with Lori Ciotti, regional assistant vice president of the Renfrew Center, an organization that bills itself as having treated more than 75,000 adolescents for eating disorders.¹⁴ Ciotti spoke to Today, saying:¹⁵

"Dieting is a slippery slope into an eating disorder. It sends a message that one should not listen to their body's hunger or fullness cues, so it's really concerning from that perspective.

I think what (Weight Watchers) is doing here is offering a sanctioned method of counting calories or points or whatever they want to call it. It's not teaching teens anything about self-care or self-worth. Instead it teaches them that their worth is about a number on a scale or the back of their jeans."

Appearing to aim at childhood obesity, WW lowers the bar

As the company appears to take aim at childhood obesity in their well-publicized “wellness” campaigns, they have now announced the release of a smartphone app for children as young as 8.¹⁶ In their notice, Gary Foster, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at WW said:¹⁷

"At WW, we have decades of expertise in scaling science-backed behavior change programs, uniquely positioning us to be a part of the solution to address the prevalent public health problem of childhood obesity.

Alongside a distinguished group of leaders in pediatric health and nutrition, we've carefully developed this platform to be holistic, rewarding and inspirational so kids, teens and families get the tools and guidance they need to manage their environment and build and sustain healthy habits."

The “distinguished group” to which Foster is likely referring are the scientists at Stanford Pediatric Weight Control Program.¹⁸ The Stanford program was licensed by the app’s founder, Joanna Strober, who helped develop the original app, Kurbo.¹⁹

That app was designed to help children learn healthier eating patterns without parental involvement. This app did not produce metrics like calories, carbs and sugar, but rewarded children for their food choices with a red, yellow or green light. After WW purchased the product, they made a few changes.²⁰

With the WW version, parents have greater involvement, and for an optional monthly subscription, children may work with coaches. Parents also have the option of joining the sessions. WW also added options children can track, such as weight loss, body measurements and Snapchat-style tracking streaks.²¹ Children enter their height, weight, age and goals, and then log what they eat.²²

In an earlier free progra, WW targeted teens aged 13 to 17. But in an effort to take advantage of smartphone applications, children's affinity for using smartphones and the childhood obesity epidemic, WW aimed the Kurbo app at children as young as 8. In their press release, the company says the program:²³

“ … builds on Kurbo's evidence-based mobile platform to help children and teenagers, with support from their families, make lifestyle changes while receiving guidance around sustainable healthy eating, physical activity and mindfulness habits. Kurbo by WW is currently available in the U.S., and the free Kurbo app can be accessed through iOS Apple Store and Google Play.”

Dieting may have the opposite effect

Despite the company's assertion that this is a program that teaches healthy eating choices, critics counter that it’s nothing more than a weight loss program for children, which they believe will contribute to children’s eating disorders. The backlash has gained a substantial following of people filing a Change.org petition calling for WW to remove the app.²⁴

In explaining why she thinks WW’s app is counterintuitive to WW’s stated goals for it, Tomi Akanbi, clinical nutrition coordinator at Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, warns that encouraging children and teenagers to count calories like many adults do is dangerous.²⁵ She routinely counsels patients who have adopted weight loss programs used by their parents without realizing that the nutritional needs of teens are different from those in other age groups.

By focusing on calories, many teenagers tend to skip meals or replace foods with empty calories from junk foods. Akanbi goes on to say focusing on weight can also lead to eating disorders, especially in teenage girls who feel pushed by media images to conform to a specific image. Following the announcement of the free summer program for teens, she said to CNBC

“Weight Watchers really is dieting and focusing on just weight, and research has shown when the focus is on weight and dieting in teens, that is not an effective way to promote and sustain weight loss. It’s not even helpful to promote overall wellness because we’re also talking about body image and how these kids are experiencing themselves and food and their bodies, and dieting does not help with that.”

In support of this line of thinking, some experts have suggested weight loss efforts in childhood may result in body image dissatisfaction and unhealthy weight control behaviors, including disordered eating, if the behavior is not severe enough to warrant diagnosis of an eating disorder.²⁶

A small study using a survey and two workshops delved into it deeper, with researchers gathering data about how young people interact with fitness mobile apps. The aim was to identify risks and negative experiences about how current fitness apps may or may not exacerbate risky eating behaviors.²⁷

The researchers concluded there was a need for consideration around the design of these apps when used for teenagers who are vulnerable to poor body image and maladaptive eating behaviors.²⁸ Additionally, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has advised doctors and families to avoid the use of “weight” in their talks with teens and instead focus on healthy lifestyles.²⁹

Calorie counting is not the answer

The AAP stresses families focus on eating a healthy diet and get plenty of physical activity rather than focusing on weight loss, if they want to reduce the risk of their teens developing an eating disorder:³⁰

“Family involvement in treatment of teen obesity and EDs [eating disorders] has been determined to be more effective than an adolescent-only focus. An integrated approach to the prevention of obesity and EDs focuses less on weight and more on healthy family-based lifestyle modifications that can be sustained …

… AAP recommendations include discouraging dieting, skipping of meals or the use of diet pills; promoting a positive body image; encouraging more frequent family meals; and suggesting that families avoid talking about weight.”

The AAP also stressed that making healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables more accessible while limiting sugars and refined carbohydrates is one way to positively address weight without directly talking about it. The pediatricians also suggest working on helping children make lifestyle changes, such as limiting TV and screen time and promoting physical activity — and I agree.

In addition to the possibility that counting calories or counting points may promote an unhealthy relationship with food³¹ and increase a teen’s risk of developing an eating disorder, the act of counting calories is not the answer to maintaining a healthy weight or overall health.

The fatal flaw in counting calories is you don't pay attention to the nutrition you're eating. The calorie-counting theory is that whatever calories you take in, as long as you burn them off, you will either maintain your weight or lose weight. But that way of thinking is simply wrong: All calories are not alike — while you may like to believe 100 calories in an apple and 100 calories in a cookie are identical, they are not.

The real science says that calories you get from whole, unprocessed foods feed your cells and reduce your risk of disease, including obesity. Foods from processed meals include high amounts of sugar or fructose as well as chemicals that may trigger weight gain.³²

Cyclical ketosis supports balanced weight and health

Like the AAP states, more important than counting calories is focusing on bringing home healthy foods and watching where your teens are spending their lunch money. While Grossman has attributed part of the problem with WW’s poor earnings in late 2018 to the keto diet,³³ she’s failed to realize that one reason the keto “diet” — which is aimed at adults — is working is because you don’t count calories. Instead, you focus on eating healthy, which is just what the AAP prescribes.

The good news is that keto also aligns with the AAP’s guidance in that you don’t eat processed foods or refined sugars when you “go keto.” The truth is children need protection from the junk food industry and you can help your children eat healthy and learn to make healthy food choices by simply refusing to buy processed foods, and concentrating on stocking your pantry with organic, fresh fruits and vegetables.

Go the extra step and skip fast food restaurants and cook and eat at home, and you’ll be well on your way to teaching them healthy eating.

You can also help by getting your kids moving. Overweight and obese children need at least 30 minutes of exercise each day, and may benefit from closer to 60 minutes. But, even if your child is not overweight, you should encourage him or her to take part in physically engaging activities after school and on the weekends.

For older teens and young adults who are motivated to try the keto way to health on their own, it’s crucial to understand which fats are good for you and which are not. Most Americans consume harmful fats like processed vegetable oils, which will invariably worsen your health.

So when we're talking about boosting consumption of dietary fats, we're referring to natural, unprocessed fat, found in real foods such as seeds, nuts, butter, olives, avocado and coconut oil. A more extensive list of examples can be found in “Basic Introduction to Metabolic Mitochondrial Therapy.”

If they want to go the next step and consider ketofasting, it’s even more important to remember that this isn’t about skipping meals, but of understanding that cyclical ketosis lies in the metabolic flexibility your body achieves as it is able to burn glucose and ketones for fuel.

Unfortunately, eating over a 12-hour period or more during the day radically increases your risk for obesity as your body is only adapted to burning glucose and it's not flexible enough to burn ketones or fat for fuel.

In addition to metabolic flexibility and the reduction in the risk for metabolic syndrome, cyclical ketosis accelerates autophagy³⁴ during which your body eliminates damaged organelles and intracellular pathogens.³⁵

This essential cleaning process encourages the growth of healthy cells and is a foundation for longevity. Intermittent fasting may be one of the most profound interventions you can do to radically improve your health, increase your body’s ability to preferentially burn visceral fat³⁶ and help you shed excess weight³⁷ all while extending your lifespan.

Instead of picking up the newest smartphone app, consider going on a journey of discovery with your teenagers, seeking out some of your locally grown produce, eliminating the processed foods and incorporating intermittent fasting. Each of these nutritional strategies helps support your overall health and weight control.

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