Category: Recommended

Plastic is such a ubiquitous part of modern life that it’s hard to imagine a world without it. But in the grand scheme of things, plastics are still a new invention, and as noted by Pete Myers, Ph.D., the chair, founder and chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, in the video above, there’s a lot we don’t know about plastics and health — but then, there’s a lot that we do.

Particularly when it comes to the chemicals in plastics, much is known about the risks they pose to human health, including to future generations through intergenerational endocrine disruption. “It’s enough to give me great pause,” Myers says.

Endocrine disruptors, which are widespread in plastic products, are similar in structure to natural sex hormones such as estrogen, thereby interfering with their normal functions — and more. According to Myers, the future of humankind could ultimately be at risk:1

“Your hormones have been hijacked. Your body’s astonishing, finely calibrated signal system — a system that controls everything from your weight to your fertility to your mood — has been scrambled by loosely regulated chemicals manufacturers use in a myriad of ways including in consumer products.

These hijackers — known to scientists as ‘endocrine-disrupting chemicals’ — are threatening our existence as a species. Driving this problem are chemical companies focused only on cheap plastics and regulators unwilling to do anything about it.”

Male Fertility Is on the Decline, Could Reach Zero by 2045

Myers highlights the book “Count Down,” written by Shanna Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. It’s based on a 2017 study she co-wrote, which found sperm counts dropped by 59.3% from 1973 to 2011.2

The most significant declines were found in samples from men in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, where many had sperm concentrations below 40 million/ml, which is considered the cutoff point at which a man will have trouble fertilizing an egg. Overall, men in these countries had a 52.4% decline in sperm concentration and a 59.3% decline in total sperm count (sperm concentration multiplied by the total volume of an ejaculate).

The book expands on what Swan describes as an impending fertility crisis; along with the dropping sperm counts, changes in sexual development pose a threat to human survival and, according to Swan, “The current state of reproductive affairs can’t continue much longer without threatening human survival.”3 In fact, she estimates that if current projections continue, sperm counts could reach zero in 2045.

Global fertility rates are also falling, reaching 2.4 births per woman in 2018, down from 5.06 in 1964. Fertility rates in about 50% of countries worldwide are at 2.1, which is below population replacement level, The Guardian reported.4

Human beings already meet three of the five criteria for what makes a species endangered, according to Swan, and while there are numerous factors involved — including contraception and costs of raising children — biological reasons, such as declining sperm counts, increasing miscarriage rates and genital abnormalities, are also driving down birth and fertility rates.

Endocrine-disrupting “everywhere chemicals” are a key culprit, she says: “Chemicals in our environment and unhealthy lifestyle practices in our modern world are disrupting our hormonal balance, causing various degrees of reproductive havoc.”5

Has the ‘Count Down’ to Infertility Begun?

“Count Down” brings some little-known findings into the spotlight, like the fact that a significant part of the global population may not be able to reproduce without technological assistance come 2050.6 And, the book suggests, men today have about half the number of sperm compared to their grandfathers.

“I’m half the man my grandfather was, and my grandsons will be half the man I am. In some countries, half of all couples seeking pregnancy require medical intervention,” Myers wrote.7 There appears to be a synergy occurring as well, which the book dubs “the 1% effect,” because sperm count, testosterone and fertility are dropping, and testicular cancer and miscarriage are rising, all at about 1% per year.8

Environmental chemicals, particularly endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), are another common thread, linked to increasing problems in women’s fertility as well as men’s. “Studies are finding correlations between EDC exposure and a rise in miscarriages and birth defects, and a decline in egg quality and quantity. EDCs can even affect a baby in utero if exposed during pregnancy,” Sustainable Pulse reported.9

Chemical exposure during pregnancy has been found to affect both masculinization and long-term fertility in males. In the wild, fish, frogs and reptiles are also increasingly being born with both ovaries and testes.10

Environmental Chemicals Causing Fertility Declines

A number of chemicals are wreaking havoc with human fertility. EDCs interfere with endogenous hormones, and it’s been found that some effects of exposure persist in future generations, even among males that weren’t directly exposed.11

Research published in PLOS Genetics, for instance, found that exposing male mice to ethinyl estradiol, a synthetic sex hormone found in birth control pills, causes developmental problems in the reproductive tract, thereby lowering sperm counts (men may be exposed to birth control pills through contaminated water and other sources). The generational effects of EDCs were also revealed. Environmental Health News reported:12

“They observed adverse effects starting in the first generation of mouse lineages where each generation was exposed for a brief period shortly after birth. The impacts worsened in the second generation compared to the first, and by the third generation the scientists were finding animals that could not produce sperm at all.

This latter condition was not seen in the first two generations exposed. Details of the experimental results actually suggested that multiple generations of exposure may have increased male sensitivity to the chemical.”

Adding further support that environmental chemicals are involved in fertility declines is research showing similar declines in sperm quality in dogs living in human households, with sperm motility declining by 30% over a 26-year period.13

In the canine study, the researchers linked certain environmental chemicals to sperm problems and suggested they could also be responsible for the sperm quality declines in humans — a notion supported by a study published in Scientific Reports.14

Researchers from the University of Nottingham used sperm samples from 11 men and nine dogs from the same U.K. region. They exposed the sperm to doses of two types of environmental chemicals, diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and polychlorinated biphenyl 153 (PCB153), currently found in the environment. The result was reduced sperm motility and increased DNA fragmentation.

The researchers believe dogs may act as a “sentinel” for declines in male fertility and that manmade chemicals used widely in home and work environments are the likely culprit. A previous study even detected such chemicals in dog sperm and some dog food.15

Top Sources of Endocrine Disruptors

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) named the following 12 chemicals in their “dirty dozen” list of EDCs:16

Bisphenol-A (BPA)
Dioxin
Atrazine

Phthalates
Perchlorate
Fire retardants

Lead
Mercury
Arsenic

Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs)
Organophosphate pesticides
Glycol ethers

Such chemicals are ubiquitous, being found in everything from food, drinking water and household goods to personal care products, cleaning products, nonstick cookware and plastics. Others, like atrazine, are banned in the European Union but still widely used in the U.S.

Early research by Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D., an integrative biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, hypothesized that atrazine turned on an enzyme (aromatase) that caused testosterone to be converted into estrogen. If you’re a male, this means that you won’t make sperm, but you will make estrogen, even though you shouldn’t.

According to Hayes and colleagues in research published in Nature in 2002, exposure to water-borne atrazine contamination led to “gonadal abnormalities such as retarded development and hermaphroditism” in 10% to 92% of male wild leopard frogs. Hayes published another study in 2010 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which had similar findings.17

Phthalates, another class of chemicals on the list, are linked to hormone changes and triggering “‘death-inducing signaling’ in testicular cells, making them die earlier than they should,” EWG noted.18 And this is just one of their toxic effects (they’ve also come under fire for impairing brain development, increasing children’s risk of learning, attention and behavioral disorders19).

It’s important to remember that everything from antidepressants20 and inactivity to your dietary choices and EMF exposure can affect your fertility. I’ve previously compiled some tips for increasing sperm count here.

As for reducing exposure to toxic phthalates and other EDCs that may “hijack your hormones” with disastrous consequences on fertility and more, the following steps may help, but you can see more tips for avoiding EDCs here.

Avoid plastic containers and plastic wrap for food and personal care products. Store food and drinks in glass containers instead.

Avoid plastic children’s toys. Use toys made of natural substances, such as wood and organic materials.

Read labels on your cosmetics and avoid those containing phthalates.

Avoid products labeled with “fragrance,” including air fresheners, as this catch-all term may include phthalates commonly used to stabilize the scent and extend the life of the product.

Read labels looking for PVC-free products, including children’s lunch boxes, backpacks and storage containers.

Do not microwave food in plastic containers or covered in plastic wrap.

Frequently vacuum and dust rooms with vinyl blinds, wallpaper, flooring and furniture that may contain phthalates as the chemical collects in dust and is easily ingested by children.

Ask your pharmacist if your prescription pills are coated to control when they dissolve as the coating may contain phthalates.

Eat mostly fresh, raw whole foods. Food packaging is often a source of phthalates.

Use glass baby bottles instead of plastic. Breastfeed exclusively for the first year, if you can, to avoid plastic nipples and bottles altogether.

Remove your fruit and vegetables from plastic bags immediately after coming home from the grocery store and wash before storing them; alternatively, use cloth bags to bring home your produce.

Cash register receipts are heat printed and often contain BPA. Handle the receipt as little as possible and ask the store to switch to BPA-free receipts.

Use natural cleaning products or make your own.

Replace feminine hygiene products with safer alternatives.

Avoid fabric softeners and dryer sheets; make your own to reduce static cling.

Check your home’s tap water for contaminants and filter the water if necessary.

Teach your children not to drink from the garden hose, as many contain plasticizers such as phthalates.

Use reusable shopping bags for groceries.

Take your own non-plastic leftovers container to restaurants. Avoid disposable utensils and straws.

Bring your own mug for coffee and bring drinking water from home in glass water bottles instead of buying bottled water.

Consider switching to bamboo toothbrushes and brushing your teeth with coconut oil and baking soda to avoid plastic toothpaste tubes.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/11/endocrine-disruptors-and-fertility.aspx

Evidence suggests that eating ultraprocessed foods may have a negative effect on bone strength and increase the risk for fracture.1 Osteoporosis is the medical term that describes a loss of bone density and quality of bone as people age. It is a widespread and serious condition that increases the risk of a bone fracture, which is especially problematic for older people.

Evidence suggests that individuals who have an osteoporotic hip fracture have a higher risk of mortality in the following years.2 Researchers have found variables that increased the risk of mortality included age over 75, mild to severe liver disease, heart failure, diabetes and hearing impairment. Statistically, of the people over age 50, about 50% of women and 25% of men will suffer a fracture at some point before the end of their life.3

According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, “For women, this is equal to the risk of getting ovarian, breast and uterus cancers combined.” There are many factors that contribute to the development of osteoporosis, including age, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and a suboptimal diet.4 Bone loss is a side effect of some medications or can result from the loss of hormones after menopause.

Other modifiable risk factors include a vitamin D deficiency and a lack of exercise. Eating a diet high in ultraprocessed foods is the very definition of a suboptimal diet. A study5 published in BMJ Open found that ultraprocessed foods made up 57.9% of all calorie intake and 89.7% of calories that came from added sugar.

Not only do ultraprocessed foods increase the risk for obesity,6 but they also raise your risk for other conditions including cancer7 and diabetes. Yet, food manufacturers have discovered that many people eating a Western diet cannot get enough of them. However, the effect ultraprocessed foods have on bone development is a relatively new discovery.

Ultraprocessed Food May Slow Growth and Weaken Bones

In a 2021 study published in Bone Research,8 scientists investigated the effect ultraprocessed foods would have on skeletal development using an animal model. There were two study groups, one which received a diet similar to the standard Western diet high in ultraprocessed foods and soft drinks, and the other, a standard rat diet.

The animals were given unlimited access to food and drink for six weeks, during which the researchers measured body weight and total body, femur and lumbar vertebral length. The animals were 3 weeks old when the trial started, which represented the six-week growth period before sexual maturation.

The results revealed that weight gain was lower, and total body and leg lengths were also significantly shorter, in the group eating ultraprocessed foods as compared to the control group. Although growth was underdeveloped in the experimental group, these animals ate significantly more calories. This suggested to the researchers that an ultraprocessed diet stunts growth, but not because of a caloric deficiency.

The NOVA classification system9 splits food into four different categories beginning with unprocessed or minimally processed foods. These are foods you would typically find around the outside aisle at the grocery store such as vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy products. They are the basis of what you would use to make food at home.

Group 2 includes processed culinary ingredients that you would use to season or add to unprocessed foods. For example, this group includes honey, salt and oils. Group 3 includes processed foods that have two or three ingredients that may be used to season or preserve the product. For instance, they include canned and bottled vegetables, salted nuts, cured meats and cheeses.

Finally, Group 4 contains ultraprocessed food and drink products, which are the majority of foods found in convenience stores. These typically have five or more ingredients and include carbonated drinks, ice cream, chips, breakfast cereals, energy bars, powdered or fortified meals, and ready-to-eat products such as pizza, chicken nuggets and instant soups and desserts.

Exposure in Adulthood May Increase Risk of Fracture

Additionally, the vertebra and femoral bones were scanned to examine trabecular and cortical bone properties.10 They found that the trabecular bone parameters in the experimental group were inferior when compared to the control group.

Bone volume fraction had decreased significantly when measured at six weeks and again at nine weeks during the intervention. The mean trabecular number and thickness in the femoral bone were also lower. Additionally, they found that trabecular separation was significantly higher in the experimental group when measured at six weeks and nine weeks during the intervention.

This number represents the mean distance between the trabeculae. These findings indicated an increased risk of fracture from poor bone development, and interestingly are some of the same findings in aging bone. The role of trabecular atrophy, as indicated by the reduction in number, thickness and increased separation, has a direct relationship on the strength of the bone and the resistance to fracture.11

In one study where researchers evaluated trabecular bone in older adults, they concluded it was “unlikely that treatment would replace trabeculae that have been removed or would restore biomechanical strength to the skeleton.”12 In the human skeleton, the trabecular bone is surrounded by a dense outer shell of cortical bone.

The proportion of the two varies depending on the location in the body. The trabecular bone has a network of rods and plates that are integral to bone strength. In fact, this architecture is “significantly stronger than an equal mass of solid bone.”13

Although the featured animal study demonstrated poor structural development of the trabecular bone in the femur and vertebra during growth before sexual maturity, it is important to note that new trabecular bone formation continues until a peak bone mass is achieved from age 30 to 40 years in men and women.14 This raises the question of how ultraprocessed foods affect the risk of osteoporosis in older adults.

Ultraprocessed Foods Impair Your Gut Microbiome

Ultraprocessed foods are aggressively marketed by food producers as they are highly profitable. Yet, as outlined in The BMJ following the release of two studies finding an association between ultraprocessed foods and the risk of death and cardiovascular diseases:15

“… packaged baked goods and snacks, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals, ready meals containing food additives, dehydrated vegetable soups, and reconstituted meat and fish products — often containing high levels of added sugar, fat, and/or salt, but lacking in vitamins and fiber … account for around 25-60% of daily energy intake in many countries.”

Past studies have also linked this food group to an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, obesity, high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases.16 These are comorbid conditions that increase your risk of severe disease with COVID-19.17 The basis for these metabolic and health changes may reside in the gut.18

Science continues to reveal the vital effect that your diet has on your gut microbiome, and your gut microbiome’s ability to ward off disease.

Gut microbiome diversity with healthy microorganisms is better able to support your immune system. This has become increasingly important according to Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College in London, as COVID-19 has spread across the world. Writing in The Conversation, Spector says:19

“The immune system is complex and highly responsive to the world around us, so it’s not surprising that many factors affect its function. What’s important to know is that most of these factors are not hard-coded in our genes but are influenced by lifestyle and the world around us.

As well as mounting a response to infectious pathogens like coronavirus, a healthy gut microbiome also helps to prevent potentially dangerous immune over-reactions that damage the lungs and other vital organs. These excessive immune responses can cause respiratory failure and death …

The fine details of the interactions between the gut microbiome and the immune system are not fully understood. But there seems to be a link between the makeup of the microbiome and inflammation — one of the hallmarks of the immune response. Gut bacteria produce many beneficial chemicals.”

Mexico Uses a Unique Strategy to Lower Obesity Risk

As I mentioned, individuals with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity are at greater risk of severe COVID-19 illness. And, the evidence clearly indicates that a diet rich in ultraprocessed, convenience foods contributes to those conditions. In late 2020, parts of Mexico took an unprecedented stance in protecting their youth.

Lawmakers in several states pushed legislation that would ban the sale of junk food to anyone under 18. The first legislature to pass the ban was in Oaxaca, followed closely by Tabasco.20 Magaly López, a lawmaker in Oaxaca’s Congress, commented on the move to a reporter from NPR,21 “I know it can sound a bit drastic, but we had to take action now. The damage of this kind of diet is even more visible because of the pandemic.”

It’s interesting paradox that an infectious disease that disproportionately affects those with obesity and cardiovascular disease is what may lead to better recognition and action against ultraprocessed foods when these same conditions have contributed over the past decade to many of the top 10 leading causes of death.22

Mexico also instituted a food warning label on packaged foods that are high in sugar, trans fats, saturated fat and calories. Businesses had only until December 1, 2020, to add those warning labels to avoid fines.23

As Reuters reports,24 these new warning labels and bans on junk food met with “super-sized opposition” from the U.S. and EU. Mexico consumes more processed foods than any other Latin American country and is the fourth largest consumer in the world.

Mexico took the labeling law one step further, saying that any product “containing caffeine and sweeteners must bear warning labels that they should not be consumed by children, and products with warning labels cannot include children’s characters, animations, cartoons, or images of celebrities, athletes or pets on their packaging.”25

Ultraprocessed Foods Raise Risk of Death

In the first of two studies26 published in The BMJ that linked ultraprocessed foods with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death, researchers concluded that consuming four or more servings of ultraprocessed foods daily was independently associated with a 62% relative increase in the risk of death from all causes and for every additional serving the risk rose again by 18%.

In the second study,27 data revealed eating ultraprocessed food increases your risk of cardiovascular disease, even after adjusting for known confounding factors and second analysis.28 Through a variety of mechanisms, junk food can destroy your metabolism and affect your appetite control.

As detailed in “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food,” your body is designed to naturally regulate how much you eat and the energy you burn. However, manufacturers have figured out how to override your intrinsic control by engineering foods that are hyper rewarding.29

This stimulates such a strong response in your brain that it becomes easy to overeat. Some of the most addictive junk foods on the market are potato chips, which hit all three bliss points: sugar from the potato (and sometimes from added sugar), salt and fat.30

It is likely not a coincidence that as ultraprocessed foods have become a norm for many Americans, so have chronic illnesses. The food you eat is a key factor that determines health and longevity. I believe that eating a diet of 90% real food and 10% processed foods is achievable for most and it could make a significant difference in your weight and overall health, including your bones.

To help you get started, you’ll find more information and suggestions in “Processed Foods Lead to Cancer and Early Death.” To address your gut microbiome, in addition to eliminating ultraprocessed foods and eating primarily whole foods, traditionally fermented foods and probiotics are the best routes to optimal microbiome health.

Healthy fermented choices include lassi (an Indian yogurt drink), fermented, grass fed organic milk (kefir), fermented soy or natto and different types of pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash and carrots. For more information and tips on how to make fermented foods at home, see “Flavorful Fermented Foods Have Healing Properties.”
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/12/ultraprocessed-foods.aspx

The Billion Agave Project is a game-changing, ecosystem-regeneration strategy recently adopted by several innovative Mexican farms in the high-desert region of Guanajuato. With your support, we’ve been the primary group to donate to Organic Consumers Association supporting this crucial project that is now proven to green arid regions and provide both food and income for some of the world’s most challenged farmers.
This strategy combines the growing of agave plants and nitrogen-fixing companion tree species (such as mesquite), with holistic rotational grazing of livestock. The result is a high-biomass, high forage-yielding system that works well even on degraded, semi-arid lands. A manifesto on mesquite is available in English1 and Español.2
The system produces large amounts of agave leaf and root stem — up to 1 ton of biomass over the 8- to 10-year life of the plant. When chopped and fermented in closed containers, this plant material produces an excellent, inexpensive (2 cents per pound) animal fodder.
This agroforestry system reduces the pressure to overgraze brittle rangelands and improves soil health and water retention, while drawing down and storing massive amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).
The goal of the Billion Agave campaign is to plant 1 billion agaves globally to draw down and store 1 billion tons of climate-destabilizing CO2. The campaign will be funded by donations and public and private investments.
Why Agave?

Climate-Change Solution
Agave plants and nitrogen-fixing trees, densely intercropped and cultivated together, have the capacity to draw down and sequester massive amounts of atmospheric CO2.
They also produce more above-ground and below-ground biomass (and animal fodder) on a continuous year-to-year basis than any other desert or semi-desert species. Agaves alone can draw down and store above ground the dry-weight equivalent of 30 to 60 tons of CO2 per hectare (12 to 24 tons per acre) per year.
Ideal for arid and hot climates, agaves and their companion trees, once established, require no irrigation and are basically impervious to rising global temperatures and drought.
Livestock Feed Source
Agave leaves, full of saponins and lectins, are indigestible for livestock. However, once their massive leaves (high in sugar) are chopped finely via a machine and fermented in closed containers for 30 days, the end product provides a nutritious and inexpensive silage or animal fodder.
This agave/companion tree silage, combined with the restoration of degraded rangelands, can make the difference between survival and grinding poverty for millions of the world’s small farmers and herders.
Drought-Resistant
Agaves require little-to-no irrigation. They thrive even in dry, degraded lands unsuitable for crop production because of their Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) photosynthetic pathway.
The CAM pathway enables agave plants to draw down moisture from the air and store it in their thick leaves at night. During daylight hours, the opening in their leaves (the stomata) closes up, drastically reducing evaporation.
A New Agroforestry Model

A pioneering group of Mexican farmers is transforming their landscape and their livelihoods. How? By densely planting (1,600 to 2,500 per hectare), pruning and intercropping a fast-growing, high-biomass, high forage-yielding species of agaves among preexisting (500 per hectare) deep-rooted, nitrogen-fixing tree species (such as mesquite), or among planted tree seedlings.
When the agaves are 3 years old, and for the following five to seven years, farmers can prune the leaves or pencas, chop them up finely with a machine, and then ferment the agave in closed containers for 30 days, ideally combining the agave leaves with 20% of leguminous pods and branches by volume to give them a higher protein level.
In Guanajuato, mesquite trees start to produce pods that can be harvested in five years. By Year 7, the mesquite and agaves have grown into a fairly dense forest. In Years 8 to 10, the root stem or pina (weighing between 100 and 200 pounds) of the agave is ready for harvesting to produce a distilled liquor called mescal.
Meanwhile the hijuelos (or pups) put out by the mother agave plants are being continuously transplanted back into the agroforestry system, guaranteeing continuous biomass growth (and carbon storage).
In this agroforestry system farmers avoid overgrazing by integrating rotational grazing of their livestock across their rangelands. They feed their animals by supplementing pasture forage with fermented agave silage.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/07/the-billion-agave-project-mar-2021.aspx

Unbeknown to most, Bill Gates has been buying up farmland across the U.S. through various subsidiary companies. At present, he owns about 242,000 acres of farmland, plus another 27,000 acres of nonagricultural land.
While many media outlets claim this makes Gates the biggest farmland owner in the U.S.,1 that may be an exaggeration, seeing how there are at least 50 other families that own far greater landmasses, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.2 According to a USA Today investigation3 published in November 2019, Bezos owns a respectable 420,000 acres, most of it located in Texas.
Is Bill Gates Too Powerful?

Either way, Gates certainly owns a sizeable chunk of U.S. farmland, which places him, yet again, in a position to have a significant impact on the direction of American agriculture and food production. In the video above, Russell Brand reviews some of these controversies.
Were Gates a proponent of organics, his land ownership would probably be seen as a good thing, but he’s anything but. On the contrary, not only is he a longtime proponent of GMOs and toxic agricultural chemicals, he’s also gone on record urging Western nations to switch to 100% synthetic lab-grown imitation beef, and has railed against legislative attempts to make sure fake meats are properly labeled, since that will slow down public acceptance.4
He’s also in favor of transitioning to other fake and unnatural food sources, such as a microbe found in a Yellowstone geyser. Rich in protein, this microbe can “be turned into a variety of foods with a small carbon footprint,” Gates says.5 Not surprisingly, Gates is financially invested in many of his proposed “solutions” to the world’s problems, be it hunger, disease, viral pandemics or climate change.
As noted in a long and detailed article by The Defender about several of Gates’ more questionable endeavors:6

“Thomas Jefferson believed that the success of America’s exemplary struggle to supplant the yoke of European feudalism with a noble experiment in self-governance depended on the perpetual control of the nation’s land base by tens of thousands of independent farmers, each with a stake in our democracy.

So at best, Gates’ campaign to scarf up America’s agricultural real estate is a signal that feudalism may again be in vogue. At worst, his buying spree is a harbinger of something far more alarming — the control of global food supplies by a power-hungry megalomaniac with a Napoleon complex.”

Master and Commander of Failed Agriculture
The Defender goes on to detail Gates’ “long-term strategy of mastery over agriculture and food production globally,” starting with his support of GMOs in 1994. Ever since that time, Gates’ “philanthropic” approaches to hunger and food production have been built around his technology, chemical, pharmaceutical and oil industry partners, thereby ensuring that for every failed rescue venture, he gets richer nonetheless.

“As with Gates’ African vaccine enterprise, there was neither internal evaluation nor public accountability,” The Defender writes.7 “The 2020 study8 ‘False Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)’ is the report card on the Gates’ cartel’s 14-year effort.

The investigation concludes that the number of Africans suffering extreme hunger has increased by 30 percent in the 18 countries that Gates targeted. Rural poverty has metastasized dramatically …

Under Gates’ plantation system, Africa’s rural populations have become slaves on their own land to a tyrannical serfdom of high-tech inputs, mechanization, rigid schedules, burdensome conditionalities, credits and subsidies … The only entities benefiting from Gates’ program are his international corporate partners.”

Gates Is a Corporate Globalist, Not a Philanthropist

AGRA was launched in 2006 with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. However, while touting a “green revolution” approach to ease hunger in Africa, it’s hard to imagine a less sustainable or destructive solution. As reported in “False Promises”:9

“[AGRA] promised to double the agricultural yields and incomes of 30 million small-scale food producer households by 2020, thus halving both hunger and poverty in the focus countries. To achieve these goals, AGRA received over one billion U.S. dollars — mainly from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but also from governments like the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

The study issues AGRA a decidedly negative report card: yield increases for key staple crops in the years before AGRA were just as low as during AGRA. Instead of halving hunger, the situation in the 13 focus countries has worsened since AGRA was launched …

AGRA in fact harms small-scale food producers, for example by subjecting them to high levels of debt. In Zambia and Tanzania, small-scale food producers were unable to repay the loans for fertilizer and hybrid seeds after the first harvest.

AGRA projects also restrict the freedom of choice for small-scale food producers to decide for themselves what they want to grow. This has dramatic effects on crop diversity. AGRA’s focus is on the one-sided cultivation of maize. Traditional climate-resistant and nutrient-rich crops have thus declined …

Moreover, AGRA lobbies governments on behalf of agricultural corporations to pass legislation that will benefit fertilizer producers and seed companies instead of strengthening small-scale food production and alternative structures.”

Rescue Technologies That Aren’t

It’s these kinds of self-serving endeavors that have earned Gates the unofficial title of the most dangerous philanthropist in the world. As noted by AGRA Watch,10 Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., and others, Gates’ philanthropy creates several new problems for each one he promises to solve, and can best be described as “philanthrocapitalism.”
As noted in the AGRA Watch article, “Philanthrocapitalism: The Gates Foundation’s African Programs Are Not Charity,” philanthrocapitalists:11

“… often expect financial returns or secondary benefits over the long term from their investments in social programs. Philanthropy becomes another part of the engine of profit and corporate control. The Gates Foundation’s strategy for ‘development’ actually promotes neoliberal economic policies and corporate globalization.”

In the featured video, Brand also quotes Shiva, co-founder of Regeneration International, who had the following to say about Gates’ efforts to improve farming in India:

“When Bill Gates forced his ‘rescue’ technologies on Indian farmers, the only one to benefit was Gates and his multinational partners. He gave money to the government and a company called Digital Green, and made extravagant promises to digitally transform Indian agriculture.

Then, with the cooperation of his purchased government officials, Gates put cameras and electronic sensors in the homes and fields of Indian farmers. He used their cell phones, which he gave them for free, and his fiber optic and 5G installations, which he persuaded the Indian Telecom Company to finance — to catalogue, study and steal farmers’ crop data, indigenous practices and agricultural knowledge for free.

Then he sold it back to them as new data. Instead of digitally transforming farms as he promised, he transformed Indian farmers into digital information. He privatized their seeds and harvested the work of the public system.

He ripped out their knowledge assets and heirloom genetics, and installed GMO seeds and other ridiculous practices. His clear agenda was to drive small farmers from the land and eventually mechanize and privatize food production.”

Sustainability and Globalism Are at Odds
Again and again, Gates’ globalist approach to farming has had devastating consequences for food and environmental sustainability in general and local food security in particular. India and Africa are just two of the most obvious examples. It just doesn’t work. It is profitable for Gates and his corporate allies, though, and furthers the technocratic plan to control the world by owning all the world’s resources.
The Gates-funded World Economic Forum, founded by technocrat figurehead Klaus Schwab, is just one of the global nongovernmental agencies that help promote Gates’ destructive agricultural and fake food agenda. As reported by The Defender, the Great Reset was officially unveiled during a World Economic Forum summit in May 2020:12

“It is a vision for transferring the world into a totalitarian and authoritarian surveillance state manipulated by technocrats to manage traumatized populations, to shift wealth upward, and serve the interests of elite billionaire oligarchs.”

Every conceivable aspect of life and society is scheduled to be “reset” according to their plan, including global food policies. Leading that charge is an organization called the EAT Forum, which describes itself as the “Davos for food.” EAT Forum is co-founded by the Wellcome Trust, an organization funded by and strategically linked to GlaxoSmithKline, a vaccine maker in which Gates himself is financially invested.
The EAT Forum’s largest initiative is called FReSH, which aims to transform the food system as a whole. Project partners in this venture include Bayer, Cargill, Syngenta, Unilever and Google. According to The Defender, “The EAT Forum works with these companies to ‘add value to business and industry’ and ‘set the political agenda.’”
If sustainability and food security is the goal — not to mention individual freedom and liberty — then we must dismantle the globalist machine and return to historically proven methods that are sustainable and productive.
EAT also collaborates with nearly 40 city governments in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America and Australia, and helps the Gates-funded United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) create updated dietary guidelines.

“According to Frederic Leroy, a food science and biotechnology professor at University of Brussels, EAT network is working closely with some of the biggest imitation meat companies, including Impossible Foods and other biotech companies, to replace wholesome nutritious foods with Gates’ genetically modified lab concoctions,” The Defender writes.13

Dismantle the Globalist Machine That Undermines Success
If sustainability and food security is the goal — not to mention individual freedom and liberty — then we must dismantle the globalist machine and return to historically proven methods that are sustainable and productive. As noted by The Defender:14

“African agricultural practices have evolved from the land over 10,000 years in forms that promote crop diversity, decentralization, sustainability, private property, self-organization and local control of seeds. The personal freedom inherent in these localized systems leaves farm families making their own decisions: the masters on their lands, the sovereigns of their destinies.

Continuous innovation by millions of small farmers maximized sustainable yields and biodiversity. In his ruthless reinvention of colonialism, Gates spent $4.9 billion dollars to dismantle this ancient system and replace it with high-tech corporatized and industrialized agriculture, chemically dependent monocultures, extreme centralization and top-down control.

He forced small African farms to transition to imported commercial seeds, petroleum fertilizers and pesticides. Gates built the supply chain infrastructure for chemicals and seeds and pressured African governments to spend huge sums on subsidies and to use draconian penalties and authoritarian control to force farmers to buy his expensive inputs and comply with his diktats.”

The end result should have been foreseeable, yet Gates forged ahead nonetheless. By replacing traditional nutritious crops with industrial cash crops — staples in processed food manufacturing, such as corn and soy — global commodity traders and junk food manufacturers profited while locals had little to eat.
On top of that, the heavy focus on chemicals destroyed the soils, resulting in a decline in both nutrition and productivity. All the while, organizations that are actually succeeding in furthering agricultural strategies with proven sustainability have not received a single dime from Gates.
At the same time that Gates is promoting the destruction of our natural climate systems with his foolhardy agricultural policies, he has invested in a variety of climate change technologies aimed at reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth,15,16 the side effects of which have the potential to wreak far more damage on global agriculture than anything we’ve seen so far.
Regenerative Food and Farming Is the Answer

As noted by Shiva, “Regenerative agriculture provides answers to the soil crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis and the crisis of democracy.”17 So, just what is regenerative farming? In the words of Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association:

“Regenerative agriculture and animal husbandry is the next and higher stage of organic food and farming, not only free from toxic pesticides, GMOs, chemical fertilizers, and factory farm production, and therefore good for human health; but also regenerative in terms of the health of the soil, the environment, the animals, the climate, and rural livelihoods as well.”

A leading organization for this movement is Regeneration International,18 which currently has 400 affiliates in more than 60 countries. They’re working to identify “best practices” around the globe to facilitate the scale-up of regenerative farming everywhere.
Ultimately, the goal is to have regenerative agriculture be the norm rather than a niche alternative to the chemical-based degenerative food, farming and land use system that’s currently dominating.
You can contribute to and speed this process by being selective about where you buy your food and the kinds of foods you buy, and/or by starting your own regenerative garden. For gardening tips and general guidance, see “Regenerative Gardening and Living, an Online Program.”
Regeneration International has a handy regenerative farm map that can help you find local producers of various foodstuffs around the globe. If you live in the U.S., the following organizations can also help you find local sources of farm-fresh foods.

• Demeter USA — Demeter-USA.org provides a directory of certified Biodynamic farms and brands.
• Weston A. Price Foundation — Weston A. Price has local chapters in most states, and many of them are connected with buying clubs in which you can easily purchase organic foods, including grass fed raw dairy products like milk and butter.
• The Cornucopia Institute — The Cornucopia Institute maintains web-based tools rating all certified organic brands of eggs, dairy products and other commodities, based on their ethical sourcing and authentic farming practices separating CAFO “organic” production from authentic organic practices.
• American Grassfed Association (AGA) — The goal of the American Grassfed Association is to promote the grass fed industry through government relations, research, concept marketing and public education.
Their website also allows you to search for AGA approved producers certified according to strict standards that include being raised on a diet of 100% forage; raised on pasture and never confined to a feedlot; never treated with antibiotics or hormones; and born and raised on American family farms.
• Grassfed Exchange — The Grassfed Exchange has a listing of producers selling organic and grass fed meats across the U.S.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/12/farmer-bill-and-the-great-reset.aspx

By C.J. Hopkins

So, good news, folks! It appears that GloboCap’s Genetic Modification Division has come up with a miracle vaccine for Covid! It’s an absolutely safe, non-experimental, messenger-RNA vaccine that teaches your cells to produce a protein that triggers an immune response, just like your body’s immune-system response, only better, because it’s made by corporations!

OK, technically, it hasn’t been approved for use — that process normally takes several years — so I guess it’s slightly “experimental,” but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have issued “Emergency Use Authorizations,” and it has been “tested extensively for safety and effectiveness,” according to Facebook’s anonymous “fact checkers,” so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

This non-experimental experimental vaccine is truly an historic development, because apart from saving the world from a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms (or, more commonly, no symptoms whatsoever) in roughly 95% of those infected, and that over 99% of those infected survive,1 the possibilities for future applications of messenger-RNA technology, and the genetic modification of humans, generally, is virtually unlimited at this point.

Imagine all the diseases we can cure, and all the genetic “mistakes” we can fix, now that we can reprogram people’s genes to do whatever we want — cancer, heart disease, dementia, blindness, not to mention the common cold! We could even cure psychiatric disorders, like “antisocial personality disorder,”2 “oppositional defiant disorder,”3 and other “conduct disorders”4 and “personality disorders.”5

Who knows? In another hundred years, we will probably be able to genetically cleanse the human species of age-old scourges, like racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, etcetera, by reprogramming everyone’s defective alleles, or implanting some kind of nanotechnological neurosynaptic chips into our brains.

Humans Irrationally Resistant to Corporate Redesign

The only thing standing in our way is people’s totally irrational resistance to letting corporations redesign the human organism, which, clearly, was rather poorly designed, and thus is vulnerable to all these horrible diseases, and emotional and behavioral disorders. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

The important thing at the moment is to defeat this common-flu-like pestilence that has no significant effect on age-adjusted death rates,6 and the mortality profile of which is more or less identical to the normal mortality profile,7 but which has nonetheless left the global corporatocracy no choice but to “lock down” the entire planet, plunge millions into desperate poverty, order everyone to wear medical-looking masks, unleash armed goon squads to raid people’s homes, and otherwise transform society into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare.

And, of course, the only way to do that (i.e., save humanity from a flu-like bug) is to coercively vaccinate every single human being on the planet Earth!8

OK, you’re probably thinking that doesn’t make much sense, this crusade to vaccinate the entire species against a relatively standard respiratory virus, but that’s just because you are still thinking critically. You really need to stop thinking like that. As The New York Times just pointed out, critical thinking isn’t helping.9

In fact, it might be symptomatic of one of those “disorders” I just mentioned above.10 Critical thinking leads to “vaccine hesitancy,” which is why corporations are working with governments to immediately censor any and all content that deviates from the official Covid-19 narrative11 and deplatform the authors of such content,12 or discredit them as “anti-vax disinformationists.”13

For example, Children’s Health Defense14 has been reporting on so-called “adverse events” and deaths in connection with the Covid vaccines, despite the fact that, according to the authorities, “there are no safety problems with the vaccines”15 and “there is no link between Covid-19 vaccines and those who die after receiving them.”16

In fact, according to the “fact-checkers” at Reuters, these purported “reports of adverse events” “may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable”!17

Death Reports Lure People Into ‘Vaccine Hesitancy’

Yes, you’re reading between the lines right. The corporate media can’t come right out and say it, but it appears the “anti-vax disinformationists” are fabricating “adverse events” out of whole cloth and hacking them into the VAERS database18 and other such systems around the world.

Worse, they are somehow infiltrating these made-up stories into the mainstream media in order to lure people into “vaccine hesitancy” and stop us from vaccinating every man, woman, and child in the physical universe,19 repeatedly, on an ongoing basis, for as long as the “medical experts” deem necessary. Here are just a few examples of their handiwork:

In Norway, 23 elderly people died after receiving the Pfizer vaccine.20 However, according to Reuters’ “fact-checkers,” it turns out, old people just die sometimes, especially in nursing homes, from a variety of causes, unless they haven’t been vaccinated, in which case they definitely died of Covid, regardless of what they actually died of.
For example, a 99-year-old man suffering from dementia and emphysema, who tested negative for the virus three times, was added to the “Covid deaths” figures21 because a nursing home doctor “assumed” it was Covid (which GloboCap has expressly instructed22 him to do).

In Germany, 13 of 40 residents of one nursing home died after being vaccinated,23 but this was just a “tragic coincidence,” which had absolutely nothing to do with the vaccine.

In Spain, in another “tragic coincidence,” 46 nursing home residents who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine died within the course of one month.24 A further 28 of the 94 residents and 12 staff members subsequently tested positive.

In Florida, a healthy middle-aged doctor died from an unusual blood disorder two weeks after receiving the vaccine,25 but, according to the experts, the sudden onset of this rare immunological blood disorder (i.e., immune thrombocytopenia) “should not be interpreted as linked to the vaccine,” and was probably just a total coincidence.

In California, a 60-year-old X-ray technologist received a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. A few hours later he had trouble breathing. He was hospitalized and died four days later.26 His widow says she’s not ready at this point to link her husband’s death to the vaccine. “I’m not putting any blame on Pfizer,”27 she said, “or on any other pharmaceutical company.” So, probably just another coincidence.

A 78-year-old woman in California died immediately after being vaccinated,28 but her death was not related to the vaccine, health officials assured the public.
“(She) received an injection of the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer around noon. While seated in the observation area after the injection, [she] complained of feeling discomfort and while being evaluated by medical personnel she lost consciousness.” Despite the sudden death of his wife, her husband intends to receive a second dose.

A former Detroit news anchor died just one day after receiving the vaccine,29 but it was probably just a coincidental stroke, which the “normal side effects of the vaccine may have masked.”

Also in Michigan, a 90-year-old man died the day after receiving the vaccine,30 but, again, this was just a tragic coincidence. As Dr. David Gorski explained, “the baseline death rate of 90-year-olds is high because they’re 90 years old,” which makes perfect sense, unless, of course, they died of Covid, in which case their age and underlying conditions make absolutely no difference whatsoever.

In Kentucky, two nuns at a monastery died, and more than two dozen others tested positive, in a sudden “Covid-19 outbreak” that began two days after the nuns were vaccinated.31 The monastery had been completely closed to visitors and Covid-free up to that point, but the nuns were old and had “health issues,” and so on.

In Virginia, a 58-year-old grandmother died within hours after receiving the vaccine,32 but, as Facebook’s “fact checkers” prominently pointed out, it had to be just another coincidence, because the “vaccines have been tested for safety extensively.”

Source: off-guardian.org

And then there are all the people on Facebook sharing their stories of loved ones who have died shortly after receiving the Covid vaccine, who the Facebook “fact checkers” are doing their utmost to discredit with their official-looking “fact-check notices.” For example:

Source: off-guardian.org

OK, I realize it’s uncomfortable to have to face things like that (i.e., global corporations like Facebook implying that these people are lying or are using the sudden deaths of their loved ones to discourage others from getting vaccinated), especially if you’re just trying to follow orders and parrot official propaganda — even the most fanatical Covidian Cultists33 probably still have a shred of human empathy buried deep in their cold little hearts.

But there’s an information war on, folks!34 You’re either with the Corporatocracy or against it! This is no time to get squeamish, or, you know, publicly exhibit an ounce of compassion. What would your friends and colleagues think of you?!

No, report these anti-vaxxers to the authorities, shout them down on social media, switch off your critical-thinking faculties, and get in line to get your vaccination! The fate of the human species depends on it! And, if you’re lucky, maybe GloboCap will even give you one of these nifty numerical Covid-vaccine tattoos for free!

Source: off-guardian.org

C.J. Hopkins is an award-winning playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/09/covid-19-vaccine-disinformation.aspx

My usual response to the question “What is Regenerative Food and Farming?” goes something like this: Regenerative agriculture and animal husbandry are the next and higher stage of organic food and farming, not only free from toxic pesticides, GMOs, chemical fertilizers and factory farm production, and therefore good for human health, but also regenerative in terms of the health of the soil, the environment, the animals, the climate and rural livelihoods as well.
Or, as my fellow steering committee member for Regeneration International, Vandana Shiva, puts it: “Regenerative agriculture provides answers to the soil crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis, and the crisis of democracy.”1
In 2010 Olaf Christen stated, “Regenerative agriculture is an approach in agriculture that rejects pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and is intended to improve the regeneration of the topsoil, biodiversity and the water cycle.”2,3 This corresponds almost exactly with the stated principles of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) or Organics International.
Since 2014, the Rodale Institute, IFOAM, Dr. Bronner’s, Dr. Mercola, Patagonia, the Real Organic Project, the Biodynamic Movement, the Organic Consumers Association, Regeneration International, Navdanya and others have also been discussing and implementing organic standards, practices and certification, which incorporate regenerative principles. According to Australian regenerative pioneer Christine Jones:

“Agriculture is regenerative if soils, water cycles, vegetation and productivity continuously improve instead of just maintaining the status [quo]. The diversity, quality, vitality and health of the soil, plants, animals and people also improve together.”4

Changing the Conversation: Regenerative Food and Farming

In September 2014 when a group of us, including Vandana Shiva, Andre Leu, Will Allen, Steve Rye, Alexis Baden-Meyer and staff from Dr. Bronner’s, Dr. Mercola, Organic Consumers Association and the Rodale Institute, organized a press conference at the massive climate march in New York City to announce the formation of Regeneration International, we set for ourselves a simple, but what seemed like then ambitious, goal.
We all agreed we needed to fundamentally change the conversation on the climate crisis in the U.S. and around the world — then narrowly focused on renewable energy and energy conservation — so as to incorporate regenerative and organic food, farming and land use as a major solution to global warming, given its proven ability to drawdown and sequester massive amounts of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil, forests and plants.
Now, less than a decade later, I believe our growing Regeneration Movement has achieved this goal. Regeneration is now the hottest topic in the natural and organic food and farming sector, while climate activists including the Sunrise Movement and 350.org in the U.S. regularly talk about the role of organic and regenerative practices in reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
More and more people now understand that we can achieve, through enhanced photosynthesis and drawdown, the “Net Zero” emissions goal in 2030 to 2050 that nearly everyone now agrees will be necessary if we are to avoid runaway global warming and climate catastrophe.
Identifying Regenerative and Organic ‘Best Practices’

Inside Regeneration International, which now includes 400 affiliates in more than 60 countries,5 our conversation has shifted to identifying regenerative and organic “best practices” around the globe.
Our goal is to strategize how we can help qualitatively expand and scale up regenerative best practices so that organic and regenerative becomes the norm, rather than just the alternative, for the planet’s now degenerative multitrillion-dollar food, farming and land use system.
Our discussions and strategizing are not just an academic exercise. As most of us now realize, our very survival as a civilization and a species is threatened by a systemic crisis that has degraded climate stability, our food and our environment, along with every major aspect of modern life.
This mega-crisis cannot be resolved by piecemeal reforms or minor adjustments such as slightly cutting our current levels of fossil fuel use, reducing global deforestation, soil degradation and military spending.
Either we move beyond merely treating the symptoms of our planetary degeneration and build instead a new system based upon regenerative food, farming and land use, coupled with renewable energy practices and global cooperation instead of belligerence, or we will soon (likely within 25 years) pass the point of no return.
A big challenge is how do we describe the crisis of global warming and severe climate change in such a way that everyday people understand the problem and grasp the solution that we’re proposing, i.e., renewable energy and regenerative food, farming and land use?
Enhanced Photosynthesis Is All-Important

The bottom line is that humans have put too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases (especially methane and nitrous oxide) into the atmosphere (from burning fossil fuels and destructive land use), trapping the sun’s heat from radiating back into space and heating up the planet.
And, unfortunately, because of the destructive food, farming and forestry practices that have degraded a major portion of the Earth’s landscape, we’re not drawing down enough of these CO2 emissions through plant photosynthesis to cool things off.
In a word, there’s too much CO2 and greenhouse gas pollution blanketing the sky (and saturating the oceans) and not enough life-giving carbon in the ground and in our living plants, trees, pastures and rangelands.
Increasing plant and forest photosynthesis (accomplished via enhanced soil fertility and biological life, as well as an adequate amount of water and minerals) is the only practical way that we can draw down a significant amount of the excess CO2 and greenhouse gases in our atmosphere that are heating up the Earth and disrupting our climate.
Through photosynthesis, plants and trees utilize solar energy to break down CO2 from the atmosphere, release oxygen and transform the remaining carbon into plant biomass and liquid carbon.
Photosynthesis basically enables plants to grow above ground and produce biomass, but also stimulates growth below ground as plants transfer a portion of the liquid carbon they produce through photosynthesis into their root systems to feed the soil microorganisms that in turn feed the plant.
From the standpoint of drawing down enough CO2 and greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and sequestering them in our soils and biota to reverse global warming, qualitatively enhanced photosynthesis is all-important.
Agave Power: Greening the Desert

As my contribution to the global expansion of regenerative and organic food and farming practices, I have spent the last several years working with Mexican farmers and ranchers, consumer organizations, elected political officials (mainly at the local and state level), and socially and environmentally-concerned “impact investors.”
Our goal is to develop and qualitatively expand what we believe is a game-changer for much of the 40% of the world’s pasturelands and rangelands that are arid and semi-arid, areas where it is now nearly impossible to grow food crops, and where it is too overgrazed and degraded for proper livestock grazing.
We call this Mexico-based agave and agroforestry/livestock management system Agave Power: Greening the Desert, and are happy to report that its ideas and practices are now starting to spread from the high desert plateau of Guanajuato across much of arid and semi-arid Mexico.
We now are receiving inquiries and requests for information about this agave-based, polyculture/perennial system from desert and semi-desert areas all over the world, including Central America, the Southwestern U.S., Argentina, Chile, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia, Myanmar and Oman.
You can learn more about this Agave Power system on the websites of Regeneration International6 and the Organic Consumers Association.7
Primary Drivers of Regeneration and Degeneration

What I and others have learned “on the ground” trying to expand and scale-up regenerative and organic best practices is that there are four basic drivers of regenerative (or conversely degenerative) food, farming and land use.
The first is consumer awareness and market demand. Without an army of conscious consumers and widespread market demand, regenerative practices are unlikely to reach critical mass. Second is farmer, rancher and land stewardship innovation, including the development of value-added products and ecosystem restoration services.
The third driver is policy change and public funding, starting at the local and regional level. And last but not least is regenerative finance — large-scale investing on the part of the private sector, what is now commonly known as “impact investing.”
In order to qualitatively expand organic and regenerative best practices and achieve critical mass sufficient to transform our currently degenerative systems, we need all four of these drivers to be activated and working in synergy.
Let’s look now at four contemporary drivers of degeneration, degenerative food, farming and land use, in order to understand what the forces or drivers are that are holding us back from moving forward to regeneration.

1. Degenerated grassroots consciousness and morale — When literally billions of people, a critical mass of the 99%, are hungry, malnourished, scared and divided, struggling to survive with justice and dignity; when the majority of the global body politic are threatened and assaulted by a toxic environment and food system; when hundreds of millions are overwhelmed by economic stress due to low wages and the high cost of living; when hundreds of millions are weakened by chronic health problems, or battered by floods, droughts and weather extremes, regenerative change — Big Change — will not come easily.
Neither will it happen when seemingly endless wars and land grabs for water, land and strategic resources spiral out of control, or when indentured politicians, corporations, Big Tech and the mass media manipulate crises such as COVID-19 to stamp out freedom of expression and participatory democracy in order to force a “Business-as-Usual” or “Great Reset” paradigm down our throats.
Disempowered, exploited people, overwhelmed by the challenges of everyday survival, usually don’t have the luxury of connecting the dots between the issues that are pressing down on them and focusing on the Big Picture.
It’s the job of regenerators to connect the dots between the climate crisis and people’s everyday concerns such as food, health, jobs and economic justice, to globalize awareness, political mobilization and, most of all, to globalize hope.
It’s the job of regenerators to make the connections between personal and public health and planetary health, to expose the truth about the origins, nature, prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and chronic disease, and to mobilize the public to reject a so-called Great Reset disguised as fundamental reform, but actually a Trojan Horse for a 21st Century Technocracy that is profoundly antidemocratic and authoritarian.
Regenerators have to be able to make the connections between different issues and concerns, identify and support best practitioners and policies and build synergy between social forces, effectively lobby governments (starting at the local level), businesses and investors for change, all the while educating and organizing grassroots alliances and campaigns across communities, constituencies and even national borders.
But this of course will not be easy, nor will it take place overnight. Our profoundly destructive, degenerative, climate-destabilizing food and farming system, primarily based upon industrial agriculture inputs and practices, is held together by a multibillion-dollar system of marketing and advertising that has misled or literally brainwashed a global army of consumers into believing that cheap, artificially flavored, “fast food” is not only acceptable, but “normal” and “natural.”
After decades of consuming sugar, salt, carbohydrate-rich and “bad fat”-laden foods from industrial farms, animal factories and chemical manufacturing plants, many consumers have literally become addicted to the artificial flavors and aromas that make super-processed foods and “food-like substances” so popular.
2. Degenerate “conventional” farms, farming and livestock management — Compounding the lack of nutritional education, choice, poverty, inertia and apathy of a large segment of consumers, other major factors driving our degenerative food and farming system include the routine and deeply institutionalized practices of industrial and chemical-intensive farming and land use (monocropping, heavy plowing, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, GMOs, factory farms, deforestation, wetlands destruction) today.
These soil-, climate-, health- and environmentally-destructive practices are especially prevalent on the world’s 50 million large farms, which, in part, are kept in place by global government subsidies totaling $500 billion a year.
Meanwhile, there are few or no subsidies for organic or regenerative farmers, especially small farmers (80% of the world’s farmers are small farmers), nor for farmers and ranchers who seek to make this transition.
Reinforcing these multibillion-dollar subsidies for bad farming practices are a global network of chemical- and agribusiness-controlled agricultural research and teaching institutions, focused on producing cheap food and fiber (no matter what the cost to the environment, climate and public health) and agro-export agricultural commodities (often pesticide-intensive GMO grains).
What we need instead are subsidies, research and technical assistance for farmers and ranchers to produce healthy, organic and regenerative food for local, regional and domestic markets, rewarding farmers with a fair price for producing healthy food and being a steward, rather than a destroyer, of the environment.
Monopoly Control — Another driver of degeneration, holding back farmer adoption of regenerative practices and determining the type of food and crops that are produced, is the monopoly or near-monopoly control by giant agribusiness corporations over much of the food system, especially in industrialized countries, as well as the monopoly or near-monopoly control by giant retail chains such as Walmart and internet giants like Amazon.
The out-of-control “Foodopoly” that dominates our food system is designed to maximize short-term profits and exports for the large transnational corporations, preserve patents and monopoly control over seeds, and uphold international trade agreements (NAFTA, WTO) that favor corporate agribusiness and large farms over small farms; factory farms over traditional grazing and animal husbandry; and agro-exports instead of production for local and regional markets.
Food and farming is the largest industry in the world with consumers spending an estimated $7.5 trillion a year on food. In addition, the largely unacknowledged social, environmental and health costs (i.e., collateral damage) of the industrial food chain amounts to an additional $4.8 trillion a year.8
3. and 4. Degenerate public policy and public and private investments — Agriculture is the largest employer in the world with 570 million farmers and farm laborers supporting 3.5 billion people in rural households and communities.9 In addition to workers on the farm, food chain workers in processing, distribution and retail make up hundreds of millions of other jobs in the world, with over 20 million food chain workers in the U.S. alone (17.5% of the total workforce).
This makes public policy relating to food, farming and land use very important. Unfortunately, thousands of laws and regulations are passed every year, in every country and locality, that basically prop up conventional (i.e., industrial, factory farm, export-oriented, GMO) food and farming, while there is very little legislation passed or resources geared toward promoting organic and regenerative food and farming.
Trillions of dollars have been, and continue to be, invested in the so-called “conventional” food and farming sector, including trillions from the savings and pension funds of many conscious consumers, who would no doubt prefer their savings to be invested in a different manner, if they knew how to do this.
Unfortunately, only a tiny percentage of public or private investment is currently going toward organic, grass fed, free-range and other healthy foods produced by small and medium-sized farms and ranches for local and regional consumption.
Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy people, healthy climate, healthy societies — our physical and economic health, our very survival as a species, are directly connected to the soil, biodiversity and the health and fertility of our food and farming systems. Regenerative organic farming and land use can move us back into balance, back to a stable climate and a life-supporting environment.
It’s time to move beyond degenerate ethics, farming, land use, energy policies, politics and economics. It’s time to move beyond “too little, too late” mitigation and sustainability strategies. It’s time to inspire and mobilize a mighty global army of Regenerators, before it’s too late.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/09/regenerative-food-and-farming-the-road-forward.aspx

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest charitable foundation in the world,1 has an agricultural agenda that supports agrochemicals, patented seeds, fake meat and corporate control — interests that undermine regenerative, sustainable, small-scale farming. One of the key players in this agenda is the widespread adoption of synthetic meat.

Imitation meat company Impossible Foods was co-funded by Google, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates,2 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).3

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 2021.4 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.5

Gates, by the way, invests in fake meat companies and is buying up U.S. farmland at a frenzied pace. Ultimately, as you can hear in the interview above between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and social justice advocate Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., the Gates empire “will own everything.”6

Gates Invests in Fake Meat Companies

According to Gates, in order to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, fake meat will “be required.” He told MIT Technology Review:7

“In terms of livestock, it’s very difficult. There are all the things where they feed them different food, like there’s this one compound that gives you a 20% reduction [in methane emissions]. But sadly, those bacteria [in their digestive system that produce methane] are a necessary part of breaking down the grass.

And so I don’t know if there’ll be some natural approach there. I’m afraid the synthetic [protein alternatives like plant-based burgers] will be required for at least the beef thing.”

He then mentions Memphis Meats, which is producing synthetic meat in a lab via mass culturing stem cells from animals, often in a solution containing bovine serum, hormones, growth factors and other food additives.8 PR campaigns have gone so far as to call lab-grown meat “clean meat,” but research published in Environmental Science and Technology suggested it could actually require more intensive energy use compared to conventional meat.9

Gates says he thinks Memphis Meats will be too expensive to become widespread, “But Impossible and Beyond have a road map, a quality road map and a cost road map, that makes them totally competitive.” He’s referring to Impossible Foods, a leader in the fake meat industry that is producing plant-based “meat.”

Impossible Foods holds 14 patents, with at least 100 more pending.10 Beyond Meat is another leading producer of fake “beef,” “pork” and “chicken” products, which announced in 2020 that it would start producing some of its products in China.11

What many aren’t aware of, however, is that Gates is either personally invested in, or invested in via Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Beyond Meats, Impossible Foods, Memphis Meats and other companies he actively promotes.12 Gates told MIT:13

“As for scale today, they [Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat] don’t represent 1% of the meat in the world, but they’re on their way. And Breakthrough Energy has four different investments in this space for making the ingredients very efficiently …

Now I’ve said I can actually see a path. But you’re right that saying to people, ‘You can’t have cows anymore’ — talk about a politically unpopular approach to things.”

Gates isn’t stopping at fake meat, though. He’s also recently backed a biotechnology start-up company called Biomilq, which is developing lab-cultured breast milk.14

Gates: All Rich Countries Should Eat 100% Fake Beef

Whether or not it’s “unpopular” doesn’t matter, apparently, as Gates said he thinks rich countries should be eating all fake meat. When asked whether he thinks plant-based and lab-grown meats could “be the full solution to the protein problem globally,” he says that, in middle- to above-income countries, yes, and that people can “get used” to it:15

“I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.

So for meat in the middle-income-and-above countries, I do think it’s possible. But it’s one of those ones where, wow, you have to track it every year and see, and the politics [are challenging]. There are all these bills that say it’s got to be called, basically, lab garbage to be sold. They don’t want us to use the beef label.”

The irony of Bill Gates — who lives in a 66,000-square-foot mansion and travels in a private jet that uses up 486 gallons of fuel every hour16 — talking about how to save the environment isn’t lost on everyone.

The Nation criticized Gates’ contradictions, including the fact that, as a result of buying staggering amounts of farmland, he’s a major contributor to carbon emissions.17 His jet-setting lifestyle also makes him a carbon “super emitter”:18

“According to a 2019 academic study19 looking at extreme carbon emissions from the jet-setting elite, Bill Gates’s extensive travel by private jet likely makes him one of the world’s top carbon contributors — a veritable super emitter. In the list of 10 celebrities investigated — including Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, and Oprah Winfrey — Gates was the source of the most emissions.”

Gates Is the Largest Farmland Owner in the US

Bill Gates owns more farmland in the U.S. than any other private farmer, having purchased a total of 242,000 acres — much of it considered some of the richest soil in the U.S. — in the past few years.20 Conventional agriculture represents one of the greatest sources of pollution on the planet.

An estimated 80% of soil carbon in heavily farmed areas has already been lost,21 due to destructive plowing, overgrazing and the use of soil-destructive, carbon-depleting chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The jet-travel study alone pointed to Gates as one of the most problematic carbon emitters, and that without considering agricultural emissions. The Nation noted:22

“The study only looked at Gates’s jet travel, but might have also considered Gates’s emissions from his farmland, which includes large tracts of corn and soybeans, which typically goes to feed animals (often on factory farms) — a particularly carbon-intensive model of agriculture.”

Christine Nobiss, founder of the Great Plains Action Society, which is led by Indigenous people, accused Gates of colonization: “Bill Gates is smart enough to understand — he’s smart, he can do the math — that no one single person needs that amount of land. He’s basically participating in the never-ending cycle of colonization.”23

She’s among those who have suggested Gates give away his farmland as an act of reparations and as a way to ensure it’s used for sustainable food production, but as The Nation noted, that’s not going to happen:24

“Not that Gates is going to give up his vast farmland. Nor is he going to sell any of his houses — including his 66,000-square-foot mansion outside Seattle. He’s also not going to get rid of his private jet — a Bombardier BD-700 Global Express that consumes 486 gallons of fuel each hour. But, Bill Gates writes, he is going to start buying ‘sustainable jet fuel.’”

No Private Property for Americans, Except Gates

So what does Gates intend to do with all that farmland? That remains to be seen, but it’s worth noting that when you own the land, you also own the water that’s beneath it, and with his vast amounts of land, he can grow all the genetically engineered soy necessary to create the fake meat he’s so heavily pushing.

For those who control resources like food and water, power is limitless, and control of the food supply is part of “building back better.” Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Klaus Schwab first started circulating the idea of The Great Reset, of which “build back better” is an integral part of.

WEF has partnered with the EAT Forum, which will set the political agenda for global food production. The EAT Forum was cofounded by the Wellcome Trust, which in turn was established with the financial help of GlaxoSmithKline.

EAT collaborates with nearly 40 city governments across Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America and Australia, and maintains close relationships with imitation meat companies such as Impossible Foods.25 Gates is also a supporter of The Great Reset,26 which is curious since his massive accumulation of wealth and land is the opposite of what The Great Reset promotes.

In truth, wealthy technocrats will not redistribute their own wealth during the reset, but will only continue to grow their financial empires as the rest of the world consents to giving up their privacy and ownership of all property.27

In fact, EAT developed a Planetary Health Diet that is designed to be applied to the global population and entails cutting meat and dairy intake by up to 90%, replacing it largely with foods made in laboratories, along with cereals and oil.28 As Summit News reported:29

“[While] billionaire philanthropists and technocrats are acquiring land at an accelerating speed, they appear to be telling the general public that in the future private property will virtually cease to exist. In his books, World Economic Forum founder and globalist Klaus Schwab makes clear that the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ or ‘The Great Reset’ will lead to the abolition of private property.

That message is echoed on the WEF’s official website, which states, ‘Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city — or should I say, ‘our city.’ I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes.’

Apparently, you won’t be allowed to own any private property and your only recourse will be to live in a state of permanent dependency on a small number of rich elitists who own everything. That used to be called feudalism, which is a form of slavery.”
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/10/synthetic-fake-meat.aspx

Operation Mockingbird,1,2 publicly revealed during a 1975 Congressional hearing, was a clandestine CIA media infiltration campaign launched in 1948 under the Office of Special Projects.3
The CIA reportedly spent $1 billion a year (about one-third of its entire budget4) on under-the-table bribes to hundreds of American journalists who in return published fake stories at the CIA’s request. CIA-recruited journalists worked in most major news organizations, including CBS News, Time, Life, Newsweek and The New York Times, just to name a few.5 Later on, the campaign expanded to include foreign media as well.6 As reported by the Free Press:7

“In 1976, Senator Frank Church’s investigation into the CIA exposed their corruption of the media. The Church Committee reported: ‘The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda.

These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets’ …

The tactic was straightforward. False news reports or propaganda would be provided by CIA writers to knowing and unknowing reporters who would simply repeat the falsehoods over and over again.”

Reuters and BBC News Were Paid for Propaganda Campaign

While Operation Mockingbird may sound like ancient history, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest it’s still in full swing. During the Cold War, CIA propaganda disparaged communist ideologies. Today, it promotes radical socialist ideas that support a technocratic economic system instead.
While the propaganda messages change with the times, the basic modus operandi of their dissemination remains the same. If anything, the system has only gotten more efficient and effective, as the number of major media outlets has shrunk over these past decades, and a vast majority of journalists and news anchors simply parrot what’s reported by the three global news agencies.
The CIA also isn’t the only intelligence agency using the media for its own propaganda purposes. Leaked documents8 reveal Reuters and BBC News have been involved in a covert program by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to weaken Russia’s influence on its neighbors. In his extensive February 20, 2021, GrayZone article, Max Blumenthal writes:9

“Working through a shadowy department within the UK FCO known as the Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD), the media organizations operated alongside a collection of intelligence contractors in a secret entity known simply as ‘the Consortium.’

Through training programs of Russian journalists overseen by Reuters, the British Foreign Office sought to produce an ‘attitudinal change in the participants,’ promoting a ‘positive impact’ on their ‘perception of the UK’ …

In effect, the British government was seeking to infiltrate Russian media and propagate its own narrative through an influence network of Russian journalists trained in the UK …

‘These revelations show that when MPs were railing about Russia, British agents were using the BBC and Reuters to deploy precisely the same tactics that politicians and media commentators were accusing Russia of using,’ Chris Williamson, a former UK Labour MP who attempted to apply public scrutiny to the CDMD’s covert activities and was stonewalled on national security grounds, told The Grayzone.

‘The BBC and Reuters portray themselves as an unimpeachable, impartial, and authoritative source of world news,’ Williamson continued, ‘but both are now hugely compromised by these disclosures. Double standards like this just bring establishment politicians and corporate media hacks into further disrepute.’”

Reuters, BBC Hired to Promote Pro-NATO Narratives
The leaked documents show both Reuters and the BBC received “multimillion-dollar contracts to advance the British state’s interventionist aims.” The FCO funded:

The cultivation of Russian journalists
The establishment of “influence networks” in and around Russia
The promotion of pro-NATO narratives in Russian-speaking regions

In its proposals, Reuters stated it has 15,000 journalists and staff within its global network, including 400 journalists within Russia. Reuters and BBC carried out their covert influencing mission in partnership with other high-profile media companies, including Bellingcat, Meduza and Mediazona.
Overseeing the operation was the Zinc Network, an intelligence contractor, which was also responsible for the establishment of a network of Russian and Central Asian YouTubers who were not registered as external sources. The Zinc Network also claimed to have the ability to “activate a range of content; to support anti-government protests inside Russia.”
This isn’t the first time Reuters and the BBC have been implicated in a Mockingbird-type media influencing operation. Documents declassified in January 2020 showed the British government funded Reuters “throughout the 1960s and 1970s to assist an anti-Soviet propaganda organization run by the MI6 intelligence agency,” Blumenthal writes.10 The BBC, meanwhile, was used as “a pass-through to conceal payments” to Reuters.
180-Degrees From the Truth

It’s no small irony that most of the organizations claiming to promote truth and counter disinformation are in fact doing the exact opposite. The Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD) group sounds very much like the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The CCDH is an opaquely funded group run by Imran Ahmed, who is also a member of the Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government’s Commission for Countering Extremism.
Ahmed has gone on record saying he considers anti-vaxxers “an extremist group that pose a national security risk,”11 and admits tracking and spying on 425 vaccine-related Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter accounts.12
In addition to stating that medical and scientific professionals must “convince the public that COVID is dangerous and give them confidence that a vaccine is safe and effective,”13 the CCDH is also calling for deplatforming anyone who questions vaccines,14 and to “hold platforms accountable” through fines, criminal sanctions and other measures that can impact the platform’s bottom line.
So, just as the CDMD is actually not countering disinformation but, rather, creating it, the CCDH is not in the business of countering digital hate; it’s actively creating and promoting online hate by baselessly labeling millions of law-abiding parents — whose only crime is to be concerned about their children’s health — as extremist threats and enemies of the state.
Media Have Become Integral Part of Intelligence Spy Network
Other media reports15,16,17 have also highlighted the role of intelligence agencies in the global effort to eliminate “anti-vaccine propaganda” from public discussion, and the fact that they’re using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools to do so. For example, independent investigative journalist Whitney Webb writes:18

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

The UK’s GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters19] ‘has begun an offensive cyber-operation to disrupt anti-vaccine propaganda being spread by hostile states’ and ‘is using a toolkit developed to tackle disinformation and recruitment material peddled by Islamic State’ to do so.20

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

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

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

Intelligence-Led Information Warfare Against the Public
Clues that U.S. intelligence agencies — not just the CIA but also the FBI — support this cyberwar against the public can also be found in a white paper21 published in the InfraGard Journal in June 2019. InfraGard, a nonprofit national security group, collaborates with the FBI22 on educational and information-sharing initiatives “that help mitigate threats” to national security.23
The InfraGard paper24 claims the American anti-vaccine movement is being orchestrated by Russian government-aligned organizations seeking to “sow discontent and distrust in topics and initiatives that serve U.S. interests,”25 and that “The biggest threat in controlling an outbreak comes from those who categorically reject vaccination.”26
Primer’s ultimate goal is to use their AI to entirely automate the shaping of public perceptions and become the arbiter of ‘truth,’ as defined by the state. ~ Whitney Webb
Other evidence includes the fact that the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command have awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to the U.S.-based “machine intelligence” company Primer, to develop “the first-ever machine learning platform to automatically identify and assess suspected disinformation.”27
According to Webb, “Primer’s ultimate goal is to use their AI to entirely automate the shaping of public perceptions and become the arbiter of ‘truth,’ as defined by the state.”28
The self-appointed arbiter of truth NewsGuard — which rates websites on criteria of “credibility” and “transparency” — is also partnered with both the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Defense,29 which strongly suggests government support (if not direct involvement) of censorship.
NewsGuard is also funded by the PR firm Publicis, which also appears to have an important role in this information war. You can learn more about this part of the propaganda arm in “The Web of Players Trying to Silence Truth.” 
Most Mainstream Media Are Now Propagandists
Were it not for the mainstream media pumping out misleading if not flat-out false information on a daily basis for months on end, the COVID-19 pandemic would have been a mere blip on the public’s radar. None of the draconian, freedom-robbing measures would have been remotely possible.
Considering the consistency of the narratives across the world this past year, it’s inconceivable that there isn’t some central “agency” of sorts directing it all. And, if so, there clearly must be a reason behind it. One does not fear-monger for no reason whatsoever. It has a purpose.
Historically, fear has been used by every would-be authoritarian and totalitarian regime you can think of, so there’s every reason to suspect the same applies now. The main difference is that today’s totalitarian ruler is more or less wholly unknown.
Who is it that wants to rule the world’s population through fear? Who is trying to take control over the whole globe? Who is guiding and instructing virtually all government leaders? Intelligence agencies and their media partners undoubtedly play key roles, but they’re unlikely to be the true core of the power structure behind it all.
No, the real power and leadership resides with the technocratic elite, the members of which have quietly and diligently worked to forward the agenda of a New World Order (NWO) for decades. What was once known as the NWO is now referred to as the Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with a public focus on a “green” carbon-based economy.
The not so public focus is technological surveillance and control over every facet of everyone’s life, from health and civic involvement to labor, education and economy. Unfortunately, members of the technocracy no longer carry member cards or pay membership dues, which obscures their affiliation, but certain organizations are so intimately involved in furthering the Great Reset agenda that you can safely assume a majority of their members play some role in this scheme.
The Council on Foreign Relations

Aside from intelligence agencies, another key player behind the Great Reset is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). As explained by Swiss Policy Research, “Executives and top journalists of almost all major U.S. media outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations.”30
Not to be confused with the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations or the European Council on Foreign Relations, CFR is a nonprofit think tank, the 5,000-plus members of which also include past and present presidents, politicians, secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, academic professors and corporate leaders, just to name a few.31
CFR also operates the David Rockefeller Studies Program, which in turn advises the White House on foreign policy matters. Overall, the CFR wields incredible power and influence over the U.S. White House and its policies. As reported by Swiss Policy Research:32

“In his famous article about ‘The American Establishment,’ political columnist Richard H. Rovere noted: ‘The directors of the CFR make up a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation …

[I]t rarely fails to get one of its members, or at least one of its allies, into the White House. In fact, it generally is able to see to it that both nominees are men acceptable to it.’ It was not until the 2016 election that the Council couldn’t, apparently, prevail.”

The Synchronization of Fake News
CFR has two international affiliates: the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, both of which were established by CFR leaders “to foster elite cooperation at the global level.”
Well-known names in the Trilateral group’s U.S. branch include David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg and Google heavyweights Eric Schmidt and Susan Molinari, vice president for public policy at Google. Many of its board members are also members of the Aspen Institute, which grooms and mentors executives from around the world about the subtleties of globalization.
As you can see in the graphic below, major media are well represented in all three groups. As mentioned, CFR members also include current and former CIA directors. In his book, “American War Machine,”33,34 Peter Dale Scott also documents the ties between CFR, the CIA, the national security apparatus and the banking industry. Taken together, these ties explain how a false narrative (whatever it might be) can be so widely coordinated and synchronized.

>>>>> Click Here <<<<< Richard Stengel — Technocracy Poster Boy Knowing what you now know about the CFR, comments by Richard Stengel, the top state media appointee for President Biden’s transition team, will probably make a lot more sense. During a 2018 CFR forum on fake news, Stengel — a CFR member and Atlantic Council fellow, former State Department official for the Obama administration, former managing editor for Time magazine, strategic adviser to Snap Inc., which runs Snapchat and Bitmoji and a political analyst on MSNBC — insisted governments must use propaganda on their citizens.35 He repeated this sentiment in November 2020, after being appointed to President Biden’s transition team, saying he’s “not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”36 As reported by The GrayZone:37 “A committed crusader in what he openly describes as a global ‘information war,’ Stengel has proudly proclaimed his dedication to the careful management of the public’s access to information.” Stengel has even proposed abolishing — “rethinking” — the First Amendment, which guarantees the freedom of speech and press, “for practical reasons in society.”38 Stengel’s presence in the Biden administration may be an augury of things to come, considering he created a nonclassified government entity during his Obama years, specifically to combat Russian disinformation.39 This entity, the Global Engagement Center, now facilitates the U.S. government’s efforts to spread its own propaganda around the world. Stengel, with his close ties to several key centers of technocratic power — the U.S. government, the CFR, the Atlantic Council, mainstream media and Big Tech — is a veritable poster boy for modern technocracy, which makes his shameless promotion of censorship and propaganda more than a little understandable. Pre-Mockingbird Media Manipulation While Operation Mockingbird has earned a place in history as a point at which the free press was compromised, in reality, the infiltration of the press occurred long before the 1950s. In his February 9, 1917, Congressional remarks, Congressman Oscar Callaway explained the origin and execution of the plan to control and manipulate public opinion and mindset through media, which had taken shape just two years earlier:40 “In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.” Operation Mockingbird was essentially the CIA’s effort to consolidate, while simultaneously expanding, this secret hold over the media some three decades later. It’s a sobering thought to realize that virtually no one alive today has ever been informed by a truly free and independent press. While the situation has surely deteriorated in more recent years, the covert use of mainstream media to manipulate and misdirect the public to protect the interests of the elite few has been par for the course for over 100 years. The Propaganda Multipliers When it comes to the actual dissemination of fake news and propaganda, news agencies play a central role, and there’s only three of them: The Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP). As explained in the Swiss Policy Research post, “The Propaganda Multiplier”:41 “The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world. A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in whole or in part on agency reports … 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of a U.S. and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed exclusively to the opposite side.” In short, until or unless at least one of these news agencies sends out a notice, national and local media are unlikely to report on an event. Even photos and videos are typically sourced directly from these global news agencies. This way, people hear, see and read the exact same message everywhere. “This dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics, using many of the same phrases — a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated with ‘controlled media’ in authoritarian states,” Swiss Policy Research writes.42 Even media outlets that have foreign correspondents on their payroll do not expect those correspondents to conduct independent investigations. They too simply report whatever the Big Three news agencies want covered, and from the angle they want it covered. What you end up with is a sort of echo-chamber where only one view is presented. As one might expect, this setup makes for a perfect propaganda machine. As noted by Swiss Policy Research, “Due to the rather low journalistic performance of the mainstream media and their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience.” Intelligence agencies and defense ministries are well aware of this and use it with regularity, as surely does the CFR and the rest of the technocratic apparatus. In short, the current censoring and labeling of anything that threatens the technocratic agenda and the profiteering of its members as “misinformation” and “disinformation” is a top-down scheme. It’s not random, by any means, and it’s not driven by the opinions of private companies themselves. Social media companies, for example, are mere tools for the technocratic deep state, which operates worldwide.  The question then becomes, if propaganda is that deeply entrenched in our media structure, how do we know what is true and what is not? There’s no easy answer to this question, but the solution involves first becoming aware of the fact that media lies, and that there is a reason for why the media narrative is what it is. One way to evaluate the news is to ask yourself, “Why might they want me to think of this in this particular way?” Eventually, patterns begin to form. Ultimately, to find the truth, you must be willing to look for it, and to look in places outside the mainstream media consortium. You have to ask questions and reason your way through the information you find. If something doesn’t make sense yet you’re told to accept it without question, it’s probably propaganda. Any number of COVID-19 restrictions, for example, have been illogical in the extreme, which tells us they’re not about protecting people from infection. It’s about something else, and that something else has often been the purposeful destruction of small businesses to facilitate wealth transfer from the middle- and lower class to the top echelon. Ultimately, that is the plan, and to stop it, we have to stop believing the propaganda. It’s just that simple. And that challenging.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/10/reuters-bbc-were-paid-for-propaganda-campaign.aspx

The rich flavonoid content found in hawthorn berries (genus Crataegus) has helped reverse the effects of cardiovascular disease, improve skin and support digestion and liver metabolism.1

Nearly 6 in every 10 adults living in the U.S. have at least one chronic disease and 4 of every 10 have two or more, which are the leading causes of death and disability.2 You can make a difference in your overall health and reduce your risk of many chronic diseases through lifestyle choices. In some cases, you’ll choose to stop something, and in others, you’ll choose to start.

According to the American Heart Association,3 nearly 50% of all adults living in the U.S. are affected by cardiovascular disease. This umbrella term includes several conditions, including heart disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, heart failure, high blood pressure and cardiac arrhythmias.4

Cardiovascular diseases affect the heart and supportive tissues that deliver blood, oxygen and nutrients throughout your body. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,5 heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and stroke is No. 5. Atherosclerosis is a significant factor associated with cardiovascular disease.

Yet, there are choices you can make that have an impact on your health, even after chronic diseases have developed. Consuming hawthorn berries or their extract may be one of those choices.

Hawthorn Berries Are Good for Your Heart

The medicinal use of hawthorn berries dates back to 659 AD in China.6 By the early 1800s, doctors in the U.S. were using it to treat heart conditions, including high blood pressure, heart failure and atherosclerosis.7

Modern research studies have found hawthorn berry extract demonstrates anti-atherosclerotic effects that may be related to signaling pathways affecting inflammation and apoptosis.8 Scientists have discovered four principal pathways in which hawthorn berries influence the cardiovascular system.9 These include antioxidation, anti-inflammatory, endothelial protection and lipid-lowering properties.

A review of the literature found the flavones in hawthorn demonstrated the ability to mitigate endothelial impairment following a coronary bypass graft operation. Hawthorn extract has also demonstrated the ability to maintain normal endothelial function in the lab and in vivo.

The extract helps reduce lipid retention and vascular plaque formation. This starts a process that ultimately reduces the production of inflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species (ROS). In turn, this helps maintain normal function and protect the vascular system from infiltration of circulating macrophages and monocytes, thus continuing to reduce inflammation.

Several human trials have demonstrated that participants taking hawthorn extract could increase their working capacity and reduce the symptoms of congestive heart failure.10 In one study11 of 952 patients with documented heart failure, researchers found those who received hawthorn as an add-on therapy for two years demonstrated significantly fewer symptoms of congestive heart failure — fatigue, dyspnea and palpitations.

Vascular protection also includes the ability to support calcium signaling activity in the heart and blood vessels.12 Several animal studies have shown that hawthorn acts as a vasodilator,13 including acting to raise levels of nitric oxide.14,15

In one 16-week study16 of individuals with Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, participants took 1,200 milligrams (mg) of hawthorn extract each day or a placebo. Those taking the extract demonstrated greater improvements in blood pressure over the placebo group. The researchers reported no interactions with the drugs the patients were already taking and there were only minor health complaints in both groups.

Liver Metabolism Benefits From Hawthorn Berries

Hawthorn berries also have traditionally been used to treat digestive issues, including constipation. The berries contain fiber that acts as a prebiotic to feed your healthy gut bacteria. In one animal study, those treated with hawthorn extract reduced the transit time of food in the digestive tract.17

In another animal study using rats with stomach ulcers, the extract showed protective effects on the stomach lining similar to those of an anti-ulcer medication.18 Hawthorn extract has also demonstrated the ability to lessen fat accumulation within the liver in animals fed a high-fat diet.

Fat accumulation in the liver that occurs without alcohol use is called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).19 A more severe form is called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which triggers swelling and permanent damage to the organ.

Liver diseases are emerging as a global health concern, and NAFLD and alcoholic liver disease are the two most common.20 Although there is a wide variation found from country to country, the pooled prevalence globally is 25.24% of the population.

The highest prevalence has been found in the Middle East and South American countries, and the lowest prevalence is found in Africa. In the U.S. and North America, the prevalence is between 21% and 24.7%. In one animal study,21 researchers found that hawthorn leaf flavonoids, the most bioactive extracts found in hawthorn leaves, had a positive influence over diet-induced hepatic steatosis.

They also discovered the supplementation lowered the animals’ body weight and liver weight, and improved serum parameters and liver function. It appeared this was the result of increasing circulating adiponectin levels, which is a hormone involved in the regulation of glucose and fatty acid breakdown.

In addition, it activated AMPK. This led the researchers to conclude that hawthorn leaf extract helps ameliorate “hepatic steatosis by enhancing the adiponectin/AMPK pathway in the liver of HFD [high fat diet] induced NAFLD rats.”22

Antiaging Benefits Include Protection Against Wrinkles

Polyphenols have long been studied for the contribution they make helping to protect your skin from ultraviolet light and modulating skin characteristics. While hawthorn berry is rich in flavonoids, it is highest in proanthocyanidins, oligomeric proanthocyanidin (OPCs) or procyanidolic oligomers (PCOs).23 An analysis of hawthorn extract using high-performance liquid chromatography showed it was also high in epicatechins.24

The combination of chlorogenic acid, proanthocyanidins B2 and epicatechins accounted for 51.4% of the total amount of polyphenols in the fruit. These compounds are strong antioxidants. Like other areas of your body, the connective tissue in your skin is subject to the damaging effects of chronic inflammation and reactive oxygen species.25

Studies have demonstrated the powerful effects that epicatechins and proanthocyanidins have on photoprotection and the structure and function of your skin. One study26 evaluated the effect hawthorn extract has on skin aging triggered by UVB light that increases matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) production and the degradation of collagen.

This combination of damage from UVB light leads to the formation of wrinkles. Using an animal model, the researchers found treatments reversed epidermal thickening and damage caused by UVB light, which “suppressed MMP expression and stimulated the production of type I procollagen.”27 This suggested to the researchers that hawthorn extract may help “prevent UVB radiation-induced skin photoaging.”28

Another review of the literature29 found PCO and quercetin are specific bioflavonoids that are beneficial to connective tissue as they are associated with increased local circulation and promote the development of a strong collagen matrix.

Catechins are also strong antioxidants that have demonstrated anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. In one study30 using green tea polyphenols, researchers engaged 60 women in a 12-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. The intervention group drank a beverage with 1,402 mg of total catechins per day.

Their skin structure, function and photoprotection were measured throughout the study. After exposure to a solar simulator, researchers found that those drinking the polyphenol beverage had better oxygen delivery and blood flow to the skin. The structural characteristics of the skin that were positively affected in the experimental group included density, elasticity, roughness and scaling.

What Is Hawthorn Berry?

The hawthorn plant is native to Northern temperate zones and commonly found in North America. It grows wild and is also cultivated as a garden ornamental.31 It’s commonly called a thornapple in reference to the apple-like fruit and thorns that protect the plant. They are sometimes planted as a thorny hedged barrier against livestock.

The plant is a member of the rose family. In the early spring, the plant has white or pink flowers that are followed by small apple-like fruit, which can range in color from red to black. Although the fruit can vary in flavor and texture, depending on the hawthorn plant, they are edible and, as I already mentioned, often used as herbal medicine.

Depending on the species, the plants can grow as a shorter rounded bush or a tree, reaching up to 25 feet tall. You’ll find hawthorn trees at nurseries as either seedlings or grafted trees.32 The plants enjoy full or partial sun and are susceptible to a number of diseases.33

If you decide to plant one in your garden, look for a variety that is disease-resistant. If you’re not using it as a barrier, avoid planting a tree with thorns as the thorns can grow up to 3 inches long. Although the trees don’t need much pruning, it’s wise to remove the suckers that come from the base of the trunk as they increase the size and density of the plant as it ages.

At one time, the hawthorn tree was known as the “bread and cheese tree” since the flowers, berries and leaves are safe to eat and it was a lifesaver during times of famine.34 The berries are also sometimes used to make wine, jam or syrup.

Easy Steps to Add Hawthorn to Your Diet

Hawthorn berries are likely going to be difficult to find at your local grocery store. However, you may find them sold at farmers markets, online or at specialty health food stores. There are several different ways you can incorporate them into your diet. The raw berries have a slightly sweet, yet tart taste and make a great snack.35

However, while the berries are not poisonous, the seeds are. The seeds contain amygdalin, which converts to deadly hydrogen cyanide in your small intestines.36 An adult may tolerate one or two seeds, but even this small amount in a child may be lethal.

You can also find hawthorn tea made with leaves or berries, or you can dry them and make your own tea at home.37 Hawthorn supplements are also available. According to a paper in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology38 from the Foundation Task Force on Clinical Expert Consensus Documents, the minimum effective dose of hawthorn extract for cardiac performance is 300 mg per day.

The authors found that the maximum benefit in most of the trials they reviewed was found after six to eight weeks of taking the supplement. Improved exercise tolerance in individuals with congestive heart failure was demonstrated in several studies they reviewed. The preparation was also found to be “well-tolerated and safe.”39
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/08/hawthorn-berry-health-benefits.aspx

As reported by New Delhi-based World Is One News (WION),1 Pfizer is demanding countries put up sovereign assets as collateral for expected vaccine injury lawsuits resulting from its COVID-19 inoculation. In other words, it wants governments to guarantee the company will be compensated for any expenses resulting from injury lawsuits against it.
WION reports that Argentina and Brazil have rejected Pfizer’s demands. Initially, the company demanded indemnification legislation to be enacted, such as that which it enjoys in the U.S. Argentina proposed legislation that would restrict Pfizer’s financial responsibility for injuries to those resulting from negligence or malice.
Pfizer rejected the proposal. It also rejected a rewritten proposal that included a clearer definition of negligence. Pfizer then demanded the Argentinian government put up sovereign assets — including its bank reserves, military bases and embassy buildings — as collateral. Argentina refused. A similar situation occurred in Brazil. Pfizer demanded Brazil:

“Waive sovereignty of its assets abroad in favor of Pfizer”
Not apply its domestic laws to the company
Not penalize Pfizer for vaccine delivery delays
Exempt Pfizer from all civil liability for side effects

Brazil rejected Pfizer’s demands, calling them “abusive.” As noted by WION, Pfizer developed its vaccine with the help of government funding, and now it — a private company — is demanding governments hand over sovereign assets to ensure the company won’t lose a dime if its product injures people, even if those injuries are the result of negligent company practices, fraud or malice.
Some liability protection is warranted, but certainly not for fraud, gross negligence, mismanagement, failure to follow good manufacturing practices. Companies have no right to ask for indemnity for these things. ~ Lawrence Gostlin, Law Professor

Aside from Argentina and Brazil, nine other South American countries have reportedly negotiated deals with Pfizer. It’s unclear whether they actually ended up giving up national assets in return.2
Vaccine Maker Accused of Abusing Its Power

According to STAT News,3 “Legal experts have raised concerns that Pfizer’s demands amount to an abuse of power.” Lawrence Gostin, law professor at Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law told STAT:4

“Pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t be using their power to limit lifesaving vaccines in low- and middle-income countries. [This] seems to be exactly what they’re doing … Some liability protection is warranted, but certainly not for fraud, gross negligence, mismanagement, failure to follow good manufacturing practices. Companies have no right to ask for indemnity for these things.”

Mark Eccleston-Turner, a lecturer in global health law at Keele University in England, added:5

“[Pfizer] is trying to eke out as much profit and minimize its risk at every juncture with this vaccine development then this vaccine rollout. Now, the vaccine development has been heavily subsidized already. So there’s very minimal risk for the manufacturer involved there.”

Don’t Expect Compensation if Injured by COVID-19 Vaccine

In the U.S., vaccine makers already enjoy full indemnity against injuries occurring from this or any other pandemic vaccine under the PREP Act. If you’re injured, you’d have to file a compensation claim with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP),6 which is funded by U.S. taxpayers via Congressional appropriation to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

While similar to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), which applies to nonpandemic vaccines, the CICP is even less generous when it comes to compensation. For example, while the NVICP pays some of the costs associated with any given claim, the CICP does not. This means you’ll also be responsible for attorney fees and expert witness fees.
A significant problem with the CICP is that it’s administered within the DHHS, which is also sponsoring the COVID-19 vaccination program. This conflict of interest makes the CICP less than likely to find fault with the vaccine.
Your only route of appeal is within the DHHS, where your case would simply be reviewed by another employee. The DHHS is also responsible for making the payment, so the DHHS effectively acts as judge, jury and defendant. As reported by Dr. Meryl Nass,7 the maximum payout you can receive — even in cases of permanent disability or death — is $250,000 per person; however, you’d have to exhaust your private insurance policy before the CICP gives you a dime.
CICP will only pay the difference between what your insurance covers and the total payout amount established for your case. For permanent disability, even $250,000 won’t go far. The CICP also has a one year statute of limitations, so you have to act quickly.
This too is a significant problem, as no one really knows what injuries might arise from the COVID-19 vaccine, or when, and this makes tying the injury to the vaccination a difficult prospect. Employers that mandate the COVID-19 vaccine will also be indemnified from liability for side effects. Instead, claims will be routed through worker’s compensation programs.

If the COVID-19 vaccines are as safe as the manufacturers claim, why do they insist on so much indemnification? Do they suspect or know something they’re refusing to admit publicly?
Side Effects Are Inevitable
Of course, those of us who have been looking at the science behind the mRNA technology used to create these novel “vaccines” have long since realized there are tremendous risks involved. For starters, mRNA vaccines are most accurately referred to as gene therapies, as this is what they are.

They effectively turn your cells into bioreactors that churn out viral proteins to incite an immune response, and there’s no off-switch.8 Based on historical and preliminary evidence, significant short- and long-term side effects are, quite frankly, inevitable.
For starters, your body sees the synthetic mRNA as “non-self,” which can cause autoantibodies to attack your own tissues. Judy Mikovits, Ph.D., explained this in her interview, featured in “How COVID-19 ‘Vaccines’ May Destroy the Lives of Millions.”
Free mRNA also drive inflammatory diseases, which is why making synthetic mRNA thermostable — i.e., slowing the breakdown of the RNA by encasing it in lipid nanoparticles — is likely to be problematic. The nanoparticles themselves also pose a risk. COVID-19 vaccines use PEGylated lipid nanoparticles, which is known to cause allergic reactions and anaphylaxis.9,10
What’s more, previous attempts to develop an mRNA-based drug using lipid nanoparticles failed and had to be abandoned because when the dose was too low, the drug had no effect, and when dosed too high, the drug became too toxic.11 An obvious question is: What has changed that now makes this technology safe enough for mass use?
As detailed in my interview with Mikovits, the synthetic RNA influences the gene syncytin, which can result in:

Brain inflammation
Dysregulated communication between the microglia in your brain, which are critical for clearing toxins and pathogens
Dysregulated immune system
Dysregulated endocannabinoid system (which calms inflammation)

Pathogenic Priming and Antibody-Dependent Enhancement
Another significant problem is that we don’t know whether antibody production is protective or pathogenic in coronavirus infections. If pathogenic, vaccinated individuals may be at increased risk of severe illness if they’re exposed to SARS-CoV-2 in the future. As reported in a December 11, 2020, Vaccine: X paper:12

“The first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine(s) will likely be licensed based on neutralizing antibodies in Phase 2 trials, but there are significant concerns about using antibody response in coronavirus infections as a sole metric of protective immunity.
Antibody response is often a poor marker of prior coronavirus infection, particularly in mild infections, and is shorter-lived than virus-reactive T-cells … Strong antibody response correlates with more severe clinical disease while T-cell response is correlated with less severe disease; and antibody-dependent enhancement of pathology and clinical severity has been described.
Indeed, it is unclear whether antibody production is protective or pathogenic in coronavirus infections. Early data with SARS-CoV-2 support these findings. Data from coronavirus infections in animals and humans emphasize the generation of a high-quality T cell response in protective immunity.”

A number of reports in the medical literature have indeed highlighted the risk of pathogenic priming and antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). As explained in “Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire? Due Diligence Warranted for ADE in COVID-19”:13

“ADE is an immunological phenomenon whereby a previous immune response to a virus can render an individual more susceptible to a subsequent analogous infection.
Rather than viral recognition and clearance, the prior development of virus-specific antibodies at a non-neutralizing level can facilitate viral uptake, enhancing replication; a possible immune evasion strategy avoiding intracellular innate immune sensors, or pattern recognition receptors …
ADE of SARS-CoV has also been described14 through a novel Fc?RII-dependent and ACE2-independent cell entry mechanism. The authors state15 that this warrants concern in the safety evaluation of any candidate human vaccines against SARS-CoV.”

Similarly, “Pathogenic Priming Likely Contributes to Serious and Critical Illness and Mortality in COVID-19 Via Autoimmunity,” published in the Journal of Translational Autoimmunity, warns that:16

“Failure of SARS and MERS vaccines in animal trials involved pathogenesis consistent with an immunological priming that could involve autoimmunity in lung tissues due to previous exposure to the SARS and MERS spike protein. Exposure pathogenesis to SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 likely will lead to similar outcomes.”

So, to be clear, what all of this means is that if you get vaccinated, you may actually be at increased risk for serious illness if/when you’re exposed to any number of mutated SARS-CoV-2 strains in the future.
This is why the recommendation to vaccinate individuals who have previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2, or who have an active SARS-CoV-2 infection, may actually be quite dangerous. Dr. Hooman Noorchashm recently sent a public letter17 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner detailing these risks.
How mRNA Injections May Trigger Prion Disease

What’s more, in a paper18 titled, “COVID-19 RNA Based Vaccines and the Risk of Prion Disease,” published in Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Dr. Bart Classen warns there are also troubling evidences suggesting some of the mRNA shots may cause prion diseases such as Alzheimer’s and ALS. He writes:

“In the current paper, the concern is raised that the RNA based COVID vaccines have the potential to cause more disease than the epidemic of COVID-19. This paper focuses on a novel potential adverse event mechanism causing prion disease which could be even more common and debilitating than the viral infection the vaccine is designed to prevent …
Analysis of the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19 identified two potential risk factors for inducing prion disease is humans. The RNA sequence in the vaccine contains sequences believed to induce TDP-43 and FUS to aggregate in their prion based conformation leading to the development of common neurodegerative diseases.
In particular it has been shown that RNA sequences GGUA, UG rich sequences, UG tandem repeats, and G Quadruplex sequences, have increased affinity to bind TDP-43 and or FUS and may cause TDP-43 or FUS to take their pathologic configurations in the cytoplasm.
In the current analysis a total of sixteen UG tandem repeats were identified and additional UG rich sequences were identified. Two GG?A sequences were found. G Quadruplex sequences are possibly present but sophisticated computer programs are needed to verify these.
The spike protein encoded by the vaccine binds angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), an enzyme which contains zinc molecules. The binding of spike protein to ACE2 has the potential to release the zinc molecule, an ion that causes TDP-43 to assume its pathologic prion transformation.”

mRNA Technology Has Potential to Cause Microvascular Injury
Additionally, Dr. J. Patrick Whelan, a pediatric rheumatologist specializing in multisystem inflammatory syndrome, submitted a public comment19 to the FDA back in December 2020, in which he expressed concern that mRNA vaccines have “the potential to cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys in ways that were not assessed in safety trials.”
He cited research showing that “the spike protein in brain endothelial cells is associated with formation of microthrombi (clots),” and that since no viral RNA has been found in brain endothelium, “viral proteins appear to cause tissue damage without actively replicating virus.”

“Is it possible the spike protein itself causes the tissue damage associated with Covid-19?” he asks. “In 13/13 brains from patients with fatal COVID-19, pseudovirions (spike, envelope, and membrane proteins) without viral RNA are present in the endothelia of cerebral microvessels …
It appears that the viral spike protein that is the target of the major SARS-CoV-2 vaccines is also one of the key agents causing the damage to distant organs that may include the brain, heart, lung, and kidney.
Before any of these vaccines are approved for widespread use in humans, it is important to assess in vaccinated subjects the effects of vaccination on the heart … Vaccinated patients could also be tested for distant tissue damage in deltoid area skin biopsies …”
Reports of Side Effects Are Rapidly Mounting
Around the world, reports are now pouring in of people dying shortly after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. In many cases, they die suddenly within hours of getting the shot. In others, death occurs within the span of a couple of weeks.

In the wake of 29 senior citizen deaths,20 Norway is reportedly considering excluding the very old and terminally ill from getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. According to the Norwegian Medicines Agency:21

“Most people have experienced the expected side effects of the vaccine, such as nausea and vomiting, fever, local reactions at the injection site, and worsening of their underlying condition.”

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health further noted that “for those with the most severe frailty, even relatively mild vaccine side effects can have serious consequences,” and that “For those who have a very short remaining life span anyway, the benefit of the vaccine may be marginal or irrelevant.”22

In Sweden, hospitals in Sörmland and Gävleborg suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine in mid-February 2021 after a full quarter of the vaccinated hospital staff reported side effects. To prevent staff shortages and conduct an investigation, the vaccination push was temporarily paused.23 Examples of side effects reported after vaccination with Pfizer’s, Moderna’s and AstraZeneca’s vaccines from around the world include:

Persistent malaise24,25Bell’s Palsy26,27,28

Extreme exhaustion29Swollen, painful lymph nodes

Severe allergic, including anaphylactic reactions30,31,32Thrombocytopenia (a rare, often lethal blood disorder)33,34

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome35Miscarriages36,37

Chronic seizures and convulsions38,39Severe headache/migraine that does not respond to medication

Paralysis40Sleep disturbances

Psychological effects such as mood changes, anxiety, depression, brain fog, confusion, dissociation and temporary inability to form wordsCardiac problems, including myocardial and tachycardia disorders41

Blindness, impaired vision and eye disorders42,43Stroke44,45

In the U.K., there were 49,472 reported side effects to the Pfizer vaccine and 21,032 reactions to the AstraZeneca vaccine as of January 24, 2021. As reported by Principia Scientific International,46 “For both vaccines this equates to 1 in every 333 people suffering an adverse reaction. This rate could actually be higher as some cases may have not been reported …”
Greatest Risk of All: Sudden Death

Perhaps most concerning of all are rapidly mounting reports of sudden death,47,48,49,50,51,52 mostly in the elderly but also in much younger, healthy individuals. In the U.S., COVID-19 vaccines accounted for 70% of vaccine-related deaths between January 2020 and January 2021.

As of February 12, 2021, the number of side effects reported to VAERS totaled 15,923, including 929 deaths.53 Of the 799 deaths reported within the U.S., one-third occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 21% of them were cardiac-related.
Pfizer’s vaccine was the most dangerous in terms of death, being responsible for 58% of deaths while Moderna’s vaccine accounted for 41% of deaths. Pfizer’s vaccine was also responsible for 75% of Bell’s Palsy cases, compared to Moderna’s at 25%.54
Curiously, based on the data submitted to the FDA, Moderna’s vaccine has a death rate 5.41 times higher than Pfizer’s, yet both are dramatically lower than the national average. As noted by The Defender, the dramatic discrepancy in death rates “deserves notice and requires explanation,” adding:55

“If Moderna’s on-vaccine death rate is so far below the national death rate and also simultaneously more than five times greater than Pfizer’s on-vaccine death rate, then Pfizer’s study sample appears even less representative of the entire population …
Moderna’s screening process and exclusion criteria in the trial led to evidence that the general population is dying at a rate 6.3 times greater than the death rate in the Moderna trial — which means the Moderna study, including its estimated efficacy rate and the vaccine’s alleged safety profile — cannot possibly be relevant to most of the U.S. population.
The super-healthy cohorts studied by Moderna are in no way representative of the U.S. population. Most deaths from COVID-19 involve pre-existing health conditions of the types excluded from both Pfizer and Moderna trials …
Those enrolling in the post-market surveillance studies deserve to know the abject absence of any relevant information on efficacy and risk for them. In their zeal to help humanity, or to help themselves, these people may very well be walking into a situation that will cause autoimmunity due to pathogenic priming, potentially leading to disease enhancement should they become infected following vaccination.”

Do a Risk-Benefit Analysis Before Making Up Your Mind
To avoid becoming a sad statistic, I urge you to review the science very carefully before making up your mind about this experimental gene therapy. Also remember that the lethality of COVID-19 is actually surprisingly low. It’s lower than the flu for those under the age of 60.56

If you’re under the age of 40, your risk of dying from COVID-19 is just 0.01%, meaning you have a 99.99% chance of surviving the infection. And you could improve that to 99.999% if you’re metabolically flexible, insulin sensitive, and vitamin D replete.

So, really, what are we protecting against with a COVID-19 vaccine? These mRNA vaccines aren’t even designed to prevent infection, only to reduce the severity of symptoms. Meanwhile, they could potentially make you sicker once you’re exposed to the virus, and/or cause persistent serious side effects such as those reviewed above.
While I won’t tell anyone what to do, I would urge you to take the time to review the science and weigh the potential risks and benefits based on your individual situation before you make a decision that you may regret for the rest of your life, which can actually be shortened with this vaccine. Undoubtedly, Pfizer and other vaccine makers suspect this as well, which is why Pfizer is bullying nations into covering for any and all of its mistakes.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/08/pfizer-covid-vaccine.aspx