Health & Fitness

Media organizations occasionally contact Mercola.com, sometimes to challenge us on the researched, fact-checked articles we post for our readers. This was the case when Isobel Cockerell, a reporter with Coda Story, requested comments on our coverage of COVID-19, and specifically on my decision to remove COVID-related content, for an article she was writing.

Her request was made on the same day the article was published. In the interest of transparency, below I’ll post the email exchange so you can read our response to her questions firsthand, as — unsurprisingly — none of it made it into the article.

May 7, 2021, Coda Story published Cockerell’s false article, claiming that “pressure from lawmakers and antidiscrimination groups” prompted me to remove COVID-19 content from Mercola.com, in order to “avoid social media ban.”¹

Not only is this wrong, but we provided the real reasons why COVID-19 content was removed from our site directly to Cockerell in the email exchange. She chose to ignore it and included nothing about the personal threats or counteroffensive assault by global terrorist and cyberwarfare experts against Mercola.com, instead stating:²

“Responding to a request for comment on this article, a Mercola representative defended the accuracy of Mercola’s positions and said his critics are in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Coda Story Published Outright Lies

In the current climate, if you are not compliant about blindly promoting mandatory vaccinations and their safety, you will be silenced. Digital dictatorship is escalating, and people are increasingly being conditioned to think it’s not only necessary for “misinformation” to be removed but that it’s the obligation of these essential information carriers to do so. Twice in a one-week period, Mercola.com was hit by cyberwarfare, taking the site down.

Still, the “threat of a social media ban” had nothing to do with my reasoning for permanently removing select content from Mercola.com, as Cockerell implied. Further, the article, which is really nothing more than a propaganda piece for the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), makes a number of additional, blatantly false, statements.

Among them, “Mercola, who has over a million followers on Facebook, has promoted a number of unproven treatments or cures for COVID-19, including the inhalation of bleach,” Cockerell wrote.³ Not only have I not advocated inhaling bleach, but I’ve warned against its use even in cleaning products due to its link to lung damage. The “source” Cockerell uses as “evidence” of this statement is a nonworking link to the CCDH “Anti-Vaxx Playbook.”

In its “Anti-Vaxx Playbook,”⁴ CCDH identified six leading online “anti-vaxxers,” which include yours truly along with Barbara Loe Fisher, Del Bigtree, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Sherri Tenpenny and Dr. Andrew Wakefield. In the playbook, the CCDH details the messages shared by me and others during the Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination, held online October 16 through 18, 2020, such as:

• Deaths being falsely attributed to COVID-19, thereby artificially inflating mortality statistics
• The fact that COVID-19 has a 99+% survival rate unless you’re very old and have underlying comorbidities
• The fact that there are now several effective therapeutics for COVID-19, making a vaccine less relevant

The CCDH report presents these messages without any counterarguments. It does not negate or even debate the accuracy of any of them. It just brushes them aside as “misinformation” and “lies” without providing any proof whatsoever, and in doing so, it actually ends up strengthening our messaging. In fact, the report summarizes our concerns so well that I’d encourage everyone to read it.

Self-Censoring? Anti-Science Movement? More Lies

In a petty move, Cockerell did not identify me as a doctor or osteopathic physician, which is just one more attempt to diminish credibility in a smear campaign. Some of the other outrageous claims made in Cockerell’s Coda Story article is a quote from Imran Ahmed, CCDH’s CEO, which states, “Joseph Mercola is a superspreader of antivaccine and COVID disinformation. The fact that he has said he will self-censor shows the impact of penalizing antivaccine propagandists.”⁵

The idea that I am self-censoring due to some form of unnamed penalty is quite a stretch, and makes it clear that Ahmed did not read the article I published explaining my reasoning for removing select content. Cockerell also implies that I’m part of an “anti-science movement” — another lie that’s easily “fact-checked,” considering one of the driving forces behind Mercola.com is to share science-backed health information — including the science that not everyone wants you to hear. 

NewsGuard Also Reached Out for Comment

In its ongoing scrutiny and “grading” of the Mercola.com website, NewsGuard, the self-ascribed arbiter of the trustworthiness of internet websites, asked for information on our COVID-19 articles so NewsGuard can update its rating of Mercola.com’s coverage of the pandemic. The email from John Gregory, NewsGuard’s deputy editor on health, follows:

“My name is John Gregory, deputy editor on health at NewsGuard. You spoke last year with a colleague of mine for our rating on Mercola.com.

We are updating our rating to reflect Mercola's coverage of the novel coronavirus strain, known as COVID-19. In an article titled "Novel Coronavirus — The Latest Pandemic Scare," the site promotes two unfounded conspiracy theories about the virus' origins:

NewsGuard previously classified Mercola.com as fake news because we reported the SARS-CoV-2 virus as potentially having been leaked from the biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.

According to NewsGuard, “There is no evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source of the outbreak, and genomic evidence has found that the virus is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus.”⁶ But NewsGuard’s position is in direct conflict with evidence suggesting this virus was created in a lab and not zoonotically transmitted.

For those who aren’t aware, NewsGuard is another threat to the free sharing of information. It claims to rate information as reliable or fake news, supplying you with a color-coded rating system next to Google and Bing searches, as well as on articles displayed on social media.

If you rely on NewsGuard’s ratings, you may decide to entirely skip by those with a low “red” rating in favor of the “more trustworthy” green-rated articles — but NewsGuard is in itself fraught with conflicts of interest, as it’s largely funded by Publicis, a global communications giant that’s partnered with Big Pharma, such that it may be viewed more as a censorship tool than an internet watchdog.

Full, Transparent Coda Story Email Exchange

Since Cockerell’s article on behalf of Coda Story gives no inkling of our email response, it’s published in its entirety below. You’ll see that important details were omitted from the article, like calls for cyberwarfare experts to be enlisted against vaccine safety advocates, without which it’s virtually impossible to gain an understanding of what’s really going on.

FROM: Isobel Cockerell

Dear Joseph and the press team at Mercola,

I'm writing an article about your decision to remove Covid-related content from your website. I have a few questions and would be grateful for a response - we're publishing the piece today and it would be so helpful to have a quote from you as soon as possible.

Anti-hate groups such as the CCDH are viewing this as a huge victory for science. What's your response to that?

Is self-censorship the only way to maintain your platform on social media?

How do you respond to claims that the content you're sharing is dangerous misinformation and that its distribution should be reduced in order to maintain vaccine rates?

Many thanks for your help.

FROM: Mercola PR

Hi Isobel,

Since CCDH’s associate Peter Hotez publicly demanded attacks should be launched against us by terrorism and cyberwarfare experts, our website has been taken down by these attacks twice in the last week.

www.nature.com

Dr. Mercola has encountered several serious threats to himself and his business, the damages have been really significant and we hope the digital hate group, Nature, and the Gates-funded Hotez will please call a stop for these attacks.

Dr. Mercola first reported the virus was likely leaked from the Wuhan laboratory in February 2020. Fact-checking groups had called this a conspiracy from the beginning (please see note from John Gregory). It is really difficult for the mainstream scientists and media who have been wrong about this to admit it now.

MTracey.substack.com

The digital hate group even utilizes this reason in their most recent report to deplatform us.

Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel

But it turns out everything we stated well over a year ago is now being validated.

NicholasWade.medium.com

The truth is really frightening for some people and industries; they will do anything to perpetuate propaganda that protects the most powerful pharmaceutical industry. It turns out that Publicis owns fact checkers like Newsguard, and they are a public relations company now being sued for illegally marketing opioids that killed thousands of people.

Massachusetts Sues Ad Agency Publicis, Alleging 'Deceptive Marketing Schemes' Fueled Opioid Crisis (forbes.com)

Brill and Crovitz Announce Launch of NewsGuard to Fight Fake News - NewsGuard (newsguardtech.com)

It’s really difficult to be in a position that in order to remain on these monopoly platforms, you have to lie and not make statements that upset the global pharmaceutical operations or their fact checking front groups.

Coda Story Response: We ‘Consider the Matter Closed’

Coda Story claims that it “tells you stories you never heard before, shows you connections you never knew existed, and investigates the nuance and complexity of the world.”⁷ Surely, then, its reporters would be eager to dive into the counterpoints provided in our email, in order to explore, investigate and share these connections with the world.

In reality, they revealed their true colors, both with the blatant lies they published and their refusal to explore the truth further, even after it was clearly presented. In the final email response from Coda Story, Burhan Wazir, managing editor, wrote:

Thank you for contacting Coda Story about Isobel Cockerell’s brief. As you will be aware, Isobel reached out to the Mercola team for comment and we updated our story with the company representative’s position. We thank you for your cooperation and consider the matter closed.

Regards,

Burhan Wazir.

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After 27 years of marriage, Bill and Melinda Gates are calling it quits. The May 3, 2021, divorce filing cites the marriage as “irretrievably broken,”¹ which is standard legal jargon in a no-fault divorce.

The philanthropic mission of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, worth an estimated $50 billion despite having doled out $45 billion since its inception, will continue as before. Combined, the couple has a total net worth of about $146 billion in personal assets, including large swaths of prime farmland.^2,3

Gates’ Halo Is Starting to Tarnish

A number of rumors began swirling after the couple’s divorce announcement, many of which are bound to be off-target. What we can be fairly certain about, however, is that any information coming out about Bill and Melinda in the future is bound to be carefully crafted PR, and if my suspicion is correct, we’ll start seeing Melinda being portrayed as the saint in the relationship, as Bill’s halo gets walloped off his head.

I suspect the split may have less to do with irreconcilable differences and far more to do with protecting the Gates Foundation and other assets as the truth about Bill’s true character starts seeping out.

Facing mounting criticism and potentially embarrassing exposure on multiple fronts, it may be just a matter of time before his reputation turns to dirt, just like it did a little over a decade ago when his heartless, unethical business dealings⁴ and abuse of monopoly power⁵ became known.

Gates’ situation was similar to that of John D. Rockefeller, the widely-disliked oil baron who transformed his reputation from ruthless industrialist to generous philanthropist by creating the Rockefeller Foundation. Gates followed the same playbook when reestablishing his image. He created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and started buying favorable press, as detailed in “Gates’ Keepers of Journalism.”

If I were to venture a guess, Gates’ divorce might well be a preemptive maneuver to salvage the family legacy in case Bill gets ensnared in too many major scandals. I could be wrong, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future, as Bill’s star fades, Melinda’s will rise and she’ll become the new face of the Gates Foundation’s philanthropic wheeling and dealing.

Sadly, I don’t foresee the goals of the Gates Foundation improving. It’ll probably remain a self-serving enterprise, dishing out “solutions” to problems that make the Foundation lots of money while making the situation they’re trying to fix all the worse.

Gates — The Father of Health Apartheid

So, what are some of the scandals that might knock Bill off his self-made pedestal as the global savior? For starters, Gates is increasingly being blamed for the introduction of health apartheid around the world. He’s been a primary spokesperson for vaccine passports, repeatedly stating that the whole world must get vaccinated or else we’ll never get back to any semblance of normal life.

In an April 2020 blog post, he stated, “We need to manufacture and distribute at least 7 billion doses of the vaccine … possibly 14 billion, if it’s a multidose vaccine.” He also said, “I suspect the COVID-19 vaccine will become part of the routine newborn immunization schedule.”⁶

What he doesn’t openly share is that he stands to make enormous amounts of money on this global vaccination program, as he’s heavily invested in COVID-19 vaccines. This is the same scheme the Gates Foundation has become infamous for.

Gates invests in businesses and industries and then tells us the best or only way to solve a problem is by using the services and products of those same industries and businesses. It’s nothing but a self-serving racket.

As noted by Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., for well over a decade Gates has engaged in business schemes that undermine vitality and life in all its form, in an effort to seize control over and profit from it. By funding research and financing public institutions, he’s been able to force those institutions down a path where they’re forced to use his patented intellectual property.

The more Gates tries to “save” the world — be it through GMO crops and chemical-driven monoculture, synthetic beef and fake food, or vaccines for every ailment — the closer he drives us toward our extinction.

While mainstream media insist Gates is a target “simply because he is rich and famous,”⁷ that’s hardly the case. There are many rich and famous people that aren’t the target of global outrage, and there’s a reason for that. They didn’t get rich by pushing false and dangerous “solutions” into the world while pretending to be a savior and hiding their support of eugenics.

Patent Controversy Heats Up

As reported by The Nation,⁸ there have been growing calls to suspend COVID-19 vaccine patents and open them up so that vaccine production can be expanded. Lifting the patent protection would open the doors for generic versions to be manufactured, which would increase supplies and lower costs — and ultimately get more vaccines to middle- and low-income nations. Not surprisingly, Gates has been an outspoken defender of Big Pharma’s monopoly control.

“The reporting has highlighted the former Microsoft CEO’s hard-wired ideological commitment to patents, intellectual property, and the private sector, but may have understated the full scope of the Gates Foundation’s interests in this debate,” The Nation writes.⁹

“Like the sprawling array of intellectual property, the charity has acquired access to through its grants and investments. Or the fact that the foundation co-owns a vaccine company.

Last October, The Nation reported on a $40 million investment the Gates Foundation made in 2015 in a start-up company called CureVac, which is currently wrapping up clinical trials for its COVID vaccine …

The foundation is no longer a leading shareholder, but its 2015 investment may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars today, as last November CureVac agreed to supply up to 405 million doses to the European Commission — a deal that seems to raise new questions about Gates’s role in perpetuating vaccine apartheid.

While the Gates Foundation currently stands to financially benefit from CureVac’s prioritizing sales to the wealthiest nations and preserving its intellectual property and patents, doesn’t the foundation’s charitable mission — and related tax benefits — require it to direct immunizations into the arms of the global poor? CureVac and the Gates Foundation both failed to respond to questions about if or how they plan to do so.”

Global Health Is Another Gates Monopoly Grab

The Gates Foundation also has the ability to influence vaccine markets — and hence its own profits — through a number of other networks, including the World Health Organization, which it is one of the largest funders of. According to The Nation, Gates:¹⁰

• Directs the WHO’s vaccine delivery efforts
• Advises the G7 delegation on pandemic preparedness
• Meets with U.S. trade representatives to discuss intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 vaccines
• Holds regular calls with drug company CEOs and Dr. Anthony Fauci
• Has brokered vaccines deals between the University of Oxford, AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute of India. He actually talked Oxford out of its original promise to create a patent-free vaccine and partnered them up with for-profit AstraZeneca instead¹¹

Gates also sits on the boards of the GlobalFund and Unitaid, has a close relationship with the World Bank, and personally supported and participated in Event 201, which simulated a worldwide pandemic triggered by a novel coronavirus. As noted by The Nation:¹²

“It is increasingly urgent to ask if Gates’s multiple roles in the pandemic — as a charity, a business, an investor, and a lobbyist — are about philanthropy and giving away money, or about taking control and exercising power — monopoly power.”

The Nation quotes Rohit Malpani, a global health consultant and board member of the global health initiative Unitaid, who said:

“What we’re seeing is the accumulation of 20 years of very careful expansion into every aspect in global health — all of the institutions, all of the different companies that often have these early-stage technologies, as well as all of the advocacy groups that speak to these issue, and all of the research institutions.

It also therefore reflects the failure of the Gates Foundation. The fact that they exert so much influence and even control over so many aspects of the [pandemic] response… and the fact that we are seeing so much inequity speaks to the influence that they have, and [suggests] the strategies that they’ve set out have not worked. And they have to own that failure.”

Gates — A Not-So-Equitable Technocrat

James Love, director of the advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International, told The Nation:¹³

“Everything Gates has done in the vaccine area since 1999 has been to push the line to strong intellectual property rights, reliance on really big companies, secret agreements, and restrictive licensing. That’s his secret to success. And that’s the exact opposite of what we want to see happen.”

Indeed, as noted in a recent Jacobin Magazine article¹⁴ by staff writer Luke Savage, if the COVID pandemic doesn’t call for international cooperation, nothing does. Yet, Gates is choosing “patent rights over human lives.”

Don’t get me wrong. I believe these mislabeled vaccines are a disaster in the making and don’t recommend them. The point here is that Gates is showing his true colors. When push comes to shove, and the world is asking for true generosity — there are to date more than 100 countries that haven’t administered a single dose of COVID vaccine¹⁵ — Gates offers up a firm no.

Gates is in it for the money. It is patently obvious he doesn’t believe that vaccines are going to actually save the world. If he did, and were he a true philanthropist at heart, he’d advocate for the removal of patent rights and help blanket the world in vaccines. Instead he fights for patent rights and focuses on amassing intellectual property for all his global solutions.

Gates Is Lying About Need for Vaccine Patent Protection

TV political commentator Krystal Ball doesn’t mince any words when she says Gates is lying when he says that lifting patent protections on COVID vaccines won’t help developing countries. As the self-appointed global vaccine czar, Gates says there aren’t enough vaccine factories available to assure safety in the manufacturing process. But that’s not true, Ball points out.

An Associated Press investigation found three factories on three continents that have the capacity to produce hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines “if only they had the blueprints and technical know-how.”¹⁶

It’s all about greed, Ball says — and keeping Pharma profits as high as possible. The bottom line is that, despite his insistence that he wants to get vaccines as quickly as possible to developing countries, Gates is purposely holding up the manufacturing and distribution processes.

Big Pharma’s goal is to keep their profits high. They lobby heavily in the U.S. and EU to protect patent monopolies so generic versions of their products cannot be manufactured. According to Corporate Europe Observatory:¹⁷

“Many pharma companies have pledged to put global health before profits during the pandemic, but documents released to Corporate Europe Observatory — after long delays — reveal that the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) lobbied against a tool designed to facilitate equitable access and pricing for pandemic treatments in Europe.”

Big Pharma Reaps Profits of Taxpayer-Funded Research

Drug companies claim that patents are necessary to protect their intellectual property rights so they can continue to research and produce lifesaving treatments, but they’re largely reaping the profits of taxpayer-funded research.

In a working paper¹⁸ released by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, it’s revealed that funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health — $230 billion in total — contributed to research associated with every new drug approved in the U.S. from 2010 to 2019.

What’s more, 22,000 patents resulted from the taxpayer-funded research, which allowed for marketing exclusivity for 8.6% of the new drugs approved during the study period. “It also demonstrates the limited mechanisms available for recognizing the value created by these early investments and ensuring appropriate public returns,” the paper noted.

Even the mRNA technology that’s being used in COVID-19 vaccines is the result of federally funded basic research conducted by the NIH and the Department of Defense.¹⁹ “This is the people’s vaccine,” Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, told Scientific American.²⁰ “Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development … It should belong to humanity.”

Pfizer’s COVID vaccine has already generated $3.5 billion in revenue in the first three months of 2021,²¹ and the company said it expects “durable demand” for the vaccine to continue in coming years, similar to flu vaccines. Estimates suggest revenue will reach $26 billion for Pfizer’s COVID vaccine by the end of 2021.²²

What Might Come Out of the Maxwell Trial?

There’s also the possibility of shadier aspects of Gates’ life coming into light. According to one MSN report,²³ Melinda made inquiries with divorce lawyers in October 2019 — the same month The New York Times published an article about Gates’ repeated dealings with the notorious child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.²⁴

The New York Post²⁵ and the Daily Mail²⁶ recently dedicated articles to Gates’ “womanizing” ways premarriage, citing information from Gates biographer James Wallace, who claims Gates had a penchant for strippers and naked pool parties.

The Washington Examiner goes a step further, stating the “Gates divorce [is] partially motivated by dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.”²⁷ A spokesperson for Gates responded to questions about his meetings with the pedophile ring leader, saying:

"Gates recognizes that entertaining Epstein’s ideas related to philanthropy gave Epstein an undeserved platform that was at odds with Gates’s personal values and the values of his foundation."

While Epstein died under suspicious circumstances in his prison cell in August 2019, his business partner, Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in July 2020, charged with transporting a minor for the purpose of criminal sexual activity and conspiring to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts. Additional charges of sex trafficking and recruitment of underage girls were later added.

Maxwell’s trial is scheduled to begin this fall. Time will tell whether her trial will end up revealing further details about Gates’ involvement with Epstein. Either way, the timing of the Gates’ split is interesting, considering how Bill’s reputation as a global do-gooder is suddenly slipping.

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The woman behind JSHealth Jessica Sepel shares her exact health and wellness routine, along with honest and open thoughts on exercise, dieting and body love.  

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A new study has linked alcohol to a lower risk of death from heart disease. But it’s definitely not the best way to improve your health.

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Chronic pain is a pervasive issue and fibromyalgia is a very common form. It is a chronic condition whose symptoms include muscle and tissue pain, fatigue, depression, and sleep disturbances.

Recent data suggests that central sensitization, in which neurons in your spinal cord become sensitized by inflammation or cell damage, may be involved in the way fibromyalgia sufferers process pain.

Certain chemicals in the foods you eat may trigger the release of neurotransmitters that heighten this sensitivity.

Although there have been only a handful of studies on diet and fibromyalgia, the following eating rules can’t hurt, and may help, when dealing with chronic pain.

Limit Sugar as Much as Possible. Increased insulin levels will typically dramatically worsen pain. So you will want to limit all sugars and this would typically include fresh fruit juices. Whole fresh fruit is the preferred method for consuming fruit products.

If you are overweight, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, you will also want to limit grains as much as possible as they are metabolized very similarly to sugars. This would also include organic unprocessed grains. Wheat and gluten grains are the top ones to avoid.

Eat fresh foods. Eating a diet of fresh foods, devoid of preservatives and additives, may ease symptoms triggered by coexisting conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

It’s also a good idea to buy organic food when possible, as it’s best to avoid pesticides and chemicals. However, fresh is best. So if you have to choose between local, fresh, non-organic and organic but wilting – go with fresh, and clean properly.

Avoid caffeine. Fibromyalgia is believed to be linked to an imbalance of brain chemicals that control mood, and it is often linked with inadequate sleep and fatigue. The temptation is to artificially and temporarily eliminate feelings of fatigue with stimulants like caffeine, but this approach does more harm than good in the long run. Though caffeine provides an initial boost of energy, it is no substitute for sleep, and is likely to keep you awake.

Try avoiding nightshade vegetables. Nightshade vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant may trigger arthritis and pain conditions in some people.

Be Careful with Your Fats. Animal based omega-3 fats like DHA and EPA have been touted as a heart-healthy food, and they may help with pain, as well. They can help reduce inflammation and improve brain function. At the same time, you want to eliminate all trans fat and fried foods, as these will promote inflammation.

Use yeast sparingly. Consuming yeast may also contribute to the growth of yeast fungus, which can contribute to pain.

Avoid pasteurized dairy. Many fibromyalgia sufferers have trouble digesting milk and dairy products. However, many find that raw dairy products, especially from grass fed organic sources, are well tolerated.

Cut down on carbs. About 90 percent of fibromyalgia patients have low adrenal functioning, which affects metabolism of carbohydrates and may lead to hypoglycemia.

Avoid aspartame. The artificial sweetener found in some diet sodas and many sugar-free sweets is part of a chemical group called excitotoxins, which activate neurons that can increase your sensitivity to pain.

Avoid additives. Food additives such as monosodium glutamate (MSG) often cause trouble for pain patients. MSG is an excitatory neurotransmitter that may stimulate pain receptors; glutamate levels in spinal fluid have been shown to correlate with pain levels in fibromyalgia patients.

Stay away from junk food. Limit or eliminate fast food, candy, and vending-machine products. In addition to contributing to weight gain and the development of unhealthy eating habits, these diet-wreckers may also irritate your muscles, disrupt your sleep, and compromise your immune system.

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How and what you eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are you paying for this homogenized, cheap and convenient food? This video investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on your plate, and reveals the telltale signs that the food you buy may not have been grown in the way you think.

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Researchers have detected abnormalities in the brains of people with fibromyalgia, a chronic condition whose symptoms include muscle pain and fatigue.

Some researchers have suggested that the pain of fibromyalgia is the result of depression, but the new study suggests otherwise. The abnormalities were independent of anxiety and depression levels.

Researchers evaluated 20 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia and 10 healthy women without the condition who served as a control group. The researchers performed brain imaging called single photon emission computed tomography, or SPECT.

The imaging showed that women with the syndrome had "brain perfusion" -- blood flow abnormalities in their brains. The abnormalities were directly correlated with the severity of disease symptoms.

An increase in blood flow was found in the brain region known to discriminate pain intensity.

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Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS) is a condition in which people are highly sensitive to electromagnetic fields. In an area such as a wireless hotspot, they experience pain or other symptoms.

People with EHS experience a variety of symptoms including headache, fatigue, nausea, burning and itchy skin, and muscle aches. These symptoms are subjective and vary between individuals, which makes the condition difficult to study, and has left experts divided about the validity of such claims.

More than 30 studies have been conducted to determine what link the condition has to exposure to electromagnetic fields from sources such as radar dishes, mobile phone signals and, Wi-Fi hotspots.

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Body+Soul speaks with Dr. Meredith O'Loughlan about how acupressure can help with bloating, using five simple pressure points.

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Impossible Foods touts its fake meat burgers as health food that’s also good for the environment — both myths. Among its highly-processed ingredients is soy leghemoglobin, or heme. This, the company says, it what makes meat taste like meat, and, in plants, leghemoglobin is the protein that carries heme, an iron-containing molecule.

Originally, Impossible Foods harvested leghemoglobin from the roots of soy plants, but deemed that method unsustainable. Instead, they turned to genetic engineering, which they use to insert the DNA from soy plants into yeast, creating genetically engineered (GE) yeast with the gene for soy leghemoglobin.¹

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved soy leghemoglobin in 2019, prompting the Center for Food Safety (CFS) to file a lawsuit challenging the approval, which they called “unusually rapid”² and risky for public health.

Unfortunately, the federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the FDA’s approval, which has allowed Impossible Burgers to hit grocery stores across the U.S.³ and ensures that the potentially hazardous ingredient can remain on the market.

Impossible Foods has even been granted Child Nutrition Labels, paving the way for their products’ use in K-12 schools.⁴ Already, a pilot program has the fake meat being used in U.S. school districts in dishes such as Impossible Street Tacos, Impossible Frito Pie and Spaghetti with Impossible Meat Sauce — a concerning trend considering the novel foods’ absence of long-term safety testing.

GE Heme Is New to the Human Diet

Humans have never before consumed GE heme. To be clear, while Impossible Foods refers to it as "heme," technically plants produce non-heme iron, and this is technically GE yeast-derived soy leghemoglobin.⁵ Heme iron only occurs in meat and seafood. Impossible Foods’ GE heme is used in “substantial quantities” in their fake meat burgers as a color additive that makes the product appear to “bleed” like real meat.

Further, more than 12 yeast proteins also exist in the GE heme, the health effects of which are unknown. Because color additives in food are not a substantively beneficial addition but, rather, are used only to improve aesthetics, they’re supposed to be held to a higher standard of safety for approval compared to other food additives.

This wasn’t done, according to CFS, which called the FDA’s approval of GE heme as a color additive “unlawful.” CFS staff attorney Ryan Talbott explained:⁶

"FDA's failure to require Impossible Foods to conduct long-term tests called for in the agency's own authoritative guidelines means it does not have 'convincing evidence' that this color additive, consumed by millions, is safe. The approval of soy leghemoglobin must be revoked, unless and until truly convincing evidence proves it to be safe."

What Are the Possible Health Risks?

In 2015, Impossible Foods first suggested to the FDA that soy leghemoglobin should be given GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status. The FDA didn’t agree at the time and, in documents revealed by a Freedom of Information Act request, was concerned about the novelty of the substance and its potential to cause allergic reactions.⁷

In 2017, the company again tried to gain approval for GRAS status, submitting data to the FDA from a rat study they had commissioned.⁸ Bill Freese, CFS science policy analyst, explained:⁹

“… a number of potential adverse effects were detected in [the] short-term rat trial: disruption of reproductive cycles and reduced uterine weights in females, and biomarkers of anemia, reduced clotting ability, and kidney problems."

Impossible Foods brushed off the adverse effects as transient or “non-adverse” because they were not dose-dependent and sometimes went away in a few days, without showing any clear patterns.

The exception was disruptions to the rats’ reproductive cycles, which prompted Impossible Foods to commission a second rat feeding study, which did not find that feeding soy leghemoglobin altered the rats’ estrus cycle.¹⁰ However, the studies weren’t long enough to reveal any long-term effects that may occur after consuming the new-to-humans ingredient for years.¹¹

Impossible Foods Study Didn’t Meet FDA Requirements

According to the CFS lawsuit, Impossible Foods’ rat study did not meet the FDA’s minimum requirements for a subchronic toxicity study, as they contained only 10 rodents per sex per group and were conducted for only 28 days, while guidelines require a minimum of 20 rodents per sex per group fed the test substance for a minimum of 90 days.¹² CFS stated:¹³

“Despite not meeting the minimum requirements for a subchronic toxicity study, FDA relied on this study to support its decision approving soy leghemoglobin as a color additive.

Moreover, even though Impossible Foods’ 28-day study did not comply with the minimum requirements for sub-chronic toxicity studies, it still resulted in statistically significant toxicological effects in some rats that should have triggered further testing for longer periods of time and with the appropriate number of test animals.

However, FDA discounted these observed effects stating that because the changes did not occur in both sexes, they were insignificant. There is no basis for this rationale in FDA’s toxicity study guidelines.”

Freese added:¹⁴

"FDA approved soy leghemoglobin even though it conducted none of the long-term animal studies that are needed to determine whether or not it harms human health. This includes studies for cancer, reproductive impairment, and other adverse effects called for by FDA's Redbook, the Bible of food and color additive testing."

‘Genetic Engineering on Steroids’

In their lawsuit, CFS points out that soy leghemoglobin is produced using synthetic biology, or “genetic engineering on steroids,” which does not shuffle DNA pieces between species but instead constructs new biological parts, devices and systems that do not exist in the natural world:¹⁵

“This aggressive form of genetic engineering operates ‘in a ‘Wild West’ free-for-all environment with virtually no regulatory oversight.’ It is through this extreme form of genetic engineering that Impossible Foods creates its meatless products.”

The reason why Impossible Foods turned to synthetic biology to produce GE soy leghemoglobin is because it couldn’t extract enough of the substance directly from soybean roots to produce its fake meat products on an industrial, mass-produced scale. The FDA GRAS for soy leghemoglobin is 526 pages long, if that gives you any idea of the industrialized complexity of this so-called GRAS “health” food.¹⁶

Despite the fact that this color additive is unlike anything in nature, FDA granted GRAS status, which is supposed to apply to substances that are “generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate its safety, as having been adequately shown through scientific procedures … to be safe[.]”¹⁷

In response to the court’s ruling that the FDA’s approval of soy leghemoglobin would stand, CFS senior attorney Sylvia Wu said in a statement:¹⁸

“We are disappointed by the court’s ruling … which will allow Impossible Burger and other meatless burgers to be made with a novel genetically engineered chemical without conducting any long-term health studies. FDA is supposed to protect consumers from unsafe novel chemicals in our food supply, instead now consumers bear the burden of avoiding these GMO plant-based burgers.”

Gates Invested in This Tech Food to Feed the Masses

Consulting firm Kearney has forecast that animal protein will peak in 2025, while plant-based meat will continue to grow, reaching $450 billion by 2040, at which point it would represent up to 25% of the meat market — a $1.8 trillion industry.¹⁹ Many tech big-wigs are invested in fake meat products, which they plan to peddle to feed the masses.

Impossible Foods was co-funded by Google, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates,^20,21 and Gates has made it clear that he believes switching to synthetic beef is the solution to reducing methane emissions that come from animals raised on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).²²

The strong recommendation to replace beef with fake meat is made in Gates’ book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need,” which was released in February 2021.²³ In an interview with MIT Technology Review, he goes so far as to say that people’s behaviors should be changed to learn to like fake meat and, if that doesn’t work, regulations could do the trick.²⁴

Gates, by the way, invests in fake meat companies and is buying up U.S. farmland at a frenzied pace. Tech billionaire Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, may seem a strange fit for the role of America’s top farmer.

But he’s been quietly amassing massive tracts of U.S. land under the cover of investment firm Cascade Investment, LLC, and now owns a minimum of 242,000 acres of U.S. farmland²⁵ in Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, California and multiple other states.

The acreage seems earmarked for GE corn and soy crops — the base foods for what will become an increasingly synthetic, ultraprocessed food supply made up of imitation meats.

The plan to get consumers used to replacing their burgers with synthetic fake food has been underway since at least 2014, when a group of powerful agribusiness executives met to organize a PR campaign that would put synthetic biology and GMOs in a more favorable light. Dana Perls, from Friends of the Earth, attended the meeting and later wrote:²⁶

“The meeting was under Chatham House rules — which means I can’t disclose who said what. However, I can say that the meeting was an alarming insight into the synthetic biology industry’s process of creating a sugar-coated media narrative to confuse the public, ignore the risks, and claim the mantle of ‘sustainability’ for potentially profitable new synthetic biology products.

Over the course of the day, primarily CEOs, directors and PR people from powerful chemical and synthetic biology companies, bounced around tales of promise, discussed how to position synthetic biology as a ‘solution’ to world hunger, and made blithe claims of safety that were not backed up by any actual data.

… When I asked how biotech companies will protect small farmers who are producing the truly natural products, I was met with a hard cold stare, silence and a non-answer about needing to meet ‘consumer demand.’”

Grass Fed or Lab Fed: Which Is Best?

Impossible Foods claims that they have a better carbon footprint than live animal farms and hired Quantis, a group of scientists and strategists who help their clients take actions based on scientific evidence, to prove their point.

According to the executive summary published on the Impossible Foods website, their product reduced environmental impact between 87% and 96% in the categories studied, including global warming potential, land occupation and water consumption.²⁷ This, however, compares fake meat to meat from CAFOs, which are notoriously destructive to the environment.

White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, which produces high-quality grass fed products using regenerative grazing practices, commissioned the same analysis by Quantis and published a 33-page study showing comparisons of White Oaks Pastures emissions against conventional beef production.²⁸

While the manufactured fake meat reduced its carbon footprint up to 96% in some categories, White Oaks had a net total emission in the negative numbers as compared to CAFO-produced meat. Further, grass fed beef from White Oak Pastures had a carbon footprint that was 111% lower than a typical U.S. CAFO and its regenerative system effectively captured soil carbon, which offset the majority of emissions related to beef production.²⁹

“Within our margin of error,” the report noted, “there is potential that WOP [White Oak Pastures] beef production is climate positive. This would be very rare and it is unusual that there is more benefit to producing something than to simply not produce,”³⁰ but it’s within the realm of possibility when it comes to properly raised grass fed beef. Fake meat produced in a lab simply can’t compare, both in terms of the environment and human health.

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According to a May 9, 2021, report by Sky News Australia (above), a Chinese-language book published in 2015, written by scientists and senior public health officials working with the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army, discussed the possibility that SARS might have been a weaponized coronavirus.

The theory presented in the book is that SARS-CoV-1, responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2003, was a manmade bioweapon unleashed in China by unidentified terrorists.

According to the 18 authors, which include the former deputy director of China’s Bureau of Epidemic Prevention, Lee Fang, and Xu Dezhong, a former professor of infectious disease with the Air Force Medical University in Xian who led the 2003 SARS epidemic analysis expert group under the Chinese Ministry of Health and reported to the top leadership of the military:¹

“Based on ample evidence in epidemiology, molecular biology and evolutionary biology, this book concludes that SARS-CoV may have an unnatural, or man-made origin.”

Have We Entered the Age of Biowarfare?

The book, “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons,” also discusses the “psychological terror” such bioweapons might cause, and:²

"… describe SARS coronaviruses as heralding a ‘new era of genetic weapons’ [that] … can be ‘artificially manipulated into an emerging human-disease virus, then weaponized and unleashed in a way never seen before,'" Markson says.

She stresses that while American government officials and intelligence agencies have suspected SARS-CoV-2 might also have a laboratory origin, there is no evidence to suggest an intentional release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) or elsewhere.

“The significance of this paper is that it offers rare insight into how senior scientists at one of the PLA’s most prominent military universities, where high levels of defense research were conducted, were thinking about biological research,” Markson says.

Smoking Gun? Maybe, Maybe Not

Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), has described the book as a “smoking gun,”³ implying China has been plotting the development of coronavirus bioweapons for years, but according to a reporter with the South China Morning Post, Xu, in the book, reportedly complained that his theory of a manmade SARS was not taken seriously by Chinese authorities.⁴

A paper detailing his bioweapons theory was rejected by The Lancet and the World Health Organization as well.⁵ Much of the chapter describing methods for creating biological weapons was apparently based on unclassified research by the U.S. military, and not necessarily any groundbreaking techniques developed in China.

So, to be clear, without actually reading the book, it’s hard at this point to gain any real insight into the authors’ intent, other than that Chinese researchers were pondering the possibility of coronaviruses being manipulated and turned into bioweapons, and what the impacts of biological warfare are.

That said, they do, as Markson points out, detail things like the least and most effective forms of delivery of biological weapons. Intense sunlight, for example, will weaken released pathogens, and rain or snow will cause aerosolized pathogens to precipitate, thereby minimizing spread.

To direct aerosolized pathogens into a target area, stable wind direction is desirable. With regard to the psychological impacts of biowarfare, the book notes that:

“Biological weapons will not only cause widespread morbidity and mass casualties, but also induce formidable psychological pressure that could affect combat effectiveness. Just like other disasters, people will live under fear of attack for a considerable period of time after an attack, causing brief or lasting psychological impairment among some.

In other words, attacks using biological weapons can cause acute and chronic psychological and mental illnesses, such as acute stress reactions.”

Congress Vows to Investigate Lab Leak Theory

While the lab leak theory has been roundly dismissed and ridiculed as a conspiracy theory by mainstream media for over a year, we’re now seeing government officials giving the theory some serious thought.

As reported by foreign policy and national security columnist Josh Rogin in a May 6, 2021, Washington Post opinion piece,^6,7 in light of the Biden administration’s reluctance to address the issue, several members of the U.S. Congress have vowed to launch their own investigation to explore the lab accident theory:

“Chinese authorities undermined the WHO investigation so thoroughly that even WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted that its team did not properly investigate the possibility of a lab accident origin and that more work needed to be done,” Rogin writes.

“Secretary of State Antony Blinken said⁸ last month that ‘we need to get to the bottom of this,’ and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has testified⁹ that the U.S. government is investigating both the natural spillover and lab accident theories.”

Fauci in the Hot Seat

In a letter addressed to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — an arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that in recent years has funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the WIV — Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., stated:¹⁰

“Understanding the cause of this pandemic — and ensuring that something like it never happens again — is the most important question facing the world today. Given the stakes, we cannot afford to settle for a limited, blinkered, or politicized understanding of the origin of this terrible disease.”

Fauci¹¹ is one of several conflicted individuals who have publicly dismissed the lab leak theory. In his letter, Gallagher asks Fauci to answer a number of questions, including what he does or does not know about the rumor that WIV workers contracted a COVID-19-like disease in the fall of 2019, before the outbreak was officially acknowledged.

Gallagher also wants to know how much funding the NIAID has given to the WIV over the years, how much of that supported gain-of-function research specifically, and whether or not funds were released during the 2014-2017 moratorium on gain-of-function research in the U.S.

He’s also asking Fauci to comment on how the U.S. government ought to “modify or reconsider scientific exchanges with Chinese entities” in light of the Chinese Communist Party’s “extensive coverup and lack of transparency surrounding the origins of the pandemic.”

Perhaps most importantly, Gallagher wants to know if Fauci still believes gain-of-function research is a risk worth taking, should it turn out that COVID-19 was the result of such research.

State Department Asked to Release What It Knows

In another letter,¹² three Republican leaders — Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, House Energy and Commerce Committee, Brett Guthrie, Subcommittee on Health, and Morgan Griffith, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations — ask Secretary of State Antony Blinken to hand over all documents that might assist in their investigation of SARS-CoV-2’s origin.

Requested documentation includes factual support for claims made in a January 15, 2021, statement¹³ by the State Department in which they claimed the WIV concealed its work with the Chinese military and that researchers at the lab contracted a COVID-19-like illness in the fall of 2019.

NIH and EcoHealth Alliance Asked for Documentation

In March and April 2021, Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee also sent letters to NIH director Francis Collins¹⁴ and EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak,¹⁵ who served as the middleman for funding flowing from the NIAID/NIH to the WIV.

As noted by Rogin, Daszak has been “the closest collaborator and the fiercest defender of the Wuhan lab.” In a May 5, 2021, article¹⁶ in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (reprinted days later in the New York Post¹⁷), science writer Nicholas Wade also points out Daszak’s central role in manufacturing what became the foundation for the official narrative that the pandemic was natural in origin and anything else was a kooky conspiracy theory.

“If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Daszak would be potentially culpable,” Wade notes, adding that this “acute conflict of interest” was purposely hidden. The Energy and Commerce Committee requested extensive records from both the NIH and EcoHealth Alliance detailing research and collaborations with the WIV.

No Excuse for Withholding Answers

As of May 6, 2021, neither Fauci, Collins nor Daszak had responded to these congressional inquiries.^18,19

“The State Department, the NIH, NIAID and EcoHealth Alliance should have no reason — and no excuse — to ignore these valid and important congressional inquiries,” Rogin writes. “But without backing from Democrats, who are conspicuously absent from these efforts, these investigations will struggle …

It is clear that the NIH and other U.S. agencies don’t want to have their activities investigated. But they must work with Congress to determine whether their research may be connected to the outbreak.

Also, current plans are to expand worldwide collaboration on risky virus research sixfold, through the $1.2 billion Global Virome Project.²⁰ Shouldn’t we figure out if this research sparked the pandemic before drastically expanding it? …

It’s in everyone’s interest to keep politics out of it as much as possible, because solving the origin question is an urgent task for the security and public health of the entire world.”

Lab Origin Is Likely the Correct Conspiracy

While the word “conspiracy” has been turned into a slur word used to debunk a given theory, it’s true definition has none of those connotations. Conspiracy means “an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful or subversive act,” or “an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.”

As such, the lab leak theory is indeed a conspiracy theory, but simply calling it that in no way denies the potential truthfulness of the situation. It does indeed appear as though several people and/or organizations have agreed to perform, at bare minimum wrongful, acts, and are working together to keep their collusion a secret.

People trying to expose this collusion are now written off as conspiracy theorists — as if exposing wrongdoing is a bad thing! It’s not. It’s a necessity if we want to live in a lawful and orderly society that doesn’t put the public at unnecessary risk. In today’s world, everyone ought to aspire to be a “conspiracy theorist” and be looking into these matters more deeply.

As reported by Wade in “Origin of COVID — Following the Clues: Did People or Nature Open Pandora’s Box at Wuhan?”²¹ if we are ever to solve this mystery, we must be willing to follow the science, as “it offers the only sure thread through the maze.”

In his extensive article, which I recommend reading in its entirety, Wade — a former science correspondent for The New York Times — reviews what we know about this virus so far, from published research and commentary by scientists. He then describes the two prevailing theories, and the support that exists (and is lacking) for each.

The first is that SARS-CoV-2 emerged naturally and jumped from wildlife to humans, with or without an intermediary host. The other is that the virus was being kept and/or studied in a lab, from which it escaped.

If it turns out that it was a lab escape, whether having undergone manipulation or not, it still matters greatly, as preventing another pandemic will then require us to rethink how we collect, store and study pathogens. If it’s natural, then an entirely different set of solutions and preventive measures will be necessary.

“It’s important to note that so far there is no direct evidence for either theory,” Wade writes.²² “Each depends on a set of reasonable conjectures but so far lacks proof. So I have only clues, not conclusions, to offer. But those clues point in a specific direction.”

In summary, the preponderance of clues leans toward SARS-CoV-2 originating in a lab, most likely the WIV, and having undergone some sort of manipulation to encourage infectiousness and pathology in humans.

As just one example, there’s research dating as far back as 1992 detailing how inserting a furin cleavage site right where we find it in SARS-CoV-2 is a “sure way to make a virus deadlier.” One of 11 such studies was written by Dr. Zhengli Shi, head of coronavirus research at the WIV.

The arguments laid out in support of natural origin theories, meanwhile, are grounded in inconclusive speculations that require you to throw out scientifically possible scenarios. From a scientific standpoint, doing so is ill advised. “It seems to me that proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence,” Wade writes.²³

Journalists Forced to Eat Humble Pie

In a Substack article,²⁴ independent journalist Michael Tracey points out how journalists who “screamed ‘conspiracy’” are now getting humiliated as evidence for the lab leak theory keeps building. Tracey offers as an example the case of Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who in February 2020 was smeared in the press as a conspiracy theorist spreading debunked rumors.

A headline in The Washington Post read, “Tom Cotton Keeps Repeating a Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory That Was Already Debunked.” Ironically, a primary source cited as having debunked the lab leak theory in that article was molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University.

As it turns out, The Washington Post was the one spreading false rumors, as Ebright has publicly admitted the lab leak theory has been the strongest hypothesis since January 2020²⁵ — a month before The Washington Post claimed Ebright had debunked the theory.

In an email to Tracey, Ebright states he discussed both theories with the Post, and was willing to be quoted “that the virus may have entered humans through a laboratory accident.”

The Washington Post, however, chose to only quote his comments about the genomic sequence of the virus and its properties, based on which “there was no basis to conclude the virus was engineered.”

In other words, The Washington Post lied when it said the lab theory was debunked, and it withheld comments to the contrary made by the very person they cite as being the debunker. This isn’t journalism. It’s propaganda, and propaganda always has a particular purpose. In his article, Tracey offers up several other examples of journalists who are now exposed as being anything but.

As the case for a lab leak strengthens, the self-proclaimed arbiter of truth, NewsGuard — which is funded by the PR firm responsible for much of Purdue Pharma’s unethical and lethal opioid marketing — is also going to find itself in increasingly hot water. At the end of February 2020, I received an email from NewsGuard questioning the veracity of my reporting on COVID-19’s origin.

Since that email, ample evidence that WIV was a potential source of the outbreak has emerged. At the time, we didn’t know, which is why I posed it as a question. As time goes on, more and more information is also coming out about Fauci’s and the NIH’s potential roles in this pandemic, so I’m by no means placing all the blame on Chinese researchers or its government.^26,27,28

Gain-of-Function Research Is the Real Threat

I believe research cooperation and sharing between nations is such that blame will ultimately be shared by multiple parties. The key issue, really, if SARS-CoV-2 did in fact come from a lab, is how do we prevent another lab escape? And, if it turns out to have be a genetically manipulated virus, do we allow gain-of-function research to continue?

I believe the answer is to ban research that involves making pathogens more lethal to humans. As it stands, the same establishment that is drumming up panic by warning of the emergence of new, more infectious and dangerous variants is also busy creating them. They just never tell you about that part.

Already, scientists have figured out a way to mutate SARS-CoV-2 such that it evades human antibodies. Were this mutated virus to ever get out, we’d be in serious trouble. While mankind has created several outbreaks, nature seems to have a way of NOT mutating animal viruses into global killers.

So, the hypocrisy needs to end. World leaders need to realize that funding and defending gain-of-function research is the real threat here. If SARS-CoV-2 was the product of a Chinese bioweapons program, the lesson ought to be crystal clear: You cannot control or assure containment of biological weapons.

You cannot control whom they affect. Your own population is as at-risk as the designated enemy. And, in truth, all pathogens manufactured to affect humans can be designated as biological weapons, whether the intent behind their creation is nefarious or not.

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After a ‘year of health’, Rebel Wilson lost 30kg and says she’s never felt better. But fans will be interested to know the key to her transformation is easier than we thought.

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Researchers have found a key new piece of the puzzle in the quest to use gene therapy to enable people born deaf to hear.

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Researchers have developed a highly sensitive blood test that can find traces of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB) in infants a year before they develop the deadly disease, according to a new study.

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Not all embryo transfers succeed, which gives rise to the practice of freezing extra embryos from an IVF cycle for future transfers. This allows those with at-risk fertility, due to age or treatments such as chemotherapy, to delay their transfer. Researchers introduce a standalone microfluidics system to automate the process of embryo vitrification of replacing water with cryoprotectants, which exposes embryos to a slow and constantly increasing concentration of cryoprotectants.

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Photodynamic therapy, or using light to inactivate viruses, bacteria, and other microbes, has garnered promising results in recent decades for treating respiratory tract infections and some types of cancer. Researchers review the existing approaches and propose adding antibodies to enhance PDT efficacy. They provide a model to help expedite overall PDT development as a rapid response to emergent viral pandemic threats.

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When neuroscientists analyzed the exact properties of nerve connections in the brain, they made a startling observation: At a key connection, or synapse, messages are sent against the usual stream of information. The study reports that the signal glutamate likely plays a role in this unusual transmission.

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Scientists have developed a mathematical model that predicts how the number and effects of bacterial mutations leading to drug resistance will influence the success of antibiotic treatments.

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Alzheimer's disease shares some key similarities with healthy aging, according to a new mathematical model.

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Cultural diversity -- indicated by linguistic diversity -- and biodiversity are linked, and their connection may be another way to preserve both natural environments and Indigenous populations in Africa and perhaps worldwide, according to an international team of researchers.

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What happens in the brain when people think about the future? Neuroscientist find that two sub-networks play a role. One focuses on creating the new event. Another evaluates whether that event is positive or negative.

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Neuroscientists present a new theory for what's happening in the brain when something looks familiar. The work brings the field one step closer to understanding how memory functions. Long-term, it could have implications for treating diseases like Alzheimer's.

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By targeting the bonds between bacteria and yeast that can form a sticky dental plaque, a new therapeutic strategy could help wash away the build-up while sparing oral tissues, according to a new study.

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By Dr. Mercola

Over the years, I've written a number of articles outing industry front groups¹ such as the Genetic Literacy Project, the American Council for Science and Health (ACSH),² Science 2.0, GMO Answers, Independent Women's Forum, Science Codex, Center for Consumer Freedom and the Center for Inquiry.

Once you start to investigate these front groups, you'll find the same names appearing again and again, cowriting articles, interviewing each other and referring to each other's work in a closed loop.

I've also written about academics and journalists who, while presenting themselves as independent experts, are actually shills for industry. This is a fairly close-knit group of individuals, so the worst actors are not hard to identify based on their associations.

Well-established actors include Forbes contributor Kavin Senapathy,³ Henry Miller, Steven Salzberg,⁴ Bruce Chassy, Jon Entine,^5,6 Kevin Folta, Keith Kloor⁷ and Mark Lynas.

Learn to Recognize Astroturfing When You See It

In the TED Talk above, award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson discusses strategies used by industry to manipulate public opinion and steer online discussion.

A strategy that has become phenomenally popular with the advent of social media is astroturfing, which is when a special interests group creates a fake grassroots campaign for or against a particular agenda. You might think it's a group of moms devoted to children's health that is touting the benefits of GMOs or vaccines, for example, when in fact the campaign is run by industry.

Increasingly over the past year or so you may have seen a number of articles simultaneously criticizing both the "anti-vaxxers" and "anti-GMO movement," making contemptuous and sometimes wildly insulting comments about people who question the safety of either of these industries and their wares.

While GMOs and vaccines may seem like strange bedfellows, the cross-linking of these two industries in propaganda material is neither accidental nor haphazard.

Industry Messaging Example

In a May 18, 2017 Forbes article,⁸ Senapathy (one well-known mouthpiece for the GMO industry) took aim at the "anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements," saying they're "inextricably linked and cause preventable suffering."

"The thoroughly answered question of whether vaccines cause autism isn't really a question outside of conspiracy-theorist circles," Senapathy writes.

"The body of evidence shows that vaccination has … vastly reduced suffering and death … and that vaccines don't cause autism, cancer, dementia or long term health problems, and that any minute risk is vastly outweighed by benefits to individuals and society.

Yet with the backing of prominent leaders like Robert DeNiro and Robert Kennedy Jr., anti-vaccine groups fuel common narratives that keep herd immunity down, directly leading to suffering and death.

Now with Donald Trump embracing vaccine skeptics, the anti-vaccine movement has earned a hallowed place on the shelf next to other tinfoil hat clad schools of thought.

The question of the safety of genetically engineered crops (GMOs) has been answered just as thoroughly, and the anti-GMO movement deserves its own place on the same shelf, not just for being wrong but for its role in unconscionable suffering …

She goes on to point out how similar the communication tactics are between vaccine and GMO detractors. Ironically, her article reveals just as much if not more about the biotech and vaccine industries' messaging tactics. You can go through her article and check off numerous boxes for how to spot a piece of industry propaganda.

That includes the claim that the science is settled (which automatically precludes the need for further discussion), citing a fellow industry shill (in this case Kloor), using strong, derogatory language when describing those who disagree with industry talking points, making ample references to "conspiracy theories" and "other tinfoil hat clad schools of thought."

Seven Classic Propaganda Techniques

Whenever you hear or read that someone is a "quack," and that "the science has been settled," or that something is "science-based," it's probably a smear campaign created by an astroturf group, industry front group or paid shill. In fact, the seven techniques of propaganda have been clearly delineated and are used without exception by most industries. As noted by writer Morgan Crouch in his article, "What Are the Seven Techniques of Propaganda?" these include:⁹

1. Name calling — Derogatory terms or discriminatory words used to arouse suspicion and prejudice
2. Glittering generalities — Slogans, catchphrases and highly generalized statements that sound good but mean little and prove nothing (such as "the science is settled")
3. Transfer — The linking of a company/industry idea with a revered symbol
4. Testimonial — Testimony by a respected authority, similar to celebrity endorsement
5. Plain folks — Corporate material presented by someone who appears to be "just like you" — someone who shares your concerns and ideals
6. Bandwagon — Creating the illusion that there's a consensus, which capitalizes on people's inherent desire to be on the "right" side
7. Card stacking — Using only those facts that support the company's/industry's ideas, with the aim of making you assume these facts are conclusive. As noted by Crouch, "By 'stacking cards against the truth,' propagandists can control the beliefs of their audience"

Pesticide and Vaccine Partnerships Revealed

While Senapathy tries to show how those who question the safety of either GMOs or vaccines are all alike — that is, tinfoil hat-wearing lunatics who follow flat earth theories in their spare time — what she ultimately achieves is a perfect example of industry PR.

This systematic messaging strategy has been carefully developed, and is known to have a penetrating psychological effect. Both the vaccine and biotechnology industries use the same terminology and the same psychological assault strategies to make you feel like you're in the wrong — or worse.

In her article, Senapathy basically accuses all vaccine and GMO safety advocates of being killers, merely for asking questions and not settling for non-answers, and doing what they think is right for their own health and that of their children.

Another article¹⁰ that connects the vaccine and chemical technology industries was recently published by The Feed.

In it, Ashleigh Morse, Ph.D., whose training centers on psychology and the influence of environmental cues on decision-making, and who says she works as a consultant to "a range of clients" in the field of science communication and public health,¹¹ argues that juries are incapable of assessing the validity of scientific evidence presented in court, or the validity of the scientific methods used.

Specifically, Morse — whose professional credits include a single published research paper listed on her LinkedIN bio on the role of opioid processes in reward and decision-making — is referring to the recent jury verdict against Monsanto, but she goes on to link that to vaccine science. "When juries decide on the science, we get autism linked to vaccines and the Monsanto verdict," she writes.

When In Doubt, Blame the Russians

Then there's the curious claim that the Russians are to blame for Americans' lack of faith in vaccine safety.¹² According to a recent paper¹³ published in the American Journal of Public Health, Russian trolls and Soviet-directed Twitter bots promoted anti-vaccine information on social media to "amplify the vaccine debate" and create dissent in the U.S.

According to the authors, "Accounts masquerading as legitimate users create false equivalency, eroding public consensus on vaccination," and "Directly confronting vaccine skeptics enables bots to legitimize the vaccine debate." Those two sentences are interesting and revealing indeed.

In a nutshell, they're saying that by providing anti-vaccine content, these bots made it seem as though there was actually something to discuss when, in the opinion of the authors, no discussion about vaccine safety should occur at all.

Apparently, it is their view that the vaccine debate is "illegitimate," since there's "public consensus" on vaccines (refer back to the bandwagon strategy, No. 6 in the propaganda list above).

In other words, everyone knows vaccines are safe; the science is settled, so there's no valid reason to question it. Summing up the alleged Russian bots' efforts to sway public opinion against vaccination, the authors referred to it as "weaponized health communication."

The Russians Did It Again

Coincidentally, the vaccine paper above was submitted for publication shortly after news stories began circulating claiming the Russians were behind anti-GMO rhetoric.¹⁴ Minnesota Farm Living writes:¹⁵

"Researchers from Iowa State University (Shawn Dorius and Carolyn Lawrence-Dill) wanted to better understand the controversy around genetically engineered food.¹⁶ The issue is with the overwhelming belief in the science community is that GMOs are safe, consumers still question their safety. Dorius and Lawrence-Dill wanted to find out why.

What they found was surprising. The ISU researchers looked at not only how U.S. publications portrayed GMOs but also looked at the American versions of RT and Sputknik, two Russian publications. They counted how many times the term 'GMO' was used in different publications …

They went a step further and analyzed the tone of each article. What they found is the Russian publications were overwhelming anti-GMO. The articles talked negatively about environmental risks, nutrition concerns, and health risks of GMOs."

Here, the author links to the "Are GMOs Safe?" page on the Genetic Literacy Project's website as evidence to support GMO safety. But, the Genetic Literacy Project is a well-known front group for the GMO industry and hardly a reliable source of impartial information.

As for why the Russians would want to spread anti-GMO rhetoric in the U.S., the study authors note Russia has an interest in creating division among the American people to weaken the country as a whole, and to promote their own agricultural exports, as Russia banned GMOs in 2016 and is trying to increase its exports of organic food.

Claim of Scientific Consensus on GMO Safety Is Patently False

In the Minnesota Farm Living article cited above, you can see the telltale industry rhetoric in the sentence, "the overwhelming belief in the science community is that GMOs are safe, [yet] consumers still question their safety." The reality is there is no scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs.

That is in fact the title of a scientific statement¹⁷ published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Sciences Europe, January 24, 2015. The statement, aptly titled "No Scientific Consensus on GMO Safety," was signed by 300 scientists, researchers, physicians and scholars.

What's more, the paper states that the claim of scientific consensus on GMO safety is in actuality "an artificial construct that has been falsely perpetuated," and that such a claim "is misleading and misrepresents or outright ignores the currently available scientific evidence and the broad diversity of scientific opinions among scientists on this issue."

In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still does not possess any evidence demonstrating safety because they do not do scientific reviews. And even if they did, hundreds of scientists say there's no evidence demonstrating that genetically engineered foods are safe, and a number of independent studies have raised serious health concerns.

To learn more about how GMOs were introduced into the food supply without safety testing, see my two-part interview with attorney Steven Druker, author of "Altered Genes, Twisted Truth." (Part 1, Part 2.)

GMO-Vaccine Convergence

The reason for the joining of PR forces between the vaccine and biotech industries becomes clearer when you take into account the fact that GMOs are moving into the vaccine industry. The 2016 article,¹⁸ "GMOs Lead the Fight Against Zika, Ebola and the Next Unknown Pandemic," published in The Conversation, asserts that GMOs play a "vital role" in medicine, adding:

"Most modern biomedical advances, especially the vaccines used to eradicate disease and protect against pandemics … rely on the same molecular biology tools that are used to create genetically modified organisms.

To protect the public, scientists have embraced GMO technology to quickly study new health threats, manufacture enough protective vaccines, and monitor and even predict new outbreaks."

Additionally, scientists are also exploring the possibility of vaccinating plants against pests as an alternative to using pesticides.¹⁹ In other words, it's really quite crucial for these two bedfellows, strange as their joining may seem at first, to get people to embrace both genetic engineering and vaccines.

That's why we're now seeing more and more articles deriding both vaccine and GMO safety advocates in the same piece, whether it necessarily makes sense to do so or not.

Both of these industries are using the exact same messaging strategies — because so far they have worked — to achieve the same aim: Shame those who dare question the safety of either, and make them feel like ignorant outcasts and social misfits, thereby shutting down the conversation.

Preempting Your Rights

In my five-part "Ghost in the Machine" series, I discuss the many ways in which big industries manipulate science, and how they've captured our regulatory agencies and manipulate our political system. Here's a listing of the series, in case you missed any of them:

"Introduction to Ghost in the Machine — A New Article Series That Exposes How Puppet Masters Control the Planet for Their Benefit"

"Ghost in the Machine, Part 1 — Drug Safety and Media Shaped by Big Pharma"

"Ghost in the Machine, Part 2 — Success Breeds Greed That Gets in the Way of Ethics, Common Sense and Caution"

"Ghost in the Machine, Part 3 — Pride and the Politics of Vaccines"

"Ghost in the Machine, Part 4 — The War on Supplements, Essential Oils and Homeopathy"

"Ghost in the Machine, Part 5 — Lies, Denial, Deceit and Manipulative 'Research'"

A feature common to both the vaccine industry and the biotech industry is the use of legislation to preempt your rights and force you to use their products whether you want to or not, and without regard for the health consequences.

In recent years, I've written extensively about the vaccine industry's attempts to mandate vaccines and eliminate personal belief exemptions across the U.S. In some cases, they've succeeded. In others, they've lost, but efforts to strip every American of their right to informed consent and medical freedom is ongoing.

The chemical technology industry is following the same agenda. One of the latest infringements on your rights is a provision in the Farm Bill that would block local governments from regulating pesticide use. The U.S. House committee approved the draft back in April. As noted by Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides:²⁰

"This is really a backdoor attempt to interfere with state governments and local governments. I think the trend is for local governments to engage on this issue. This would undermine that."

Monsanto Ghostwriting Shill Attempts to Tie USRTK to Russian Troll Efforts

A common corporate tactic is to use "third-party experts" to bring the industry's message to the public under the cloak of independent opinion or expertise (No. 4, "Testimonial"). The idea is that academic types are far more credible than industry employees when it comes to defending the industry's position.

A well-known spokesperson for the GMO industry is Henry Miller, who was thoroughly outed as a Monsanto shill during the 2012 Proposition 37 GMO labeling campaign in California. A "No on 37" advertisement had to be pulled off the air because Miller was fraudulently identified as being part of the Stanford University faculty.

Last year, Miller was outed yet again — this time as a ghostwriter for Monsanto. Forbes fired Miller when it became clear he had submitted ghostwritten material. On a relevant side note, Senapathy has cowritten articles with Miller, which is why some of her Forbes articles ended up being deleted as well,²¹ and the foreword for her book "Fear Babe" was written by Folta, a University of Florida professor who hid his financial ties to Monsanto.

The Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) discovery against Monsanto was led by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK). Proving he's still working on Monsanto's behalf, Miller penned a two-part article^22,23 for Investor's Business Daily this past summer, in which he tries — quite unsuccessfully — to tie USRTK to the alleged Russian GMO disinformation campaign.

The fact that they're still turning to Miller is probably a sign of just how desperate Monsanto (now Bayer) has become. Other discovery documents obtained by USRTK included email correspondence revealing Monsanto has been quite desperate for a number of years already.

In an email dated February 26, 2015, Daniel Goldstein, senior science lead of medical sciences and outreach for Monsanto, tells Monsanto's food safety scientific affairs lead, John Vicini, Ph.D.:²⁴

In this email, Goldstein admits two pearls: First, the list of supporters willing to do their dirty work is short — which is why we keep seeing the same names pop up in pro-GMO propaganda pieces — and ACSH is a most valuable front group for the biotech industry.

Another Undercover Ambassador for GMO Industry Wants You to Think the Russians Are Responsible for 'Anti-Vaccine Myths'

So, who else wants you to think that "the Russians did it"? Mark Lynas, a long-term shill for the GMO industry, just published: "Opinion: Russian Campaign to Spread Anti-Vaccine Myths Part of a Wider War on Science and Truth"²⁵ on the Alliance for Science website.

As the other examples cited above, Lynas — normally a pro-GMO advocate — is now cross-linking GMOs and vaccines, closely mimicking the core message of Senapathy's article, which is that "Many anti-GMO groups and anti-vaxxers are closely linked."

Again, what we're seeing is a crossover or merging of the GMO and vaccine industries in terms of messaging and propaganda angles. Rather than fighting public doubt separately, the shills for these industries are now putting out a single joint message that anyone who doubts the science presented by either of them is an anti-science nut job.

The take-home message here is that these tactics are nothing but a PR ploy. Yes, they're trying to make you feel like an outsider, an outcast. They're trying to make you feel ashamed of your "ignorance," or worse, as if you've fallen for false propaganda propagated by evil Russians in an effort to divide and conquer.

But all you really need to do is look for the hallmarks of astroturfing, and you'll quickly see through their ruse. You are not wrong for questioning flawed and biased science. You are not ignorant for questioning whether vaccines and GMOs might be unsafe when there's a clear lack of evidence to support safety claims.

You are not a danger to the public for looking at the evidence and making your own decisions about whether or not you want your family to receive a particular vaccine or eat a certain food. Your inquiries and thought processes are only dangerous to the industries in question which, by the way, are willing to go to just about any lengths to hide the dangers of their products in order to maintain their profits. Stand your ground. It's solid.

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