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Hawthorn Berries Can Benefit Your Heart, Liver and Skin

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

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Pfizer Bullies Nations to Put Up Collateral for Lawsuits

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

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Weekly Health Quiz: Face Masks, Vaccines and Pollution

1 Which of the following is a possible consequence of wearing a face mask?
Increased risk of bacterial and/or fungal infections
The humidity inside the mask will rapidly allow pathogenic bacteria to grow and multiply. By breathing through a microbe-infested mask, you risk inhaling these pathogens. Bacterial pneumonia, facial rashes, fungal infections on the face, “mask mouth” (bad breath, tooth decay and gum inflammation) and candida mouth infections have all risen after mask mandates were implemented. The presence of microbes in your lungs can also worsen lung cancer pathogenesis. Learn more.
Not needing a vaccine
Improved immune function
Increased risk of estrogen-sensitive cancers

2 Vaccine makers will typically test the safety of their vaccine against which of the following?
Saline injection
Another vaccine
Vaccine makers rarely use inert placebos (such as a saline shot), which is the gold standard for drug trials. Instead, they typically assess the safety of a new vaccine against another vaccine. This hides side effects, as most vaccines have side effects and risks. Learn more.
A generic drug
Nothing

3 Which of the following celebrities is the biggest greenhouse gas polluter?
Jennifer Lopez
Paris Hilton
Bill Gates
Gates is now promoting the technocratic “reset” plan, which includes an aggressive climate change agenda, yet Gates’ extensive travel by private jet makes him a top polluter. Learn more.
Oprah Winfrey

4 Which of the following statements is most accurate?
SARS-CoV-2 has been proven to be of natural zoonotic origin
Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have admitted they created SARS-CoV-2
SARS-CoV-2 is, provably, an intentionally released bioweapon
To date, no credible theory for natural zoonotic spillover has been presented
No credible theory for natural zoonotic spillover has been presented, to date. Meanwhile, there are at least four distinct lab origin theories, although there’s still no evidence to determine whether the release was accidental or on purpose. Learn more.

5 Which of the following statements is correct?
All available COVID-19 vaccines are under emergency use authorization only; human trials have not yet been completed
COVID-19 mRNA gene therapy “vaccines” are fast-tracked products released under emergency use authorization — animal trials were skipped and human trials aren’t even completed yet — and based on historical and preliminary evidence, significant short- and long-term side effects are inevitable. Learn more.
Two COVID-19 vaccines are fully licensed and approved by the FDA in the U.S.
COVID-19 vaccines are made with attenuated SARS-CoV-2 virus
COVID-19 vaccines make your body produce live SARS-CoV-2 virus

6 The infamous Milgram experiment of 1962 was designed to test the limits of:
Willpower
Human obedience to authority
In 1962, in a now infamous experiment, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram tested the limits of human obedience to authority. Learn more.
Emotional regulation
Linguistic warfare

 
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/08/week-172-health-quiz.aspx

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Bill Gates Wants to Realize Global Vision in His Lifetime

“Bill Gates — What You Were Not Told,” a segment of the Plandemic documentary,1 reviews the personal and professional background of the Microsoft mogul, Bill Gates. Contrary to popular myth, many see Gates as more of an opportunist than a genius inventor, and the video touches on several of the less honorable moments of his career.
After years of building a reputation as a “ruthless tech monopolizer,” Bill Gates 2.0 was launched with the creation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With this foundation, he reinvented and rebranded himself as one of the world’s most generous philanthropists.
Gates’ Charity Is Not What It Seems

Alas, as noted by AGRA Watch,2 Shiva Vandana, Ph.D., and others, Gates’ brand of philanthropy creates several new problems for each one it solves and can best be described as “philanthrocapitalism.” As noted in the AGRA Watch article, “Philanthrocapitalism: The Gates Foundation’s African Programs Are Not Charity,” published in December 2017, advocates of philanthrocapitalism:3

“… 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.”

Indeed, over the years, Gates has ended up in a position where he monopolizes or wields disproportional influence over not only the tech industry, but also global health and vaccines, agriculture and food policy (including biopiracy and fake food), weather modification and other climate technologies,4 surveillance, education and media.
Not surprisingly, he’s tied to online fact checker organizations that strangle free speech, and recently told “60 Minutes” that to combat mistrust in science, we need to find ways to “slow down the crazy stuff.”5 What’s “crazy” and what’s not, however, is rarely as clear-cut as the mainstream media would like you to believe.
And, like a true philanthrocapitalist, Gates’ generosity ends up benefiting himself most of all. As discussed in “Bill Gates — Most Dangerous Philanthropist in Modern History?” the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donates billions to the very same companies and industries that the foundation owns stocks and bonds in.
As Gates himself reveals in the featured video, he figured out that vaccines are phenomenal profit makers, saying they’re the best investment he’s ever made, with more than a 20-to-1 return. The one thing that allows for this is the liability shield vaccine makers have been given by the government.
Gates, Global Climate Czar

As mentioned in the featured video, Gates is financing an effort to divert solar rays from the Earth’s surface in an attempt to combat global warming — an irrational approach at best, considering the potential this has to devastate global agriculture.
His latest book also details his climate change recommendations, which just so happen to include urging governments to support the very companies he’s invested in and similar sleight-of-hand gestures.
Bill Gates’s extensive travel by private jet likely makes him one of the world’s top carbon contributors — a veritable super emitter. ~ The Nation
Meanwhile, as noted by The Nation, Gates himself is a serious polluter, with a 66,000 square-foot mansion, a private jet, 242,000 acres of farmland (which makes him the largest farmland owner in the U.S.) and investments in fossil fuel-dependent industries such as airlines, heavy machinery and cars.

“According to a 2019 academic study6 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,” The Nation writes.7

“In the list of 10 celebrities investigated — including Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, and Oprah Winfrey — Gates was the source of the most emissions. ‘Affluent individuals can emit several ten thousand times the amount of greenhouse gases attributed to the global poor,’ the paper noted. ‘This raises the question as to whether celebrity climate advocacy is even desirable …’”

Gates Leads the Technocratic Takeover

Gates’ focus on climate change makes perfect sense once you realize that he’s part of the technocratic elite that, for decades, have been working to gobble up the world’s resources in anticipation for the Great Reset, previously known as the One World Order.
Over the past year, the need for the Great Reset has been announced by government leaders around the world, the clarion call being that we need to “reset” the global economy and the way we live, work, travel and socialize in order to make the world more fair and sustainable. Addressing climate change under the banner of a global emergency is part and parcel of that PR campaign.
If you’ve paid attention, you’ve probably seen the hints. During the initial lockdowns in the early part of 2020, there were a slew of articles talking about how nature and wildlife were thriving in the absence of human socialization and travel. At other times, the COVID-19 pandemic has been presented as a warning to us all as to what happens when you get out of sync with nature.
No Real Food for You

Gates clearly feels pressure to do his part to realize the technocratic dream. He told “60 Minutes”8 he is eager to see his various visions come to fruition within his lifetime, and he guesses he might have 20 or 30 years left. As reported by ZeroHedge:9

“Gates is pushing drastic and ‘fundamental’ changes to the economy in order to immediately halt the release of greenhouse gasses — primarily carbon dioxide— and ‘go to zero’ in order to save the planet from long-prognosticated (and consistently wrong) environmental disaster. Changes we’ll need to make in order to realize Gates’ vision include:

Allocating $35 billion per year on climate and clean energy research.
Electric everything.
Widespread consumption of fake meat, since cows account for ‘4% of all greenhouse gases.’
Retooling the steel and cement industries, which Gates says account for 16% of all carbon dioxide emissions, to inject up to 30% of captured C02 into concrete, and create a different type of steel.
Widespread adoption of next generation nuclear energy to supplement wind and solar.

And since producing plants to make fake meat emits gases as well, Gates has backed a company which uses fungus to make sausage and yogurt, which the billionaire calls ‘pretty amazing’ … ‘The microbe was discovered in the ground in a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Without soil or fertilizer it can be grown to produce this nutritional protein — that can then be turned into a variety of foods with a small carbon footprint.’”

Indeed, Gates would like wealthy Western nations to switch entirely to synthetic lab-grown beef, and rails against legislative attempts to make sure fake meats are properly labeled as such, since that slows down public acceptance.10
Gates Again Proves Feudalism Is a Failed System
With his land ownership, Gates clearly is in a monopoly position (yet again!) to drive agriculture and food production in whatever direction he desires, and he wants us all to eat as much fake food as possible. As noted in a long and detailed article on Gates’ philanthrocapitalist endeavors by The Defender:11

“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.”

The article 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 then, 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.12 “The 2020 study ‘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 …

His investment history suggests that the climate crisis, for Gates and his cronies, is no more than an alibi for intrusive social control, ‘Great Reset’-scale surveillance, and massive science fiction geoengineering boondoggles, including his demented and terrifying vanity projects to spray the stratosphere with calcium chloride or seawater to slow warming, to deploy giant balloons to saturate our atmosphere with reflective particles to blot out the sun, or his perilous gambit of releasing millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in South Florida.

When we place these nightmare schemes in context alongside the battery of experimental vaccines he forces on 161 million African children annually, it’s pretty clear that Gates regards us all as his lab rats.”

Gates Foundation Seeded Catastrophic COVID-19 Policies

Gates, of course, has also played a leading role in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel who has a channel on Substack,13 Gates had a hand in the “criminally negligent coronavirus response policies” that killed an inordinate number of senior citizens in nursing homes in New York, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Schachtel points out that a common thread in these instances is that they listened to the frightfully inaccurate modeling forecasts from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which is funded and controlled by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He writes:14

“In March and early April, politicians were informed by the modeling ‘experts’ at Gates-funded IHME that their hospitals were about to be completely overrun by coronavirus patients.

Modelers from IHME claimed this massive surge would cause hospitals to run out of lifesaving equipment in a matter of days, not weeks or months. Time was of the essence, and now was the time for rapid decision making, the modelers claimed.

On two separate April 1 and April 2 press conferences, Cuomo made clear that his policy decisions were based off of the IHME model … In an April 9 briefing, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer referred to the IHME model in order to project deaths and the PPE resources needed for the supposed surge. It was the same story with the government of Pennsylvania.”

White House Coronavirus Task Force members Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, both of whom have substantial ties to Gates, also relied on the IHME forecast models. As noted by Schachtel:

“These models, and the policy decisions that were made by relying on them, set off a chain of events that led to indefinite lockdowns, complete business closures, statewide curfews, and most infamously, the nursing home death warrants.”

Delete That Which No Longer Serves
The Gates Foundation also co-sponsored Event 201, a scripted tabletop exercise held mere months before the COVID-19 outbreak that ended up being remarkably prophetic.
Strangely enough, in an April 2020 BBC interview, Gates denied the simulation had occurred, saying that “We didn’t simulate this, we didn’t practice, so both the health policies and economic policies, we find ourselves in uncharted territory.”15 In an article for National Herald India, Norbert Häring highlights Gates’ apparent forgetfulness, stating:16

“It is true that if a little less emphasis had been placed on opinion manipulation, more attention could have been paid to health and economic policy. One of the four meetings was entirely devoted to this. But health and economic policies did get discussed. Gates can hardly have forgotten that.

The video on control of public opinion is the most interesting one, as it helps to put in perspective the efforts in this regard, which we are currently experiencing. One participant tells us that Bill Gates is financing work on algorithms which comb through the information on social media platforms to make sure that people can trust the information that they find there.”

Gates has also erased other evidence where the truth is coming back to haunt him. Case in point: Gates-funded fact checkers have vehemently denied claims that Gates ever said we’ll need digital vaccine passports, passing it off as yet another crazy conspiracy theory.
But Gates did say that in a June 2020 TED Talk. Someone just edited that specific statement out of his speech after the quote started making the rounds on social media. In a December 11, 2020, article, The Defender presented the proof.17
Fact checkers also dismiss claims that subdermal microchips or digital tattoos will eventually be used to track and trace us, yet as noted by The Defender, Gates did commission MIT to develop an injectable quantum dot dye system to “tattoo” medical data on your body, and has patented technology that uses implanted biosensors that monitor body and brain activity and is tied to a crypto currency system.
He’s also invested tens of millions into microchip devices with remote-controlled drug-delivery systems, military contractors that track and trace pandemic infections and vaccine compliance, and has a greater than $1 billion investment in 5G video surveillance satellites and 5G antennas. When you put all of these things together, Gates’ plans start to take on a rather ominous feel.
Gates Is the Most Visible Figurehead of Modern Technocracy

Whether preplanned or not, the COVID-19 pandemic is clearly being used to usher in highly controversial changes that are unmistakably totalitarian-building, including the private take-over of government through public-private partnerships.
Surveillance has become the biggest for-profit industry on the planet, and your entire existence is now being targeted for profit. Among those who stand to profit the most is Gates himself.
For a better understanding of what you’re giving up by going along with the mainstream narrative that we need Big Tech to save us, see my article about social psychologist and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff and her extraordinary book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.”
You also won’t want to miss my interview with Patrick Wood, featured in “The Pressing Dangers of Technocracy.” He paints a picture that can be hard to swallow, especially if you’re just coming around to hearing about all of this for the first time, but it’s really crucial that everyone begin to understand what we’re facing.
Time is running out. To have any chance of stopping it, we must understand our trajectory, and unite to change the course Gates and others like him have set for us.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/03/bill-gates-harrowing-vision-for-the-world.aspx

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A Healthy Gut to Help Combat COVID

Clinical trials are currently underway to determine if probiotics can help reduce the severity of COVID-19 and improve recovery, as your gut microbiota plays an important role in your overall health. In the past months, doctors and researchers have also discovered that people with poor gut health have a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

As well as influencing digestion and immunity, scientists have discovered you have a gut-brain axis and a gut-lung axis. The gut-brain axis has bidirectional communication, through which microbiota help regulate brain function.

For example, a study1 published in 2017 found Bifidobacterium breve strain A1 helps to reduce cognitive dysfunction that is normally induced by amyloid-beta in Alzheimer’s disease.

In another study,2 researchers found a connection between an imbalanced gut microbiome and the development of amyloid plaques in the brain. More recently, researchers have discovered that there is also a gut-lung axis,3 which supports the role your microbiota plays in your immune system, both locally and systemically.

Although your gut and lungs are anatomically distinct, there is growing evidence that communication between the systems helps maintain homeostasis of your immune system. Building on this knowledge, researchers are now investigating a potential and likely link between the health of your gut microbiome and the potential risk for more severe illness from COVID-19.4

Poor Gut Health Is Connected to Severe COVID-19

A review of more than 1,000 patient records showed those who presented at admission to the hospital with gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and suspected COVID-19 infection had worse outcomes than those without GI symptoms. The review was done at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and ranked patients with a score of zero to three.

Even after adjusting for comorbidities, demographics and other clinical symptoms, the results held. One of the researchers from Rush University spoke with a journalist from MedPage Today, saying:5

“We knew that GI symptoms could be part of the infection but we did not know if they made a difference and conferred higher risk. So we wanted to look into the impact of initial GI symptoms to see if they might coincide with more serious disease and we found that those with GI symptoms also had established risk factors for severity, such as older age, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.”

Of the patients evaluated, 22.4% reported experiencing at least one GI symptom, the most common of which was nausea and vomiting. Researchers also found those with GI symptoms had a higher body mass index, a higher prevalence of diabetes and high blood pressure, and were older. Although this group had a higher rate of ICU admission and intubation, the study did not look at the mortality rate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention6 has also found that while the symptoms of COVID-19 will vary, over the course of the illness many people experience respiratory symptoms, fever, loss of taste and smell and gastrointestinal symptoms. This indicates GI symptoms are among those commonly reported to the CDC.

SciTech Daily7 reports that autopsy results and studies have suggested a sizable number of people with severe COVID-19 also have gastrointestinal problems. A paper published in January 2021, suggests the GI symptoms that predict severe COVID-19 are triggered by poor gut health.8

Heenam Stanley Kim, Ph.D., from Korea University examined the evidence and proposes that gut dysbiosis can exacerbate the severity of the infection.9 This hypothesis is supported by a review of several studies since the start of the pandemic, which also demonstrated that a lack of microbial diversity is associated with more severe disease.10

An early study of patients admitted to Stanford health care from March 4 to March 24, 2020, also found 31.9% of the patients had GI symptoms on admission.11

Poor Microbiome Diversity Increases Risk of Illness

The links between poor gut microbiota and chronic diseases were made long before COVID-19. One of the underlying factors affecting the diversity of your gut microbiome is a Western diet that is characterized by a high intake of processed foods and sugar and a low intake of fruits and vegetables.12

This combination increases chronic inflammation and is associated with several highly prevalent chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity. Kim began analyzing studies and making connections when he realized that countries with good medical infrastructures were among the hardest hit.

These countries ate a Western diet low in fiber, and he says that “a fiber-deficient diet is one of the main causes of altered gut microbiomes and such gut microbiome dysbiosis leads to chronic diseases.”13

This dietary pattern promotes an inflammatory response in the body and is associated with a sharp rise in “Western diseases.”14 One observational study of 1,000 healthy men and women found that eating processed foods leads to a significant reduction in gut microbiome diversity.15

Older age is also associated with reduced diversity of your gut microbiota. When compared to healthy adults, researchers hypothesize this difference may contribute to the development of chronic diseases.16 The changes in gut microbiome with age may be linked to changes in diet and lifestyle and medication use.

As more information was gathered about the progress of COVID-19, scientists identified groups of individuals with comorbidities that were at higher risk for severe disease. It appears one underlying factor between the groups of people who experience severe illness may be poor gut health.

Dr. Giancarlo Ceccarelli, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rome, and colleagues, provided probiotics to 70 patients who tested positive for COVID-19.17 The results of their research were published in Frontiers in Medicine. The control group received hydroxychloroquine, antibiotics and the immunosuppressive drug tocilizumab, either alone or in combination.

The experimental group received the same therapy with the addition of an oral multistrain probiotic. Within 72 hours, diarrhea in those treated with the probiotic was in remission as compared to less than half of the control group.

Additionally, the intervention lowered the risk of developing respiratory failure eightfold and those in the control group had a higher risk of mortality. Ceccarelli commented on the results of the study:18

“Our preliminary results evidenced an improved survival rate and a lower risk of transfer to an intensive resuscitation for patients supplemented with the probiotic compared with those on standard treatment only. The gut bacteria have a long-reaching immune impact on the pulmonary immune system.

Our results stress the importance of the gut-lung axis in the control of the COVID-19 illness. Bacteriotherapy could represent an additional option for this severe disease.”

Probiotics Are a Potential Therapeutic Approach to COVID-19

Kim notes19 that dysbiosis in the gut microbiota may be the underlying factor that allows SARS-CoV-2 to access the otherwise well-protected cells of your intestinal lining. Ultimately, this allows the virus to leak into the body and affect internal organs, which may explain multiorgan dysfunction in those who are severely ill with the disease.

Kim proposes your gut health may be a critical factor that predicts symptom development. The reduced diversity in bacteria in those with severe COVID-19 includes bacterial families that produce butyrate. This is a short-chain fatty acid that is crucial to reinforcing the gut barrier function.

The resulting leaky gut from an altered microbiota may contribute to these gastrointestinal symptoms and allow the virus access to your internal organs.20 SARS-CoV-2 interacts with ACE2 enzymes found on the surface of many of these organs. This mediates the entry into the host cells and replication, which ultimately damages the tissue and promotes the severity of the illness.

In addition to protecting mucosal barrier function and inhibiting invasion of pathogenic bacteria, there are indications that your gut microbiota have a direct impact on bacteria in the lungs.21 Following sepsis, researchers have found an abundance of Bacteroides sp. in the lungs, which may indicate that the composition of your gut microbiome could be a predictive tool.

The first trial has started in Canada, but doctors in China have been using probiotics with other treatments for COVID since February 2020.22 The goal of the PROVID-19 randomized control trial23 is to evaluate whether probiotics could be a treatment option to reduce the duration and symptoms of patients who have tested positive for the virus and are not hospitalized.

A pilot study from the Chinese University of Hong Kong was accepted for publication in Gastroenterology.24 Researchers collected data from 150 patients with COVID-19 and 1,500 healthy individuals. The microbiome information was compared, after which they created a supplement of prebiotics and bifidobacterium strains.

The paper revealed only that “significantly more patients who received the formula achieved symptom resolution and a reduction in pro-inflammatory immune markers than those who had standard care.”

Probiotics Need Prebiotics to Flourish

The formulation the Chinese scientists developed increases the potential that beneficial bacteria will grow in your gut microbiome by also providing the nutrients they need to flourish. Prebiotics and probiotics are immunomodulatory.25 In other words, they both stimulate and suppress the immune system, which helps maintain homeostasis in the system.

After an evaluation of the current and past research demonstrating the powerful effect that your gut microbiome has on the immune system in combination with the current knowledge that this microbiome plays in the development of severe COVID-19, one scientist wrote:26

“In the event of a failure to produce a vaccine, it is believed that the best approach to fight COVID-19 infection is by improving the immune system using probiotics and prebiotics that have the potential to minimize the inflammation caused by COVID-19 infection.”

These are strategies you can begin to implement immediately without the need for a prescription from your doctor. Studies have confirmed that a high intake of sugar will increase the abundance of harmful bacteria in the gut, while at the same time simultaneously reduce the population of beneficial bacteria.27

Beneficial bacteria help to reinforce the gut barrier function and mitigate the effects of endotoxins released by harmful bacteria. Inulin is one type of water-soluble fiber found in asparagus, garlic, leeks and onions. The following whole foods help add prebiotic fiber to your diet and improve the health of your microbiome, thus improving your overall health:28,29

Asparagus
Banana
Beetroot

Breast milk
Burdock root
Cashews

Chicory root
Couscous
Fennel bulb

Garlic
Green peas
Jerusalem artichokes

Jicama
Konjac root
Leeks

Nectarines
Onion
Persimmon

Pistachios
Pomegranate
Savoy cabbage

Seaweed
Shallots
Snow peas

Tamarillo

Fermented Foods Are Flavorful and Often High in Fiber

Historically, the primary reason for fermenting was to preserve food. Over time, many cultures incorporated fermented foods into their daily diets, and some were credited with a selection of foods they shared with the world. For example, Japanese natto, Korean kimchi and German sauerkraut are popular in many areas outside their respective places of origin.30

The health benefits associated with fermented foods are many. In fact, the yogurt industry has used the growing interest in probiotics to advertise their products. While store-bought yogurt does have probiotic bacteria, it is also rich in sugar that feeds the harmful bacteria in your gut. This is just one reason why grocery store yogurt is typically not beneficial.

In the U.S., it’s becoming more popular to eat fermented foods at home. Yet, preparing them is largely a lost art. Probiotic-rich food, such as fermented vegetables, will boost the population of beneficial bacteria, which then reduce the potentially pathogenic colonies. Making your own yogurt at home is an easy way to start with fermented foods.

To make yogurt at home you only need a high-quality starter culture and raw, grass fed milk. You’ll find simple step-by-step instructions in “Benefits of Homemade Yogurt Versus Commercial.” You can also experiment with fermenting almost any vegetable. Cucumbers (pickles) and cabbage (sauerkraut) are among the most popular. Although it might seem intimidating at first, once you have the basic method down, it’s not difficult.

In the video below, I review how to do this. As I discuss in “Tips for Fermenting at Home,” there are several steps you can take to make the process a little easier. Begin with fresh, organic ingredients and be sure to wash them properly under cold running water. The idea is to remove bacteria, enzymes and other debris as this can affect the outcome.

Choose glass Mason jars with self-sealing lids. Most fermented vegetables will need to be covered with brine. I recommend using a vitamin K2-rich starter culture dissolved in celery juice. Allow the jars to sit in a relatively warm area for several days. The temperature should ideally be around 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

During the summer months, vegetables are typically finished in three to four days. In the winter, they may need up to seven days. The only way to tell when the fermentation process is complete is to open the jar and have a taste.

When you’re happy with the flavor and consistency, move the jars into the refrigerator. Refrigeration will slow fermentation and the vegetables can keep for many months. Remember not to eat out of the jar because you’ll contaminate the rest of the batch with the bacteria from your mouth. Make sure the vegetables are covered with brine before replacing the lid.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/06/probiotics-to-help-combat-covid.aspx

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How We Know SARS-CoV-2 Absolutely Leaked From a Chinese Lab

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, many scientists suspected SARS-CoV-2 might have originated in a biosafety laboratory, most likely in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began in December 2019. Among them, Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., a molecular biologist and a virologist, and Allison Wilson, Ph.D., a molecular biologist were experts who discussed the idea of a lab origin.
I interviewed Latham about some of their theories in July 2020. His interview is featured in “Cover-Up of SARS-CoV-2 Origin?” Latham and Wilson argue that while the virus most likely has a bat origin, the mechanism by which it jumped from bat to human was not a natural one and they have previously presented three different theories by which the virus may have been created in and escaped from a lab.
In a February 16, 2021, article1 in Independent Science News, the pair again reviewed the evidence for a laboratory origin, and the reasons why a zoonotic origin will never be found.
Why Zoonotic Origin Is Most Unlikely

Aside from not being known for exotic culinary dishes involving animals such as bats, Wuhan, located in central China, is an unlikely location for zoonotic virus spillover as it has “no cultural, geographic or climatic predisposing factors,” Latham and Wilson note. Wuhan is also not a known hotspot for exotic animal smuggling.
The well-recognized absence of bats in Wuhan is why researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) traveled several hundred miles to collect bat coronavirus samples.
What’s more, Latham and Wilson cite research showing that “when WIV researchers needed to study a Chinese population that was not routinely exposed to bat coronaviruses (as a control group), they chose Wuhan residents.” Zheng-li Shi, head of coronavirus research at the WIV, even admitted that she “had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.”
According to Latham and Wilson, “The chance of a person from Wuhan being patient zero is approximately 1 in 630,” based on calculations that take into account the population size of Wuhan, the global population and the fact that coronavirus-carrying animals are found virtually all over the world.

“It truly is very, very, unlikely that a natural zoonotic pandemic would start in Wuhan. Yet no commentator on the outbreak seems to have properly acknowledged the true scale of this improbability,” Latham and Wilson write.2

Another coincidence that strongly points to a lab origin is the fact that the WIV not only has the world’s largest collection of bat coronaviruses, but WIV researchers had also singled out one specific coronavirus out of 28 relevant species for more in-depth work, “and it is a member of this species that broke out in Wuhan,” Latham and Wilson note, adding:

“This, then, is a further curious coincidence: for a pandemic coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) to emerge in Wuhan and be a member of the species most studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Zoonotic Spillover of SARS-CoV-2 Is Not Random

Latham and Wilson go on to review the research done at the WIV in more detail, comparing and contrasting it to the natural evolution of coronaviruses. There are four basic types of coronaviruses: Alpha-, Beta-, Gamma- and Delta-coronaviruses. (For an illustration of the evolutionary tree of these viruses, please see the original article.3)
Of these four, only two are of interest when we’re searching for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 — the Alpha and Beta versions, of which there are 28 species, and “apparently random” coronavirus spillovers from Alpha- and Beta-coronaviruses are known to have occurred in the past. (There are very few Gamma- and Delta-coronaviruses, and none is known to affect humans.)
Six of the 28 Alpha- and Beta-coronaviruses are known to affect humans: HCoV-NL63, HCoV-229E, MERS, SARS, HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1 (SARS-CoV-2 makes No. 7). When you locate these six viruses on the coronavirus evolutionary tree, you find that they are widely distributed, which is an indication that previous zoonotic spillovers have been random.
Not so with SARS-CoV-2, though. When you place SARS-CoV-2 on this evolutionary tree, its location is not random like the others. Rather, it emerged from original SARS (as evidenced by its name). Latham and Wilson explain:4

“From a zoonotic perspective, nothing appears to be special about these SARS-related coronaviruses. Consequently, the emergence of a second pandemic virus from the same coronavirus species constitutes a second surprising coincidence.
We can again calculate its probability. If each Alpha and Beta coronavirus species is equally likely to spill over to humans, which is consistent with our understanding, then the probability of a virus from the SARS-related coronavirus species starting a zoonotic pandemic is 1 in 28.
(And if there are undiscovered coronavirus species — pretty much a certainty — the number will be greater still). It is a coincidence that, just like the emergence in Wuhan, heavily favors a lab escape if we take into account the specifics of the coronavirus research program at the WIV …”

Zheng-li’s Research Revolved Around the Pandemic Virus 

Latham and Wilson then go on to review 18 publications by Zheng-li, starting in 2005, describing her research into SARS-like coronaviruses. They point out that while Zheng-li collected a wide array of bat viruses, her specific research focus was the zoonotic spillover potential of a single species, namely SARS-related coronaviruses (one of the six Alpha- and Beta-coronaviruses known to infect humans).

“So while most discussions of a potential lab escape have mentioned that SARS-CoV-2 emerged within commuting distance of the WIV and that researchers at the WIV worked on bat coronaviruses, none have mentioned that the coincidence is much greater than that.
Zheng-li Shi concentrated, especially with her potentially highly risky molecular research, on the particular species of coronavirus that is responsible for the pandemic,” Latham and Wilson write, adding that:
“If one accepts as reasonable the assumptions made above, the probability of Wuhan being the site of a natural SARS-related coronavirus outbreak is obtained by multiplying 1 in 630 by 1 in 28. The chance of Wuhan hosting a SARS-related coronavirus outbreak is thus 17,640 to 1.”

They also dismiss the argument that these are little more than circumstantial evidences that could be due to sheer chance. Circumstantial evidence is not a “special category of evidence,” they point out; rather, “all evidence of causation is composed of coincidences.”

“All an observer can do is to add up the coincidences until they surmise that the threshold of reasonable doubt has been surpassed. Conclusions are always provisional, but in the absence of evidence to the contrary, anyone open to persuasion ought at this point to conclude that a probability of 17,640 to 1 far exceeds that threshold. A lab escape should at this point be the default hypothesis.”

WIV Held Closest Known Relative to SARS-CoV-2
Since the beginning of the outbreak, we’ve also discovered that the WIV held a virus sample known as RaTG13 which, so far, is the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2. While Zheng-li has denied extensive study on RaTG13, scientific publications reveal this virus has been studied since at least 2017.
In addition to all of this, no substantive zoonotic theory has ever been presented, which makes it far less plausible than any of the lab-origin theories. While several potential intermediate species have been proposed, none has actually been found to carry SARS-CoV-2 or a precursor to it.
Our prediction … simply based on assessing the probabilities, is that no convincing natural zoonotic origin for the pandemic will ever be found by China or the WHO or anyone else — for the simple reason that one does not exist. ~ Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., and Allison Wilson, Ph.D.

What’s more, as detailed in “Top Medical Journal Caught in Massive Cover-Up” and “Lawsuits Begin Over SARS-CoV-2 Lab Leak,” the scientific cornerstone for the zoonotic origin theory hinges on two seriously flawed papers published in PLOS Pathogens and Nature.

Both journals apparently allowed data sets to be secretly changed without publishing notices of correction. Authors appear to have renamed samples, failed to attribute samples properly, and produced a genomic profile that doesn’t match the samples in the paper.
Some data are also missing. An investigation into the discrepancies found RaTG13, which is 96% identical to SARS-CoV-2, is actually btCoV-4991, a virus found in samples collected in 2013 and studies on them published in 2016. Meanwhile, there are at least “four distinct lab origin theories,” Wilson and Latham note, including:5

1. The serial passage theory, which proposes the virus was created by serial passaging through an animal host or cell culture.6
2. Evidence of genetic manipulation, including the chimeric structure of the virus and the presence of a furin cleavage site.7 While a majority of the viral genetic sequence is close to that of RaTG13, its receptor binding domain is nearly identical to that of a pangolin coronavirus, while the furin cleavage site has not been seen in any other SARS-like coronaviruses.

Others have pointed out that the virus, which is highly adapted to human lung cells, appears to have evolved in the absence of immune system antibodies, which suggests mutation within cell culture.8

In “China Deletes Key SARS-CoV-2 Related Science,” I also review evidence9 suggesting SARS-CoV-2 was created by serial passaging an ancestor virus through transgenic mice equipped with human ACE2 receptors. (Research10 has confirmed transgenic mice with human ACE2 receptors are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, whereas normal mice are not.)

3. The failed vaccine development theory.11

4. The Mojiang miners passage theory,12,13 which proposes a precursor to SARS-CoV-2 — possibly RaTG13, as this virus was collected from that very same mine — sickened six miners in 2012, and once inside these patients, some of whom were ill for several weeks, it mutated into SARS-CoV-2. Samples from four of the hospitalized miners were sent to the WIV.

“To-date, there are conflicting claims about the results of those tests and nothing has been formally published. The Mojiang Miners Passage theory proposes, however, that, by the time they arrived at the WIV, these patient-derived samples contained a highly adapted human virus, which subsequently escaped,” Wilson and Latham write, adding:
“Our prediction … simply based on assessing the probabilities, is that no convincing natural zoonotic origin for the pandemic will ever be found by China or the WHO or anyone else — for the simple reason that one does not exist.”

WHO Investigation Into COVID-19 Origin Is Blatantly Corrupt

Despite the complete absence of a plausible zoonotic origin theory, the World Health Organization’s investigative commission, tasked with identifying the origin of SARS-CoV-2, has now officially cleared the WIV and two other biosafety level 4 laboratories in Wuhan of wrongdoing, saying these labs had nothing to do with the COVID-19 outbreak.14,15,16
They’ve also stated that the lab-escape theory will no longer be part of the team’s investigation going forward.
The WHO team and its Chinese counterparts now insist the most likely scenario is that SARS-CoV-2 piggybacked its way into the Wuhan market in shipments of frozen food from other areas of China where coronavirus-carrying bats are known to reside, or another country, possibly in Europe. As a result, the WHO team is considering expanding its scope to look into other countries as the potential source of the virus.
As noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed17 by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, “By lending credence to this improbable theory, WHO is damaging trust in the important project of figuring out where the virus originated.”
There are obvious problems with the WHO’s conclusions. For starters, no serious investigation was actually done. The WHO team was not equipped or designed to conduct a forensic examination of laboratory practices;18 rather, they relied on information obtained directly from the Chinese team.

Secondly, China was allowed to hand pick the members of the WHO’s investigative team, which includes Peter Daszak, Ph.D., who has close professional ties to the WIV and has gone on record dismissing the lab-origin theory as “pure baloney.”19,20

He was also the mastermind behind the publication of a scientific statement condemning such inquiries as “conspiracy theory.”21,22 This manufactured “scientific consensus” was then relied on by the media to “debunk” theories and evidence showing the pandemic virus most likely originated from a laboratory.
No Credible Evidence Food Is a Route of Transmission

The inclusion of Dazsak on this team virtually guaranteed the dismissal of the lab-origin theory from the very start, and based on the lame justifications given by the team leader, Danish food safety and zoonosis scientist Ben Embarek, it seems clear they had no intention of looking at evidence that might implicate the WIV or any other Wuhan lab.
For example, Embarek claims that officials at the WIV “are the best ones to dismiss the claims and provide answers” about the potential for a lab leak. But suspects in an investigation are hardly the most reliable sources of evidence to dismiss suspicions against them.
Embarek further insisted that lab accidents are “extremely rare,” hence it’s “very unlikely that anything could escape from such a place.”23 This too is a wholly unconvincing argument that flies in the face of available data.
According to the Cambridge Working Group in 2014, “biosafety incidents involving regulated pathogens have been occurring on average over twice a week” in the U.S. alone,24,25 and virology labs accidentally released the original SARS virus on no less than four separate occasions.26,27 Three of those four instances led to outbreaks.28 The 1977 H1N1 influenza outbreaks in the Soviet Union and China were also the result of a lab escape.29
Thirdly, a number of scientific bodies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods have resolutely dismissed the frozen food origination story, as no credible evidence has surfaced suggesting food, food packaging or food handling might be a significant route of transmission.30
Why the Lab-Origin Theory Must Be Quashed

You may be wondering, if there’s so much evidence pointing toward a lab origin, why are leading health authorities and scientists dismissing it all and insisting SARS-CoV-2 is a natural occurrence, mysterious as it might be? The answer undoubtedly comes down to money.
Should the COVID-19 pandemic be officially recognized as the result of a lab accident, the world might be forced to take a cold hard look at gain-of-function research that allows for the creation of these new pathogens. The end result would ideally be the banning of such research worldwide, which means tens of thousands of researchers would lose their jobs. Prestigious careers would be spoiled.
On top of that, the culprits might face criminal charges under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, and nations might be held financially responsible for the economic destruction caused by the pandemic around the globe. These are no minor issues. They offer plenty of incentive to cover up the truth.
As Rutgers microbiologist and founding member of the Cambridge Working Group, Richard Ebright, told Boston Magazine:31

“For the substantial subset of virologists who perform gain-of-function research, avoiding restrictions on research funding, avoiding implementation of appropriate biosafety standards, and avoiding implementation of appropriate research oversight are powerful motivators.”

Antonio Regalado, biomedicine editor of MIT Technology Review, was even more blunt, stating that if SARS-CoV-2 was found to be a lab creation, “it would shatter the scientific edifice top to bottom.”32 There’s little doubt that this is the reason why the lab origin theory has been roundly labeled as pure conspiracy theory spread by science deniers and Trump flag-wielding kooks.
Such a stance is extremely unhealthy, however, as it seeks to strangle not only free speech but also scientific inquiry, and “criminalizes” logic in general. In a February 15, 2021, AP News article,33 the three authors identify several professors and organizations as “superspreaders” of disinformation about SARS-CoV-2’s origin.
Among them are Francis Boyle, a bioweapons expert who drafted the 1989 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act; Luc Montagnier, a world-renowned virologist who won the Nobel prize for his discovery of HIV; and the Center for Research on Globalization. The remainder are individuals and organizations that I, having written many hundreds of articles about COVID-19 over the past year, have never even heard of.
According to AP, the parties on this list have no training in virology (apparently, Nobel prize-winning virologists aren’t good enough) and therefore do not have the expertise to speak on the issue of viral origins. However, they don’t mention the many who have presented evidence for a lab origin who do have all the “right” credentials.
It’s also worth noting that the AP article was produced in collaboration with the Atlantic Council, which is part of the technocratic hub that is using the pandemic to further its Great Reset agenda. That alone qualifies the article as pure globalist propaganda.
If SARS-CoV-2 really was the result of zoonotic spillover, the easiest and most effective way to quash “conspiracy theories” about a lab origin would be to present compelling evidence for a plausible theory. So far, that hasn’t happened, and as noted by Latham and Wilson, the most likely reason for that is because the virus does not have a natural zoonotic origin, and you cannot find that which does not exist.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/04/is-coronavirus-zoonotic.aspx

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The Billion Agave Project

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.aspx

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The Modelling-Paper Mafiosi

John Edmunds is on top of the world. He’s one of the modelling-paper mafiosi. The London, U.K., professor is a key government advisor on COVID-19-related policies. Edmunds also was a co-author of one of the primary modelling papers1 that have been used to convince the masses that vigilance against new variant B.1.1.7 should be their top priority.

And Edmunds co-wrote an influential January 21, 2021 report2 that concluded, “There is a realistic possibility that VOC B.1.1.7 is associated with an increased risk of death compared to non-VOC viruses.”

In addition, he speaks often to reporters about the deadliness3 of the new variant.4 Edmunds tells them, for example, that a “disaster”5 would ensue if lockdowns are eased too soon, because what first must be done is to “vaccinate much, much, much more widely than the elderly.”6

Follow the Funds

Edmunds happens to be the spouse of someone who, at least until April 2020, was an employee of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and held shares in the company. (Edmunds doesn’t disclose this in any of his media interviews that I’ve read and watched. He also doesn’t disclose his own stock holdings.)

According to an April 2020 Daily Telegraph7 article,8 Edmunds’s wife is Jeanne Pimenta and she works for GSK. The Daily Telegraph article states Edmunds asserted his partner had recently resigned from GSK. So it’s unclear whether Pimenta currently works there or not.

I did a little digging and found that the only Jeanne Pimenta LinkedIn profile9 indicates she’s currently director of epidemiology at GSK, while Jeanne Pimenta’s ResearchGate profile10 says she’s an epidemiologist at BioMarin Pharmaceutical. (More about Edmunds being married to a present or former Glaxo employee in the next section of this article.)

In any case, GSK’s financial success is skyrocketing. On February 311 the company announced it’s collaborating with mRNA-vaccine company CureVac to spend 150 million euros — approximately $180 million — to make vaccines for the new variants.

That effectively gives them first-entrant advantage in vaccines for the new variants. And that same February 3 news release12 touts the new-variant vaccines as also able to serve as “booster” shots after the initial rounds of vaccination. In addition, GSK joined forces with CureVac to pump out, later this year, 100 million doses of CureVac’s “first-generation” COVID-19 vaccine called “CvnCoV.”13

Not only that: this fall14 GSK together with another international pharmaceutical firm, Sanofi, are scheduled to start producing what could turn out to be up to 1 billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine annually.15 GSK’s understated February 3 announcement16 of its Q4 2020 financial results said it will “continue to expect meaningful improvement in revenues and margins” because they are “building a high-value biopharma pipeline.”

Note that GSK and other pharma companies17 like Moderna and Pfizer18 are not responsible for damage and compensation payments to people seriously injured and killed by COVID-19 vaccines. Governments19 will pay instead — that is, if those injured and killed and their loved ones are able to beat the long odds20 and get any compensation at all.

And a remarkable February 8, 2021,21 investigative report in the German news outlet Welt Am Sonntag (which translates to World on Sunday) reveals another impetus for the wildly inaccurate modelling governments use to keep populations in a state of fear and control.

The German article shows that in March 2020 government officials enlisted “leading scientists from several research institutes and universities. Together, they were to produce a [mathematical-modelling] paper that would serve as legitimization for further tough political measures.”

These scientists obediently wrote a modelling paper tailored to the government’s instructions. The then-secret paper asserted that if lockdown measures were lifted immediately, up to 1 million Germans would die from COVID-19, some “agonizingly at home, gasping for breath,” after being turned away from overflowing hospitals.

Edmunds Is Deeply Invested in the Vaccine World

There’s still more to the web of money and influence surrounding Edmunds and other modelling-paper mafiosi, including Neil Ferguson.

The first new-variant modelling paper Edmunds co-wrote, which was posted on December 23, 202022 was co-authored with his fellow members of the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). People in the center’s COVID-19 Working Group also contributed.

The modelling paper was posted on the e-journal medr?iv, which publishes only non-peer-reviewed papers. The journal is the creation of an organization led by Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.23 I discuss medr?iv and the Zuckerberg connection in my February 3 article24 on the baselessness for the modelling papers that claim the new variants are very dangerous.

Edmunds also is dean of the LSHTM’s Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health. I contacted the institution’s media-relations department to request an interview with one of the December 23, 2020, modelling paper’s authors. I didn’t receive a response.

In a February 2017 video interview,25 Edmunds enthused that the LSHTM specializes in every aspect of vaccine development, from basic science to large-scale clinical trials.

In the video he also touts using mathematical modelling as a good way to show that vaccines protect individuals and society. (And among other things he describes his group’s efforts in giving children flu vaccines and — in conjunction with Public Health England — promoting human papillomavirus [HPV] vaccines for girls and boys.)

In addition, Edmunds is a key member of the UK Vaccine Network26 (which until recently was known as the UK Vaccines Network — the URL for the organization has “UK Vaccines Network”27 in it).

And he’s a member of the U.K. government’s Science Advisory Group for Emergencies28 (SAGE), which provides COVID-measure advice — much of it related to the unprecedentedly forceful push for mass vaccination — to U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson and his cabinet.

On top of that, Edmunds is a member of the U.K. government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG).29 It works hand in hand with SAGE, and it also heavily promotes vaccination.

And as mentioned earlier, Edmunds is married to a current or former GSK employee. A 2015 article that Edmunds co-authored states under “Competing interests” for Edmunds that “My partner works for GSK.”30 Similarly, on the NERVTAG website’s conflict-disclosure pages — which for some reason haven’t been updated since October 201731 — it reveals that Edmunds’s spouse works for GSK.

As a quick other note, the “Author Contributions and Acknowledgements” section of the PDF of the December 23 modelling analysis32 of B.1.1.7 (pages 15 and 16) shows that almost all of the paper’s authors and members of the modelling center’s COVID-19 Working Group receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and/or Wellcome Trust. (By the way, a search for Wellcome Trust yields the Wellcome website.33)

And there’s more to the Edmunds story. Among other of my finds: he’s also on the Scientific Advisory Board34 for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).35 CEPI was created primarily by the BMGF, the World Economic Forum and the major pharma company Wellcome.

CEPI’s website states36 it was “launched in Davos [at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in January] 2017 to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. Our mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable equitable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks.”

Investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley last year wrote a must-read two-part37 analysis of the ties between the key individuals, institutions, companies and funders of the UK’s COVID-19 response. She mentioned that GSK is working with CEPI to develop COVID-19 vaccines. This alliance is still going strong38 today.

Note also that the LSHTM’s Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, which Edmunds heads, is primarily funded by the BMGF and the Gavi alliance. (Gavi promotes mass vaccination of people around the world — including by quarterbacking the COVAX program.

Gavi’s biggest funders include the BMGF. Doctors Without Borders has criticized Gavi39 for being “aimed more at supporting drug-industry desires to promote new products than at finding the most efficient and sustainable means for fighting the diseases of poverty.”)

BMGF funding for the LSHTM’s Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health is growing very fast. For example, BMGF’s new grants to the faculty rose from $4.9 million in 2013-2014 (see page 14 [p. 9 in the PDF] of the LSHTM’s 2014 annual report40) to $13.19 million in 2015-2016 (see page 14 [p. 9 in the PDF] of the LSHTM’s 2016 annual report41) (top new research grants to each faculty at the LSHTM stopped being reported in the annual reports after 2017).

Funding from the BMGF to the LSHTM as a whole was 30.2 million pounds ($40.2 million) in 2017-2018 (see page 9 [p. 6 in the PDF] in the school’s 2018 annual report42). By the way, the LSHTM also has a Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre.43 It develops, tests and commercializes vaccines. (I couldn’t find any information on where the vaccines center’s funding comes from.)

The vaccines center also performs affiliated activities like combating “vaccine hesitancy.” The latter includes the Vaccine Confidence Project.44 The project’s stated purpose is,45 among other things, “to provide analysis and guidance for early response and engagement with the public to ensure sustained confidence in vaccines and immunisation.”

The Vaccine Confidence Project’s director is LSHTM professor Heidi Larson.46 For more than a decade she’s been researching how to combat vaccine hesitancy. LSHTM47 underpins the project, which also is a member of the WHO’s Vaccine Safety Net.48

More Modelling Mafiosi

Here’s information about two other members of this club:

Public Health England (PHE) issued its first detailed report on the new variant in late December 202049 and continues to provide updates.50 None of their reports are peer-reviewed. One of the highest-profile co-authors of the PHE reports is PHE director Susan Hopkins.51 She’s also a professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London.52 The college receives tens of millions of dollars a year from the BMGF.

See for example this grant,53 this one,54 this one55 and this one.56 (I emailed PHE media relations to request an interview about PHE’s new-variants reports. PHE communications person Zahra Vindhani responded, “Dr. Hopkins won’t have the capacity for this in the upcoming weeks, and we aren’t able to confirm anyone else for this either.”)

PHE is guided in its approach to vaccination by PHE’s “Strategic Priority 1” for combating infectious diseases in 2020 to 2025. It is to “Optimise vaccine provision and reduce vaccine preventable diseases in England” (see p. 9 of PHE’s Infectious Disease Strategy 2020-202557).

Neil Ferguson is a co-author of the PHE reports and also of a widely quoted December 31 modelling paper58 on the dangerousness of B.1.1.7. He’s acting director of the Imperial College London-based Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium.59

Ferguson’s modelling has been extremely faulty again over the years. This has been thoroughly documented. For example, as investigative journalist Beeley wrote in Part One60 of a two-part investigative report in April-May 2020, Ferguson’s modelling over-estimated by about 3 million-fold the death toll from the bird flu, also known as H5N1.

As a result, a lot of money was made by bird-flu-vaccine manufacturers, ranging from Roche (for its now-infamous, ineffective Tamiflu61) to Sanofi,62 and they were used widely.63

Ferguson also grossly overestimated the effects of swine flu, or H1N1. As a result, millions of people were needlessly given GSK’s Pandemrix.64 It caused brain damage, primarily narcolepsy65 and cataplexy, in hundreds if not thousands of vaccine recipients, mostly children. The pharma giant was granted no fault in any damage claims.66

Therefore the British government paid more than 60 million pounds (approximately $80 million at 2017 conversion rates) to victims.67 (And as mentioned earlier in this article, GSK and other pharma companies68 are similarly protected from having to pay damages to people injured or killed by their COVID-19 vaccines.)

Ferguson also is a member, together with Edmunds and others, of SAGE.69

Another group he’s a member of is the highly influential NERVTAG.70 It’s the group that issued the January 21, 202171 warning, mentioned earlier in this article, that B.1.1.7 is deadly.

Ferguson is a NERVTAG member even though he was reported to have resigned last spring72 after being caught visiting with his married lover when everyone in England was supposed to only be having contact with members of their own households (based in large part on Ferguson’s modelling and his urging the government to lock the country down).

Ferguson also is a member73 of the UK Vaccines Network,74 along with Edmunds and others such as the Network chair Chris Whitty, who’s also the U.K. government’s top COVID-19 adviser.
The network’s focus, according to its website, “to support the [U.K.] government to identify and shortlist targeted investment opportunities for the most promising vaccines and vaccine technologies that will help combat infectious diseases with epidemic potential, and to address structural issues related to the UK’s broader vaccine infrastructure.”

These ties bind Edmunds, Ferguson and Hopkins — along with the rest of the modelling-paper mafiosi — to the bidding of governments, Big Pharma, Bill Gates and other powerful players. They present an image of being fully devoted to the public good, while in fact actively helping to destroy it.

Editor’s Note: This is a reprint of an article by Rosemary Frei. She has a master of science in molecular biology from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary and was a freelance medical journalist for 22 years. She is now an independent investigative journalist in Canada.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/02/the-modelling-paper-mafiosi.aspx

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Will You Obey the Criminal Authoritarians?

In 1962, in a now infamous experiment shown in the video above, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram tested the limits of human obedience to authority. The study administrator instructed the study subjects — the “teachers” — to give electric shocks to a student.
The “student” was actually an actor, but the study subjects were unaware of this, and complied with the demands to shock him whenever he gave an incorrect response to a question. Even as the student moaned, begged for the shocks to stop and ultimately stopped responding, the subjects obeyed the authority figure in the room and issued painful electric shocks.
The subjects were clearly uncomfortable with the task at times, but still continued, showing that people may carry out heinous acts when ordered to do so by authorities because they feel less responsible for the behavior in this capacity.1
With societal norms rapidly changing, and an increasingly authoritative environment emerging, it raises the question of whether or not the public will continue to blindly obey criminal authoritarians, no matter the consequences.
‘An Order Is an Order’

The Milgram experiment was conducted following the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who used the Nuremberg defense, or “befehl ist befehl,” which translates to “an order is an order.” The Milgram experiment clearly showed that people would act against their own judgment and harm another person to extreme lengths simply because they were told to do so.
The subjects first experienced a 45-volt shock themselves — so they would know what it felt like — then administered the shocks in increasing intervals. They were labeled from 15 to 450 volts — from slight shock all the way up to “extreme intensity shock,” “danger: severe shock,” and the strongest voltage, “XXX.” According to Gregorio Billikopf Encina with the University of California:2

“In response to the supposed jolts, the ‘learner’ (actor) would begin to grunt at 75 volts; complain at 120 volts; ask to be released at 150 volts; plead with increasing vigor, next; and let out agonized screams at 285 volts.

Eventually, in desperation, the learner was to yell loudly and complain of heart pain. At some point the actor would refuse to answer any more questions. Finally, at 330 volts the actor would be totally silent — that is, if any of the teacher participants got so far without rebelling first.”

Ultimately, 65% of the subjects continued through the study and administered the maximum voltage level, even though they knew it was wrong. Encina noted:

“Participants demonstrated a range of negative emotions about continuing. Some pleaded with the learner, asking the actor to answer questions carefully. Others started to laugh nervously and act strangely in diverse ways. Some subjects appeared cold, hopeless, somber, or arrogant. Some thought they had killed the learner.

Nevertheless, participants continued to obey, discharging the full shock to learners. One man who wanted to abandon the experiment was told the experiment must continue. Instead of challenging the decision of the experimenter, he proceeded, repeating to himself, ‘It’s got to go on, it’s got to go on.”

The Milgram experiment was later criticized for being unethical and in the U.S. studies that cause subjects serious distress were later banned. However, similar studies in Europe confirmed the results, suggesting that people will willingly and blindly obey authoritarian orders, especially if they feel disconnected from their actions.3
We Must Not Surrender to Lockdowns

Case in point: lockdowns. The initial lockdowns were intended to flatten the COVID-19 curve, but even after that happened, lockdowns continued, sometimes two and three times. With each lockdown, society grew more distant, more accepting of isolation and, often, more fearful.
“The first lockdown felt novel; this one — the third — feels onerous,” Brendan O’Neill, editor of spiked, wrote. “The first encouraged us to remove ourselves from society but to still think and behave as members of society: Sign up to be an NHS volunteer, deliver medicines to the old, phone a mate and check if he’s OK. This one discourages all forms of social connection.”4
What began as a feeling of coming together with a shared hope that soon we’d be back to rubbing shoulders and shaking hands has morphed into a culture of fear, O’Neill argues, that has us looking at others as vectors of disease rather than human beings:5

“The shift from paying lip service to social solidarity to encouraging the populace to think of itself as diseased represents a victory for the degraded view of humanity gifted to us by the culture of fear.

The government’s early move from encouraging people to take responsibility for limiting their social interactions to using older methods of terror to ensure compliance with lockdown measures confirmed the culture of fear’s reduction of people from citizens to be engaged with to problems to be managed.”

Once COVID-19 dwindles, and talk of the pandemic is no longer making headlines, the threat of the “New Normal” will remain — and in many ways it represents an even bigger threat than physical disease. As O’Neill writes:6

“Those who underestimate the culture of fear will be ill-prepared for these future battles. They will have a tendency to surrender to the New Normal. The rest of us should stand firm, even in the face of smears and wilful misrepresentations, and continue to recognise and confront the real and debilitating consequences that fear has on everyday life and on humanity’s future.”

What We Lose Is Exponentially Harder to Get Back

It’s essential that your Constitutional rights and civil liberties be safeguarded against unlawful government overreach. Yet many are willingly giving up freedoms that, once gone, may be difficult, if not impossible, to get back. Vaccine passports are just one example.
By showing proof that you’ve received a COVID-19 vaccine, through a digital certificate or app on your phone, the hope is that you can once again board an airplane and travel freely, attend a concert or enjoy a meal in your favorite restaurant, just like you used to.
Except, being required to present your “papers” in order to live your life isn’t actually freedom at all — it’s a loss of personal liberty that you once had, one that disappeared right before your eyes and one that’s setting the stage for increased surveillance and erosion of your privacy.
“Once your civil liberties are lost, they are difficult to regain,” the Bozeman Daily Chronicle pointed out. “While it is the duty of government to protect the health and welfare of society, this must be balanced against the potential permanent loss of individual liberties.”7 But right now we’re facing a battle of freedom versus tyranny.
“No constitutional right is secure if it conflicts with the orthodoxy of the day,” the Bozeman Daily Chronicle continued. “To governments it often is not a question of policy but an exercise of power to order submission to restrictions that obviate fundamental freedoms.”8
Long Term Lockdowns Are Child and Elder Abuse

Public acknowledgment of the harms of lockdowns is still lacking, even as anecdotal reports are pouring in of children and teenagers who have committed suicide over the stress and isolation the lockdowns have caused.9
A Penn State news release highlighted the tragedy, with Dr. Taranjeet Jolly, a psychiatrist at Penn State Health’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, stating, “‘We’ve seen an upsurge in really bad suicide attempts’ — and the pandemic is likely behind that increase,” the press release goes on to say.10
Children and adolescents with existing mental health issues may be particularly vulnerable to being pushed “over the edge” due to social isolation during the pandemic, Jolly said, adding that family dysfunction and parents’ worries — about finances, health and news — trickling down to children also adds to the risks.
Older adults are also struggling, including those who faced lockdowns while living in a long-term care facility. Deprived of social interaction, family visits, meals with friends and activity, many lost the will to live, with loved ones describing accelerated health declines.
“I don’t think she’s deteriorating I know she is,” Judith Gimbel told AARP about her 95-year-old mother living in an assisted living facility in New Jersey. “She’s dying a slow death in there.”11
For those with loved ones suffering from dementia and living in memory care facilities, the lockdown can be especially traumatic, as their loved ones may not understand their absence or know why they’re in quarantine. Social isolation is also a known detriment to people with dementia.
“The whole issue of isolation is huge right now,” Doug Pace, director of mission partnerships for the Alzheimer’s Association, told National Geographic. “Loneliness, helplessness and boredom, we know, is something that, even in normal times, can really affect the quality of life of someone with dementia.”12
A report by the Well Being Trust (WBT) and the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care estimated that up to 75,000 people may die during the COVID-19 pandemic from drug or alcohol misuse and suicide — so-called “deaths of despair.”13
Are Important Lessons From History Being Forgotten?

The book “Five Chimneys” is a Holocaust memoir written by Olga Lengyel, who was kept as a prisoner in Auschwitz. She describes the nightmare of experimental drugs and vaccines being tested on prisoners and white powder sprinkled on food to interfere with hormones and fertility.
The German company Bayer is specifically mentioned for sending vials of drugs without labels to be used in the experiments, some of which included sterilization and sex changes. Given their crimes against humanity, it’s shocking that a company like Bayer is still around today and, not only that, but is a major force in the food industry, having acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion.14
As poignantly noted in the video above, it’s essential to pay attention and learn from the mistakes and lessons of history, lest we be doomed to repeat them.

COVID Accelerated Plans to Take Away Everything, Even Rights

Top political figures and Big Tech leaders are using the common refrain that the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to “reset” and “build back better.” “Build back better” is a tagline of sorts for the Great Reset, and though this is being played off as a new initiative, it’s simply a rebranding of terms for technocracy and the old “New World Order.”
An elite oligarchy is behind this technocratic plan to govern society through technology, programmed by scientists and technicians and automated through the use of artificial intelligence, rather than through democratically elected politicians and government leaders.
The current pandemic is being used as a justification for the movement, but the agenda has nothing to do with your health and everything to do with a long-term plan to monitor and control the world through technical surveillance. Part of the “new normal” dictum is that you will own nothing and be happy.
The unstated implication is that the world’s resources will be owned and controlled by the technocratic elite, and you’ll have to pay for the temporary use of absolutely everything. Nothing will actually belong to you. All items and resources are to be used by the collective, while actual ownership is restricted to an upper stratum of social class.
And, the wealth transfer has already begun. Most big businesses are coming out of the lockdowns largely unscathed, and in most cases with radically increased profits. Contrast this with the 48% of small businesses that are challenged with the threat of closing permanently.15
Meanwhile, as millions of people struggle with unemployment and financial insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the richest have gotten even richer. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), in partnership with Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), published a report highlighting what they call America’s “pre-existing condition”: extreme wealth inequality.16
IPS is regularly updating U.S. unemployment and billionaire wealth during the pandemic, which shows the great divide among the wealthy and the majority of Americans. A number of striking inequalities are revealed by the report, such as:17

Jeff Bezos’s fortune increased by $25 billion from January 1, 2020 to April 15, 2020; his wealth surge alone is greater than Honduras’ Gross Domestic Product, which was $23.9 billion in 2018

From January 1, 2020 to April 10, 2020, the wealth of 34 of the richest U.S. billionaires increased tens of millions of dollars; eight of them had their net worth rise by more than $1 billion

U.S. billionaire wealth increased 1,130% from 1990 to 2020; U.S. median wealth grew by 5.37% during the same period

Master Manipulators
The transfer of wealth from average people to the richest through a planned economic collapse is ongoing, but due to masterful manipulation, most are unaware that this is occurring. Public deception is now being carried out at a mass scale, being led and organized by the PR firm the Publicis Groupe.
Publicis is a partner of the World Economic Forum, which is leading the call for a “reset” of the global economy and a complete overhaul of our way of life. As such, Publicis appears to be playing an important role, coordinating the suppression of information that runs counter to the technocratic narrative.
The role of the free press is to counter industry propaganda, but that role has been effectively subverted through advertising, as news outlets rarely report on something that might damage their advertisers.
Publicis has ties to the drug industry, banking industry, NewsGuard/HealthGuard, educational institutions, Big Tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Bing, the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense, global technocratic institutions like the World Health Organization, national and global NGOs and dominating health websites like WebMD and Medscape.
These connections, taken together, explain how certain views can be so effectively erased while other agendas are pushed forward. Often, it’s simply a matter of “linguistic warfare.”
Take Russell conjugation, which refers to a linguistic concept defined by Bertrand Russell in 1948. It’s a form of spin, in which the factual meaning of words or a phrase remain the same but the emotional connotation is changed depending on which words are used.18
Take, for instance, “iron-willed” versus “pigheaded” or “snitch” versus “whistleblower.” By altering words, you create a completely different perception of the same thing. The same concept is being used by the Great Reset agenda with phrases like “reinventing capitalism”19 and “build back better.”
But the very purpose of “building back better” is to do away with what was once “normal” and replace it with something different that benefits an elite few. Wealthy technocrats, however, 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 everything, including their rights.20
Thinking back to the Milgram experiment, the question then becomes, when tested, who will you obey — your own moral compass, commonsense and reason or a criminal authority? 
The Choice Is Yours

It is vital to understand that the vast majority of information you are exposed to in mainstream media is carefully designed propaganda crafted from nearly two decades of stolen personal data collected from you.
This data is then run through very sophisticated and advanced deep learning algorithms that are then able to accurately predict what will trigger your emotions to achieve their desired behavior.
As I have carefully identified in many previous articles, this plan will result in progressive loss in your freedom and liberty that eventually results in tyranny and slavery. So, be ever vigilant and seek the truth so you can understand reality well enough to distinguish between fact and a fictional narrative that promises to offer you liberation but, rather, eventually enslaves you.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/06/milgram-obedience-experiment.aspx

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DNRs Given to Learning Disabled COVID Patients

Do-not-resuscitate orders, or DNR orders, are medical orders that instruct heath care providers not to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event a person stops breathing or their heart stops beating.1 They’re typically set up in advance, prior to an emergency, after discussion with the patient and/or the patient’s family.

DNR status has been previously linked to severe illness, advanced age, poor disease prognosis and deteriorating health status with impending death,2 but during the COVID-19 pandemic, investigations suggest DNRs have been used improperly, including being assigned to people with learning disabilities without their knowledge or consent.

According to Edel Harris, chief executive at Mencap, a U.K. advocacy charity for people with learning disabilities, “Throughout the pandemic many people with a learning disability have faced shocking discrimination and obstacles to accessing health care, with inappropriate Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notices put on their files and cuts made to their social care support.”3

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), which regulates health and social care in England, is investigating the practice, but their preliminary report released in December 2020 suggests inappropriate DNACPRs may have caused avoidable deaths.4,5

UK Commission Reiterates Need for Individualized Decisions

March 30, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, CQC issued a joint statement with the British Medical Association, Care Provider Alliance and Royal College of General Practitioners, issued to adult social care providers and general practitioners (GPs).6

They noted that during the pandemic, it was more important than ever to have personalized advanced plans of care in place, particularly for older people, those who are frail or those with serious health conditions — and that those plans be discussed with patients.

As long as the person has the mental capacity, “this advance care plan should always be discussed with them directly,” the statement noted, and in cases when this wasn’t possible family members or other appropriate individuals should be involved. As if foreseeing an inevitable problem, the statement made a point to highlight the need for individualized advance care planning decisions:7

“It remains essential that these decisions are made on an individual basis … It is unacceptable for advance care plans, with or without DNAR [do not attempt resuscitation] form completion to be applied to groups of people of any description. These decisions must continue to be made on an individual basis according to need.”

By October 2020, the U.K.’s Department of Health and Social Care had asked CQC to review how DNRs were being used during the pandemic.8

At the time, CQC said they had heard of cases where decisions were not made using a person-centered approach, and they intended to review advance care planning decisions made in hospitals, care homes and by GPs during the pandemic. While the final review is expected to be released in early 2021, interim findings were released in December 2020.9

Report Reveals Inappropriate Advance Care Decisions

CQC’s interim findings suggest that advance care decisions were made inappropriately during the pandemic due to a “combination of increasing pressures and rapidly developing guidance.” They noted:10

“Early findings are that at the beginning of the pandemic, a combination of unprecedented pressure on care providers and other issues may have led to decisions concerning DNACPR being incorrectly conflated with other clinical assessments around critical care.”

In one example, CQC noted that guidance intended to assess frailty as part of a wider clinical assessment may have been used as the sole basis for decisions. This mistake was reportedly corrected, with revised guidance released within five days; however, it’s possible that some people may still not be receiving proper care. According to the report:11

“DNACPR decisions and advance care plans should only ever take place with clear involvement of the individual, or an appropriate representative, and a clear understanding of what they would like to happen.

While there is no evidence to suggest that blanket approaches to DNACPR decisions are being used currently, people who use services and groups that represent them told CQC that early in the pandemic they or their loved ones received DNACPR decisions which were not based on their wishes and needs, and without their knowledge and consent. It is unacceptable for decisions to be applied to groups of people of any description.”

Inappropriate DNRs May Still Remain in Place

Mencap received reports in January 2021 that some people with learning disabilities had been told they would not be resuscitated if they became severely ill with COVID-19.12 People with disabilities in England had a 1.9 to 3.5 times greater risk of death from COVID-19 compared to people without disabilities, according to a report by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics.13

Keri-Michèle Lodge, a learning disability consultant, told The Guardian, “The biggest factor associated with the increased rate of death from their analysis was living in care homes or residential settings.”14

Public Health England also found that people with learning disabilities were six times more likely to die from COVID-19 than the general population, and this rose to 30 times more likely among those with disabilities aged 18 to 34.15

Rosie Benneyworth, chief inspector of primary medical services and integrated care at CQC further noted that the pandemic risked magnifying inequalities in the care people receive and acknowledged that inappropriate DNRs may still exist:16

“It is unacceptable for clinical decisions — decisions which could dictate whether someone’s loved one gets the right care when they need it most — to be applied in a blanket approach to any group of people.

Sadly, in the experiences that people have generously shared with us there is very real concern that decisions were made which not only overlooked the wishes of the people they affected, but may have been made without their knowledge or consent.

… We have also highlighted the fact that it is possible in some cases that inappropriate DNACPRs remain in place – and made it clear that all care providers have a responsibility to assure themselves that any DNACPR decisions have been made appropriately, in discussion with the person and in line with legal requirements.”

Amnesty International Uncovers ‘Blanket Approach’ to DNRs

In October 2020, Amnesty International also reported inappropriate use of DNRs by GPs, care homes, hospitals and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs).17 In their report, the nongovernmental organization said they had received reports from care home managers that CCGs had asked them to insert DNAR forms into residents’ files as a “blanket approach.”18

Family members also told Amnesty International that their relatives had been asked to sign DNAR forms without understanding them fully.

One document issued by CCGs to 35 GPs, seen by Amnesty International, told practices, “Search your clinical system for any care home patients who do not have a resuscitation order recorded (either ‘not for’ or ‘for’ resuscitation) and put appropriate orders in place” and “Ask the [care] home to check they have resuscitation orders on every resident.”

The document also gave instructions for GPs to prioritize patients who did not have a “do not convey to hospital” decision in place, and even included a script to facilitate such discussions, which discouraged hospitalization:19

“Frail elderly people do not respond to the sort of intensive treatment required for the lung complications of coronavirus and indeed the risk of hospital admission may be to exacerbate pain and suffering. We may therefore recommend that in the event of coronavirus infection, hospital admission is undesirable.”

In response to the document, 98 care homes were contacted, leading to distress, as in some cases care homes were told no residents over 75 would be admitted to a hospital. A senior local figure speaking to Amnesty International expressed his dismay:20

“Discussions on advanced care planning should be warm and natural conversations. This is not how they should be done. One care home with 26 residents had 16 residents sign DNARs in a 24-hour period. It was distressing for staff and residents … Care homes felt like they were being turned into hospices, and being asked to prepare to manage deaths instead of managing life.”

DNR Patients More Likely to Die From COVID-19

Assigning a DNR to a person with a learning disability or in any case without their knowledge can be the difference between life and death, including in the case of COVID-19.
Researchers from Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School investigated the influence of DNR status on mortality in hospital patients who died with COVID-19, revealing that people who died with COVID-19 were significantly more likely to have a DNR order on admission than those who recovered from the illness.21

COVID-19 patients with a DNR also had a higher mortality rate than COVID-19 patients without a DNR, with researchers noting, “The risk of death from COVID-19 was significantly influenced by the patients’ DNR status.” Separate research has also revealed that the way a DNR is interpreted can affect a person’s care. The researchers wrote:22

“While the definition of DNR might seem straightforward, its interpretation in clinical practice can be complicated. In this study, most of the nurses understood the meaning of DNR. Yet their interpretations often indicated clinical situations in which a DNR order was misaligned with the plan of care or was misinterpreted as replacing it.”

Confusion about the definition and implications is exactly what researchers found when they examined care based on a person’s DNR designation. Direct care nurses from a large urban hospital participated in an open-ended interview to gather information.23 When the data were analyzed, the researchers found varying interpretations on how to carry out DNR orders that resulted in “unintended consequences.”24

Since DNR orders and other advance directives may open other decisions to interpretation, affect patient care and outcomes and, as has recently been revealed during the pandemic, may be put into place without knowledge or consent, it’s important that you educate others and advocate for yourself or your loved one if hospitalization or placement in a care home occurs for any reason.

This may be especially true if you have a loved one with a disability, including a learning disability. Even during “normal” times, an estimated 1,200 people with a learning disability die avoidably under care of the National Health Service annually.25 During the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially in part due to inappropriate use of DNRs, these numbers may be even higher.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/05/dnrs-given-to-learning-disabled-covid-19-patients.aspx