Daily readings from Brownstone Institute authors, contributors, and researchers on public health, philosophy, science, and economics. en-us https://brownstone.org https://beyondwords.io https://audio.beyondwords.io/f/49654/150638 https://brownstone.org https://beyondwordsneproduction.blob.core.windows.net/production/public-upload/2025-07-10/5d90bcc3-0c5c-4e33-beae-bdf404548f4a-bi-player.png ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] Brownstone Institute services@brownstone.org false episodic Brownstone Institute Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:32:17 +0000 61896 The Labour-led British government is currently attempting to hollow out an ancient pillar of English constitutionalism, trial by jury. Under their planned reforms, trial by jury would survive in England and Wales for certain types of crimes, but its use would be significantly curtailed. For example, according to a government press release issued earlier this month, new "Swift Courts" will assign cases "with a likely sentence of three years or less" to be heard by "a Judge alone."
The campaign against jury trials, one of the most free-spirited and universally lauded institutions bequeathed to us by the common law tradition, would be baffling in a healthy constitutional regime. But sadly, it is predictable enough in a regime whose political leaders have developed the habit of tinkering with civil liberties as though they were trimming their lawn.
Being an ancient institution that evolved gradually over a millennium, a significant restriction of jury trials would have unpredictable effects on the justice system. We simply do not know with any confidence how, in the long run, such a move would alter the incentives of prosecutors, change the pattern of convictions for different crimes, or alter public perceptions of the justice system.
What we do know is that it would constitute a dangerous and completely unnecessary constitutional experiment, eroding one of the most time-honoured bulwarks of civil liberty. Furthermore, it is worth noting that according to an analysis published by the Free Speech Union, drawing on Ministry of Justice data, overall acquittal rates are much higher with juries than with magistrates' courts (21.6% vs. 11.4%), and this difference also holds specifically for speech-related offences (27.6% vs. 15.9%). Assuming these figures are accurate, citizens will likely be much more vulnerable to prosecution and conviction if the use of jury trials is thrown out or significantly eroded.
Trial by jury has been lauded by generations of learned and respected scholars of law and democracy as a cornerstone of a free society. Alexis de Tocqueville, whose 1835-40 volume Democracy in America offers one of the most incisive of reflections on the pros and cons of modern democracy, opined that "the jury…is the most energetic means of making the people rule, [and] is also the most effective means of teaching it how to rule well."
An eminent 17-century English jurist, Sir Edward Coke, insisted that no Englishman could be lawfully condemned "but by the lawful judgment of his peers." The esteemed 18-century legal commentator, Sir William Blackstone, likewise described trial by jury as "the glory of the English law" and "the most transcendent privilege which any subject can enjoy," emphasising its role as a shield between the individual and arbitrary power.
Budding constitutional reformers would do well to pay heed to Lord Patrick Devlin's warning that "the first object of any tyrant… would be to make Parliament utterly subservient to his will; and the next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives."
If marginal gains in the duration of trials are deemed an adequate justification for tinkering with this bastion of the legal order, then we might as well just go ahead and subject the whole constitutional order to an "efficiency" test: if we can shave a few days or weeks off this or that legal procedure, then why not engage in a bit of constitutional engineering?
But this is a cheap and shallow argument. To begin with, we should not be so sure of our own understanding of the mechanics of such a complex and evolved order, nor should we be so confident that we can predict the short- and long-term impact of our well-intentioned meddling.
Equally importantly, those who bring a revolutionary pick-axe to the constitutional edifice destabilise public expectations about the basic "rules of the game." In doing so, they open the door to political opportunis...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/jury-trials-are-vital-to-the-constitutional-order/ The Labour-led British government is currently attempting to hollow out an ancient pillar of English constitutionalism, trial by jury. Under their planned reforms, trial by jury would survive in England and Wales for certain types of crimes, but its use would be significantly curtailed. For example, according to a government press release issued earlier this month, new "Swift Courts" will assign cases "with a likely sentence of three years or less" to be heard by "a Judge alone."
The campaign against jury trials, one of the most free-spirited and universally lauded institutions bequeathed to us by the common law tradition, would be baffling in a healthy constitutional regime. But sadly, it is predictable enough in a regime whose political leaders have developed the habit of tinkering with civil liberties as though they were trimming their lawn.
Being an ancient institution that evolved gradually over a millennium, a significant restriction of jury trials would have unpredictable effects on the justice system. We simply do not know with any confidence how, in the long run, such a move would alter the incentives of prosecutors, change the pattern of convictions for different crimes, or alter public perceptions of the justice system.
What we do know is that it would constitute a dangerous and completely unnecessary constitutional experiment, eroding one of the most time-honoured bulwarks of civil liberty. Furthermore, it is worth noting that according to an analysis published by the Free Speech Union, drawing on Ministry of Justice data, overall acquittal rates are much higher with juries than with magistrates' courts (21.6% vs. 11.4%), and this difference also holds specifically for speech-related offences (27.6% vs. 15.9%). Assuming these figures are accurate, citizens will likely be much more vulnerable to prosecution and conviction if the use of jury trials is thrown out or significantly eroded.
Trial by jury has been lauded by generations of learned and respected scholars of law and democracy as a cornerstone of a free society. Alexis de Tocqueville, whose 1835-40 volume Democracy in America offers one of the most incisive of reflections on the pros and cons of modern democracy, opined that "the jury…is the most energetic means of making the people rule, [and] is also the most effective means of teaching it how to rule well."
An eminent 17-century English jurist, Sir Edward Coke, insisted that no Englishman could be lawfully condemned "but by the lawful judgment of his peers." The esteemed 18-century legal commentator, Sir William Blackstone, likewise described trial by jury as "the glory of the English law" and "the most transcendent privilege which any subject can enjoy," emphasising its role as a shield between the individual and arbitrary power.
Budding constitutional reformers would do well to pay heed to Lord Patrick Devlin's warning that "the first object of any tyrant… would be to make Parliament utterly subservient to his will; and the next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives."
If marginal gains in the duration of trials are deemed an adequate justification for tinkering with this bastion of the legal order, then we might as well just go ahead and subject the whole constitutional order to an "efficiency" test: if we can shave a few days or weeks off this or that legal procedure, then why not engage in a bit of constitutional engineering?
But this is a cheap and shallow argument. To begin with, we should not be so sure of our own understanding of the mechanics of such a complex and evolved order, nor should we be so confident that we can predict the short- and long-term impact of our well-intentioned meddling.
Equally importantly, those who bring a revolutionary pick-axe to the constitutional edifice destabilise public expectations about the basic "rules of the game." In doing so, they open the door to political opportunis...]]> Sat, 11 Apr 2026 08:49:39 -0400 Jury Trials Are Vital to the Constitutional Order The Labour-led British government is currently attempting to hollow out an ancient pillar of English constitutionalism, trial by jury. Under their planned reforms, trial by jury would survive in England and Wales...]]> The Labour-led British government is currently attempting to hollow out an ancient pillar of English constitutionalism, trial by jury. Under their planned reforms, trial by jury would survive in England and Wales for certain types of crimes, but its use would be significantly curtailed. For example, according to a government press release issued earlier this month, new "Swift Courts" will assign cases "with a likely sentence of three years or less" to be heard by "a Judge alone."
The campaign against jury trials, one of the most free-spirited and universally lauded institutions bequeathed to us by the common law tradition, would be baffling in a healthy constitutional regime. But sadly, it is predictable enough in a regime whose political leaders have developed the habit of tinkering with civil liberties as though they were trimming their lawn.
Being an ancient institution that evolved gradually over a millennium, a significant restriction of jury trials would have unpredictable effects on the justice system. We simply do not know with any confidence how, in the long run, such a move would alter the incentives of prosecutors, change the pattern of convictions for different crimes, or alter public perceptions of the justice system.
What we do know is that it would constitute a dangerous and completely unnecessary constitutional experiment, eroding one of the most time-honoured bulwarks of civil liberty. Furthermore, it is worth noting that according to an analysis published by the Free Speech Union, drawing on Ministry of Justice data, overall acquittal rates are much higher with juries than with magistrates' courts (21.6% vs. 11.4%), and this difference also holds specifically for speech-related offences (27.6% vs. 15.9%). Assuming these figures are accurate, citizens will likely be much more vulnerable to prosecution and conviction if the use of jury trials is thrown out or significantly eroded.
Trial by jury has been lauded by generations of learned and respected scholars of law and democracy as a cornerstone of a free society. Alexis de Tocqueville, whose 1835-40 volume Democracy in America offers one of the most incisive of reflections on the pros and cons of modern democracy, opined that "the jury…is the most energetic means of making the people rule, [and] is also the most effective means of teaching it how to rule well."
An eminent 17-century English jurist, Sir Edward Coke, insisted that no Englishman could be lawfully condemned "but by the lawful judgment of his peers." The esteemed 18-century legal commentator, Sir William Blackstone, likewise described trial by jury as "the glory of the English law" and "the most transcendent privilege which any subject can enjoy," emphasising its role as a shield between the individual and arbitrary power.
Budding constitutional reformers would do well to pay heed to Lord Patrick Devlin's warning that "the first object of any tyrant… would be to make Parliament utterly subservient to his will; and the next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives."
If marginal gains in the duration of trials are deemed an adequate justification for tinkering with this bastion of the legal order, then we might as well just go ahead and subject the whole constitutional order to an "efficiency" test: if we can shave a few days or weeks off this or that legal procedure, then why not engage in a bit of constitutional engineering?
But this is a cheap and shallow argument. To begin with, we should not be so sure of our own understanding of the mechanics of such a complex and evolved order, nor should we be so confident that we can predict the short- and long-term impact of our well-intentioned meddling.
Equally importantly, those who bring a revolutionary pick-axe to the constitutional edifice destabilise public expectations about the basic "rules of the game." In doing so, they open the door to political opportunis...]]> David Thunder 06:45 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 50 66863 War is the most unrestrained expression of humanity's destructive capacity, a setting where order disintegrates, moral boundaries are tested, and life is reduced to its most vulnerable state. Medicine, by contrast, stands as a deliberate act of resistance against that collapse, a disciplined and unwavering commitment to preserve life even when surrounded by death. Despite these opposing identities, war and medicine have remained deeply intertwined across history, not by design, but by inevitability.
Again and again, the battlefield has served as medicine's most unforgiving classroom, stripping away theory and exposing only what truly works under pressure. In that environment, progress is not driven by curiosity or careful planning but by urgency, necessity, and the relentless demand to save lives hanging by a thread. It is in these moments of chaos and human suffering that medicine evolves most rapidly, forced forward not because it is prepared, but because failure is measured in lives lost and there is no option but to improve.
From the fields of Waterloo to the trenches of World War I, and from the mechanized devastation of World War II to the asymmetric conflicts of the modern era, war has shaped the trajectory of medical progress in both extraordinary and deeply troubling ways. Notably, some of the most significant advances in medicine have arisen during periods marked by profound human failure. However, war not only drives medical advancement but also exposes how easily medicine can lose its ethical direction. This narrative examines both the lessons gained and the critical principles that must be preserved.
The Good: Innovation Forged in Crisis
Modern medicine owes much of its development to wartime innovation. The concept of organized trauma care, now standard in emergency departments worldwide, originated amid the chaos of conflict. During the Napoleonic Wars, Dominique Jean Larrey, surgeon to Napoleon Bonaparte, introduced the revolutionary principle that wounded soldiers should be treated according to the severity of their injuries rather than their rank or status.¹
This concept, now universally recognized as triage, represented a radical departure from the hierarchical norms of the time. It was not only a logistical innovation; it was a moral one. Larrey's approach emphasized the intrinsic value of human life over social or military position, laying the foundation for modern emergency medicine.²
Larrey's contributions extended beyond triage. His early implementation of rapid evacuation systems, known as "flying ambulances," and his observations on environmental exposure and resuscitative physiology anticipated concepts that would only be fully recognized centuries later.³ Subsequent analyses, including recent scholarship, have demonstrated how Larrey's insights align with principles now seen in therapeutic hypothermia and prehospital care systems.⁴
The 19th and early 20th centuries saw further transformation. During World War I, physicians faced injuries that had no precedent: massive blast trauma, chemical burns, and overwhelming infection in an era before antibiotics. The scale of suffering forced rapid advances in surgical technique, wound management, and infection control.⁵
The development of blood transfusion systems during this period, particularly the introduction of blood typing and storage, represented a turning point in the management of hemorrhagic shock.⁶ For the first time, physicians could meaningfully intervene in one of the leading causes of battlefield death.
World War II accelerated this progress dramatically. The widespread use of penicillin, the refinement of surgical debridement techniques, and the development of forward surgical units significantly improved survival rates.⁷ The concept of rapid evacuation—getting the wounded away from the battlefield and into definitive care as quickly as possible became a central principle of military medicine.
By the ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/when-war-teaches-medicine/ War is the most unrestrained expression of humanity's destructive capacity, a setting where order disintegrates, moral boundaries are tested, and life is reduced to its most vulnerable state. Medicine, by contrast, stands as a deliberate act of resistance against that collapse, a disciplined and unwavering commitment to preserve life even when surrounded by death. Despite these opposing identities, war and medicine have remained deeply intertwined across history, not by design, but by inevitability.
Again and again, the battlefield has served as medicine's most unforgiving classroom, stripping away theory and exposing only what truly works under pressure. In that environment, progress is not driven by curiosity or careful planning but by urgency, necessity, and the relentless demand to save lives hanging by a thread. It is in these moments of chaos and human suffering that medicine evolves most rapidly, forced forward not because it is prepared, but because failure is measured in lives lost and there is no option but to improve.
From the fields of Waterloo to the trenches of World War I, and from the mechanized devastation of World War II to the asymmetric conflicts of the modern era, war has shaped the trajectory of medical progress in both extraordinary and deeply troubling ways. Notably, some of the most significant advances in medicine have arisen during periods marked by profound human failure. However, war not only drives medical advancement but also exposes how easily medicine can lose its ethical direction. This narrative examines both the lessons gained and the critical principles that must be preserved.
The Good: Innovation Forged in Crisis
Modern medicine owes much of its development to wartime innovation. The concept of organized trauma care, now standard in emergency departments worldwide, originated amid the chaos of conflict. During the Napoleonic Wars, Dominique Jean Larrey, surgeon to Napoleon Bonaparte, introduced the revolutionary principle that wounded soldiers should be treated according to the severity of their injuries rather than their rank or status.¹
This concept, now universally recognized as triage, represented a radical departure from the hierarchical norms of the time. It was not only a logistical innovation; it was a moral one. Larrey's approach emphasized the intrinsic value of human life over social or military position, laying the foundation for modern emergency medicine.²
Larrey's contributions extended beyond triage. His early implementation of rapid evacuation systems, known as "flying ambulances," and his observations on environmental exposure and resuscitative physiology anticipated concepts that would only be fully recognized centuries later.³ Subsequent analyses, including recent scholarship, have demonstrated how Larrey's insights align with principles now seen in therapeutic hypothermia and prehospital care systems.⁴
The 19th and early 20th centuries saw further transformation. During World War I, physicians faced injuries that had no precedent: massive blast trauma, chemical burns, and overwhelming infection in an era before antibiotics. The scale of suffering forced rapid advances in surgical technique, wound management, and infection control.⁵
The development of blood transfusion systems during this period, particularly the introduction of blood typing and storage, represented a turning point in the management of hemorrhagic shock.⁶ For the first time, physicians could meaningfully intervene in one of the leading causes of battlefield death.
World War II accelerated this progress dramatically. The widespread use of penicillin, the refinement of surgical debridement techniques, and the development of forward surgical units significantly improved survival rates.⁷ The concept of rapid evacuation—getting the wounded away from the battlefield and into definitive care as quickly as possible became a central principle of military medicine.
By the ...]]> Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:06:33 -0400 When War Teaches Medicine War is the most unrestrained expression of humanity's destructive capacity, a setting where order disintegrates, moral boundaries are tested, and life is reduced to its most vulnerable state. Medicine, by contrast...]]> War is the most unrestrained expression of humanity's destructive capacity, a setting where order disintegrates, moral boundaries are tested, and life is reduced to its most vulnerable state. Medicine, by contrast, stands as a deliberate act of resistance against that collapse, a disciplined and unwavering commitment to preserve life even when surrounded by death. Despite these opposing identities, war and medicine have remained deeply intertwined across history, not by design, but by inevitability.
Again and again, the battlefield has served as medicine's most unforgiving classroom, stripping away theory and exposing only what truly works under pressure. In that environment, progress is not driven by curiosity or careful planning but by urgency, necessity, and the relentless demand to save lives hanging by a thread. It is in these moments of chaos and human suffering that medicine evolves most rapidly, forced forward not because it is prepared, but because failure is measured in lives lost and there is no option but to improve.
From the fields of Waterloo to the trenches of World War I, and from the mechanized devastation of World War II to the asymmetric conflicts of the modern era, war has shaped the trajectory of medical progress in both extraordinary and deeply troubling ways. Notably, some of the most significant advances in medicine have arisen during periods marked by profound human failure. However, war not only drives medical advancement but also exposes how easily medicine can lose its ethical direction. This narrative examines both the lessons gained and the critical principles that must be preserved.
The Good: Innovation Forged in Crisis
Modern medicine owes much of its development to wartime innovation. The concept of organized trauma care, now standard in emergency departments worldwide, originated amid the chaos of conflict. During the Napoleonic Wars, Dominique Jean Larrey, surgeon to Napoleon Bonaparte, introduced the revolutionary principle that wounded soldiers should be treated according to the severity of their injuries rather than their rank or status.¹
This concept, now universally recognized as triage, represented a radical departure from the hierarchical norms of the time. It was not only a logistical innovation; it was a moral one. Larrey's approach emphasized the intrinsic value of human life over social or military position, laying the foundation for modern emergency medicine.²
Larrey's contributions extended beyond triage. His early implementation of rapid evacuation systems, known as "flying ambulances," and his observations on environmental exposure and resuscitative physiology anticipated concepts that would only be fully recognized centuries later.³ Subsequent analyses, including recent scholarship, have demonstrated how Larrey's insights align with principles now seen in therapeutic hypothermia and prehospital care systems.⁴
The 19th and early 20th centuries saw further transformation. During World War I, physicians faced injuries that had no precedent: massive blast trauma, chemical burns, and overwhelming infection in an era before antibiotics. The scale of suffering forced rapid advances in surgical technique, wound management, and infection control.⁵
The development of blood transfusion systems during this period, particularly the introduction of blood typing and storage, represented a turning point in the management of hemorrhagic shock.⁶ For the first time, physicians could meaningfully intervene in one of the leading causes of battlefield death.
World War II accelerated this progress dramatically. The widespread use of penicillin, the refinement of surgical debridement techniques, and the development of forward surgical units significantly improved survival rates.⁷ The concept of rapid evacuation—getting the wounded away from the battlefield and into definitive care as quickly as possible became a central principle of military medicine.
By the ...]]> Joseph Varon 11:33 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 49 66822 Recently, like millions of others around the world, I listened to a conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience between Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., aired on February 27, 2026 (1). In the discussion, HHS Secretary Kennedy spoke at length about promoting healthy nutrition and tackling health insurance fraud. While nutrition is undoubtedly an important subject, my attention was drawn instead to another topic—one that lies close to my heart: the use of psychedelics in medical and therapeutic settings, and what I perceive as the implicit threat this poses to our freedom.
About halfway through the conversation, the discussion turns to the promise of psychedelics—particularly in treating veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, but also in addressing severe opioid addiction and depression (2). Both Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. express optimism, describing psychedelics as powerful tools that could help individuals lead happier and more productive lives.
Kennedy states that these substances have the potential "to rewire your brain," referring to the well-documented neuroplasticity observed in the days following psychedelic use, which may underlie their capacity to catalyse behavioural change. Rogan then poses a rhetorical question: "Who could possibly be against this?"
Both men agree that such treatments should be offered within a clinical setting, with Kennedy emphasizing the need for further trials and the development of rigorous therapeutic guidelines before broader access is granted—an effort, as he frames it, to avoid a "Wild West" scenario.
And while I share their enthusiasm for psychedelics, I, both as a physician and an ayahuasqueira, see a profound threat to our (religious) freedom when authority over these substances is placed exclusively in the hands of what might be called the "church of medicine." The medical-therapeutic framework is founded on a materialist, reductionist view of what it means to be human, one that leaves no room for spirituality and fails to take seriously the subjective experience of those who engage with these substances.
Just as physical nourishment forms the foundation of bodily health, human cultures across time have recognized that certain plants can facilitate contact with the spiritual world—serving, in a sense, as a kind of spiritual nourishment. And yet, more than what we eat, it is our spiritual life that shapes who we truly are.
To draw psychedelics further into the medical domain—to medicalize them—while the spiritual use of ancient plant medicines in the West remains criminalized (3), risks undermining religious freedom (4).
My firm impression is that the broader implications of the current Western approach to psychedelics are often overlooked—even by those who consider themselves advocates of medical freedom. With the medical-therapeutic establishment at the helm, a vital dimension of human experience is once again at risk of being medicalized (5).
The growing push for clinical trials, conducted in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry and commercial investors, is shaping a model in which patients—under strict supervision, in controlled clinical environments, and under the care of medical or psychiatric professionals—are permitted to consume psychedelics.
Within this framework, access becomes mediated by institutional authority.
At the same time, many of the physicians and scientists leading what is often described as the "third psychedelic wave" are thrilled about the emergence of a significant new market (6). Interest from the pharmaceutical sector, alongside investment from Silicon Valley, reflects growing attention to the commercial potential of combining psychedelics with therapeutic models (7). A glance at the trade shows and conferences where "cutting-edge" psychedelic science is presented suggests that this field is widely regarded (to put it lightly) as a space of substantial economic opportunity or a new mar...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/medicalization-of-our-spiritual-life/ Recently, like millions of others around the world, I listened to a conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience between Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., aired on February 27, 2026 (1). In the discussion, HHS Secretary Kennedy spoke at length about promoting healthy nutrition and tackling health insurance fraud. While nutrition is undoubtedly an important subject, my attention was drawn instead to another topic—one that lies close to my heart: the use of psychedelics in medical and therapeutic settings, and what I perceive as the implicit threat this poses to our freedom.
About halfway through the conversation, the discussion turns to the promise of psychedelics—particularly in treating veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, but also in addressing severe opioid addiction and depression (2). Both Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. express optimism, describing psychedelics as powerful tools that could help individuals lead happier and more productive lives.
Kennedy states that these substances have the potential "to rewire your brain," referring to the well-documented neuroplasticity observed in the days following psychedelic use, which may underlie their capacity to catalyse behavioural change. Rogan then poses a rhetorical question: "Who could possibly be against this?"
Both men agree that such treatments should be offered within a clinical setting, with Kennedy emphasizing the need for further trials and the development of rigorous therapeutic guidelines before broader access is granted—an effort, as he frames it, to avoid a "Wild West" scenario.
And while I share their enthusiasm for psychedelics, I, both as a physician and an ayahuasqueira, see a profound threat to our (religious) freedom when authority over these substances is placed exclusively in the hands of what might be called the "church of medicine." The medical-therapeutic framework is founded on a materialist, reductionist view of what it means to be human, one that leaves no room for spirituality and fails to take seriously the subjective experience of those who engage with these substances.
Just as physical nourishment forms the foundation of bodily health, human cultures across time have recognized that certain plants can facilitate contact with the spiritual world—serving, in a sense, as a kind of spiritual nourishment. And yet, more than what we eat, it is our spiritual life that shapes who we truly are.
To draw psychedelics further into the medical domain—to medicalize them—while the spiritual use of ancient plant medicines in the West remains criminalized (3), risks undermining religious freedom (4).
My firm impression is that the broader implications of the current Western approach to psychedelics are often overlooked—even by those who consider themselves advocates of medical freedom. With the medical-therapeutic establishment at the helm, a vital dimension of human experience is once again at risk of being medicalized (5).
The growing push for clinical trials, conducted in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry and commercial investors, is shaping a model in which patients—under strict supervision, in controlled clinical environments, and under the care of medical or psychiatric professionals—are permitted to consume psychedelics.
Within this framework, access becomes mediated by institutional authority.
At the same time, many of the physicians and scientists leading what is often described as the "third psychedelic wave" are thrilled about the emergence of a significant new market (6). Interest from the pharmaceutical sector, alongside investment from Silicon Valley, reflects growing attention to the commercial potential of combining psychedelics with therapeutic models (7). A glance at the trade shows and conferences where "cutting-edge" psychedelic science is presented suggests that this field is widely regarded (to put it lightly) as a space of substantial economic opportunity or a new mar...]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 07:40:00 -0400 Medicalization of Our Spiritual Life Recently, like millions of others around the world, I listened to a conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience between Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., aired on February 27, 2026 (1). In the discussion, HH...]]> Recently, like millions of others around the world, I listened to a conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience between Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., aired on February 27, 2026 (1). In the discussion, HHS Secretary Kennedy spoke at length about promoting healthy nutrition and tackling health insurance fraud. While nutrition is undoubtedly an important subject, my attention was drawn instead to another topic—one that lies close to my heart: the use of psychedelics in medical and therapeutic settings, and what I perceive as the implicit threat this poses to our freedom.
About halfway through the conversation, the discussion turns to the promise of psychedelics—particularly in treating veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, but also in addressing severe opioid addiction and depression (2). Both Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. express optimism, describing psychedelics as powerful tools that could help individuals lead happier and more productive lives.
Kennedy states that these substances have the potential "to rewire your brain," referring to the well-documented neuroplasticity observed in the days following psychedelic use, which may underlie their capacity to catalyse behavioural change. Rogan then poses a rhetorical question: "Who could possibly be against this?"
Both men agree that such treatments should be offered within a clinical setting, with Kennedy emphasizing the need for further trials and the development of rigorous therapeutic guidelines before broader access is granted—an effort, as he frames it, to avoid a "Wild West" scenario.
And while I share their enthusiasm for psychedelics, I, both as a physician and an ayahuasqueira, see a profound threat to our (religious) freedom when authority over these substances is placed exclusively in the hands of what might be called the "church of medicine." The medical-therapeutic framework is founded on a materialist, reductionist view of what it means to be human, one that leaves no room for spirituality and fails to take seriously the subjective experience of those who engage with these substances.
Just as physical nourishment forms the foundation of bodily health, human cultures across time have recognized that certain plants can facilitate contact with the spiritual world—serving, in a sense, as a kind of spiritual nourishment. And yet, more than what we eat, it is our spiritual life that shapes who we truly are.
To draw psychedelics further into the medical domain—to medicalize them—while the spiritual use of ancient plant medicines in the West remains criminalized (3), risks undermining religious freedom (4).
My firm impression is that the broader implications of the current Western approach to psychedelics are often overlooked—even by those who consider themselves advocates of medical freedom. With the medical-therapeutic establishment at the helm, a vital dimension of human experience is once again at risk of being medicalized (5).
The growing push for clinical trials, conducted in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry and commercial investors, is shaping a model in which patients—under strict supervision, in controlled clinical environments, and under the care of medical or psychiatric professionals—are permitted to consume psychedelics.
Within this framework, access becomes mediated by institutional authority.
At the same time, many of the physicians and scientists leading what is often described as the "third psychedelic wave" are thrilled about the emergence of a significant new market (6). Interest from the pharmaceutical sector, alongside investment from Silicon Valley, reflects growing attention to the commercial potential of combining psychedelics with therapeutic models (7). A glance at the trade shows and conferences where "cutting-edge" psychedelic science is presented suggests that this field is widely regarded (to put it lightly) as a space of substantial economic opportunity or a new mar...]]> Elisabeth Bennink 37:25 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 48 66750 As a young doctor, I joked about a general warning that can still be seen in Danish package inserts for drugs: "Caution is advised during pregnancy." What does that mean? If you take a pill, it is too late to be cautious, and if you don't take it, you don't need to be cautious because you will be totally safe. My joke was that caution meant placing the pill between the legs instead of swallowing it, which would also make it more difficult to become pregnant.
The authorities passed the buck. If your child is malformed, they can say that they did warn you.
Official statements that antidepressants are safe to take during pregnancy should be distrusted. No drug is safe. If drugs were safe, they would not be the leading cause of death, ahead of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. In this article, I shall explain why it is wrong to recommend or take antidepressants during pregnancy.
The Role of Serotonin in the Body
SSRIs stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, which is a misnomer. They are not selective at all. They have multiple effects throughout the body and are not directed against any chemical abnormality. People do not become depressed because they have too little serotonin in the body but mainly because they live depressing lives.
Serotonin plays a very important role for many processes in the body, also in many primitive organisms. It is usually a very bad idea to change the blood level of a chemical that has proved so useful during evolution.
Foetal development is a delicate process that can easily go wrong, which is why we tell pregnant women to avoid alcohol. A priori, we would expect any substance that affects serotonin levels to be harmful because serotonin is essential for foetal development. This is basic biology, but we live in a world dominated by financial interests, which is why many pregnant women take antidepressants during pregnancy.
How a Drug Company Fooled the Drug Regulators
The first SSRI approved for use in children was fluoxetine from Eli Lilly. It should never have been approved. When psychiatrist David Healy and I reviewed the confidential internal study reports for the two trials that led to approval of fluoxetine for children with depression, we found that fluoxetine is unsafe and ineffective. In the first trial, the investigators had omitted two suicide attempts on fluoxetine in their published paper, and many of the 48 children on the drug experienced restlessness and had nightmares, which increase the risk of suicide and violence.
In the other trial, one child was severely harmed for every 10 children treated with fluoxetine. Fluoxetine increased the QTc interval on the ECG (P = 0.02), which increases the risk of sudden death, increased serum cholesterol, and was an effective growth inhibitor, reducing the increases in height and weight over just 19 weeks by 1.0 cm and 1.1 kg, respectively (P = 0.008 for both).
The public does not have access to animal experiments with drugs because the drug companies know it would be bad for business if people saw the data. When I got access to Merck's animal studies for their HPV vaccine Gardasil in a US lawsuit where I was an expert witness, I saw that the data supported what the patients had reported: Gardasil can cause serious neurological harms and the vaccine adjuvant is also harmful. However, drug regulators all over the world have declared that both the adjuvant and Gardasil are safe.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had serious concerns about approving fluoxetine for use in children, which is clear in an 86-page document about animal studies from August 2005 that is nowhere to be found on the Internet: "Prozac Paediatric Indication. Arbitration Procedure No: EMEA/H/A-6(12)/671. Lilly Response to Questions from EMEA in Document EMEA/CHMP/175191/05". I have uploaded this document in the public interest. It illustrates the extent to which drug companies are willing to bend the truth for an econo...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/dont-use-antidepressants-during-pregnancy-or-for-children/ As a young doctor, I joked about a general warning that can still be seen in Danish package inserts for drugs: "Caution is advised during pregnancy." What does that mean? If you take a pill, it is too late to be cautious, and if you don't take it, you don't need to be cautious because you will be totally safe. My joke was that caution meant placing the pill between the legs instead of swallowing it, which would also make it more difficult to become pregnant.
The authorities passed the buck. If your child is malformed, they can say that they did warn you.
Official statements that antidepressants are safe to take during pregnancy should be distrusted. No drug is safe. If drugs were safe, they would not be the leading cause of death, ahead of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. In this article, I shall explain why it is wrong to recommend or take antidepressants during pregnancy.
The Role of Serotonin in the Body
SSRIs stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, which is a misnomer. They are not selective at all. They have multiple effects throughout the body and are not directed against any chemical abnormality. People do not become depressed because they have too little serotonin in the body but mainly because they live depressing lives.
Serotonin plays a very important role for many processes in the body, also in many primitive organisms. It is usually a very bad idea to change the blood level of a chemical that has proved so useful during evolution.
Foetal development is a delicate process that can easily go wrong, which is why we tell pregnant women to avoid alcohol. A priori, we would expect any substance that affects serotonin levels to be harmful because serotonin is essential for foetal development. This is basic biology, but we live in a world dominated by financial interests, which is why many pregnant women take antidepressants during pregnancy.
How a Drug Company Fooled the Drug Regulators
The first SSRI approved for use in children was fluoxetine from Eli Lilly. It should never have been approved. When psychiatrist David Healy and I reviewed the confidential internal study reports for the two trials that led to approval of fluoxetine for children with depression, we found that fluoxetine is unsafe and ineffective. In the first trial, the investigators had omitted two suicide attempts on fluoxetine in their published paper, and many of the 48 children on the drug experienced restlessness and had nightmares, which increase the risk of suicide and violence.
In the other trial, one child was severely harmed for every 10 children treated with fluoxetine. Fluoxetine increased the QTc interval on the ECG (P = 0.02), which increases the risk of sudden death, increased serum cholesterol, and was an effective growth inhibitor, reducing the increases in height and weight over just 19 weeks by 1.0 cm and 1.1 kg, respectively (P = 0.008 for both).
The public does not have access to animal experiments with drugs because the drug companies know it would be bad for business if people saw the data. When I got access to Merck's animal studies for their HPV vaccine Gardasil in a US lawsuit where I was an expert witness, I saw that the data supported what the patients had reported: Gardasil can cause serious neurological harms and the vaccine adjuvant is also harmful. However, drug regulators all over the world have declared that both the adjuvant and Gardasil are safe.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had serious concerns about approving fluoxetine for use in children, which is clear in an 86-page document about animal studies from August 2005 that is nowhere to be found on the Internet: "Prozac Paediatric Indication. Arbitration Procedure No: EMEA/H/A-6(12)/671. Lilly Response to Questions from EMEA in Document EMEA/CHMP/175191/05". I have uploaded this document in the public interest. It illustrates the extent to which drug companies are willing to bend the truth for an econo...]]> Wed, 08 Apr 2026 07:40:00 -0400 Don't Use Antidepressants During Pregnancy or for Children As a young doctor, I joked about a general warning that can still be seen in Danish package inserts for drugs: "Caution is advised during pregnancy." What does that mean? If you take a pill, it is too late to...]]> As a young doctor, I joked about a general warning that can still be seen in Danish package inserts for drugs: "Caution is advised during pregnancy." What does that mean? If you take a pill, it is too late to be cautious, and if you don't take it, you don't need to be cautious because you will be totally safe. My joke was that caution meant placing the pill between the legs instead of swallowing it, which would also make it more difficult to become pregnant.
The authorities passed the buck. If your child is malformed, they can say that they did warn you.
Official statements that antidepressants are safe to take during pregnancy should be distrusted. No drug is safe. If drugs were safe, they would not be the leading cause of death, ahead of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. In this article, I shall explain why it is wrong to recommend or take antidepressants during pregnancy.
The Role of Serotonin in the Body
SSRIs stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, which is a misnomer. They are not selective at all. They have multiple effects throughout the body and are not directed against any chemical abnormality. People do not become depressed because they have too little serotonin in the body but mainly because they live depressing lives.
Serotonin plays a very important role for many processes in the body, also in many primitive organisms. It is usually a very bad idea to change the blood level of a chemical that has proved so useful during evolution.
Foetal development is a delicate process that can easily go wrong, which is why we tell pregnant women to avoid alcohol. A priori, we would expect any substance that affects serotonin levels to be harmful because serotonin is essential for foetal development. This is basic biology, but we live in a world dominated by financial interests, which is why many pregnant women take antidepressants during pregnancy.
How a Drug Company Fooled the Drug Regulators
The first SSRI approved for use in children was fluoxetine from Eli Lilly. It should never have been approved. When psychiatrist David Healy and I reviewed the confidential internal study reports for the two trials that led to approval of fluoxetine for children with depression, we found that fluoxetine is unsafe and ineffective. In the first trial, the investigators had omitted two suicide attempts on fluoxetine in their published paper, and many of the 48 children on the drug experienced restlessness and had nightmares, which increase the risk of suicide and violence.
In the other trial, one child was severely harmed for every 10 children treated with fluoxetine. Fluoxetine increased the QTc interval on the ECG (P = 0.02), which increases the risk of sudden death, increased serum cholesterol, and was an effective growth inhibitor, reducing the increases in height and weight over just 19 weeks by 1.0 cm and 1.1 kg, respectively (P = 0.008 for both).
The public does not have access to animal experiments with drugs because the drug companies know it would be bad for business if people saw the data. When I got access to Merck's animal studies for their HPV vaccine Gardasil in a US lawsuit where I was an expert witness, I saw that the data supported what the patients had reported: Gardasil can cause serious neurological harms and the vaccine adjuvant is also harmful. However, drug regulators all over the world have declared that both the adjuvant and Gardasil are safe.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had serious concerns about approving fluoxetine for use in children, which is clear in an 86-page document about animal studies from August 2005 that is nowhere to be found on the Internet: "Prozac Paediatric Indication. Arbitration Procedure No: EMEA/H/A-6(12)/671. Lilly Response to Questions from EMEA in Document EMEA/CHMP/175191/05". I have uploaded this document in the public interest. It illustrates the extent to which drug companies are willing to bend the truth for an econo...]]> Peter C. Gøtzsche 20:29 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 47 66753 The epithet "anti-vaxxer" is common in our time for anyone who resists mandates or resents the enormous legal privileges, protections, patents, and subsidies the industry receives today. It also pertains to those who attempt to bring attention to vaccine injury and death, a sensitive and even suppressed subject for an industry that relies on a utilitarian measure to demonstrate its social value.
The label does not always or often make sense. The dominant theme of the movement now – and this has always been true – is to reject intervention and instead regard this industry as any other in a free marketplace (hamburgers, bottled water, washing machines, etc.), neither subsidized, nor mandated, nor protected from liability from imposed harms. If that goal were achieved, the "anti-vaxx" movement would shrink dramatically.
The trouble is that no matter how deep we look into the history of vaccination in Western countries, and the US in particular, we find that vaccination has never been treated as a normal market good to accept or reject based on consumer preference.
Indeed, if this pharmaceutical product were as obviously glorious as advertised, it should be able to elicit sufficient economic demand to sustain itself profitably and competitively like any other product. It's simple: let this industry be subjected to the cold winds of a ruthless free market and see what happens.
From the outset, however, the vaccine industry has enjoyed some form of privilege under the law. I've detailed some of this history here.
This naturally gives rise to suspicions that something isn't quite right. Perhaps these products are neither safe nor effective, else why would the population need such heavy-handed nudging? Injury from shots further fuels the fervor to at least make them voluntary and stop the subsidies and liability protections. What's more, mandates have historically not led to higher vaccination rates but only more population resistance and lower rates.
An excellent example is the Leicester Anti-Vaccination League of the 1870s and 1880s England. This was one of the more effective anti-vaccine mandate movements in Western history. It rose up in response to the Vaccination Act of 1867 as passed by Parliament in compliance with intense industry lobbying and the familiar graft (nothing has changed).
This Act made vaccination mandatory for all children up to the age of 14. It paid vaccinators 1 and 3 shillings per successful vaccination (same as now). It required birth registrars to issue a notice of vaccination within seven days of a child's birth registration (same). Non-compliance led to criminal conviction and a fine of up to 20 shillings (millions were professionally displaced only recently with the Covid shot). The Act imposed repeated penalties until the child was vaccinated (same: doctors lost licenses). Failure to pay could result in imprisonment (some went to jail this time). It also banned variolation (the older method of exposure triggering an immune response) with imprisonment up to one month.
A question I keep asking myself about this period: if vaccination is so much and obviously superior to variolation, why was such hoopla and subsidies necessary for one to replace the other, all the way up to criminal penalties for using the older method? I do not have the answer, except to say this is another way in which this industry defies market dynamics in which innovations always organically replace inferior tech.
In short, the Vaccination Act of 1867 was an egregious law, passed in the face of growing population resistance that developed in the half-century since the famed Edward Jenner first brought the attention to the new method to replace variolation. While effectiveness of the cross immunity from cowpox to smallpox was never in question, injury from vaccination (via cuts in the arm, sniffed through the nose, and only later injected) had been a theme from the 1790s.
The Leicester An...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-story-of-the-victorian-era-anti-mandate-movement/ The epithet "anti-vaxxer" is common in our time for anyone who resists mandates or resents the enormous legal privileges, protections, patents, and subsidies the industry receives today. It also pertains to those who attempt to bring attention to vaccine injury and death, a sensitive and even suppressed subject for an industry that relies on a utilitarian measure to demonstrate its social value.
The label does not always or often make sense. The dominant theme of the movement now – and this has always been true – is to reject intervention and instead regard this industry as any other in a free marketplace (hamburgers, bottled water, washing machines, etc.), neither subsidized, nor mandated, nor protected from liability from imposed harms. If that goal were achieved, the "anti-vaxx" movement would shrink dramatically.
The trouble is that no matter how deep we look into the history of vaccination in Western countries, and the US in particular, we find that vaccination has never been treated as a normal market good to accept or reject based on consumer preference.
Indeed, if this pharmaceutical product were as obviously glorious as advertised, it should be able to elicit sufficient economic demand to sustain itself profitably and competitively like any other product. It's simple: let this industry be subjected to the cold winds of a ruthless free market and see what happens.
From the outset, however, the vaccine industry has enjoyed some form of privilege under the law. I've detailed some of this history here.
This naturally gives rise to suspicions that something isn't quite right. Perhaps these products are neither safe nor effective, else why would the population need such heavy-handed nudging? Injury from shots further fuels the fervor to at least make them voluntary and stop the subsidies and liability protections. What's more, mandates have historically not led to higher vaccination rates but only more population resistance and lower rates.
An excellent example is the Leicester Anti-Vaccination League of the 1870s and 1880s England. This was one of the more effective anti-vaccine mandate movements in Western history. It rose up in response to the Vaccination Act of 1867 as passed by Parliament in compliance with intense industry lobbying and the familiar graft (nothing has changed).
This Act made vaccination mandatory for all children up to the age of 14. It paid vaccinators 1 and 3 shillings per successful vaccination (same as now). It required birth registrars to issue a notice of vaccination within seven days of a child's birth registration (same). Non-compliance led to criminal conviction and a fine of up to 20 shillings (millions were professionally displaced only recently with the Covid shot). The Act imposed repeated penalties until the child was vaccinated (same: doctors lost licenses). Failure to pay could result in imprisonment (some went to jail this time). It also banned variolation (the older method of exposure triggering an immune response) with imprisonment up to one month.
A question I keep asking myself about this period: if vaccination is so much and obviously superior to variolation, why was such hoopla and subsidies necessary for one to replace the other, all the way up to criminal penalties for using the older method? I do not have the answer, except to say this is another way in which this industry defies market dynamics in which innovations always organically replace inferior tech.
In short, the Vaccination Act of 1867 was an egregious law, passed in the face of growing population resistance that developed in the half-century since the famed Edward Jenner first brought the attention to the new method to replace variolation. While effectiveness of the cross immunity from cowpox to smallpox was never in question, injury from vaccination (via cuts in the arm, sniffed through the nose, and only later injected) had been a theme from the 1790s.
The Leicester An...]]> Tue, 07 Apr 2026 07:05:10 -0400 The Story of the Victorian-Era Anti-Mandate Movement The epithet "anti-vaxxer" is common in our time for anyone who resists mandates or resents the enormous legal privileges, protections, patents, and subsidies the industry receives today. It also pertains to t...]]> The epithet "anti-vaxxer" is common in our time for anyone who resists mandates or resents the enormous legal privileges, protections, patents, and subsidies the industry receives today. It also pertains to those who attempt to bring attention to vaccine injury and death, a sensitive and even suppressed subject for an industry that relies on a utilitarian measure to demonstrate its social value.
The label does not always or often make sense. The dominant theme of the movement now – and this has always been true – is to reject intervention and instead regard this industry as any other in a free marketplace (hamburgers, bottled water, washing machines, etc.), neither subsidized, nor mandated, nor protected from liability from imposed harms. If that goal were achieved, the "anti-vaxx" movement would shrink dramatically.
The trouble is that no matter how deep we look into the history of vaccination in Western countries, and the US in particular, we find that vaccination has never been treated as a normal market good to accept or reject based on consumer preference.
Indeed, if this pharmaceutical product were as obviously glorious as advertised, it should be able to elicit sufficient economic demand to sustain itself profitably and competitively like any other product. It's simple: let this industry be subjected to the cold winds of a ruthless free market and see what happens.
From the outset, however, the vaccine industry has enjoyed some form of privilege under the law. I've detailed some of this history here.
This naturally gives rise to suspicions that something isn't quite right. Perhaps these products are neither safe nor effective, else why would the population need such heavy-handed nudging? Injury from shots further fuels the fervor to at least make them voluntary and stop the subsidies and liability protections. What's more, mandates have historically not led to higher vaccination rates but only more population resistance and lower rates.
An excellent example is the Leicester Anti-Vaccination League of the 1870s and 1880s England. This was one of the more effective anti-vaccine mandate movements in Western history. It rose up in response to the Vaccination Act of 1867 as passed by Parliament in compliance with intense industry lobbying and the familiar graft (nothing has changed).
This Act made vaccination mandatory for all children up to the age of 14. It paid vaccinators 1 and 3 shillings per successful vaccination (same as now). It required birth registrars to issue a notice of vaccination within seven days of a child's birth registration (same). Non-compliance led to criminal conviction and a fine of up to 20 shillings (millions were professionally displaced only recently with the Covid shot). The Act imposed repeated penalties until the child was vaccinated (same: doctors lost licenses). Failure to pay could result in imprisonment (some went to jail this time). It also banned variolation (the older method of exposure triggering an immune response) with imprisonment up to one month.
A question I keep asking myself about this period: if vaccination is so much and obviously superior to variolation, why was such hoopla and subsidies necessary for one to replace the other, all the way up to criminal penalties for using the older method? I do not have the answer, except to say this is another way in which this industry defies market dynamics in which innovations always organically replace inferior tech.
In short, the Vaccination Act of 1867 was an egregious law, passed in the face of growing population resistance that developed in the half-century since the famed Edward Jenner first brought the attention to the new method to replace variolation. While effectiveness of the cross immunity from cowpox to smallpox was never in question, injury from vaccination (via cuts in the arm, sniffed through the nose, and only later injected) had been a theme from the 1790s.
The Leicester An...]]> Jeffrey A. Tucker 08:19 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 46 66629 I have loved many addicts in my life.
I have been exasperated, impoverished, and terrified by them. But also amused, warmed, enraptured, elevated…That's the thing about addicts. They contain multitudes, all drama and extremes. They're charismatic until they're repugnant, joyful until they're suicidal. Everything is in vivid, dangerous color. It's part of the ride and the reason they exert such a pull on cautious, ascetic people like me.
Some of my addicts are gone. My closest friend and "Damn Good Food" co-author, Mitch Omer, died at 61. Others have found God and turned their lives around (they're now exciting and dramatic people of faith). I love people who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, and food. Many surf between the four.
Recently, another category of people formed: the ones injecting themselves with GLP-1s, mostly to lose weight but also to control other impulses. It's clearly great for the handful whose life and health were being destroyed by obesity. But for the others? I'm dubious.
Ozempic and its cousins (Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound, et al.) modify the pleasure centers of the brain, making everything people crave—food, sex, smoking, alcohol, shopping, gambling, cocaine—less appealing. It doesn't address the underlying problems of addiction, such as depression or dishonesty. It just eliminates the part of the person that enjoys and revels, the colorful, joyous side.
It's a version of the drug in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that the doctor ginned up to divide himself, creating a respectable man bound by reserve and a separate murderous, pleasure-seeking monster.
From Dr. Jekyll's own account:
Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man's dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly toward the mystic and the transcendental, re-acted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.
Of course, the doctor's desire to split off his hedonistic self will have devastating consequences. The lesson of Jekyll and Hyde is that decoupling morality from desire is unnatural. It disrupts the natural order. My question for RLS, were he still with us to answer: Do GLP-1s pose similarly catastrophic risks?
I think they may. One reason is my Uncle Joe.
Joe was a quiet, careful religious man. He and his wife, Darla, had desperately wanted children but it just never happened. They raised boxer dogs that they treated like babies. Joe worked as a photographer in North Minneapolis in this little tufted studio from the 1930s that smelled like ros...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/what-would-robert-louis-stevenson-say-about-ozempic/ I have loved many addicts in my life.
I have been exasperated, impoverished, and terrified by them. But also amused, warmed, enraptured, elevated…That's the thing about addicts. They contain multitudes, all drama and extremes. They're charismatic until they're repugnant, joyful until they're suicidal. Everything is in vivid, dangerous color. It's part of the ride and the reason they exert such a pull on cautious, ascetic people like me.
Some of my addicts are gone. My closest friend and "Damn Good Food" co-author, Mitch Omer, died at 61. Others have found God and turned their lives around (they're now exciting and dramatic people of faith). I love people who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, and food. Many surf between the four.
Recently, another category of people formed: the ones injecting themselves with GLP-1s, mostly to lose weight but also to control other impulses. It's clearly great for the handful whose life and health were being destroyed by obesity. But for the others? I'm dubious.
Ozempic and its cousins (Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound, et al.) modify the pleasure centers of the brain, making everything people crave—food, sex, smoking, alcohol, shopping, gambling, cocaine—less appealing. It doesn't address the underlying problems of addiction, such as depression or dishonesty. It just eliminates the part of the person that enjoys and revels, the colorful, joyous side.
It's a version of the drug in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that the doctor ginned up to divide himself, creating a respectable man bound by reserve and a separate murderous, pleasure-seeking monster.
From Dr. Jekyll's own account:
Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man's dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly toward the mystic and the transcendental, re-acted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.
Of course, the doctor's desire to split off his hedonistic self will have devastating consequences. The lesson of Jekyll and Hyde is that decoupling morality from desire is unnatural. It disrupts the natural order. My question for RLS, were he still with us to answer: Do GLP-1s pose similarly catastrophic risks?
I think they may. One reason is my Uncle Joe.
Joe was a quiet, careful religious man. He and his wife, Darla, had desperately wanted children but it just never happened. They raised boxer dogs that they treated like babies. Joe worked as a photographer in North Minneapolis in this little tufted studio from the 1930s that smelled like ros...]]> Mon, 06 Apr 2026 07:40:00 -0400 What Would Robert Louis Stevenson Say about Ozempic? I have loved many addicts in my life.
I have been exasperated, impoverished, and terrified by them. But also amused, warmed, enraptured, elevated…That's the thing about addicts. They contain multitudes, all drama and...]]> I have loved many addicts in my life.
I have been exasperated, impoverished, and terrified by them. But also amused, warmed, enraptured, elevated…That's the thing about addicts. They contain multitudes, all drama and extremes. They're charismatic until they're repugnant, joyful until they're suicidal. Everything is in vivid, dangerous color. It's part of the ride and the reason they exert such a pull on cautious, ascetic people like me.
Some of my addicts are gone. My closest friend and "Damn Good Food" co-author, Mitch Omer, died at 61. Others have found God and turned their lives around (they're now exciting and dramatic people of faith). I love people who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, and food. Many surf between the four.
Recently, another category of people formed: the ones injecting themselves with GLP-1s, mostly to lose weight but also to control other impulses. It's clearly great for the handful whose life and health were being destroyed by obesity. But for the others? I'm dubious.
Ozempic and its cousins (Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound, et al.) modify the pleasure centers of the brain, making everything people crave—food, sex, smoking, alcohol, shopping, gambling, cocaine—less appealing. It doesn't address the underlying problems of addiction, such as depression or dishonesty. It just eliminates the part of the person that enjoys and revels, the colorful, joyous side.
It's a version of the drug in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that the doctor ginned up to divide himself, creating a respectable man bound by reserve and a separate murderous, pleasure-seeking monster.
From Dr. Jekyll's own account:
Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man's dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly toward the mystic and the transcendental, re-acted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.
Of course, the doctor's desire to split off his hedonistic self will have devastating consequences. The lesson of Jekyll and Hyde is that decoupling morality from desire is unnatural. It disrupts the natural order. My question for RLS, were he still with us to answer: Do GLP-1s pose similarly catastrophic risks?
I think they may. One reason is my Uncle Joe.
Joe was a quiet, careful religious man. He and his wife, Darla, had desperately wanted children but it just never happened. They raised boxer dogs that they treated like babies. Joe worked as a photographer in North Minneapolis in this little tufted studio from the 1930s that smelled like ros...]]> Ann Bauer 09:35 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 45 66534 Contemporary medicine is not failing for lack of knowledge. It is failing under the weight of its own complexity. The present era is defined by unprecedented access to data, advanced technologies, an ever-expanding network of subspecialties, and a dense architecture of protocols and performance metrics. Nearly every aspect of patient care can now be measured, quantified, and standardized. Interventions that were unimaginable only decades ago are now routine. Yet despite these advances, a fundamental element has been eroded. This erosion is philosophical.
Medicine has accumulated extraordinary capability, but it has lost clarity of purpose. Increasingly, it functions as a system optimized for processes rather than a profession oriented toward patients. The distinction is subtle but consequential. Without a clear understanding of its purpose, medicine risks becoming an efficient mechanism that delivers care without understanding the individual it serves.
In the 12th century, Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon [1135–1204], known as the Rambam), one of history's most influential physician-philosophers and a court physician in Egypt, practiced medicine in an era devoid of modern diagnostics, randomized trials, or institutional oversight. Trained within the intellectual traditions of Andalusian and Islamic medicine, and deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, he integrated empirical observation with rigorous reasoning and ethical responsibility. Although he lacked contemporary tools, he possessed something far more important: clarity. In Regimen of Health, he asserted that the physician's foremost responsibility is to preserve health rather than simply treat disease¹. This principle stands in sharp contrast to the modern system, which frequently prioritizes intervention over prevention.
The Physician As Intellectual Practitioner Rather Than Technician
Maimonides regarded medicine as an intellectual discipline rooted in observation, reasoning, and adaptation. His clinical writings consistently emphasize individualized care guided by physician judgment, rather than strict adherence to generalized rules². In his model, the physician was not merely a technician following predefined steps, but a thinker adept at navigating uncertainty.
Modern medicine increasingly emphasizes compliance. Clinical guidelines and protocols, though valuable, have expanded to the extent that they often define practice rather than merely inform it. Evidence-based medicine, initially conceived as the integration of clinical expertise with the best available evidence, is now frequently implemented as strict guideline adherence³.
When adherence is used as the primary metric of quality, deviation is perceived as risk. However, no patient precisely matches the populations studied in clinical trials. Maimonides recognized this implicitly, treating individuals rather than statistical abstractions. This distinction is not merely philosophical; it has practical consequences at the bedside. A physician trained to follow protocols may deliver technically correct care, yet fail to recognize when a patient falls outside expected patterns.
In contrast, a physician trained to think can identify nuance, adapt in real time, and challenge assumptions when necessary. Maimonides' model required intellectual engagement with every patient encounter. Modern systems, in their effort to standardize care, risk reducing that engagement. The result is not necessarily incorrect medicine, but it is often incomplete medicine.
Prevention As the Core Principle of Medical Care
Maimonides positioned prevention as the central tenet of medicine. His recommendations regarding diet, exercise, sleep, and emotional balance reflect a systematic understanding of health maintenance as the physician's principal responsibility¹. In his framework, disease frequently resulted from an imbalance.
Modern medicine recognizes the significance of prevention but, structural...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-lost-art-of-medicine-what-maimonides-knew-that-we-forgot/ Contemporary medicine is not failing for lack of knowledge. It is failing under the weight of its own complexity. The present era is defined by unprecedented access to data, advanced technologies, an ever-expanding network of subspecialties, and a dense architecture of protocols and performance metrics. Nearly every aspect of patient care can now be measured, quantified, and standardized. Interventions that were unimaginable only decades ago are now routine. Yet despite these advances, a fundamental element has been eroded. This erosion is philosophical.
Medicine has accumulated extraordinary capability, but it has lost clarity of purpose. Increasingly, it functions as a system optimized for processes rather than a profession oriented toward patients. The distinction is subtle but consequential. Without a clear understanding of its purpose, medicine risks becoming an efficient mechanism that delivers care without understanding the individual it serves.
In the 12th century, Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon [1135–1204], known as the Rambam), one of history's most influential physician-philosophers and a court physician in Egypt, practiced medicine in an era devoid of modern diagnostics, randomized trials, or institutional oversight. Trained within the intellectual traditions of Andalusian and Islamic medicine, and deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, he integrated empirical observation with rigorous reasoning and ethical responsibility. Although he lacked contemporary tools, he possessed something far more important: clarity. In Regimen of Health, he asserted that the physician's foremost responsibility is to preserve health rather than simply treat disease¹. This principle stands in sharp contrast to the modern system, which frequently prioritizes intervention over prevention.
The Physician As Intellectual Practitioner Rather Than Technician
Maimonides regarded medicine as an intellectual discipline rooted in observation, reasoning, and adaptation. His clinical writings consistently emphasize individualized care guided by physician judgment, rather than strict adherence to generalized rules². In his model, the physician was not merely a technician following predefined steps, but a thinker adept at navigating uncertainty.
Modern medicine increasingly emphasizes compliance. Clinical guidelines and protocols, though valuable, have expanded to the extent that they often define practice rather than merely inform it. Evidence-based medicine, initially conceived as the integration of clinical expertise with the best available evidence, is now frequently implemented as strict guideline adherence³.
When adherence is used as the primary metric of quality, deviation is perceived as risk. However, no patient precisely matches the populations studied in clinical trials. Maimonides recognized this implicitly, treating individuals rather than statistical abstractions. This distinction is not merely philosophical; it has practical consequences at the bedside. A physician trained to follow protocols may deliver technically correct care, yet fail to recognize when a patient falls outside expected patterns.
In contrast, a physician trained to think can identify nuance, adapt in real time, and challenge assumptions when necessary. Maimonides' model required intellectual engagement with every patient encounter. Modern systems, in their effort to standardize care, risk reducing that engagement. The result is not necessarily incorrect medicine, but it is often incomplete medicine.
Prevention As the Core Principle of Medical Care
Maimonides positioned prevention as the central tenet of medicine. His recommendations regarding diet, exercise, sleep, and emotional balance reflect a systematic understanding of health maintenance as the physician's principal responsibility¹. In his framework, disease frequently resulted from an imbalance.
Modern medicine recognizes the significance of prevention but, structural...]]> Sun, 05 Apr 2026 07:19:34 -0400 The Lost Art of Medicine: What Maimonides Knew That We Forgot Contemporary medicine is not failing for lack of knowledge. It is failing under the weight of its own complexity. The present era is defined by unprecedented access to data, advanced technologies, an ever-expandin...]]> Contemporary medicine is not failing for lack of knowledge. It is failing under the weight of its own complexity. The present era is defined by unprecedented access to data, advanced technologies, an ever-expanding network of subspecialties, and a dense architecture of protocols and performance metrics. Nearly every aspect of patient care can now be measured, quantified, and standardized. Interventions that were unimaginable only decades ago are now routine. Yet despite these advances, a fundamental element has been eroded. This erosion is philosophical.
Medicine has accumulated extraordinary capability, but it has lost clarity of purpose. Increasingly, it functions as a system optimized for processes rather than a profession oriented toward patients. The distinction is subtle but consequential. Without a clear understanding of its purpose, medicine risks becoming an efficient mechanism that delivers care without understanding the individual it serves.
In the 12th century, Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon [1135–1204], known as the Rambam), one of history's most influential physician-philosophers and a court physician in Egypt, practiced medicine in an era devoid of modern diagnostics, randomized trials, or institutional oversight. Trained within the intellectual traditions of Andalusian and Islamic medicine, and deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, he integrated empirical observation with rigorous reasoning and ethical responsibility. Although he lacked contemporary tools, he possessed something far more important: clarity. In Regimen of Health, he asserted that the physician's foremost responsibility is to preserve health rather than simply treat disease¹. This principle stands in sharp contrast to the modern system, which frequently prioritizes intervention over prevention.
The Physician As Intellectual Practitioner Rather Than Technician
Maimonides regarded medicine as an intellectual discipline rooted in observation, reasoning, and adaptation. His clinical writings consistently emphasize individualized care guided by physician judgment, rather than strict adherence to generalized rules². In his model, the physician was not merely a technician following predefined steps, but a thinker adept at navigating uncertainty.
Modern medicine increasingly emphasizes compliance. Clinical guidelines and protocols, though valuable, have expanded to the extent that they often define practice rather than merely inform it. Evidence-based medicine, initially conceived as the integration of clinical expertise with the best available evidence, is now frequently implemented as strict guideline adherence³.
When adherence is used as the primary metric of quality, deviation is perceived as risk. However, no patient precisely matches the populations studied in clinical trials. Maimonides recognized this implicitly, treating individuals rather than statistical abstractions. This distinction is not merely philosophical; it has practical consequences at the bedside. A physician trained to follow protocols may deliver technically correct care, yet fail to recognize when a patient falls outside expected patterns.
In contrast, a physician trained to think can identify nuance, adapt in real time, and challenge assumptions when necessary. Maimonides' model required intellectual engagement with every patient encounter. Modern systems, in their effort to standardize care, risk reducing that engagement. The result is not necessarily incorrect medicine, but it is often incomplete medicine.
Prevention As the Core Principle of Medical Care
Maimonides positioned prevention as the central tenet of medicine. His recommendations regarding diet, exercise, sleep, and emotional balance reflect a systematic understanding of health maintenance as the physician's principal responsibility¹. In his framework, disease frequently resulted from an imbalance.
Modern medicine recognizes the significance of prevention but, structural...]]> Joseph Varon 13:11 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 44 66466 It was pretty obvious even before February 28th that the US economy was grinding to a halt, even as inflation was already working up a head of steam. But then came war.
We are going to get a globe-shaking economic conflagration erupting from the void that was the Persian Gulf commodity fountain. That includes between 20% and 50% of all the basic commodities that drive global GDP, including crude oil, LPGs, LNG, ammonia, urea, sulfur, helium, and sundry more.
Accordingly, the global share of crucial industrial commodities that now stand in harm's way. This includes both those directly transiting the Strait of Hormuz and also the share of supply from the wider Middle Eastern region that is also exposed to the current Iranian War disruptions but is delivered by pipeline, train, or alternative waterways like the Red Sea/Suez Canal route.
This ballooning dislocation of daily global commodity flows will have a double whammy effect: It will both cause production and output to fall immediately in response to soaring input costs or limited availability—even as it encourages the central banks to "help" by printing more inflationary money.
This all adds up to a bout of classic stagflation, but it is not going to be merely the mildly painful type that unfolded during the 1970s. After all, despite a 120% rise in the price level during the decade, it wasn't a total wipeout when measured from the vantage point of real median family income.
As it happened, the 1970s stagflation came on the heels of what had been an actual Golden Age by the standards of history between 1954 and 1969. During that period, real median family incomes rose from $39,700 to $66,870 or by a robust 3.53% per annum.
Of course, that uphill march of Main Street prosperity slowed sharply during the inflationary 1970s, but the blue line in the chart below did at least keep drifting higher. So between 1969 and 1980, real median family incomes grew by a not very impressive 0.61% per annum, but the direction of travel was still higher.

But here's the thing. The US economy of the 1970s was able to cope with the pressures of high inflation, oil, and other commodity shocks and the stop-and-go disruptions of a Federal Reserve that had been newly released from the disciplinary effects of the Bretton Woods gold standard. In large part that was because the aggregate level of debt on the US economy was relatively modest.
Total public and private debt in 1970 stood at $1.5 trillion, representing just 147% of GDP, as shown in the graph below. Moreover, the latter was the long-time national leverage ratio (total debt divided by national income) through historic times of thick and thin, going all the way back to 1870.
Moreover, even after the large government deficits of the 1970s and a surge of inflation-driven private borrowing during the decade, total US debt stood at $4.6 trillion by 1980. That was just 162% of GDP.
In a word, the US economy during this decade of stagflation was battered by unprecedented peacetime inflation, but it was not yet smothered by crushing debt. As shown by the graph, the soaring national leverage ratio did not really leap skyward until after the mid-1980s, when Alan Greenspan took the helm at the Fed and launched the US (and the world) into a four-decade spree of money-printing and what amounts to Keynesian central banking.
As a consequence, total public and private debt is in a wholly different zip code today. Debt outstanding now totals nearly $108 trillion and weighs in at 343% of national income (GDP). That is to say, as we head into the next stagflationary era, the US economy will be carrying two turns of extra debt relative to income than was the case in 1970.
That does make a difference. The national leverage ratio during the 1970s averaged about 153% of GDP, meaning that had it been maintained since then total debt outstanding would now be $48 trillion. As it is, however, the actual leverage ratio currentl...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/not-your-grandfathers-stagflation/ It was pretty obvious even before February 28th that the US economy was grinding to a halt, even as inflation was already working up a head of steam. But then came war.
We are going to get a globe-shaking economic conflagration erupting from the void that was the Persian Gulf commodity fountain. That includes between 20% and 50% of all the basic commodities that drive global GDP, including crude oil, LPGs, LNG, ammonia, urea, sulfur, helium, and sundry more.
Accordingly, the global share of crucial industrial commodities that now stand in harm's way. This includes both those directly transiting the Strait of Hormuz and also the share of supply from the wider Middle Eastern region that is also exposed to the current Iranian War disruptions but is delivered by pipeline, train, or alternative waterways like the Red Sea/Suez Canal route.
This ballooning dislocation of daily global commodity flows will have a double whammy effect: It will both cause production and output to fall immediately in response to soaring input costs or limited availability—even as it encourages the central banks to "help" by printing more inflationary money.
This all adds up to a bout of classic stagflation, but it is not going to be merely the mildly painful type that unfolded during the 1970s. After all, despite a 120% rise in the price level during the decade, it wasn't a total wipeout when measured from the vantage point of real median family income.
As it happened, the 1970s stagflation came on the heels of what had been an actual Golden Age by the standards of history between 1954 and 1969. During that period, real median family incomes rose from $39,700 to $66,870 or by a robust 3.53% per annum.
Of course, that uphill march of Main Street prosperity slowed sharply during the inflationary 1970s, but the blue line in the chart below did at least keep drifting higher. So between 1969 and 1980, real median family incomes grew by a not very impressive 0.61% per annum, but the direction of travel was still higher.

But here's the thing. The US economy of the 1970s was able to cope with the pressures of high inflation, oil, and other commodity shocks and the stop-and-go disruptions of a Federal Reserve that had been newly released from the disciplinary effects of the Bretton Woods gold standard. In large part that was because the aggregate level of debt on the US economy was relatively modest.
Total public and private debt in 1970 stood at $1.5 trillion, representing just 147% of GDP, as shown in the graph below. Moreover, the latter was the long-time national leverage ratio (total debt divided by national income) through historic times of thick and thin, going all the way back to 1870.
Moreover, even after the large government deficits of the 1970s and a surge of inflation-driven private borrowing during the decade, total US debt stood at $4.6 trillion by 1980. That was just 162% of GDP.
In a word, the US economy during this decade of stagflation was battered by unprecedented peacetime inflation, but it was not yet smothered by crushing debt. As shown by the graph, the soaring national leverage ratio did not really leap skyward until after the mid-1980s, when Alan Greenspan took the helm at the Fed and launched the US (and the world) into a four-decade spree of money-printing and what amounts to Keynesian central banking.
As a consequence, total public and private debt is in a wholly different zip code today. Debt outstanding now totals nearly $108 trillion and weighs in at 343% of national income (GDP). That is to say, as we head into the next stagflationary era, the US economy will be carrying two turns of extra debt relative to income than was the case in 1970.
That does make a difference. The national leverage ratio during the 1970s averaged about 153% of GDP, meaning that had it been maintained since then total debt outstanding would now be $48 trillion. As it is, however, the actual leverage ratio currentl...]]> Sat, 04 Apr 2026 08:35:00 -0400 Not Your Grandfather's Stagflation It was pretty obvious even before February 28th that the US economy was grinding to a halt, even as inflation was already working up a head of steam. But then came war.
We are going to get a globe-shaking econom...]]> It was pretty obvious even before February 28th that the US economy was grinding to a halt, even as inflation was already working up a head of steam. But then came war.
We are going to get a globe-shaking economic conflagration erupting from the void that was the Persian Gulf commodity fountain. That includes between 20% and 50% of all the basic commodities that drive global GDP, including crude oil, LPGs, LNG, ammonia, urea, sulfur, helium, and sundry more.
Accordingly, the global share of crucial industrial commodities that now stand in harm's way. This includes both those directly transiting the Strait of Hormuz and also the share of supply from the wider Middle Eastern region that is also exposed to the current Iranian War disruptions but is delivered by pipeline, train, or alternative waterways like the Red Sea/Suez Canal route.
This ballooning dislocation of daily global commodity flows will have a double whammy effect: It will both cause production and output to fall immediately in response to soaring input costs or limited availability—even as it encourages the central banks to "help" by printing more inflationary money.
This all adds up to a bout of classic stagflation, but it is not going to be merely the mildly painful type that unfolded during the 1970s. After all, despite a 120% rise in the price level during the decade, it wasn't a total wipeout when measured from the vantage point of real median family income.
As it happened, the 1970s stagflation came on the heels of what had been an actual Golden Age by the standards of history between 1954 and 1969. During that period, real median family incomes rose from $39,700 to $66,870 or by a robust 3.53% per annum.
Of course, that uphill march of Main Street prosperity slowed sharply during the inflationary 1970s, but the blue line in the chart below did at least keep drifting higher. So between 1969 and 1980, real median family incomes grew by a not very impressive 0.61% per annum, but the direction of travel was still higher.

But here's the thing. The US economy of the 1970s was able to cope with the pressures of high inflation, oil, and other commodity shocks and the stop-and-go disruptions of a Federal Reserve that had been newly released from the disciplinary effects of the Bretton Woods gold standard. In large part that was because the aggregate level of debt on the US economy was relatively modest.
Total public and private debt in 1970 stood at $1.5 trillion, representing just 147% of GDP, as shown in the graph below. Moreover, the latter was the long-time national leverage ratio (total debt divided by national income) through historic times of thick and thin, going all the way back to 1870.
Moreover, even after the large government deficits of the 1970s and a surge of inflation-driven private borrowing during the decade, total US debt stood at $4.6 trillion by 1980. That was just 162% of GDP.
In a word, the US economy during this decade of stagflation was battered by unprecedented peacetime inflation, but it was not yet smothered by crushing debt. As shown by the graph, the soaring national leverage ratio did not really leap skyward until after the mid-1980s, when Alan Greenspan took the helm at the Fed and launched the US (and the world) into a four-decade spree of money-printing and what amounts to Keynesian central banking.
As a consequence, total public and private debt is in a wholly different zip code today. Debt outstanding now totals nearly $108 trillion and weighs in at 343% of national income (GDP). That is to say, as we head into the next stagflationary era, the US economy will be carrying two turns of extra debt relative to income than was the case in 1970.
That does make a difference. The national leverage ratio during the 1970s averaged about 153% of GDP, meaning that had it been maintained since then total debt outstanding would now be $48 trillion. As it is, however, the actual leverage ratio currentl...]]> David Stockman 09:46 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 43 66373 The Covid-19 pandemic exposed deep failures in global health governance. That much is now widely acknowledged, even by institutions that initially resisted self-examination. For example, the recent Lancet Commission on Covid-19 substituted advocacy for analysis, evaded institutional accountability, and ultimately clarified little about why global pandemic governance failed.
What remains unsettled—and largely undiscussed in public—is what those failures imply for the future of international health cooperation, and especially for the role of the World Health Organization.
The International Health Reform Project (IHRP) was convened to confront that question directly. The IHRP is an independent international group, though its work is closely linked to Brownstone through the participation of three of its Fellows who wrote this article, two of whom served as co-chairs.
Its work is unusually detailed, wide-ranging, and blunt. It does not argue that the pandemic was inevitable, nor that failure was merely the product of bad luck or limited information. Instead, it documents how institutional incentives, governance structures, and political pressures shaped decisions in ways that repeatedly undermined transparency, proportionality, and scientific rigor.
The Panel's findings matter well beyond debates about the past. They arrive at a moment when the United States has withdrawn from the WHO, when the Organization is seeking expanded authority through amended International Health Regulations and a new pandemic agreement, and when governments around the world are quietly reassessing whether the current model of global health governance is fit for purpose.
The question now is not simply whether the WHO failed, but what should follow from that failure—especially for the United States and its allies.
I. What the IHRP Found: Failure Was Structural, Not Accidental
The IHRP report reaches a clear conclusion: the problems revealed during Covid-19 were not isolated mistakes, but the predictable outcome of institutional design choices made over decades.
Several findings are central.
First, the WHO failed in its core pandemic function. The Organization was created to detect, assess, and coordinate responses to transnational infectious disease threats. Yet during the early stages of Covid-19 it was slow to challenge incomplete or misleading information, reluctant to escalate warnings in the face of political pressure, and inconsistent in its guidance once the emergency was declared. These failures had real consequences, shaping national responses during the narrow window when early action mattered most.
Second, politicization was not an aberration but a recurring constraint. The Panel documents how deference to powerful member states, especially where transparency was most critical, distorted risk communication and delayed independent investigation. This was not simply a failure of leadership, but a consequence of governance rules that place political consensus above timely error correction.
Third, the Organization entered the pandemic already institutionally overstretched. Over time, the WHO's mandate expanded far beyond communicable disease control into a wide array of social, behavioral, and environmental domains, often with limited connection to pandemic preparedness. The result was an organization attempting to function simultaneously as a technical agency, a development actor, a norm-setting body, and a political convenor—without the clarity or discipline required for crisis response.
Fourth, post-pandemic reforms did not address these underlying weaknesses. Instead of a rigorous institutional autopsy, the response to failure was to seek expanded authority: broader emergency powers, new compliance expectations for states, and additional permanent structures. The Panel is explicit that expanding scope without correcting governance failures risks entrenching the very dynamics that contributed to poor perfor...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/what-the-ihrp-report-means-for-america-who-and-the-future-of-global-health/ The Covid-19 pandemic exposed deep failures in global health governance. That much is now widely acknowledged, even by institutions that initially resisted self-examination. For example, the recent Lancet Commission on Covid-19 substituted advocacy for analysis, evaded institutional accountability, and ultimately clarified little about why global pandemic governance failed.
What remains unsettled—and largely undiscussed in public—is what those failures imply for the future of international health cooperation, and especially for the role of the World Health Organization.
The International Health Reform Project (IHRP) was convened to confront that question directly. The IHRP is an independent international group, though its work is closely linked to Brownstone through the participation of three of its Fellows who wrote this article, two of whom served as co-chairs.
Its work is unusually detailed, wide-ranging, and blunt. It does not argue that the pandemic was inevitable, nor that failure was merely the product of bad luck or limited information. Instead, it documents how institutional incentives, governance structures, and political pressures shaped decisions in ways that repeatedly undermined transparency, proportionality, and scientific rigor.
The Panel's findings matter well beyond debates about the past. They arrive at a moment when the United States has withdrawn from the WHO, when the Organization is seeking expanded authority through amended International Health Regulations and a new pandemic agreement, and when governments around the world are quietly reassessing whether the current model of global health governance is fit for purpose.
The question now is not simply whether the WHO failed, but what should follow from that failure—especially for the United States and its allies.
I. What the IHRP Found: Failure Was Structural, Not Accidental
The IHRP report reaches a clear conclusion: the problems revealed during Covid-19 were not isolated mistakes, but the predictable outcome of institutional design choices made over decades.
Several findings are central.
First, the WHO failed in its core pandemic function. The Organization was created to detect, assess, and coordinate responses to transnational infectious disease threats. Yet during the early stages of Covid-19 it was slow to challenge incomplete or misleading information, reluctant to escalate warnings in the face of political pressure, and inconsistent in its guidance once the emergency was declared. These failures had real consequences, shaping national responses during the narrow window when early action mattered most.
Second, politicization was not an aberration but a recurring constraint. The Panel documents how deference to powerful member states, especially where transparency was most critical, distorted risk communication and delayed independent investigation. This was not simply a failure of leadership, but a consequence of governance rules that place political consensus above timely error correction.
Third, the Organization entered the pandemic already institutionally overstretched. Over time, the WHO's mandate expanded far beyond communicable disease control into a wide array of social, behavioral, and environmental domains, often with limited connection to pandemic preparedness. The result was an organization attempting to function simultaneously as a technical agency, a development actor, a norm-setting body, and a political convenor—without the clarity or discipline required for crisis response.
Fourth, post-pandemic reforms did not address these underlying weaknesses. Instead of a rigorous institutional autopsy, the response to failure was to seek expanded authority: broader emergency powers, new compliance expectations for states, and additional permanent structures. The Panel is explicit that expanding scope without correcting governance failures risks entrenching the very dynamics that contributed to poor perfor...]]> Fri, 03 Apr 2026 07:40:00 -0400 What the IHRP Report Means for America, WHO, and the Future of Global Health The Covid-19 pandemic exposed deep failures in global health governance. That much is now widely acknowledged, even by institutions that initially resisted self-examination. For example, the recent Lancet Commission...]]> The Covid-19 pandemic exposed deep failures in global health governance. That much is now widely acknowledged, even by institutions that initially resisted self-examination. For example, the recent Lancet Commission on Covid-19 substituted advocacy for analysis, evaded institutional accountability, and ultimately clarified little about why global pandemic governance failed.
What remains unsettled—and largely undiscussed in public—is what those failures imply for the future of international health cooperation, and especially for the role of the World Health Organization.
The International Health Reform Project (IHRP) was convened to confront that question directly. The IHRP is an independent international group, though its work is closely linked to Brownstone through the participation of three of its Fellows who wrote this article, two of whom served as co-chairs.
Its work is unusually detailed, wide-ranging, and blunt. It does not argue that the pandemic was inevitable, nor that failure was merely the product of bad luck or limited information. Instead, it documents how institutional incentives, governance structures, and political pressures shaped decisions in ways that repeatedly undermined transparency, proportionality, and scientific rigor.
The Panel's findings matter well beyond debates about the past. They arrive at a moment when the United States has withdrawn from the WHO, when the Organization is seeking expanded authority through amended International Health Regulations and a new pandemic agreement, and when governments around the world are quietly reassessing whether the current model of global health governance is fit for purpose.
The question now is not simply whether the WHO failed, but what should follow from that failure—especially for the United States and its allies.
I. What the IHRP Found: Failure Was Structural, Not Accidental
The IHRP report reaches a clear conclusion: the problems revealed during Covid-19 were not isolated mistakes, but the predictable outcome of institutional design choices made over decades.
Several findings are central.
First, the WHO failed in its core pandemic function. The Organization was created to detect, assess, and coordinate responses to transnational infectious disease threats. Yet during the early stages of Covid-19 it was slow to challenge incomplete or misleading information, reluctant to escalate warnings in the face of political pressure, and inconsistent in its guidance once the emergency was declared. These failures had real consequences, shaping national responses during the narrow window when early action mattered most.
Second, politicization was not an aberration but a recurring constraint. The Panel documents how deference to powerful member states, especially where transparency was most critical, distorted risk communication and delayed independent investigation. This was not simply a failure of leadership, but a consequence of governance rules that place political consensus above timely error correction.
Third, the Organization entered the pandemic already institutionally overstretched. Over time, the WHO's mandate expanded far beyond communicable disease control into a wide array of social, behavioral, and environmental domains, often with limited connection to pandemic preparedness. The result was an organization attempting to function simultaneously as a technical agency, a development actor, a norm-setting body, and a political convenor—without the clarity or discipline required for crisis response.
Fourth, post-pandemic reforms did not address these underlying weaknesses. Instead of a rigorous institutional autopsy, the response to failure was to seek expanded authority: broader emergency powers, new compliance expectations for states, and additional permanent structures. The Panel is explicit that expanding scope without correcting governance failures risks entrenching the very dynamics that contributed to poor perfor...]]> David Bell 22:27 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 42 66322 Hard times. Emerging from an apparently engineered pandemic, now in another war for ephemeral reasons, a resultant economic crisis that is exacerbating unmanageable debt, we find ethnic cleansing and inter-ethnic hatred are increasingly back in vogue.
It's easy to imagine a nefarious program is being orchestrated by a nasty and entrenched elite, aiming to plunder and enslave the rest of us. Such an idea is clearly not baseless, but nonetheless completely misleading in the solutions it suggests. 'If only we could jail them, or have a Nuremberg Two, things would be better…'
However, Nuremberg One did not stop ethnic cleansing, targeting of religious groups, wars and mass death based on straight-out lies, or mass medical coercion for power and money. A couple of obvious reasons stand out for this.
Firstly, high-level societal corruption is so deep and pervasive that it simply cannot be rooted out by force or law–the judges and armies and arms manufacturers are likely to be part of this behemoth already and have no interest in self-harm, while politicians are simply paid by them.
Secondly, if those deepest in this cesspit of child sacrifice and share market-dictated slaughter were taken out of the picture, some of us would simply replace them. We know this because none of what we are seeing now is new. Ask any late Roman, Chinese peasant, or victim of the Inquisition. We need to be honest with ourselves regarding human behavior if we are going to change direction.
There was, arguably, a period after World War Two when the West had a bit of a reset and the direction did seem better. Eisenhower was ignored, and so were the obvious risks of growing inequality as software entrepreneurs and financial houses accumulated riches greater than whole nations. Faced with a choice of recognizing the obvious or believing the public relations they funded, the propaganda proved more popular. We all, as a society, opted for a future rooted more in feudal inequality than egalitarianism. We regressed, because it is always easier than standing tall.
So, here we are, back again, deep in the mire. To address it, we should first recognize the enormity of what is going on. We have allowed a corporate-authoritarian behemoth to arise, a monster of our own dereliction. We removed the brakes on greed and human stupidity, giving a free hand to a few to accumulate enormous wealth and power and, most importantly, to dispense with empathy. We empowered people shallow enough to believe in their own superiority, even omnipotence, by ignoring the wisdom of thousands of years of humanity.
We are all capable of becoming similarly corrupted, if we receive an opportunity and elect to succumb to it. There is nothing special about leaders of the big financial houses, the Trilateral Commission, the World Economic Forum, the redactions of the Epstein files, nor the peons of old wealthy families that helped stoke, and profited from, former wars. They are all expressions of what the rest of us can become, given the resources and a willingness to empty ourselves of a more meaningful but harder existence.
Therefore, we should not blame a 'they' or a 'them.' It is our own tolerance of the worst of human nature that gets us into trouble. Obsessing with specific people – railing against 'elites' – will at best result in their replacement.
Alternatively, we can start thinking through the codes of conduct that are necessary in any society, and in ourselves, to stop people going that way. Stop enabling the worst of human greed and self-delusion that drives sponsored politicians to advocate for war, unknown insiders to trade shares on human lives, and oligarchs to dream of corralling whole populations into their digital prison and plying them with pharmaceuticals. We need to recognize the system we all built, within which they operate.
Human nature is driven by greed. We know greed is bad, yet it is not unrelated to protecting and benefiting on...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-behemoth-of-global-corruption-is-an-extension-of-ourselves/ Hard times. Emerging from an apparently engineered pandemic, now in another war for ephemeral reasons, a resultant economic crisis that is exacerbating unmanageable debt, we find ethnic cleansing and inter-ethnic hatred are increasingly back in vogue.
It's easy to imagine a nefarious program is being orchestrated by a nasty and entrenched elite, aiming to plunder and enslave the rest of us. Such an idea is clearly not baseless, but nonetheless completely misleading in the solutions it suggests. 'If only we could jail them, or have a Nuremberg Two, things would be better…'
However, Nuremberg One did not stop ethnic cleansing, targeting of religious groups, wars and mass death based on straight-out lies, or mass medical coercion for power and money. A couple of obvious reasons stand out for this.
Firstly, high-level societal corruption is so deep and pervasive that it simply cannot be rooted out by force or law–the judges and armies and arms manufacturers are likely to be part of this behemoth already and have no interest in self-harm, while politicians are simply paid by them.
Secondly, if those deepest in this cesspit of child sacrifice and share market-dictated slaughter were taken out of the picture, some of us would simply replace them. We know this because none of what we are seeing now is new. Ask any late Roman, Chinese peasant, or victim of the Inquisition. We need to be honest with ourselves regarding human behavior if we are going to change direction.
There was, arguably, a period after World War Two when the West had a bit of a reset and the direction did seem better. Eisenhower was ignored, and so were the obvious risks of growing inequality as software entrepreneurs and financial houses accumulated riches greater than whole nations. Faced with a choice of recognizing the obvious or believing the public relations they funded, the propaganda proved more popular. We all, as a society, opted for a future rooted more in feudal inequality than egalitarianism. We regressed, because it is always easier than standing tall.
So, here we are, back again, deep in the mire. To address it, we should first recognize the enormity of what is going on. We have allowed a corporate-authoritarian behemoth to arise, a monster of our own dereliction. We removed the brakes on greed and human stupidity, giving a free hand to a few to accumulate enormous wealth and power and, most importantly, to dispense with empathy. We empowered people shallow enough to believe in their own superiority, even omnipotence, by ignoring the wisdom of thousands of years of humanity.
We are all capable of becoming similarly corrupted, if we receive an opportunity and elect to succumb to it. There is nothing special about leaders of the big financial houses, the Trilateral Commission, the World Economic Forum, the redactions of the Epstein files, nor the peons of old wealthy families that helped stoke, and profited from, former wars. They are all expressions of what the rest of us can become, given the resources and a willingness to empty ourselves of a more meaningful but harder existence.
Therefore, we should not blame a 'they' or a 'them.' It is our own tolerance of the worst of human nature that gets us into trouble. Obsessing with specific people – railing against 'elites' – will at best result in their replacement.
Alternatively, we can start thinking through the codes of conduct that are necessary in any society, and in ourselves, to stop people going that way. Stop enabling the worst of human greed and self-delusion that drives sponsored politicians to advocate for war, unknown insiders to trade shares on human lives, and oligarchs to dream of corralling whole populations into their digital prison and plying them with pharmaceuticals. We need to recognize the system we all built, within which they operate.
Human nature is driven by greed. We know greed is bad, yet it is not unrelated to protecting and benefiting on...]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:40:00 -0400 The Behemoth of Global Corruption Is an Extension of Ourselves Hard times. Emerging from an apparently engineered pandemic, now in another war for ephemeral reasons, a resultant economic crisis that is exacerbating unmanageable debt, we find ethnic cleansing and inter-ethnic ha...]]> Hard times. Emerging from an apparently engineered pandemic, now in another war for ephemeral reasons, a resultant economic crisis that is exacerbating unmanageable debt, we find ethnic cleansing and inter-ethnic hatred are increasingly back in vogue.
It's easy to imagine a nefarious program is being orchestrated by a nasty and entrenched elite, aiming to plunder and enslave the rest of us. Such an idea is clearly not baseless, but nonetheless completely misleading in the solutions it suggests. 'If only we could jail them, or have a Nuremberg Two, things would be better…'
However, Nuremberg One did not stop ethnic cleansing, targeting of religious groups, wars and mass death based on straight-out lies, or mass medical coercion for power and money. A couple of obvious reasons stand out for this.
Firstly, high-level societal corruption is so deep and pervasive that it simply cannot be rooted out by force or law–the judges and armies and arms manufacturers are likely to be part of this behemoth already and have no interest in self-harm, while politicians are simply paid by them.
Secondly, if those deepest in this cesspit of child sacrifice and share market-dictated slaughter were taken out of the picture, some of us would simply replace them. We know this because none of what we are seeing now is new. Ask any late Roman, Chinese peasant, or victim of the Inquisition. We need to be honest with ourselves regarding human behavior if we are going to change direction.
There was, arguably, a period after World War Two when the West had a bit of a reset and the direction did seem better. Eisenhower was ignored, and so were the obvious risks of growing inequality as software entrepreneurs and financial houses accumulated riches greater than whole nations. Faced with a choice of recognizing the obvious or believing the public relations they funded, the propaganda proved more popular. We all, as a society, opted for a future rooted more in feudal inequality than egalitarianism. We regressed, because it is always easier than standing tall.
So, here we are, back again, deep in the mire. To address it, we should first recognize the enormity of what is going on. We have allowed a corporate-authoritarian behemoth to arise, a monster of our own dereliction. We removed the brakes on greed and human stupidity, giving a free hand to a few to accumulate enormous wealth and power and, most importantly, to dispense with empathy. We empowered people shallow enough to believe in their own superiority, even omnipotence, by ignoring the wisdom of thousands of years of humanity.
We are all capable of becoming similarly corrupted, if we receive an opportunity and elect to succumb to it. There is nothing special about leaders of the big financial houses, the Trilateral Commission, the World Economic Forum, the redactions of the Epstein files, nor the peons of old wealthy families that helped stoke, and profited from, former wars. They are all expressions of what the rest of us can become, given the resources and a willingness to empty ourselves of a more meaningful but harder existence.
Therefore, we should not blame a 'they' or a 'them.' It is our own tolerance of the worst of human nature that gets us into trouble. Obsessing with specific people – railing against 'elites' – will at best result in their replacement.
Alternatively, we can start thinking through the codes of conduct that are necessary in any society, and in ourselves, to stop people going that way. Stop enabling the worst of human greed and self-delusion that drives sponsored politicians to advocate for war, unknown insiders to trade shares on human lives, and oligarchs to dream of corralling whole populations into their digital prison and plying them with pharmaceuticals. We need to recognize the system we all built, within which they operate.
Human nature is driven by greed. We know greed is bad, yet it is not unrelated to protecting and benefiting on...]]> David Bell 08:38 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 41 66436 President Biden celebrated the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson by telling reporters on the White House South Lawn, "America is a nation that can be defined in a single word….Asufutimaehaefutbuhwuhsh." That proved to be a fitting foreshadowing for a tenure that has been defined by directionless verbosity, unintelligible standards, and the determined advancement of partisan dogma.
On Tuesday, Justice Jackson issued the lone dissent in an opinion overturning Colorado's ban on "conversion therapy." The state law was broad enough to apply to any discussions acknowledging biological realities with gender-confused patients or contradicting the precept that the LGBTQIA+ socialization process is a cure without trade-offs.
The near-unanimous court ruled that the First Amendment barred this "egregious form of content discrimination," which banned therapists from voicing "perspectives the State disfavors when speaking with consenting clients."
Justice Jackson, however, described the defense of free speech as "puzzling," which is unsurprising given her comprehension issues on the bench. In dissent, she embraced the State's power to quash any professional speech that deviates from "current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments." As Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledges in the opinion for the Court, that principle would allow the government to apply those malleable standards to "teaching or protesting," but Jackson welcomes that threat.
Justice Jackson does not sidestep the issue; she embraces the muzzling in the name of "scientific consensus," which she never considers could be incorrect. As support, she cites the American Psychological Association and the medical bureaucracy's treatment of "conversion" as an "unattainable goal." (Jackson notably omits that the former president of the American Psychological Association argued that therapy to change sexual orientation is legitimate for those who consented).
According to Jackson, the suppression of liberty is justified because "scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the anticipated harms from conversion therapy" should be avoided. Notwithstanding the widespread dissent on the issue, these were the same groups that embraced lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking, and rioting in the Covid response. Their purported "consensus" was concocted through vast censorship efforts and smear campaigns.
Businesses shuttered, schools closed, and churches were banned as the facade of expertise became a bludgeon for ideological tyranny. The ostensible "consensus" maintained protections for riots, liquor stores, and abortion services, later culminating in the reshaping of our election process. And Justice Jackson wouldn't have it any other way.
Her long-standing antipathy to free speech is ironic given her use of its liberty. She speaks 50 percent more than any of her colleagues and more than Justices Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas combined.
That allows her to make sweeping claims (such as comparing banning transgender mutilation surgeries to prohibitions on interracial marriage), and it provides a corpus of material to understand her opposition to the First Amendment.
In oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri, which considered an injunction prohibiting the Biden administration from colluding to censor its critics, Jackson stated that her "biggest concern" was that the plaintiffs' efforts may result in the "First Amendment hamstringing the Government," apparently unaware that this is its very purpose.
More recently, in a hearing on Trump v. Slaughter, Jackson spoke longingly for bureaucratic supremacy, arguing that "experts" like "doctors and the economists and the Ph.D.s" should be immune from presidential control. That was in line with her tenure as a District Court Judge, during which she overturned four executive orders that sought to rein in the power of the nearly three million federal e...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/ketanji-brown-jackson-remains-puzzled-by-medical-freedom/ President Biden celebrated the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson by telling reporters on the White House South Lawn, "America is a nation that can be defined in a single word….Asufutimaehaefutbuhwuhsh." That proved to be a fitting foreshadowing for a tenure that has been defined by directionless verbosity, unintelligible standards, and the determined advancement of partisan dogma.
On Tuesday, Justice Jackson issued the lone dissent in an opinion overturning Colorado's ban on "conversion therapy." The state law was broad enough to apply to any discussions acknowledging biological realities with gender-confused patients or contradicting the precept that the LGBTQIA+ socialization process is a cure without trade-offs.
The near-unanimous court ruled that the First Amendment barred this "egregious form of content discrimination," which banned therapists from voicing "perspectives the State disfavors when speaking with consenting clients."
Justice Jackson, however, described the defense of free speech as "puzzling," which is unsurprising given her comprehension issues on the bench. In dissent, she embraced the State's power to quash any professional speech that deviates from "current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments." As Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledges in the opinion for the Court, that principle would allow the government to apply those malleable standards to "teaching or protesting," but Jackson welcomes that threat.
Justice Jackson does not sidestep the issue; she embraces the muzzling in the name of "scientific consensus," which she never considers could be incorrect. As support, she cites the American Psychological Association and the medical bureaucracy's treatment of "conversion" as an "unattainable goal." (Jackson notably omits that the former president of the American Psychological Association argued that therapy to change sexual orientation is legitimate for those who consented).
According to Jackson, the suppression of liberty is justified because "scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the anticipated harms from conversion therapy" should be avoided. Notwithstanding the widespread dissent on the issue, these were the same groups that embraced lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking, and rioting in the Covid response. Their purported "consensus" was concocted through vast censorship efforts and smear campaigns.
Businesses shuttered, schools closed, and churches were banned as the facade of expertise became a bludgeon for ideological tyranny. The ostensible "consensus" maintained protections for riots, liquor stores, and abortion services, later culminating in the reshaping of our election process. And Justice Jackson wouldn't have it any other way.
Her long-standing antipathy to free speech is ironic given her use of its liberty. She speaks 50 percent more than any of her colleagues and more than Justices Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas combined.
That allows her to make sweeping claims (such as comparing banning transgender mutilation surgeries to prohibitions on interracial marriage), and it provides a corpus of material to understand her opposition to the First Amendment.
In oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri, which considered an injunction prohibiting the Biden administration from colluding to censor its critics, Jackson stated that her "biggest concern" was that the plaintiffs' efforts may result in the "First Amendment hamstringing the Government," apparently unaware that this is its very purpose.
More recently, in a hearing on Trump v. Slaughter, Jackson spoke longingly for bureaucratic supremacy, arguing that "experts" like "doctors and the economists and the Ph.D.s" should be immune from presidential control. That was in line with her tenure as a District Court Judge, during which she overturned four executive orders that sought to rein in the power of the nearly three million federal e...]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2026 07:40:00 -0400 Ketanji Brown Jackson Remains "Puzzled" by Medical Freedom President Biden celebrated the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson by telling reporters on the White House South Lawn, "America is a nation that can be defined in a single word….Asufutimaehaefutb...]]> President Biden celebrated the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson by telling reporters on the White House South Lawn, "America is a nation that can be defined in a single word….Asufutimaehaefutbuhwuhsh." That proved to be a fitting foreshadowing for a tenure that has been defined by directionless verbosity, unintelligible standards, and the determined advancement of partisan dogma.
On Tuesday, Justice Jackson issued the lone dissent in an opinion overturning Colorado's ban on "conversion therapy." The state law was broad enough to apply to any discussions acknowledging biological realities with gender-confused patients or contradicting the precept that the LGBTQIA+ socialization process is a cure without trade-offs.
The near-unanimous court ruled that the First Amendment barred this "egregious form of content discrimination," which banned therapists from voicing "perspectives the State disfavors when speaking with consenting clients."
Justice Jackson, however, described the defense of free speech as "puzzling," which is unsurprising given her comprehension issues on the bench. In dissent, she embraced the State's power to quash any professional speech that deviates from "current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments." As Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledges in the opinion for the Court, that principle would allow the government to apply those malleable standards to "teaching or protesting," but Jackson welcomes that threat.
Justice Jackson does not sidestep the issue; she embraces the muzzling in the name of "scientific consensus," which she never considers could be incorrect. As support, she cites the American Psychological Association and the medical bureaucracy's treatment of "conversion" as an "unattainable goal." (Jackson notably omits that the former president of the American Psychological Association argued that therapy to change sexual orientation is legitimate for those who consented).
According to Jackson, the suppression of liberty is justified because "scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the anticipated harms from conversion therapy" should be avoided. Notwithstanding the widespread dissent on the issue, these were the same groups that embraced lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking, and rioting in the Covid response. Their purported "consensus" was concocted through vast censorship efforts and smear campaigns.
Businesses shuttered, schools closed, and churches were banned as the facade of expertise became a bludgeon for ideological tyranny. The ostensible "consensus" maintained protections for riots, liquor stores, and abortion services, later culminating in the reshaping of our election process. And Justice Jackson wouldn't have it any other way.
Her long-standing antipathy to free speech is ironic given her use of its liberty. She speaks 50 percent more than any of her colleagues and more than Justices Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas combined.
That allows her to make sweeping claims (such as comparing banning transgender mutilation surgeries to prohibitions on interracial marriage), and it provides a corpus of material to understand her opposition to the First Amendment.
In oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri, which considered an injunction prohibiting the Biden administration from colluding to censor its critics, Jackson stated that her "biggest concern" was that the plaintiffs' efforts may result in the "First Amendment hamstringing the Government," apparently unaware that this is its very purpose.
More recently, in a hearing on Trump v. Slaughter, Jackson spoke longingly for bureaucratic supremacy, arguing that "experts" like "doctors and the economists and the Ph.D.s" should be immune from presidential control. That was in line with her tenure as a District Court Judge, during which she overturned four executive orders that sought to rein in the power of the nearly three million federal e...]]> Brownstone Institute 03:53 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 40 66319 The polarised debate on the World Health Organization (WHO) has been based more on mud-slinging and all-or-nothing dogma than scientific evidence and empirical data. However, with trust plummeting in public health and the WHO's funding rapidly falling as it scrambles for more to fund what it claims are ever-increasing threats, change is needed.
The International Health Reform Project (IHRP) formed with the intent of returning this debate to a rational framework. It did not begin as an anti-institutional campaign but as a professional reckoning. Its origins lie in a shared unease among physicians, public health practitioners, economists, and former senior international officials who watched the Covid-19 response unfold with growing alarm. Their concern was not with public health itself, but with the direction it appeared to be taking. The two of us, long engaged in global health policy and governance respectively, are co-chairs of a diverse group of ten experts who have spent the past 18 months thinking through this problem from evidence and orthodoxy rather than soundbites. The project delivered its first reports in March.
For decades, the post-war health architecture led by the WHO rested on principles such as proportionality, transparency, subsidiarity, and the primacy of human welfare. Covid exposed strains in that architecture. Emergency powers expanded, dissent narrowed, and policy debate became increasingly constrained. Measures once shunned for their inevitable harms and ethical concerns—lockdowns, prolonged school closures, border restrictions, universal mask and vaccine mandates—became normalised across very different societies with little regard for age-specific risk or local context. Balancing costs and benefits of interventions—the basis of public health policy development—became anathema in professional discourse.
Several IHRP members with long experience in low- and middle-income countries were particularly sensitive to the harmful consequences of the Covid public health response. Disruptions to agriculture and food distribution increased hunger and malnutrition. Routine immunisation programmes were set back. Extended school closures affected tens of millions of children, locking in intergenerational poverty and exposing millions of children to added risks of child labour, child marriage, and trafficking. Poverty reduction efforts suffered reversals and economic losses and national debt will stymie future healthcare programmes.
Those raising such concerns were often dismissed as reckless or ideological. Yet, the questions were rooted in core public health principles: What are the costs as well as the benefits of intervention? What trade-offs are justified? Who decides, on what evidence, and with what accountability? Why were these basic principles of public health abandoned?
During this period, Brownstone Institute emerged as a forum for open debate, building on discussions associated with the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for focused protection of the vulnerable rather than broad society-wide shutdowns. At the same time, the UK-based initiative Action on World Health was exploring the need for a systematic review of the performance of the WHO and the wider international health architecture. Conversations among participants in these efforts helped shape the idea of an independent expert panel to examine global health governance more broadly.
From the outset, IHRP sought to offer constructive reform rather than reactive protest. Its founders were clinicians, economists, and former multilateral officials committed to public health and international cooperation. Their aim was and remains to ensure that future health crises are addressed effectively and with proportionality, transparency, and respect for human dignity.
In this sense, IHRP arose not from hostility to public health, but from fidelity to its core principles.
Rebuilding International Health Governance ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/crunch-time-for-the-who/ The polarised debate on the World Health Organization (WHO) has been based more on mud-slinging and all-or-nothing dogma than scientific evidence and empirical data. However, with trust plummeting in public health and the WHO's funding rapidly falling as it scrambles for more to fund what it claims are ever-increasing threats, change is needed.
The International Health Reform Project (IHRP) formed with the intent of returning this debate to a rational framework. It did not begin as an anti-institutional campaign but as a professional reckoning. Its origins lie in a shared unease among physicians, public health practitioners, economists, and former senior international officials who watched the Covid-19 response unfold with growing alarm. Their concern was not with public health itself, but with the direction it appeared to be taking. The two of us, long engaged in global health policy and governance respectively, are co-chairs of a diverse group of ten experts who have spent the past 18 months thinking through this problem from evidence and orthodoxy rather than soundbites. The project delivered its first reports in March.
For decades, the post-war health architecture led by the WHO rested on principles such as proportionality, transparency, subsidiarity, and the primacy of human welfare. Covid exposed strains in that architecture. Emergency powers expanded, dissent narrowed, and policy debate became increasingly constrained. Measures once shunned for their inevitable harms and ethical concerns—lockdowns, prolonged school closures, border restrictions, universal mask and vaccine mandates—became normalised across very different societies with little regard for age-specific risk or local context. Balancing costs and benefits of interventions—the basis of public health policy development—became anathema in professional discourse.
Several IHRP members with long experience in low- and middle-income countries were particularly sensitive to the harmful consequences of the Covid public health response. Disruptions to agriculture and food distribution increased hunger and malnutrition. Routine immunisation programmes were set back. Extended school closures affected tens of millions of children, locking in intergenerational poverty and exposing millions of children to added risks of child labour, child marriage, and trafficking. Poverty reduction efforts suffered reversals and economic losses and national debt will stymie future healthcare programmes.
Those raising such concerns were often dismissed as reckless or ideological. Yet, the questions were rooted in core public health principles: What are the costs as well as the benefits of intervention? What trade-offs are justified? Who decides, on what evidence, and with what accountability? Why were these basic principles of public health abandoned?
During this period, Brownstone Institute emerged as a forum for open debate, building on discussions associated with the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for focused protection of the vulnerable rather than broad society-wide shutdowns. At the same time, the UK-based initiative Action on World Health was exploring the need for a systematic review of the performance of the WHO and the wider international health architecture. Conversations among participants in these efforts helped shape the idea of an independent expert panel to examine global health governance more broadly.
From the outset, IHRP sought to offer constructive reform rather than reactive protest. Its founders were clinicians, economists, and former multilateral officials committed to public health and international cooperation. Their aim was and remains to ensure that future health crises are addressed effectively and with proportionality, transparency, and respect for human dignity.
In this sense, IHRP arose not from hostility to public health, but from fidelity to its core principles.
Rebuilding International Health Governance ...]]> Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:17:12 -0400 Crunch Time for the WHO The polarised debate on the World Health Organization (WHO) has been based more on mud-slinging and all-or-nothing dogma than scientific evidence and empirical data. However, with trust plummeting in public health a...]]> The polarised debate on the World Health Organization (WHO) has been based more on mud-slinging and all-or-nothing dogma than scientific evidence and empirical data. However, with trust plummeting in public health and the WHO's funding rapidly falling as it scrambles for more to fund what it claims are ever-increasing threats, change is needed.
The International Health Reform Project (IHRP) formed with the intent of returning this debate to a rational framework. It did not begin as an anti-institutional campaign but as a professional reckoning. Its origins lie in a shared unease among physicians, public health practitioners, economists, and former senior international officials who watched the Covid-19 response unfold with growing alarm. Their concern was not with public health itself, but with the direction it appeared to be taking. The two of us, long engaged in global health policy and governance respectively, are co-chairs of a diverse group of ten experts who have spent the past 18 months thinking through this problem from evidence and orthodoxy rather than soundbites. The project delivered its first reports in March.
For decades, the post-war health architecture led by the WHO rested on principles such as proportionality, transparency, subsidiarity, and the primacy of human welfare. Covid exposed strains in that architecture. Emergency powers expanded, dissent narrowed, and policy debate became increasingly constrained. Measures once shunned for their inevitable harms and ethical concerns—lockdowns, prolonged school closures, border restrictions, universal mask and vaccine mandates—became normalised across very different societies with little regard for age-specific risk or local context. Balancing costs and benefits of interventions—the basis of public health policy development—became anathema in professional discourse.
Several IHRP members with long experience in low- and middle-income countries were particularly sensitive to the harmful consequences of the Covid public health response. Disruptions to agriculture and food distribution increased hunger and malnutrition. Routine immunisation programmes were set back. Extended school closures affected tens of millions of children, locking in intergenerational poverty and exposing millions of children to added risks of child labour, child marriage, and trafficking. Poverty reduction efforts suffered reversals and economic losses and national debt will stymie future healthcare programmes.
Those raising such concerns were often dismissed as reckless or ideological. Yet, the questions were rooted in core public health principles: What are the costs as well as the benefits of intervention? What trade-offs are justified? Who decides, on what evidence, and with what accountability? Why were these basic principles of public health abandoned?
During this period, Brownstone Institute emerged as a forum for open debate, building on discussions associated with the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for focused protection of the vulnerable rather than broad society-wide shutdowns. At the same time, the UK-based initiative Action on World Health was exploring the need for a systematic review of the performance of the WHO and the wider international health architecture. Conversations among participants in these efforts helped shape the idea of an independent expert panel to examine global health governance more broadly.
From the outset, IHRP sought to offer constructive reform rather than reactive protest. Its founders were clinicians, economists, and former multilateral officials committed to public health and international cooperation. Their aim was and remains to ensure that future health crises are addressed effectively and with proportionality, transparency, and respect for human dignity.
In this sense, IHRP arose not from hostility to public health, but from fidelity to its core principles.
Rebuilding International Health Governance ...]]> David Bell 08:46 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 39 66198 You've probably seen the headlines: University College London (UCL) settled a massive lawsuit for £21 million with college students who got an inferior education due to Covid-19 pandemic closures. That's roughly $26 million in US dollars with each student of the 6,000+ students represented getting about £3,270 (around $4,100). Meanwhile, in the US, Penn State—which had our largest settlement to date at $17 million—paid out just $236 per student. So why are British students receiving roughly 17 times more money than American students when learning disruptions were far more severe and longer-lasting in the US?
The answer lies in fundamental differences in how the UK and US law treat students. Put simply: UK students got Zoom learning and were compensated for overpaying. US students got Zoom learning with no legal pathway to get their partial refund.
The British students have a secret weapon that US students just don't have; the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It explicitly treats students as consumers and universities as businesses providing a service. Under this law, if you pay for a premium service but receive a basic service, you're entitled to a price reduction—period. The law says services must be performed with "reasonable care and skill," and if they are not, consumers are eligible to get their money back for the difference in value.
Importantly, the Consumer Rights Act overrides vague clauses that allow claims for "We can't be held responsible if something extraordinary happens" to escape responsibility. This is precisely what happened in US cases; the universities used "reservation of rights" language buried in student handbooks and government lockdown orders as valid defenses. Whereas in the UK, consumer protection law says: nice try, but students are consumers, and you still owe them a refund.
The UK students made valid legal claims, the UK courts agreed, and the rest is precedent.
In the US, over 300 lawsuits were filed against 70+ US colleges and universities. Students alleged breach of contract and unjust enrichment—basically arguing they were promised in-person education, didn't get it, and deserved a partial refund.
Only it is not that simple to get in the US.
While the US has consumer protection laws—both at the federal level (the FTC Act) and state level (UDAP laws in all states), they don't specifically apply to education the way the UK's Consumer Rights Act does.
Some college students did try including consumer protection claims in their lawsuits—particularly in California, which has strong consumer protection statutes. USC's lawsuit, for example, included violations of California's Business & Professions Code. But these claims were always secondary to the breach of contract arguments. Why? Because successful student claims under US consumer protection laws simply don't exist.
US lawsuits did not and will likely never result in UK-level settlements because judges refuse to assess educational quality, and they recognize "It is not our fault" defenses. US courts are extremely reluctant to assess the quality of education to determine if students got what they paid for academically. In other words, they don't want to be in the business of deciding whether your online chemistry class was as good as your in-person class. US courts also give enormous weight to "It is not our fault" defenses. Universities argued that the pandemic was extraordinary, and given that the government advised us to close, you can't hold us responsible for converting to an online learning model.
So where do US college students stand? Many of the early cases got dismissed outright with courts ruling that the students had no case. Others are still dragging on many years after they were filed, and some have settled.
As of today, about 30+ universities have settled—mostly to avoid the cost of continuing litigation but lest you think that these settlements caused a dent in the budgets of US colleges and univer...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/uk-college-student-covid-tuition-settlement-far-exceeds-that-of-us/ You've probably seen the headlines: University College London (UCL) settled a massive lawsuit for £21 million with college students who got an inferior education due to Covid-19 pandemic closures. That's roughly $26 million in US dollars with each student of the 6,000+ students represented getting about £3,270 (around $4,100). Meanwhile, in the US, Penn State—which had our largest settlement to date at $17 million—paid out just $236 per student. So why are British students receiving roughly 17 times more money than American students when learning disruptions were far more severe and longer-lasting in the US?
The answer lies in fundamental differences in how the UK and US law treat students. Put simply: UK students got Zoom learning and were compensated for overpaying. US students got Zoom learning with no legal pathway to get their partial refund.
The British students have a secret weapon that US students just don't have; the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It explicitly treats students as consumers and universities as businesses providing a service. Under this law, if you pay for a premium service but receive a basic service, you're entitled to a price reduction—period. The law says services must be performed with "reasonable care and skill," and if they are not, consumers are eligible to get their money back for the difference in value.
Importantly, the Consumer Rights Act overrides vague clauses that allow claims for "We can't be held responsible if something extraordinary happens" to escape responsibility. This is precisely what happened in US cases; the universities used "reservation of rights" language buried in student handbooks and government lockdown orders as valid defenses. Whereas in the UK, consumer protection law says: nice try, but students are consumers, and you still owe them a refund.
The UK students made valid legal claims, the UK courts agreed, and the rest is precedent.
In the US, over 300 lawsuits were filed against 70+ US colleges and universities. Students alleged breach of contract and unjust enrichment—basically arguing they were promised in-person education, didn't get it, and deserved a partial refund.
Only it is not that simple to get in the US.
While the US has consumer protection laws—both at the federal level (the FTC Act) and state level (UDAP laws in all states), they don't specifically apply to education the way the UK's Consumer Rights Act does.
Some college students did try including consumer protection claims in their lawsuits—particularly in California, which has strong consumer protection statutes. USC's lawsuit, for example, included violations of California's Business & Professions Code. But these claims were always secondary to the breach of contract arguments. Why? Because successful student claims under US consumer protection laws simply don't exist.
US lawsuits did not and will likely never result in UK-level settlements because judges refuse to assess educational quality, and they recognize "It is not our fault" defenses. US courts are extremely reluctant to assess the quality of education to determine if students got what they paid for academically. In other words, they don't want to be in the business of deciding whether your online chemistry class was as good as your in-person class. US courts also give enormous weight to "It is not our fault" defenses. Universities argued that the pandemic was extraordinary, and given that the government advised us to close, you can't hold us responsible for converting to an online learning model.
So where do US college students stand? Many of the early cases got dismissed outright with courts ruling that the students had no case. Others are still dragging on many years after they were filed, and some have settled.
As of today, about 30+ universities have settled—mostly to avoid the cost of continuing litigation but lest you think that these settlements caused a dent in the budgets of US colleges and univer...]]> Mon, 30 Mar 2026 07:45:00 -0400 UK College Student Covid Tuition Settlement Far Exceeds That of US You've probably seen the headlines: University College London (UCL) settled a massive lawsuit for £21 million with college students who got an inferior education due to Covid-19 pandemic closures. That's roughly ...]]> You've probably seen the headlines: University College London (UCL) settled a massive lawsuit for £21 million with college students who got an inferior education due to Covid-19 pandemic closures. That's roughly $26 million in US dollars with each student of the 6,000+ students represented getting about £3,270 (around $4,100). Meanwhile, in the US, Penn State—which had our largest settlement to date at $17 million—paid out just $236 per student. So why are British students receiving roughly 17 times more money than American students when learning disruptions were far more severe and longer-lasting in the US?
The answer lies in fundamental differences in how the UK and US law treat students. Put simply: UK students got Zoom learning and were compensated for overpaying. US students got Zoom learning with no legal pathway to get their partial refund.
The British students have a secret weapon that US students just don't have; the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It explicitly treats students as consumers and universities as businesses providing a service. Under this law, if you pay for a premium service but receive a basic service, you're entitled to a price reduction—period. The law says services must be performed with "reasonable care and skill," and if they are not, consumers are eligible to get their money back for the difference in value.
Importantly, the Consumer Rights Act overrides vague clauses that allow claims for "We can't be held responsible if something extraordinary happens" to escape responsibility. This is precisely what happened in US cases; the universities used "reservation of rights" language buried in student handbooks and government lockdown orders as valid defenses. Whereas in the UK, consumer protection law says: nice try, but students are consumers, and you still owe them a refund.
The UK students made valid legal claims, the UK courts agreed, and the rest is precedent.
In the US, over 300 lawsuits were filed against 70+ US colleges and universities. Students alleged breach of contract and unjust enrichment—basically arguing they were promised in-person education, didn't get it, and deserved a partial refund.
Only it is not that simple to get in the US.
While the US has consumer protection laws—both at the federal level (the FTC Act) and state level (UDAP laws in all states), they don't specifically apply to education the way the UK's Consumer Rights Act does.
Some college students did try including consumer protection claims in their lawsuits—particularly in California, which has strong consumer protection statutes. USC's lawsuit, for example, included violations of California's Business & Professions Code. But these claims were always secondary to the breach of contract arguments. Why? Because successful student claims under US consumer protection laws simply don't exist.
US lawsuits did not and will likely never result in UK-level settlements because judges refuse to assess educational quality, and they recognize "It is not our fault" defenses. US courts are extremely reluctant to assess the quality of education to determine if students got what they paid for academically. In other words, they don't want to be in the business of deciding whether your online chemistry class was as good as your in-person class. US courts also give enormous weight to "It is not our fault" defenses. Universities argued that the pandemic was extraordinary, and given that the government advised us to close, you can't hold us responsible for converting to an online learning model.
So where do US college students stand? Many of the early cases got dismissed outright with courts ruling that the students had no case. Others are still dragging on many years after they were filed, and some have settled.
As of today, about 30+ universities have settled—mostly to avoid the cost of continuing litigation but lest you think that these settlements caused a dent in the budgets of US colleges and univer...]]> Lucia Sinatra 11:46 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 38 66137 On February 5, 2026, in the Canadian Parliament, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis tabled Bill C-260, which prohibits civil servants or others with authority from recommending assisted-suicide to anyone who has not asked about it.
Genuis cited "examples such as Canadian Armed Forces veteran David Baltzer…who was offered MAiD by Veterans Affairs Canada, as well as Nicholas Bergeron, a 46-year-old man from Quebec who was not interested in a medically facilitated death, but was 'repeatedly' pushed towards the option by a social worker."
I can verify this government policy personally since a family member was encouraged without prompting to attend a seminar on how and why to kill himself.
Introduced in 2016, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is a federal program that can differ slightly from province to province. The core and constant concept: at the request of an eligible individual, the government administers death either by euthanasia through a lethal injection delivered by a clinician or by assisted suicide through self-administered medication that is facilitated by a clinician. An estimated 99% of MAiD cases involve euthanasia, not assisted suicide.
For one thing, the populous province of Quebec prohibits self-administration; in other provinces, health regions and care facilities perform only euthanasia or lean strongly in this direction. Perhaps government chose the acronym MAiD because Medical Euthanasia sounds jarring.
MAiD sets the extremely dangerous precedent of granting government the authority to kill an innocent person. The standard rebuttal to this argument is that the innocent person must request the "service" of suicide.
MAiD is not a uniquely Canadian issue. State-assisted suicide has spread quickly across the Western world. Currently (February 2026), over a dozen American states have legalized it in some form. In the UK, the Terminally Ill Adults Bill is at the Committee Stage in Parliament where it reportedly has 1,227 proposed amendments.
Some regions in Australia are also drawing up programs. The list of nations offering State-assisted suicide or euthanasia scrolls on and on, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Austria, New Zealand…The same concerns and debates surrounding MAiD bear directly on these other programs, especially as MAiD is often referenced as a model or as a cautionary tale.
I view MAiD as a cautionary tale.
Medical personnel may have religious or other ethical objections to administering MAiD. Perhaps they view euthanasia as a violation of the Hippocratic Oath, which states, "First, Do No Harm." For many, these 4 words form the backbone of medical ethics. Canada does not force doctors or nurse practitioners to administer MAiD, but the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) explains that "holding a conscientious objection to MAiD does not negate these obligations.
Rather, it activates alternative duties to discuss the objection with the patient and to refer or transfer the care of the patient to a non-objecting clinician or other effective information-providing and access-facilitating resource." This forces the practitioners to participate in the MAiD system to which they may strenuously object. Equally, some taxpayers may consider MAiD to be a form of murder that is covered by tax-funded health care. They may be as repulsed by having to pay for MAiD as much as many pro-life advocates detest having to finance abortions.
All assisted-suicide nations will confront certain practical questions; for example, all programs need to answer "what constitutes consent, and how is it documented?"
A sketch of how these general practical problems surfaced in Canada gives insight.
The original 2016 legislation (Bill C-14) provided safeguards to ensure applicants were eligible for MAiD. An amendment in 2021 (Bill C-7) established a two-track system of qualifications: Track 1 and Track 2. What is now called T...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/suicide-should-not-be-a-government-service/ On February 5, 2026, in the Canadian Parliament, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis tabled Bill C-260, which prohibits civil servants or others with authority from recommending assisted-suicide to anyone who has not asked about it.
Genuis cited "examples such as Canadian Armed Forces veteran David Baltzer…who was offered MAiD by Veterans Affairs Canada, as well as Nicholas Bergeron, a 46-year-old man from Quebec who was not interested in a medically facilitated death, but was 'repeatedly' pushed towards the option by a social worker."
I can verify this government policy personally since a family member was encouraged without prompting to attend a seminar on how and why to kill himself.
Introduced in 2016, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is a federal program that can differ slightly from province to province. The core and constant concept: at the request of an eligible individual, the government administers death either by euthanasia through a lethal injection delivered by a clinician or by assisted suicide through self-administered medication that is facilitated by a clinician. An estimated 99% of MAiD cases involve euthanasia, not assisted suicide.
For one thing, the populous province of Quebec prohibits self-administration; in other provinces, health regions and care facilities perform only euthanasia or lean strongly in this direction. Perhaps government chose the acronym MAiD because Medical Euthanasia sounds jarring.
MAiD sets the extremely dangerous precedent of granting government the authority to kill an innocent person. The standard rebuttal to this argument is that the innocent person must request the "service" of suicide.
MAiD is not a uniquely Canadian issue. State-assisted suicide has spread quickly across the Western world. Currently (February 2026), over a dozen American states have legalized it in some form. In the UK, the Terminally Ill Adults Bill is at the Committee Stage in Parliament where it reportedly has 1,227 proposed amendments.
Some regions in Australia are also drawing up programs. The list of nations offering State-assisted suicide or euthanasia scrolls on and on, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Austria, New Zealand…The same concerns and debates surrounding MAiD bear directly on these other programs, especially as MAiD is often referenced as a model or as a cautionary tale.
I view MAiD as a cautionary tale.
Medical personnel may have religious or other ethical objections to administering MAiD. Perhaps they view euthanasia as a violation of the Hippocratic Oath, which states, "First, Do No Harm." For many, these 4 words form the backbone of medical ethics. Canada does not force doctors or nurse practitioners to administer MAiD, but the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) explains that "holding a conscientious objection to MAiD does not negate these obligations.
Rather, it activates alternative duties to discuss the objection with the patient and to refer or transfer the care of the patient to a non-objecting clinician or other effective information-providing and access-facilitating resource." This forces the practitioners to participate in the MAiD system to which they may strenuously object. Equally, some taxpayers may consider MAiD to be a form of murder that is covered by tax-funded health care. They may be as repulsed by having to pay for MAiD as much as many pro-life advocates detest having to finance abortions.
All assisted-suicide nations will confront certain practical questions; for example, all programs need to answer "what constitutes consent, and how is it documented?"
A sketch of how these general practical problems surfaced in Canada gives insight.
The original 2016 legislation (Bill C-14) provided safeguards to ensure applicants were eligible for MAiD. An amendment in 2021 (Bill C-7) established a two-track system of qualifications: Track 1 and Track 2. What is now called T...]]> Mon, 30 Mar 2026 07:40:00 -0400 Suicide Should Not Be a Government Service On February 5, 2026, in the Canadian Parliament, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis tabled Bill C-260, which prohibits civil servants or others with authority from recommending assisted-suicide to anyone who has not ...]]> On February 5, 2026, in the Canadian Parliament, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis tabled Bill C-260, which prohibits civil servants or others with authority from recommending assisted-suicide to anyone who has not asked about it.
Genuis cited "examples such as Canadian Armed Forces veteran David Baltzer…who was offered MAiD by Veterans Affairs Canada, as well as Nicholas Bergeron, a 46-year-old man from Quebec who was not interested in a medically facilitated death, but was 'repeatedly' pushed towards the option by a social worker."
I can verify this government policy personally since a family member was encouraged without prompting to attend a seminar on how and why to kill himself.
Introduced in 2016, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is a federal program that can differ slightly from province to province. The core and constant concept: at the request of an eligible individual, the government administers death either by euthanasia through a lethal injection delivered by a clinician or by assisted suicide through self-administered medication that is facilitated by a clinician. An estimated 99% of MAiD cases involve euthanasia, not assisted suicide.
For one thing, the populous province of Quebec prohibits self-administration; in other provinces, health regions and care facilities perform only euthanasia or lean strongly in this direction. Perhaps government chose the acronym MAiD because Medical Euthanasia sounds jarring.
MAiD sets the extremely dangerous precedent of granting government the authority to kill an innocent person. The standard rebuttal to this argument is that the innocent person must request the "service" of suicide.
MAiD is not a uniquely Canadian issue. State-assisted suicide has spread quickly across the Western world. Currently (February 2026), over a dozen American states have legalized it in some form. In the UK, the Terminally Ill Adults Bill is at the Committee Stage in Parliament where it reportedly has 1,227 proposed amendments.
Some regions in Australia are also drawing up programs. The list of nations offering State-assisted suicide or euthanasia scrolls on and on, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Austria, New Zealand…The same concerns and debates surrounding MAiD bear directly on these other programs, especially as MAiD is often referenced as a model or as a cautionary tale.
I view MAiD as a cautionary tale.
Medical personnel may have religious or other ethical objections to administering MAiD. Perhaps they view euthanasia as a violation of the Hippocratic Oath, which states, "First, Do No Harm." For many, these 4 words form the backbone of medical ethics. Canada does not force doctors or nurse practitioners to administer MAiD, but the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) explains that "holding a conscientious objection to MAiD does not negate these obligations.
Rather, it activates alternative duties to discuss the objection with the patient and to refer or transfer the care of the patient to a non-objecting clinician or other effective information-providing and access-facilitating resource." This forces the practitioners to participate in the MAiD system to which they may strenuously object. Equally, some taxpayers may consider MAiD to be a form of murder that is covered by tax-funded health care. They may be as repulsed by having to pay for MAiD as much as many pro-life advocates detest having to finance abortions.
All assisted-suicide nations will confront certain practical questions; for example, all programs need to answer "what constitutes consent, and how is it documented?"
A sketch of how these general practical problems surfaced in Canada gives insight.
The original 2016 legislation (Bill C-14) provided safeguards to ensure applicants were eligible for MAiD. An amendment in 2021 (Bill C-7) established a two-track system of qualifications: Track 1 and Track 2. What is now called T...]]> Wendy McElroy 19:06 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 37 66128 Are doctors being crushed by busywork, so they don't get much time to actually help people? If you read no further, that's the crux of my argument.
Friends ask if I have a family doctor. I admit that Dr. C. has been my doctor for two decades. He inherited me after my old school doc retired. While they think I'm lucky, frankly he's a peripheral person in my life.
Over 20 years I've seen him maybe once a year in very short consultations, (usually for an X-ray requisition to see if I broke something after falling off my bike). In each visit I have noticed a certain tendency: that he wants to give me a lot more than I'm into. He wonders about my cholesterol or my blood sugars, a colon test, a prostate check, or a flu shot. I'm polite. Each time I say, I'll look into those things and get back to him.
I never do. Why? Because I've already looked into those things and there's basically nothing of interest there. I'm a healthy, fit, 60ish guy who has spent 30 years studying the value of medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, and screening tests and the preventative prizes he's offering are theoretically fine, but in my view of things they are little more than meddling ways to turn healthy people into patients. Sure, call me a skeptic but this sort of busywork is unlikely to contribute to the length and quality of my life. I've read most of the big studies of the major classes of pharmaceuticals and parsed the evidence on medical screening, enough to have written books on this stuff. I'm okay to refuse more medicine than I need.
Like most doctors, however, he's just being proactive, seeking out signs of disease before it might hurt me. I get that. But it has me thinking: where does he find time to help people who are actually sick?
Here's the blunt truth for health policymakers and others overzealous about prevention: if our doctors are overly occupied delivering low-value prevention in healthy people, they're not going to be there for the genuinely sick. That's not callousness. It's basic resource allocation informed by evidence about benefits, harms, and opportunity costs.
Large trials and systematic reviews have repeatedly shown that most screening tests and preventive prescriptions yield marginal benefits for otherwise healthy individuals, while often introducing real harms. Screening that seems sensible on paper can lead to false positives, cascades of further testing, overdiagnosis, anxiety, and procedures that don't improve — and sometimes worsen — the quality or length of our lives. Every drug comes with harm of some kind. Taking your chances with those harms if you are seriously in need, sure. But what if you're already otherwise healthy?
Drugs prescribed for healthy people frequently have tiny benefits. Lower your cholesterol? Sure, if you think a 2% reduction in the risk of a heart attack for swallowing a daily pill for 10 years (and the possible increased risk of muscle weakening that comes with it) is worth it. An osteoporosis drug that produces a 1% reduction in the risk of a hip fracture? Then there is the problem with overdrugging older people, a particularly common form of cruelty in our elderly which results in a high rate of hospitalizations and deaths. Millions of otherwise healthy people get labeled "at risk," exposed to drug adverse effects, and end up wasting our doctors' time (and our health care dollars) that could be devoted to acute problems.
Like most doctors, Dr. C defaults to "prevention" because it's neat, feels proactive, and aligns with performance metrics and billing incentives working in a system that rewards doing more rather than doing what's most necessary. But is his time being stolen away from more urgent cases: the frail patient with multiple things going wrong at the same time, the person with new, unexplained symptoms, or the caregiver needing complex coordination for Mom who is failing fast? For those moments when we need experienced clinical judgment...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/lets-save-our-doctors-time-for-sick-people/ Are doctors being crushed by busywork, so they don't get much time to actually help people? If you read no further, that's the crux of my argument.
Friends ask if I have a family doctor. I admit that Dr. C. has been my doctor for two decades. He inherited me after my old school doc retired. While they think I'm lucky, frankly he's a peripheral person in my life.
Over 20 years I've seen him maybe once a year in very short consultations, (usually for an X-ray requisition to see if I broke something after falling off my bike). In each visit I have noticed a certain tendency: that he wants to give me a lot more than I'm into. He wonders about my cholesterol or my blood sugars, a colon test, a prostate check, or a flu shot. I'm polite. Each time I say, I'll look into those things and get back to him.
I never do. Why? Because I've already looked into those things and there's basically nothing of interest there. I'm a healthy, fit, 60ish guy who has spent 30 years studying the value of medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, and screening tests and the preventative prizes he's offering are theoretically fine, but in my view of things they are little more than meddling ways to turn healthy people into patients. Sure, call me a skeptic but this sort of busywork is unlikely to contribute to the length and quality of my life. I've read most of the big studies of the major classes of pharmaceuticals and parsed the evidence on medical screening, enough to have written books on this stuff. I'm okay to refuse more medicine than I need.
Like most doctors, however, he's just being proactive, seeking out signs of disease before it might hurt me. I get that. But it has me thinking: where does he find time to help people who are actually sick?
Here's the blunt truth for health policymakers and others overzealous about prevention: if our doctors are overly occupied delivering low-value prevention in healthy people, they're not going to be there for the genuinely sick. That's not callousness. It's basic resource allocation informed by evidence about benefits, harms, and opportunity costs.
Large trials and systematic reviews have repeatedly shown that most screening tests and preventive prescriptions yield marginal benefits for otherwise healthy individuals, while often introducing real harms. Screening that seems sensible on paper can lead to false positives, cascades of further testing, overdiagnosis, anxiety, and procedures that don't improve — and sometimes worsen — the quality or length of our lives. Every drug comes with harm of some kind. Taking your chances with those harms if you are seriously in need, sure. But what if you're already otherwise healthy?
Drugs prescribed for healthy people frequently have tiny benefits. Lower your cholesterol? Sure, if you think a 2% reduction in the risk of a heart attack for swallowing a daily pill for 10 years (and the possible increased risk of muscle weakening that comes with it) is worth it. An osteoporosis drug that produces a 1% reduction in the risk of a hip fracture? Then there is the problem with overdrugging older people, a particularly common form of cruelty in our elderly which results in a high rate of hospitalizations and deaths. Millions of otherwise healthy people get labeled "at risk," exposed to drug adverse effects, and end up wasting our doctors' time (and our health care dollars) that could be devoted to acute problems.
Like most doctors, Dr. C defaults to "prevention" because it's neat, feels proactive, and aligns with performance metrics and billing incentives working in a system that rewards doing more rather than doing what's most necessary. But is his time being stolen away from more urgent cases: the frail patient with multiple things going wrong at the same time, the person with new, unexplained symptoms, or the caregiver needing complex coordination for Mom who is failing fast? For those moments when we need experienced clinical judgment...]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:40:00 -0400 Let's Save Our Doctors' Time for Sick People Are doctors being crushed by busywork, so they don't get much time to actually help people? If you read no further, that's the crux of my argument.
Friends ask if I have a family doctor. I admit that Dr. C. has be...]]> Are doctors being crushed by busywork, so they don't get much time to actually help people? If you read no further, that's the crux of my argument.
Friends ask if I have a family doctor. I admit that Dr. C. has been my doctor for two decades. He inherited me after my old school doc retired. While they think I'm lucky, frankly he's a peripheral person in my life.
Over 20 years I've seen him maybe once a year in very short consultations, (usually for an X-ray requisition to see if I broke something after falling off my bike). In each visit I have noticed a certain tendency: that he wants to give me a lot more than I'm into. He wonders about my cholesterol or my blood sugars, a colon test, a prostate check, or a flu shot. I'm polite. Each time I say, I'll look into those things and get back to him.
I never do. Why? Because I've already looked into those things and there's basically nothing of interest there. I'm a healthy, fit, 60ish guy who has spent 30 years studying the value of medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, and screening tests and the preventative prizes he's offering are theoretically fine, but in my view of things they are little more than meddling ways to turn healthy people into patients. Sure, call me a skeptic but this sort of busywork is unlikely to contribute to the length and quality of my life. I've read most of the big studies of the major classes of pharmaceuticals and parsed the evidence on medical screening, enough to have written books on this stuff. I'm okay to refuse more medicine than I need.
Like most doctors, however, he's just being proactive, seeking out signs of disease before it might hurt me. I get that. But it has me thinking: where does he find time to help people who are actually sick?
Here's the blunt truth for health policymakers and others overzealous about prevention: if our doctors are overly occupied delivering low-value prevention in healthy people, they're not going to be there for the genuinely sick. That's not callousness. It's basic resource allocation informed by evidence about benefits, harms, and opportunity costs.
Large trials and systematic reviews have repeatedly shown that most screening tests and preventive prescriptions yield marginal benefits for otherwise healthy individuals, while often introducing real harms. Screening that seems sensible on paper can lead to false positives, cascades of further testing, overdiagnosis, anxiety, and procedures that don't improve — and sometimes worsen — the quality or length of our lives. Every drug comes with harm of some kind. Taking your chances with those harms if you are seriously in need, sure. But what if you're already otherwise healthy?
Drugs prescribed for healthy people frequently have tiny benefits. Lower your cholesterol? Sure, if you think a 2% reduction in the risk of a heart attack for swallowing a daily pill for 10 years (and the possible increased risk of muscle weakening that comes with it) is worth it. An osteoporosis drug that produces a 1% reduction in the risk of a hip fracture? Then there is the problem with overdrugging older people, a particularly common form of cruelty in our elderly which results in a high rate of hospitalizations and deaths. Millions of otherwise healthy people get labeled "at risk," exposed to drug adverse effects, and end up wasting our doctors' time (and our health care dollars) that could be devoted to acute problems.
Like most doctors, Dr. C defaults to "prevention" because it's neat, feels proactive, and aligns with performance metrics and billing incentives working in a system that rewards doing more rather than doing what's most necessary. But is his time being stolen away from more urgent cases: the frail patient with multiple things going wrong at the same time, the person with new, unexplained symptoms, or the caregiver needing complex coordination for Mom who is failing fast? For those moments when we need experienced clinical judgment...]]> Alan Cassels 05:03 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 36 66124 Some books explain events, and others explain the world in which events become possible. Jacob Siegel's The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control (Henry Holt, March 2026) belongs firmly to the second category. A former US Army infantry and intelligence officer who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Siegel is not a theorist who stumbled upon power. He watched it operate, up close, against living populations.
That experience planted the seed for his landmark 2023 essay in Tablet magazine, "A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century," which was immediately recognized by some of the sharpest minds of our moment — N.S. Lyons, Matthew Crawford, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, among others — as something rare: a genuinely illuminating text. The book that has grown from it is not merely an expansion. It is the definitive account of how liberal democracy, understood as government by consent, was quietly displaced by what Siegel calls the information state.
What is the information state? It is a regime that governs not through legislature or courts or votes, but through the invisible digital architecture that now mediates nearly every dimension of public life. Siegel's definition is evolutive: "a state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals" is replaced by "a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms."
The Foucauldian resonance is deliberate and precise. This is governmentality in the strict sense, a rationality of rule that targets conduct rather than territory, that operates through security mechanisms and the management of populations rather than through the old instruments of force and law, blurring the distinction between the two. Its goal, Siegel insists, was never simply to censor, never merely to oppress. It was to rule. The kind of brazen censorship we observed during the Biden era and that is so tempting to our warring rulers again is not a bug; it is a feature of the new normal.
What gives Siegel's thesis its particular force is the paradox at its center. The great ills the information state claims to remedy — disinformation above all — are self-referential products of the surveillance-and-attention-based internet upon which the state now depends for its very operation. The machine generates the pathology it then offers to cure. As Siegel puts it with characteristic precision, the politicians loudest in condemning platforms like Facebook or Twitter do not take the obvious step of seeking to make them less powerful.
Their aim is not to reform or rebuild the repressive infrastructure of the internet, only to make it serve their own interests. Anyone who has read Jacques Ellul will recognize the pattern immediately. In an endless vicious circle, "Technique" keeps expanding to solve the problems created by its own prior expansion. What had appeared in the 1990s as the emancipatory promise of limitless digital communication had quietly become, by 2016, the medium through which a new class of rulers managed the informational environment of their subjects.
The book's historical architecture is ambitious, and it is here that Siegel distinguishes himself most sharply from mere polemicists without ever sounding conspiratorial. He traces the genealogy of the information State across five acts, beginning far earlier than most observers imagine. The technocratic seed was planted by Francis Bacon's Promethean dream of extending human dominion over nature, a vision that married scientific empiricism to political will, and that dismissed classical contemplation as, in Bacon's own phrase, "the boyhood of knowledge."
From Bacon, the thread runs to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's most trusted minister and weapon against the Nobility of the sword, who married humanist dreams of universal libraries to the accounting practices of Europe's merchant houses and pioneered, in ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-digital-leviathan/ Some books explain events, and others explain the world in which events become possible. Jacob Siegel's The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control (Henry Holt, March 2026) belongs firmly to the second category. A former US Army infantry and intelligence officer who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Siegel is not a theorist who stumbled upon power. He watched it operate, up close, against living populations.
That experience planted the seed for his landmark 2023 essay in Tablet magazine, "A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century," which was immediately recognized by some of the sharpest minds of our moment — N.S. Lyons, Matthew Crawford, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, among others — as something rare: a genuinely illuminating text. The book that has grown from it is not merely an expansion. It is the definitive account of how liberal democracy, understood as government by consent, was quietly displaced by what Siegel calls the information state.
What is the information state? It is a regime that governs not through legislature or courts or votes, but through the invisible digital architecture that now mediates nearly every dimension of public life. Siegel's definition is evolutive: "a state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals" is replaced by "a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms."
The Foucauldian resonance is deliberate and precise. This is governmentality in the strict sense, a rationality of rule that targets conduct rather than territory, that operates through security mechanisms and the management of populations rather than through the old instruments of force and law, blurring the distinction between the two. Its goal, Siegel insists, was never simply to censor, never merely to oppress. It was to rule. The kind of brazen censorship we observed during the Biden era and that is so tempting to our warring rulers again is not a bug; it is a feature of the new normal.
What gives Siegel's thesis its particular force is the paradox at its center. The great ills the information state claims to remedy — disinformation above all — are self-referential products of the surveillance-and-attention-based internet upon which the state now depends for its very operation. The machine generates the pathology it then offers to cure. As Siegel puts it with characteristic precision, the politicians loudest in condemning platforms like Facebook or Twitter do not take the obvious step of seeking to make them less powerful.
Their aim is not to reform or rebuild the repressive infrastructure of the internet, only to make it serve their own interests. Anyone who has read Jacques Ellul will recognize the pattern immediately. In an endless vicious circle, "Technique" keeps expanding to solve the problems created by its own prior expansion. What had appeared in the 1990s as the emancipatory promise of limitless digital communication had quietly become, by 2016, the medium through which a new class of rulers managed the informational environment of their subjects.
The book's historical architecture is ambitious, and it is here that Siegel distinguishes himself most sharply from mere polemicists without ever sounding conspiratorial. He traces the genealogy of the information State across five acts, beginning far earlier than most observers imagine. The technocratic seed was planted by Francis Bacon's Promethean dream of extending human dominion over nature, a vision that married scientific empiricism to political will, and that dismissed classical contemplation as, in Bacon's own phrase, "the boyhood of knowledge."
From Bacon, the thread runs to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's most trusted minister and weapon against the Nobility of the sword, who married humanist dreams of universal libraries to the accounting practices of Europe's merchant houses and pioneered, in ...]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 08:40:00 -0400 The Digital Leviathan Some books explain events, and others explain the world in which events become possible. Jacob Siegel's The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control (Henry Holt, March 2026) belongs firmly to th...]]> Some books explain events, and others explain the world in which events become possible. Jacob Siegel's The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control (Henry Holt, March 2026) belongs firmly to the second category. A former US Army infantry and intelligence officer who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Siegel is not a theorist who stumbled upon power. He watched it operate, up close, against living populations.
That experience planted the seed for his landmark 2023 essay in Tablet magazine, "A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century," which was immediately recognized by some of the sharpest minds of our moment — N.S. Lyons, Matthew Crawford, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, among others — as something rare: a genuinely illuminating text. The book that has grown from it is not merely an expansion. It is the definitive account of how liberal democracy, understood as government by consent, was quietly displaced by what Siegel calls the information state.
What is the information state? It is a regime that governs not through legislature or courts or votes, but through the invisible digital architecture that now mediates nearly every dimension of public life. Siegel's definition is evolutive: "a state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals" is replaced by "a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms."
The Foucauldian resonance is deliberate and precise. This is governmentality in the strict sense, a rationality of rule that targets conduct rather than territory, that operates through security mechanisms and the management of populations rather than through the old instruments of force and law, blurring the distinction between the two. Its goal, Siegel insists, was never simply to censor, never merely to oppress. It was to rule. The kind of brazen censorship we observed during the Biden era and that is so tempting to our warring rulers again is not a bug; it is a feature of the new normal.
What gives Siegel's thesis its particular force is the paradox at its center. The great ills the information state claims to remedy — disinformation above all — are self-referential products of the surveillance-and-attention-based internet upon which the state now depends for its very operation. The machine generates the pathology it then offers to cure. As Siegel puts it with characteristic precision, the politicians loudest in condemning platforms like Facebook or Twitter do not take the obvious step of seeking to make them less powerful.
Their aim is not to reform or rebuild the repressive infrastructure of the internet, only to make it serve their own interests. Anyone who has read Jacques Ellul will recognize the pattern immediately. In an endless vicious circle, "Technique" keeps expanding to solve the problems created by its own prior expansion. What had appeared in the 1990s as the emancipatory promise of limitless digital communication had quietly become, by 2016, the medium through which a new class of rulers managed the informational environment of their subjects.
The book's historical architecture is ambitious, and it is here that Siegel distinguishes himself most sharply from mere polemicists without ever sounding conspiratorial. He traces the genealogy of the information State across five acts, beginning far earlier than most observers imagine. The technocratic seed was planted by Francis Bacon's Promethean dream of extending human dominion over nature, a vision that married scientific empiricism to political will, and that dismissed classical contemplation as, in Bacon's own phrase, "the boyhood of knowledge."
From Bacon, the thread runs to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's most trusted minister and weapon against the Nobility of the sword, who married humanist dreams of universal libraries to the accounting practices of Europe's merchant houses and pioneered, in ...]]> Renaud Beauchard 15:40 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 35 66087 [This report of the International Health Reform Project is more than a year in preparation. The full policy report and technical reports are embedded below this foreword and executive summary. The policy report is also available from Amazon in physical and digital forms. The IHRP is sponsored by Brownstone Institute, which had no involvement in forming contents and conclusions.]
International cooperation on health is a widely accepted global good. Capacity building and development assistance reduce historic health inequalities and, as a result, strengthen economies. Management of cross-border infectious disease threats is best done through joint surveillance, data sharing, and response.
Collaboration on norms and standards provides efficiencies and facilitates trade in health products. However, the interaction between disease, the environment, and human populations is complex, and threats are heterogenous in their effects and gravity. Collaboration must therefore take such variability into account, with decision-making ultimately based around those affected.
Experience has demonstrated that international health cooperation can, when poorly governed, undermine trust, distort priorities, and produce significant unintended harm. Recent trends of centralized decision-making, emergency exceptionalism, and donor-driven agendas, exemplified during the Covid-19 response, displaced proportionality, local context, and established public-health ethics. These failures revealed structural weaknesses rather than temporary lapses.
At the same time, cooperation in public health also requires an understanding of the sovereignty and equality of individuals, and of the states that represent them – an understanding that underpins the United Nations itself. Thus, any institution tasked with managing health cooperation must be based on this understanding and be fully subject to the states it is intended to serve.
It should surprise no one that, after nearly 80 years of existence in a greatly changed world, the World Health Organization (WHO) is perceived by many to have drifted from its original model. Fundamental shifts in its funding base, and now the exit of its largest state funder, present both an opportunity and an urgency to reassess the optimal way in which states should work together to serve the health needs of their populations, applying the fundamental principles on which public health should be based to a greatly changed and evolving world.
WHO and the state of international health cooperation
The WHO constitution, signed in 1946 by 51 states then comprising the United Nations, had little input from most current African and Asian states. Its governing body, the World Health Assembly, gradually expanded as states broke from colonialism or foreign mandates to achieve sovereignty.
Defining health in its constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity," the WHO took on a broad mandate including support for these less-resourced states, coordinating cross-border outbreak management, disease elimination, and the setting of international normative standards. It was hoped that the improvements in health and longevity that economic development had brought to wealthier countries could be accelerated in the lower income countries, reducing the inequalities resulting from colonialism and neglect.
The WHO's 150 country offices have formed a framework to strengthen local capacity and health systems. The organization is well known for successes such as smallpox eradication and early focus on the major drivers of well-being and longevity such as improved sanitation, nutrition, and access to basic healthcare. Major programmes in tuberculosis, malaria, vaccination, and child health have set standards for disease management and reduced overall disease burdens. A global decline in infectious disease mortality, con...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-right-to-health-sovereignty/ [This report of the International Health Reform Project is more than a year in preparation. The full policy report and technical reports are embedded below this foreword and executive summary. The policy report is also available from Amazon in physical and digital forms. The IHRP is sponsored by Brownstone Institute, which had no involvement in forming contents and conclusions.]
International cooperation on health is a widely accepted global good. Capacity building and development assistance reduce historic health inequalities and, as a result, strengthen economies. Management of cross-border infectious disease threats is best done through joint surveillance, data sharing, and response.
Collaboration on norms and standards provides efficiencies and facilitates trade in health products. However, the interaction between disease, the environment, and human populations is complex, and threats are heterogenous in their effects and gravity. Collaboration must therefore take such variability into account, with decision-making ultimately based around those affected.
Experience has demonstrated that international health cooperation can, when poorly governed, undermine trust, distort priorities, and produce significant unintended harm. Recent trends of centralized decision-making, emergency exceptionalism, and donor-driven agendas, exemplified during the Covid-19 response, displaced proportionality, local context, and established public-health ethics. These failures revealed structural weaknesses rather than temporary lapses.
At the same time, cooperation in public health also requires an understanding of the sovereignty and equality of individuals, and of the states that represent them – an understanding that underpins the United Nations itself. Thus, any institution tasked with managing health cooperation must be based on this understanding and be fully subject to the states it is intended to serve.
It should surprise no one that, after nearly 80 years of existence in a greatly changed world, the World Health Organization (WHO) is perceived by many to have drifted from its original model. Fundamental shifts in its funding base, and now the exit of its largest state funder, present both an opportunity and an urgency to reassess the optimal way in which states should work together to serve the health needs of their populations, applying the fundamental principles on which public health should be based to a greatly changed and evolving world.
WHO and the state of international health cooperation
The WHO constitution, signed in 1946 by 51 states then comprising the United Nations, had little input from most current African and Asian states. Its governing body, the World Health Assembly, gradually expanded as states broke from colonialism or foreign mandates to achieve sovereignty.
Defining health in its constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity," the WHO took on a broad mandate including support for these less-resourced states, coordinating cross-border outbreak management, disease elimination, and the setting of international normative standards. It was hoped that the improvements in health and longevity that economic development had brought to wealthier countries could be accelerated in the lower income countries, reducing the inequalities resulting from colonialism and neglect.
The WHO's 150 country offices have formed a framework to strengthen local capacity and health systems. The organization is well known for successes such as smallpox eradication and early focus on the major drivers of well-being and longevity such as improved sanitation, nutrition, and access to basic healthcare. Major programmes in tuberculosis, malaria, vaccination, and child health have set standards for disease management and reduced overall disease burdens. A global decline in infectious disease mortality, con...]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:03:01 -0400 The Right to Health Sovereignty [This report of the International Health Reform Project is more than a year in preparation. The full policy report and technical reports are embedded below this foreword and executive summar...]]> [This report of the International Health Reform Project is more than a year in preparation. The full policy report and technical reports are embedded below this foreword and executive summary. The policy report is also available from Amazon in physical and digital forms. The IHRP is sponsored by Brownstone Institute, which had no involvement in forming contents and conclusions.]
International cooperation on health is a widely accepted global good. Capacity building and development assistance reduce historic health inequalities and, as a result, strengthen economies. Management of cross-border infectious disease threats is best done through joint surveillance, data sharing, and response.
Collaboration on norms and standards provides efficiencies and facilitates trade in health products. However, the interaction between disease, the environment, and human populations is complex, and threats are heterogenous in their effects and gravity. Collaboration must therefore take such variability into account, with decision-making ultimately based around those affected.
Experience has demonstrated that international health cooperation can, when poorly governed, undermine trust, distort priorities, and produce significant unintended harm. Recent trends of centralized decision-making, emergency exceptionalism, and donor-driven agendas, exemplified during the Covid-19 response, displaced proportionality, local context, and established public-health ethics. These failures revealed structural weaknesses rather than temporary lapses.
At the same time, cooperation in public health also requires an understanding of the sovereignty and equality of individuals, and of the states that represent them – an understanding that underpins the United Nations itself. Thus, any institution tasked with managing health cooperation must be based on this understanding and be fully subject to the states it is intended to serve.
It should surprise no one that, after nearly 80 years of existence in a greatly changed world, the World Health Organization (WHO) is perceived by many to have drifted from its original model. Fundamental shifts in its funding base, and now the exit of its largest state funder, present both an opportunity and an urgency to reassess the optimal way in which states should work together to serve the health needs of their populations, applying the fundamental principles on which public health should be based to a greatly changed and evolving world.
WHO and the state of international health cooperation
The WHO constitution, signed in 1946 by 51 states then comprising the United Nations, had little input from most current African and Asian states. Its governing body, the World Health Assembly, gradually expanded as states broke from colonialism or foreign mandates to achieve sovereignty.
Defining health in its constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity," the WHO took on a broad mandate including support for these less-resourced states, coordinating cross-border outbreak management, disease elimination, and the setting of international normative standards. It was hoped that the improvements in health and longevity that economic development had brought to wealthier countries could be accelerated in the lower income countries, reducing the inequalities resulting from colonialism and neglect.
The WHO's 150 country offices have formed a framework to strengthen local capacity and health systems. The organization is well known for successes such as smallpox eradication and early focus on the major drivers of well-being and longevity such as improved sanitation, nutrition, and access to basic healthcare. Major programmes in tuberculosis, malaria, vaccination, and child health have set standards for disease management and reduced overall disease burdens. A global decline in infectious disease mortality, con...]]> International Health Reform Project 22:04 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 34 66030 The sounds in my mother's room during her final days stood in stark contrast to those that have defined most of my professional experience. There were no ventilator alarms piercing the air every few minutes, no overhead announcements echoing down hospital corridors, no infusion pumps demanding attention in the middle of the night. There were no teams rushing through doors, pushing carts full of medications, no physicians frantically adjusting machines that were temporarily holding physiology together, no organized chaos that defines the modern intensive care unit. Instead, there was quiet.
For decades in intensive care units, where noise signifies action and action equates to survival, quietness has felt unsettling. Intensive care medicine depends on urgency, real-time monitoring, and rapid decision-making to prevent death. I have lived my professional life in that environment. But in that room, I was not the physician. I was a son. And now, as I write this, I am a son whose mother has died.
My mother did not die in an intensive care unit. She was not surrounded by machines, alarms, or artificial light. She died at home, in a room imbued with the quiet weight of memory. Decades of life were embedded in those walls, which had witnessed birthdays, conversations, laughter, arguments, and the countless ordinary moments that, in retrospect, constitute the true foundation of a life. A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line rested in her arm, serving not as a symbol of escalation but as an instrument of compassion. Medications were given to relieve discomfort rather than to reverse disease. Nurses entered the room with calm, deliberate purpose rather than urgency. Their voices were soft, their movements measured. Their objective was not to save her life, but to honor it. There was no battle being fought. There was acceptance. And in that acceptance, there was dignity.
Around her, the people who loved her most gathered. Children. Grandchildren. Family members who had traveled from different places, not in panic, but in recognition that this moment, this final chapter, was one that mattered deeply.
Sometimes we spoke. Sometimes we sat in silence. Sometimes we simply held her hand.
There is a form of communication in those moments that medicine cannot teach or measure. It is neither physiological nor quantifiable, yet it is real.
Meanwhile, my phone would not stop. Dozens of calls. Hundreds of text messages. Colleagues from across the country. Students from years past. Friends, patients, acquaintances. All reaching out with genuine compassion. And almost every message carried the same underlying sentiment: "We are praying she improves." "We hope she pulls through." "Let us know what else can be done." I understood the intention behind every one of those messages. They were kind. They were sincere. They were deeply human. But they were also revealing.
Because what they reflected, collectively and unconsciously, was something we rarely acknowledge openly: We have become a culture that no longer knows how to accept death.
Over the past century, medicine has achieved extraordinary success. We have extended life expectancy, eradicated diseases, developed technologies that can temporarily replace failing organs, and established systems capable of sustaining biological function long after the body can no longer do so independently.
Ventilators can breathe for failing lungs. Dialysis machines can replace kidney function. Vasopressors can maintain blood pressure when the cardiovascular system collapses. Extracorporeal support can oxygenate blood outside the body. Artificial nutrition can sustain metabolism indefinitely.
These are remarkable achievements. However, these advancements have also fostered a dangerous illusion: the belief that death is optional, and that with sufficient intervention, escalation, and technological force, the inevitable can be indefinitely postponed. We cannot.
Every...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-last-lesson-my-mother-taught-me/ The sounds in my mother's room during her final days stood in stark contrast to those that have defined most of my professional experience. There were no ventilator alarms piercing the air every few minutes, no overhead announcements echoing down hospital corridors, no infusion pumps demanding attention in the middle of the night. There were no teams rushing through doors, pushing carts full of medications, no physicians frantically adjusting machines that were temporarily holding physiology together, no organized chaos that defines the modern intensive care unit. Instead, there was quiet.
For decades in intensive care units, where noise signifies action and action equates to survival, quietness has felt unsettling. Intensive care medicine depends on urgency, real-time monitoring, and rapid decision-making to prevent death. I have lived my professional life in that environment. But in that room, I was not the physician. I was a son. And now, as I write this, I am a son whose mother has died.
My mother did not die in an intensive care unit. She was not surrounded by machines, alarms, or artificial light. She died at home, in a room imbued with the quiet weight of memory. Decades of life were embedded in those walls, which had witnessed birthdays, conversations, laughter, arguments, and the countless ordinary moments that, in retrospect, constitute the true foundation of a life. A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line rested in her arm, serving not as a symbol of escalation but as an instrument of compassion. Medications were given to relieve discomfort rather than to reverse disease. Nurses entered the room with calm, deliberate purpose rather than urgency. Their voices were soft, their movements measured. Their objective was not to save her life, but to honor it. There was no battle being fought. There was acceptance. And in that acceptance, there was dignity.
Around her, the people who loved her most gathered. Children. Grandchildren. Family members who had traveled from different places, not in panic, but in recognition that this moment, this final chapter, was one that mattered deeply.
Sometimes we spoke. Sometimes we sat in silence. Sometimes we simply held her hand.
There is a form of communication in those moments that medicine cannot teach or measure. It is neither physiological nor quantifiable, yet it is real.
Meanwhile, my phone would not stop. Dozens of calls. Hundreds of text messages. Colleagues from across the country. Students from years past. Friends, patients, acquaintances. All reaching out with genuine compassion. And almost every message carried the same underlying sentiment: "We are praying she improves." "We hope she pulls through." "Let us know what else can be done." I understood the intention behind every one of those messages. They were kind. They were sincere. They were deeply human. But they were also revealing.
Because what they reflected, collectively and unconsciously, was something we rarely acknowledge openly: We have become a culture that no longer knows how to accept death.
Over the past century, medicine has achieved extraordinary success. We have extended life expectancy, eradicated diseases, developed technologies that can temporarily replace failing organs, and established systems capable of sustaining biological function long after the body can no longer do so independently.
Ventilators can breathe for failing lungs. Dialysis machines can replace kidney function. Vasopressors can maintain blood pressure when the cardiovascular system collapses. Extracorporeal support can oxygenate blood outside the body. Artificial nutrition can sustain metabolism indefinitely.
These are remarkable achievements. However, these advancements have also fostered a dangerous illusion: the belief that death is optional, and that with sufficient intervention, escalation, and technological force, the inevitable can be indefinitely postponed. We cannot.
Every...]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:45:00 -0400 The Last Lesson My Mother Taught Me The sounds in my mother's room during her final days stood in stark contrast to those that have defined most of my professional experience. There were no ventilator alarms piercing the air every few minutes, no ov...]]> The sounds in my mother's room during her final days stood in stark contrast to those that have defined most of my professional experience. There were no ventilator alarms piercing the air every few minutes, no overhead announcements echoing down hospital corridors, no infusion pumps demanding attention in the middle of the night. There were no teams rushing through doors, pushing carts full of medications, no physicians frantically adjusting machines that were temporarily holding physiology together, no organized chaos that defines the modern intensive care unit. Instead, there was quiet.
For decades in intensive care units, where noise signifies action and action equates to survival, quietness has felt unsettling. Intensive care medicine depends on urgency, real-time monitoring, and rapid decision-making to prevent death. I have lived my professional life in that environment. But in that room, I was not the physician. I was a son. And now, as I write this, I am a son whose mother has died.
My mother did not die in an intensive care unit. She was not surrounded by machines, alarms, or artificial light. She died at home, in a room imbued with the quiet weight of memory. Decades of life were embedded in those walls, which had witnessed birthdays, conversations, laughter, arguments, and the countless ordinary moments that, in retrospect, constitute the true foundation of a life. A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line rested in her arm, serving not as a symbol of escalation but as an instrument of compassion. Medications were given to relieve discomfort rather than to reverse disease. Nurses entered the room with calm, deliberate purpose rather than urgency. Their voices were soft, their movements measured. Their objective was not to save her life, but to honor it. There was no battle being fought. There was acceptance. And in that acceptance, there was dignity.
Around her, the people who loved her most gathered. Children. Grandchildren. Family members who had traveled from different places, not in panic, but in recognition that this moment, this final chapter, was one that mattered deeply.
Sometimes we spoke. Sometimes we sat in silence. Sometimes we simply held her hand.
There is a form of communication in those moments that medicine cannot teach or measure. It is neither physiological nor quantifiable, yet it is real.
Meanwhile, my phone would not stop. Dozens of calls. Hundreds of text messages. Colleagues from across the country. Students from years past. Friends, patients, acquaintances. All reaching out with genuine compassion. And almost every message carried the same underlying sentiment: "We are praying she improves." "We hope she pulls through." "Let us know what else can be done." I understood the intention behind every one of those messages. They were kind. They were sincere. They were deeply human. But they were also revealing.
Because what they reflected, collectively and unconsciously, was something we rarely acknowledge openly: We have become a culture that no longer knows how to accept death.
Over the past century, medicine has achieved extraordinary success. We have extended life expectancy, eradicated diseases, developed technologies that can temporarily replace failing organs, and established systems capable of sustaining biological function long after the body can no longer do so independently.
Ventilators can breathe for failing lungs. Dialysis machines can replace kidney function. Vasopressors can maintain blood pressure when the cardiovascular system collapses. Extracorporeal support can oxygenate blood outside the body. Artificial nutrition can sustain metabolism indefinitely.
These are remarkable achievements. However, these advancements have also fostered a dangerous illusion: the belief that death is optional, and that with sufficient intervention, escalation, and technological force, the inevitable can be indefinitely postponed. We cannot.
Every...]]> Joseph Varon 11:10 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 33 65981 When the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, what I call 3/11, it unleashed not just a health response but a coordinated global reset. What began as "two weeks to flatten the curve" metastasized into the most sweeping peacetime curtailment of civil liberties in modern history: lockdowns, mandates, behavioral manipulation, censorship, and the rise of digital authoritarianism.
This excerpt from Chapter 16 of my new book 3/11 Viral Takeover lays bare how the Covid response became the pretext for normalizing government-directed censorship, throttling legitimate scientific debate, and entrenching state power over public discourse.
After 3/11, governments did not merely request moderation, they demanded it. Backed by explicit threats of regulatory consequences. In the United States, the declassified "Twitter files" released between 2022 and 2023, along with the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, later known as Murthy v. Missouri, revealed a sustained multi-agency campaign of coercion that went far beyond polite suggestions.
Shortly after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022, he released internal documents, known as the "Twitter files" to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig, Alex Berenson, and Paul D. Thacker, exposing how federal agencies routinely flagged content for removal or suppression.
The files showed White House officials, including former Press Secretary Jen Psaki, directly pressuring Twitter to censor true posts about vaccine side effects, natural immunity, and lockdown harms. Government agencies, including the DHS, CDC, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), used specialized reporting mechanisms, such as Facebook's "Content Request System," to flag social media content for potential throttling, suppression, or removal, often under the umbrella of countering "mis-, dis-, and malinformation."
The files demonstrated that platforms complied not out of independent policy, but out of fear of antitrust action, Section 230 reform, or other regulatory retaliation.
The most consequential legal challenge was Missouri v. Biden, mentioned earlier. It was filed in May 2022 by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by coercing social media companies to suppress protected speech. The case expanded to include private plaintiffs, including Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, and Jill Hines, co-authors and advocates of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Key revelations from discovery showed White House officials repeatedly berating Facebook and Twitter executives for not doing enough to censor vaccine-related content. Emails revealed direct pressure: "We are gravely concerned that your service is one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy – period."
In July 2021, President Biden publicly accused platforms like Facebook of "killing people" by allowing vaccine misinformation to spread. White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield followed up by saying platforms "should be held accountable" and that the administration was "reviewing" Section 230 protections, which shield platforms from liability for user content.
This dynamic was laid bare even more starkly during Congressional testimony on the Twitter files and government weaponization. In the March 9, 2023 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified on the Twitter files revelations. Taibbi described the government's role as creating a "censorship-industrial complex," while Shellenberger detailed how federal agencies pressured platforms to suppress Covid-related dissent, including accurate information on vaccine side effects and origins. Shellenberger stated: "The Twitter Files show the government was dir...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/how-dissent-was-silenced/ When the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, what I call 3/11, it unleashed not just a health response but a coordinated global reset. What began as "two weeks to flatten the curve" metastasized into the most sweeping peacetime curtailment of civil liberties in modern history: lockdowns, mandates, behavioral manipulation, censorship, and the rise of digital authoritarianism.
This excerpt from Chapter 16 of my new book 3/11 Viral Takeover lays bare how the Covid response became the pretext for normalizing government-directed censorship, throttling legitimate scientific debate, and entrenching state power over public discourse.
After 3/11, governments did not merely request moderation, they demanded it. Backed by explicit threats of regulatory consequences. In the United States, the declassified "Twitter files" released between 2022 and 2023, along with the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, later known as Murthy v. Missouri, revealed a sustained multi-agency campaign of coercion that went far beyond polite suggestions.
Shortly after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022, he released internal documents, known as the "Twitter files" to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig, Alex Berenson, and Paul D. Thacker, exposing how federal agencies routinely flagged content for removal or suppression.
The files showed White House officials, including former Press Secretary Jen Psaki, directly pressuring Twitter to censor true posts about vaccine side effects, natural immunity, and lockdown harms. Government agencies, including the DHS, CDC, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), used specialized reporting mechanisms, such as Facebook's "Content Request System," to flag social media content for potential throttling, suppression, or removal, often under the umbrella of countering "mis-, dis-, and malinformation."
The files demonstrated that platforms complied not out of independent policy, but out of fear of antitrust action, Section 230 reform, or other regulatory retaliation.
The most consequential legal challenge was Missouri v. Biden, mentioned earlier. It was filed in May 2022 by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by coercing social media companies to suppress protected speech. The case expanded to include private plaintiffs, including Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, and Jill Hines, co-authors and advocates of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Key revelations from discovery showed White House officials repeatedly berating Facebook and Twitter executives for not doing enough to censor vaccine-related content. Emails revealed direct pressure: "We are gravely concerned that your service is one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy – period."
In July 2021, President Biden publicly accused platforms like Facebook of "killing people" by allowing vaccine misinformation to spread. White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield followed up by saying platforms "should be held accountable" and that the administration was "reviewing" Section 230 protections, which shield platforms from liability for user content.
This dynamic was laid bare even more starkly during Congressional testimony on the Twitter files and government weaponization. In the March 9, 2023 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified on the Twitter files revelations. Taibbi described the government's role as creating a "censorship-industrial complex," while Shellenberger detailed how federal agencies pressured platforms to suppress Covid-related dissent, including accurate information on vaccine side effects and origins. Shellenberger stated: "The Twitter Files show the government was dir...]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:03:51 -0400 How Dissent Was Silenced When the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, what I call 3/11, it unleashed not just a health response but a coordinated global reset. What began as "two weeks to flatten the ...]]> When the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, what I call 3/11, it unleashed not just a health response but a coordinated global reset. What began as "two weeks to flatten the curve" metastasized into the most sweeping peacetime curtailment of civil liberties in modern history: lockdowns, mandates, behavioral manipulation, censorship, and the rise of digital authoritarianism.
This excerpt from Chapter 16 of my new book 3/11 Viral Takeover lays bare how the Covid response became the pretext for normalizing government-directed censorship, throttling legitimate scientific debate, and entrenching state power over public discourse.
After 3/11, governments did not merely request moderation, they demanded it. Backed by explicit threats of regulatory consequences. In the United States, the declassified "Twitter files" released between 2022 and 2023, along with the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, later known as Murthy v. Missouri, revealed a sustained multi-agency campaign of coercion that went far beyond polite suggestions.
Shortly after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022, he released internal documents, known as the "Twitter files" to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig, Alex Berenson, and Paul D. Thacker, exposing how federal agencies routinely flagged content for removal or suppression.
The files showed White House officials, including former Press Secretary Jen Psaki, directly pressuring Twitter to censor true posts about vaccine side effects, natural immunity, and lockdown harms. Government agencies, including the DHS, CDC, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), used specialized reporting mechanisms, such as Facebook's "Content Request System," to flag social media content for potential throttling, suppression, or removal, often under the umbrella of countering "mis-, dis-, and malinformation."
The files demonstrated that platforms complied not out of independent policy, but out of fear of antitrust action, Section 230 reform, or other regulatory retaliation.
The most consequential legal challenge was Missouri v. Biden, mentioned earlier. It was filed in May 2022 by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by coercing social media companies to suppress protected speech. The case expanded to include private plaintiffs, including Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, and Jill Hines, co-authors and advocates of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Key revelations from discovery showed White House officials repeatedly berating Facebook and Twitter executives for not doing enough to censor vaccine-related content. Emails revealed direct pressure: "We are gravely concerned that your service is one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy – period."
In July 2021, President Biden publicly accused platforms like Facebook of "killing people" by allowing vaccine misinformation to spread. White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield followed up by saying platforms "should be held accountable" and that the administration was "reviewing" Section 230 protections, which shield platforms from liability for user content.
This dynamic was laid bare even more starkly during Congressional testimony on the Twitter files and government weaponization. In the March 9, 2023 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified on the Twitter files revelations. Taibbi described the government's role as creating a "censorship-industrial complex," while Shellenberger detailed how federal agencies pressured platforms to suppress Covid-related dissent, including accurate information on vaccine side effects and origins. Shellenberger stated: "The Twitter Files show the government was dir...]]> Sonia Elijah 14:22 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 32 66192 On Tuesday, attorneys announced a "Consent Decree," which will put an end to the years-long litigation in Murthy v. Missouri (previously called Missouri v. Biden), which focused on government-induced social media censorship. While its proponents herald the settlement agreement as a victory for free speech, the details suggest that Leviathan has not lost this civilizational struggle. Its concessions are decorative, and the text implicitly suggests that the practices will largely continue.
The "victory" for free speech in this case is that the remaining defendants – the CDC, CISA, and the Surgeon General – agree not to "threaten Social-Media Companies with some form of punishment…unless they remove, delete, suppress, or reduce content" that contains "protected free speech." That is akin to a civilian signing an agreement not to steal his neighbor's car; it "prohibits" something that is already illegal under black-letter First Amendment law.
Free speech advocates, however, cannot even celebrate that as a "victory." The agreement not to bludgeon social media companies into imposing state censorship only lasts "for a period of 10 years," per the terms of the agreement. After that, the agreement implies that CISA can return to its practice of "switchboarding," which dictated which posts should be banned from social media.
Further, the "restriction" only applies to three government agencies; the settlement does not apply to similar assaults from any other government group (including DHS, the CIA, the FBI, or the White House).
Moreover, the only people who can enforce the terms are the five remaining plaintiffs, as the agreement is "enforceable only by the Parties." If government warhawks coerce platforms to ban critics of the Iran War, this "Decree" will have no effect.
The supposed triumphs lack substance. The government agencies agree that "modern technology does not alter the Government's obligation to abide by the strictures of the First Amendment" and that "misinformation" labels do not render speech constitutionally unprotected. Excellent. But that is nothing more than a repetition of well-established law.
Unfortunately, this was the predictable endpoint of the litigation following the Supreme Court's dereliction of duty in June 2024, when it concocted procedural excuses to evade the controversy of the indisputable evidence of the Biden White House's censorship apparatus. The history of the Action reveals that the Supreme Court forfeited a generational opportunity to protect American free speech.
July 2023: The District Court Unravels the Censorship Hegemon
On July 4, 2023, District Court Judge Terry Doughty granted a preliminary injunction barring large swaths of the US government from colluding with social media companies to censor "content containing protected free speech." He described the allegations, if true, as "arguably [] the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history."
The order included a 155-page memorandum recounting the Biden administration's wide-ranging assaults on free expression. Provided it survives future digital purges, historians will one day look to it as a guide to the authoritarian madness that overtook the republic under the guise of "public health." The vast conspiracy spanned nearly every federal entity, including the White House, the Department of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Intelligence Community.
That was the high-water mark of this case's victory for freedom.
The Regime Fights Back
The regime would not let an injunction usurp its power. Censorship had been integral to its governing strategy since 2020's crackdown on Covid dissidents and the later election campaign, as Joe Biden anointed Antony Blinken Secretary of State in return for him arranging for the CIA to thwart the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Once in office, the Biden administration had unprecedented censorship aspirations, inclu...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-free-speech-victory-sort-of/ On Tuesday, attorneys announced a "Consent Decree," which will put an end to the years-long litigation in Murthy v. Missouri (previously called Missouri v. Biden), which focused on government-induced social media censorship. While its proponents herald the settlement agreement as a victory for free speech, the details suggest that Leviathan has not lost this civilizational struggle. Its concessions are decorative, and the text implicitly suggests that the practices will largely continue.
The "victory" for free speech in this case is that the remaining defendants – the CDC, CISA, and the Surgeon General – agree not to "threaten Social-Media Companies with some form of punishment…unless they remove, delete, suppress, or reduce content" that contains "protected free speech." That is akin to a civilian signing an agreement not to steal his neighbor's car; it "prohibits" something that is already illegal under black-letter First Amendment law.
Free speech advocates, however, cannot even celebrate that as a "victory." The agreement not to bludgeon social media companies into imposing state censorship only lasts "for a period of 10 years," per the terms of the agreement. After that, the agreement implies that CISA can return to its practice of "switchboarding," which dictated which posts should be banned from social media.
Further, the "restriction" only applies to three government agencies; the settlement does not apply to similar assaults from any other government group (including DHS, the CIA, the FBI, or the White House).
Moreover, the only people who can enforce the terms are the five remaining plaintiffs, as the agreement is "enforceable only by the Parties." If government warhawks coerce platforms to ban critics of the Iran War, this "Decree" will have no effect.
The supposed triumphs lack substance. The government agencies agree that "modern technology does not alter the Government's obligation to abide by the strictures of the First Amendment" and that "misinformation" labels do not render speech constitutionally unprotected. Excellent. But that is nothing more than a repetition of well-established law.
Unfortunately, this was the predictable endpoint of the litigation following the Supreme Court's dereliction of duty in June 2024, when it concocted procedural excuses to evade the controversy of the indisputable evidence of the Biden White House's censorship apparatus. The history of the Action reveals that the Supreme Court forfeited a generational opportunity to protect American free speech.
July 2023: The District Court Unravels the Censorship Hegemon
On July 4, 2023, District Court Judge Terry Doughty granted a preliminary injunction barring large swaths of the US government from colluding with social media companies to censor "content containing protected free speech." He described the allegations, if true, as "arguably [] the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history."
The order included a 155-page memorandum recounting the Biden administration's wide-ranging assaults on free expression. Provided it survives future digital purges, historians will one day look to it as a guide to the authoritarian madness that overtook the republic under the guise of "public health." The vast conspiracy spanned nearly every federal entity, including the White House, the Department of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Intelligence Community.
That was the high-water mark of this case's victory for freedom.
The Regime Fights Back
The regime would not let an injunction usurp its power. Censorship had been integral to its governing strategy since 2020's crackdown on Covid dissidents and the later election campaign, as Joe Biden anointed Antony Blinken Secretary of State in return for him arranging for the CIA to thwart the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Once in office, the Biden administration had unprecedented censorship aspirations, inclu...]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 07:45:00 -0400 A Free Speech Victory, Sort of On Tuesday, attorneys announced a "Consent Decree," which will put an end to the years-long litigation in Murthy v. Missouri (previously called Missouri v. Biden), which focused on government-induced socia...]]> On Tuesday, attorneys announced a "Consent Decree," which will put an end to the years-long litigation in Murthy v. Missouri (previously called Missouri v. Biden), which focused on government-induced social media censorship. While its proponents herald the settlement agreement as a victory for free speech, the details suggest that Leviathan has not lost this civilizational struggle. Its concessions are decorative, and the text implicitly suggests that the practices will largely continue.
The "victory" for free speech in this case is that the remaining defendants – the CDC, CISA, and the Surgeon General – agree not to "threaten Social-Media Companies with some form of punishment…unless they remove, delete, suppress, or reduce content" that contains "protected free speech." That is akin to a civilian signing an agreement not to steal his neighbor's car; it "prohibits" something that is already illegal under black-letter First Amendment law.
Free speech advocates, however, cannot even celebrate that as a "victory." The agreement not to bludgeon social media companies into imposing state censorship only lasts "for a period of 10 years," per the terms of the agreement. After that, the agreement implies that CISA can return to its practice of "switchboarding," which dictated which posts should be banned from social media.
Further, the "restriction" only applies to three government agencies; the settlement does not apply to similar assaults from any other government group (including DHS, the CIA, the FBI, or the White House).
Moreover, the only people who can enforce the terms are the five remaining plaintiffs, as the agreement is "enforceable only by the Parties." If government warhawks coerce platforms to ban critics of the Iran War, this "Decree" will have no effect.
The supposed triumphs lack substance. The government agencies agree that "modern technology does not alter the Government's obligation to abide by the strictures of the First Amendment" and that "misinformation" labels do not render speech constitutionally unprotected. Excellent. But that is nothing more than a repetition of well-established law.
Unfortunately, this was the predictable endpoint of the litigation following the Supreme Court's dereliction of duty in June 2024, when it concocted procedural excuses to evade the controversy of the indisputable evidence of the Biden White House's censorship apparatus. The history of the Action reveals that the Supreme Court forfeited a generational opportunity to protect American free speech.
July 2023: The District Court Unravels the Censorship Hegemon
On July 4, 2023, District Court Judge Terry Doughty granted a preliminary injunction barring large swaths of the US government from colluding with social media companies to censor "content containing protected free speech." He described the allegations, if true, as "arguably [] the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history."
The order included a 155-page memorandum recounting the Biden administration's wide-ranging assaults on free expression. Provided it survives future digital purges, historians will one day look to it as a guide to the authoritarian madness that overtook the republic under the guise of "public health." The vast conspiracy spanned nearly every federal entity, including the White House, the Department of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Intelligence Community.
That was the high-water mark of this case's victory for freedom.
The Regime Fights Back
The regime would not let an injunction usurp its power. Censorship had been integral to its governing strategy since 2020's crackdown on Covid dissidents and the later election campaign, as Joe Biden anointed Antony Blinken Secretary of State in return for him arranging for the CIA to thwart the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Once in office, the Biden administration had unprecedented censorship aspirations, inclu...]]> Brownstone Institute 09:11 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 31 66150 You recall how the Covid lockdowns began. It was a soft and slow drumbeat that began in late January 2020, with growing amounts of panic and a faster tempo, increasing for several weeks. The US President and the UK Prime Minister resisted extreme reactions. Most governments did and so did most public health authorities.
The drum pounding became earsplitting in late February. Faced with an incredible barrage, finally Boris Johnson and Donald Trump gave in. They got out in front of the problem and lowered the boom: stay home, essential/unessential, no flights, no parties, stop your consumerist ways. Just sit alone and be sad. Both came to regret this choice but, by then, others were in charge.
The experts and institutions were everywhere, seizing the moment. The CCP, WHO, CDC, Imperial College London, Fauci, Birx, CNN/NYT/MSNBC, and on it went, everyone telling us the same thing daily. Those who asked questions were shouted down, shamed, throttled, cancelled, deleted. It felt like we were surrounded on all sides by lies and liars, marionettes and mushbrains, sycophants and spooks.
Six years later and nearly to the day, this new attempted lockdown seems to be going the same way, not concerning infectious disease but energy use. Isn't it remarkable how the officially recommended methods of managing these completely different realms bear so much in common? They both come down to restricting your liberty, rationing your consumption, redirecting your attention, and shouting down critics.
The Iran War kicked off the price spike but it was uncanny how a machinery was so quickly put in place to instruct everyone of what to do. The panic about how to respond is intensifying. The crisis is without precedent, they say. We have to try new approaches, dramatic ones.
Suddenly, this institution called the International Energy Agency holds new prominence in world media. Founded in 1974, it's an NGO associated with OPEC. It has no hard but only soft power – like the World Health Organization, with whom the IEA shares a similarly authoritative branding.
There is a new Fauci too. The head of the IEA is highly decorated and universally praised Dr. Fatih Birol. Though he has never worked in industry, any more than Fauci had seen patients in decades, Dr. Birol is said to be the world's top expert and works closely with China on its supposed "energy transition." Indeed, sporting an honorary doctorate from Imperial College London, he has been a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering since 2013.
Concerning the release of new energy reserves, Birol is nonplussed: "supply-side measures alone cannot fully offset the scale of the disruption."
Remarkable isn't it? New script, same play, new actors for the same roles, overlapping protocols, nearly identical tempo of acceleration and dynamic of acoustics in the media. Around the world, countries are imposing price caps, consumption rationing, indoor temperature controls, and shorter work weeks as a prelude to full-on stay home orders. They haven't come to the US yet but they are spreading in Europe and the UK, as people panic about prices.
Clearly, they say, we need to flatten the curve once again. Temporarily. Just until we get the problem under control. We just need to buy time. After all, we've never dealt with anything like this. Clearly the long-term solution, they say, is a full switch to "renewables" but that cannot happen all at once.
Inspired by the manner in which governments were able to control communication and people during the Covid crisis, the IEA advises the following:
1. Work from home where possible. We'll be back to languishing at home and consuming entertainment through laptops. IEA comments: "Displaces oil use from commuting, particularly where jobs are suitable for remote work."
2. Reduce highway speed limits by at least 10 km/h ( 6-7 miles per hour), which is really nothing more than a method of creating annoyance. The IEA says "lo...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/energy-lockdown-the-drumbeat-begins/ You recall how the Covid lockdowns began. It was a soft and slow drumbeat that began in late January 2020, with growing amounts of panic and a faster tempo, increasing for several weeks. The US President and the UK Prime Minister resisted extreme reactions. Most governments did and so did most public health authorities.
The drum pounding became earsplitting in late February. Faced with an incredible barrage, finally Boris Johnson and Donald Trump gave in. They got out in front of the problem and lowered the boom: stay home, essential/unessential, no flights, no parties, stop your consumerist ways. Just sit alone and be sad. Both came to regret this choice but, by then, others were in charge.
The experts and institutions were everywhere, seizing the moment. The CCP, WHO, CDC, Imperial College London, Fauci, Birx, CNN/NYT/MSNBC, and on it went, everyone telling us the same thing daily. Those who asked questions were shouted down, shamed, throttled, cancelled, deleted. It felt like we were surrounded on all sides by lies and liars, marionettes and mushbrains, sycophants and spooks.
Six years later and nearly to the day, this new attempted lockdown seems to be going the same way, not concerning infectious disease but energy use. Isn't it remarkable how the officially recommended methods of managing these completely different realms bear so much in common? They both come down to restricting your liberty, rationing your consumption, redirecting your attention, and shouting down critics.
The Iran War kicked off the price spike but it was uncanny how a machinery was so quickly put in place to instruct everyone of what to do. The panic about how to respond is intensifying. The crisis is without precedent, they say. We have to try new approaches, dramatic ones.
Suddenly, this institution called the International Energy Agency holds new prominence in world media. Founded in 1974, it's an NGO associated with OPEC. It has no hard but only soft power – like the World Health Organization, with whom the IEA shares a similarly authoritative branding.
There is a new Fauci too. The head of the IEA is highly decorated and universally praised Dr. Fatih Birol. Though he has never worked in industry, any more than Fauci had seen patients in decades, Dr. Birol is said to be the world's top expert and works closely with China on its supposed "energy transition." Indeed, sporting an honorary doctorate from Imperial College London, he has been a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering since 2013.
Concerning the release of new energy reserves, Birol is nonplussed: "supply-side measures alone cannot fully offset the scale of the disruption."
Remarkable isn't it? New script, same play, new actors for the same roles, overlapping protocols, nearly identical tempo of acceleration and dynamic of acoustics in the media. Around the world, countries are imposing price caps, consumption rationing, indoor temperature controls, and shorter work weeks as a prelude to full-on stay home orders. They haven't come to the US yet but they are spreading in Europe and the UK, as people panic about prices.
Clearly, they say, we need to flatten the curve once again. Temporarily. Just until we get the problem under control. We just need to buy time. After all, we've never dealt with anything like this. Clearly the long-term solution, they say, is a full switch to "renewables" but that cannot happen all at once.
Inspired by the manner in which governments were able to control communication and people during the Covid crisis, the IEA advises the following:
1. Work from home where possible. We'll be back to languishing at home and consuming entertainment through laptops. IEA comments: "Displaces oil use from commuting, particularly where jobs are suitable for remote work."
2. Reduce highway speed limits by at least 10 km/h ( 6-7 miles per hour), which is really nothing more than a method of creating annoyance. The IEA says "lo...]]> Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:30:49 -0400 Energy Lockdown: The Drumbeat Begins You recall how the Covid lockdowns began. It was a soft and slow drumbeat that began in late January 2020, with growing amounts of panic and a faster tempo, increasing for several weeks. The US President a...]]> You recall how the Covid lockdowns began. It was a soft and slow drumbeat that began in late January 2020, with growing amounts of panic and a faster tempo, increasing for several weeks. The US President and the UK Prime Minister resisted extreme reactions. Most governments did and so did most public health authorities.
The drum pounding became earsplitting in late February. Faced with an incredible barrage, finally Boris Johnson and Donald Trump gave in. They got out in front of the problem and lowered the boom: stay home, essential/unessential, no flights, no parties, stop your consumerist ways. Just sit alone and be sad. Both came to regret this choice but, by then, others were in charge.
The experts and institutions were everywhere, seizing the moment. The CCP, WHO, CDC, Imperial College London, Fauci, Birx, CNN/NYT/MSNBC, and on it went, everyone telling us the same thing daily. Those who asked questions were shouted down, shamed, throttled, cancelled, deleted. It felt like we were surrounded on all sides by lies and liars, marionettes and mushbrains, sycophants and spooks.
Six years later and nearly to the day, this new attempted lockdown seems to be going the same way, not concerning infectious disease but energy use. Isn't it remarkable how the officially recommended methods of managing these completely different realms bear so much in common? They both come down to restricting your liberty, rationing your consumption, redirecting your attention, and shouting down critics.
The Iran War kicked off the price spike but it was uncanny how a machinery was so quickly put in place to instruct everyone of what to do. The panic about how to respond is intensifying. The crisis is without precedent, they say. We have to try new approaches, dramatic ones.
Suddenly, this institution called the International Energy Agency holds new prominence in world media. Founded in 1974, it's an NGO associated with OPEC. It has no hard but only soft power – like the World Health Organization, with whom the IEA shares a similarly authoritative branding.
There is a new Fauci too. The head of the IEA is highly decorated and universally praised Dr. Fatih Birol. Though he has never worked in industry, any more than Fauci had seen patients in decades, Dr. Birol is said to be the world's top expert and works closely with China on its supposed "energy transition." Indeed, sporting an honorary doctorate from Imperial College London, he has been a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering since 2013.
Concerning the release of new energy reserves, Birol is nonplussed: "supply-side measures alone cannot fully offset the scale of the disruption."
Remarkable isn't it? New script, same play, new actors for the same roles, overlapping protocols, nearly identical tempo of acceleration and dynamic of acoustics in the media. Around the world, countries are imposing price caps, consumption rationing, indoor temperature controls, and shorter work weeks as a prelude to full-on stay home orders. They haven't come to the US yet but they are spreading in Europe and the UK, as people panic about prices.
Clearly, they say, we need to flatten the curve once again. Temporarily. Just until we get the problem under control. We just need to buy time. After all, we've never dealt with anything like this. Clearly the long-term solution, they say, is a full switch to "renewables" but that cannot happen all at once.
Inspired by the manner in which governments were able to control communication and people during the Covid crisis, the IEA advises the following:
1. Work from home where possible. We'll be back to languishing at home and consuming entertainment through laptops. IEA comments: "Displaces oil use from commuting, particularly where jobs are suitable for remote work."
2. Reduce highway speed limits by at least 10 km/h ( 6-7 miles per hour), which is really nothing more than a method of creating annoyance. The IEA says "lo...]]> Brownstone Institute 08:57 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 30 65978 On 16 March, federal judge Brian Murphy blocked the US government from making sweeping changes to the US childhood immunisation schedule, "in a blow to Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's agenda," as the BBC expressed it.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other large medical groups had sued, saying Kennedy's changes violated federal law.
The BBC calls them respected medical groups, which they are not, as illustrated by the hepatitis B vaccine controversy. On 5 December 2025, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ended the recommendation that all newborns in the United States receive a hepatitis B shot at birth. The birth dose was recommended only if the mother had tested positive for the virus or if her infection status was unknown.
The change was very rational, and, as in Western Europe, where only Portugal recommends a universal birth dose, it would seem difficult to argue against it. But the media did and failed us badly. Two days after the vote, I downloaded news stories from 14 major media outlets, and they were all very negative.
The media gave organisations undue prominence without ever considering if they were impartial. They urged people to look to "independent recommendations," e.g. from the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, for "science-based advice."
I argued that it was advice based on money. The Academy would continue to support the birth dose of the vaccine but all the journalists forgot to say that it receives many millions of dollars from vaccine manufacturers and other drug companies.
Judge Murphy also suspended Kennedy's appointments to ACIP. The BBC argued that many of the panel members were vaccine sceptics and noted that "Kennedy was a longtime antivaccine activist before joining President Donald Trump's administration."
This is so typical of irresponsible journalists. They never investigate if Kennedy's reforms are prudent and evidence-based but use ad hominem arguments to kill them. It is so low and does not further a rational healthcare; it impedes it. I have described in detail how the coverage of Kennedy's vaccine reforms in the BMJ, a major medical journal, amounts to character assassination. It is just mind-blowing that a medical journal would do this in a consecutive sample of 33 articles.
It is also false that Kennedy's new vaccine panel at the CDC are vaccine sceptics. I know several of them personally and they are highly qualified researchers who do not have the financial conflicts of interest that the old panel had, which I found was corrupt. They rubber-stamped any proposal that came forward, no matter how idiotic it was.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency "looks forward to this judge's decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing."
The medical groups that brought the lawsuit lauded the decision, including the American Medical Association, the largest US professional organisation for doctors, which called it "an important step toward protecting the health of Americans, particularly children."
Follow the money is the best advice I can give to anyone with an interest in healthcare and in the US, virtually everything has to do with money. The American Medical Association is heavily corrupted by industry money.
Why on earth could it be a problem that Kennedy reduced the huge number of recommended vaccines in the US so that the vaccine schedule became similar to the one we have in my country, Denmark, and in many other European countries? As I have demonstrated, the reduced US childhood vaccination schedule was systematically denigrated in the media although it was a rational and evidence-based decision.
It is possible that there are some technicalities, "procedural requirements," that need to be addressed. Judge Murphy pointed these o...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/federal-judge-blocks-kennedys-vaccine-reforms/ On 16 March, federal judge Brian Murphy blocked the US government from making sweeping changes to the US childhood immunisation schedule, "in a blow to Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's agenda," as the BBC expressed it.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other large medical groups had sued, saying Kennedy's changes violated federal law.
The BBC calls them respected medical groups, which they are not, as illustrated by the hepatitis B vaccine controversy. On 5 December 2025, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ended the recommendation that all newborns in the United States receive a hepatitis B shot at birth. The birth dose was recommended only if the mother had tested positive for the virus or if her infection status was unknown.
The change was very rational, and, as in Western Europe, where only Portugal recommends a universal birth dose, it would seem difficult to argue against it. But the media did and failed us badly. Two days after the vote, I downloaded news stories from 14 major media outlets, and they were all very negative.
The media gave organisations undue prominence without ever considering if they were impartial. They urged people to look to "independent recommendations," e.g. from the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, for "science-based advice."
I argued that it was advice based on money. The Academy would continue to support the birth dose of the vaccine but all the journalists forgot to say that it receives many millions of dollars from vaccine manufacturers and other drug companies.
Judge Murphy also suspended Kennedy's appointments to ACIP. The BBC argued that many of the panel members were vaccine sceptics and noted that "Kennedy was a longtime antivaccine activist before joining President Donald Trump's administration."
This is so typical of irresponsible journalists. They never investigate if Kennedy's reforms are prudent and evidence-based but use ad hominem arguments to kill them. It is so low and does not further a rational healthcare; it impedes it. I have described in detail how the coverage of Kennedy's vaccine reforms in the BMJ, a major medical journal, amounts to character assassination. It is just mind-blowing that a medical journal would do this in a consecutive sample of 33 articles.
It is also false that Kennedy's new vaccine panel at the CDC are vaccine sceptics. I know several of them personally and they are highly qualified researchers who do not have the financial conflicts of interest that the old panel had, which I found was corrupt. They rubber-stamped any proposal that came forward, no matter how idiotic it was.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency "looks forward to this judge's decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing."
The medical groups that brought the lawsuit lauded the decision, including the American Medical Association, the largest US professional organisation for doctors, which called it "an important step toward protecting the health of Americans, particularly children."
Follow the money is the best advice I can give to anyone with an interest in healthcare and in the US, virtually everything has to do with money. The American Medical Association is heavily corrupted by industry money.
Why on earth could it be a problem that Kennedy reduced the huge number of recommended vaccines in the US so that the vaccine schedule became similar to the one we have in my country, Denmark, and in many other European countries? As I have demonstrated, the reduced US childhood vaccination schedule was systematically denigrated in the media although it was a rational and evidence-based decision.
It is possible that there are some technicalities, "procedural requirements," that need to be addressed. Judge Murphy pointed these o...]]> Wed, 25 Mar 2026 08:20:00 -0400 Federal Judge Blocks Kennedy's Vaccine Reforms On 16 March, federal judge Brian Murphy blocked the US government from making sweeping changes to the US childhood immunisation schedule, "in a blow to Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's agenda," as the B...]]> On 16 March, federal judge Brian Murphy blocked the US government from making sweeping changes to the US childhood immunisation schedule, "in a blow to Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's agenda," as the BBC expressed it.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other large medical groups had sued, saying Kennedy's changes violated federal law.
The BBC calls them respected medical groups, which they are not, as illustrated by the hepatitis B vaccine controversy. On 5 December 2025, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ended the recommendation that all newborns in the United States receive a hepatitis B shot at birth. The birth dose was recommended only if the mother had tested positive for the virus or if her infection status was unknown.
The change was very rational, and, as in Western Europe, where only Portugal recommends a universal birth dose, it would seem difficult to argue against it. But the media did and failed us badly. Two days after the vote, I downloaded news stories from 14 major media outlets, and they were all very negative.
The media gave organisations undue prominence without ever considering if they were impartial. They urged people to look to "independent recommendations," e.g. from the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, for "science-based advice."
I argued that it was advice based on money. The Academy would continue to support the birth dose of the vaccine but all the journalists forgot to say that it receives many millions of dollars from vaccine manufacturers and other drug companies.
Judge Murphy also suspended Kennedy's appointments to ACIP. The BBC argued that many of the panel members were vaccine sceptics and noted that "Kennedy was a longtime antivaccine activist before joining President Donald Trump's administration."
This is so typical of irresponsible journalists. They never investigate if Kennedy's reforms are prudent and evidence-based but use ad hominem arguments to kill them. It is so low and does not further a rational healthcare; it impedes it. I have described in detail how the coverage of Kennedy's vaccine reforms in the BMJ, a major medical journal, amounts to character assassination. It is just mind-blowing that a medical journal would do this in a consecutive sample of 33 articles.
It is also false that Kennedy's new vaccine panel at the CDC are vaccine sceptics. I know several of them personally and they are highly qualified researchers who do not have the financial conflicts of interest that the old panel had, which I found was corrupt. They rubber-stamped any proposal that came forward, no matter how idiotic it was.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency "looks forward to this judge's decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing."
The medical groups that brought the lawsuit lauded the decision, including the American Medical Association, the largest US professional organisation for doctors, which called it "an important step toward protecting the health of Americans, particularly children."
Follow the money is the best advice I can give to anyone with an interest in healthcare and in the US, virtually everything has to do with money. The American Medical Association is heavily corrupted by industry money.
Why on earth could it be a problem that Kennedy reduced the huge number of recommended vaccines in the US so that the vaccine schedule became similar to the one we have in my country, Denmark, and in many other European countries? As I have demonstrated, the reduced US childhood vaccination schedule was systematically denigrated in the media although it was a rational and evidence-based decision.
It is possible that there are some technicalities, "procedural requirements," that need to be addressed. Judge Murphy pointed these o...]]> Peter C. Gøtzsche 05:04 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 29 65972 Disclaimer: If Covid-19 were linked to animal vaccine research, it would be an unintended consequence, though the institutional response was anything but accidental.
The new revelation that America's top coronavirus scientist, Dr. Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina (UNC), worked with the intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the Covid-19 pandemic significantly raises the likelihood that Baric is the creator of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yet the evidence for and against this hypothesis remains incomplete because the US government is engaged in an ongoing coverup of key information. Regardless of the government's willingness to be forthcoming, Baric himself could shed copious light on a matter of major public and scientific importance by making available his lab materials from the period leading up to the pandemic.
There is strong evidence backing the following key points:
1. Baric's lab had the technical ability (reverse genetics systems, chimeric spike protein, infectious clone production) to build viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2.
2. The 2018 DEFUSE proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), led by Baric, explicitly outlined laboratory manipulations capable of producing a SARS-CoV-2–like virus.
3. Although DARPA declined to fund DEFUSE, most team members later received similar funding through other grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
4. US intelligence agencies (including CIA and ODNI) consulted Baric and other experts from 2015 onwards and even ran pandemic war games (e.g., Event 201, Crimson Contagion) just before the pandemic. The CIA now assesses, albeit with low confidence, that a lab-related incident in China is more likely than a purely natural origin.
5. This new assessment is consistent with the "lab-leak" hypothesis that Baric created the virus and "provided" it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for experiments on "wild-caught" Chinese bats.
6. Early in the pandemic, Baric omitted the furin cleavage site in his intelligence briefing. He later testified that he had seen it, and the idea of inserting such a site "was clearly mine."
7. SARS-CoV-2 remains the only known SARS-like (sarbecovirus) with such a furin cleavage site (FCS), which significantly enhances infectivity and transmissibility.

One of us (Haslam) has set forth the most detailed and likely hypothesis regarding the origin of the pandemic, in the book COVID-19: Mystery Solved: It leaked from a Wuhan lab but it's not Chinese junk (2024). No information has come to light that challenges or refutes the following sequence of events, as hypothesized in the book:
Baric's lab in North Carolina created a chimeric SARS-like virus (SARS-CoV-2 or its immediate progenitor called HKU3-Smix) using DEFUSE-style methods.
The proposed novel virus (HKU3-Smix) differed from SARS-CoV-1 by 25%; SARS-CoV-2's spike differed by 24.7%. Baric later testified, "We were within the range."
Baric used Egyptian fruit bats as a surrogate at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana (a high-containment NIH facility that conducts DARPA research). His biotechnology was designed to be portable in a small tube and usable under BSL-2 conditions.
The constructed virus was then sent to WIV for further experiments, likely at a Chinese bat colony (Rhinolophus sinicus) near the BSL-4 facility.
The virus infected a lab worker, probably asymptomatically, and spread (initially undetected) in Wuhan from the WIV, triggering the pandemic.
Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) have emerged as a non-natural reservoir host for SARS-CoV-2, and were referenced in DARPA DEFUSE.
Over the past year, we have debated this lab-leak hypothesis with the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). That debate became public with their recent Nature paper. We reminded SAGO that they have not identified a progenitor virus with 99% genome similarity, nor have th...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/did-ralph-baric-at-unc-create-sars-cov-2/ Disclaimer: If Covid-19 were linked to animal vaccine research, it would be an unintended consequence, though the institutional response was anything but accidental.
The new revelation that America's top coronavirus scientist, Dr. Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina (UNC), worked with the intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the Covid-19 pandemic significantly raises the likelihood that Baric is the creator of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yet the evidence for and against this hypothesis remains incomplete because the US government is engaged in an ongoing coverup of key information. Regardless of the government's willingness to be forthcoming, Baric himself could shed copious light on a matter of major public and scientific importance by making available his lab materials from the period leading up to the pandemic.
There is strong evidence backing the following key points:
1. Baric's lab had the technical ability (reverse genetics systems, chimeric spike protein, infectious clone production) to build viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2.
2. The 2018 DEFUSE proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), led by Baric, explicitly outlined laboratory manipulations capable of producing a SARS-CoV-2–like virus.
3. Although DARPA declined to fund DEFUSE, most team members later received similar funding through other grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
4. US intelligence agencies (including CIA and ODNI) consulted Baric and other experts from 2015 onwards and even ran pandemic war games (e.g., Event 201, Crimson Contagion) just before the pandemic. The CIA now assesses, albeit with low confidence, that a lab-related incident in China is more likely than a purely natural origin.
5. This new assessment is consistent with the "lab-leak" hypothesis that Baric created the virus and "provided" it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for experiments on "wild-caught" Chinese bats.
6. Early in the pandemic, Baric omitted the furin cleavage site in his intelligence briefing. He later testified that he had seen it, and the idea of inserting such a site "was clearly mine."
7. SARS-CoV-2 remains the only known SARS-like (sarbecovirus) with such a furin cleavage site (FCS), which significantly enhances infectivity and transmissibility.

One of us (Haslam) has set forth the most detailed and likely hypothesis regarding the origin of the pandemic, in the book COVID-19: Mystery Solved: It leaked from a Wuhan lab but it's not Chinese junk (2024). No information has come to light that challenges or refutes the following sequence of events, as hypothesized in the book:
Baric's lab in North Carolina created a chimeric SARS-like virus (SARS-CoV-2 or its immediate progenitor called HKU3-Smix) using DEFUSE-style methods.
The proposed novel virus (HKU3-Smix) differed from SARS-CoV-1 by 25%; SARS-CoV-2's spike differed by 24.7%. Baric later testified, "We were within the range."
Baric used Egyptian fruit bats as a surrogate at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana (a high-containment NIH facility that conducts DARPA research). His biotechnology was designed to be portable in a small tube and usable under BSL-2 conditions.
The constructed virus was then sent to WIV for further experiments, likely at a Chinese bat colony (Rhinolophus sinicus) near the BSL-4 facility.
The virus infected a lab worker, probably asymptomatically, and spread (initially undetected) in Wuhan from the WIV, triggering the pandemic.
Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) have emerged as a non-natural reservoir host for SARS-CoV-2, and were referenced in DARPA DEFUSE.
Over the past year, we have debated this lab-leak hypothesis with the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). That debate became public with their recent Nature paper. We reminded SAGO that they have not identified a progenitor virus with 99% genome similarity, nor have th...]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 07:45:00 -0400 Did Ralph Baric at UNC Create SARS-CoV-2? Disclaimer: If Covid-19 were linked to animal vaccine research, it would be an unintended consequence, though the institutional response was anything but accidental.
The new revelation that America's top coronavirus...]]> Disclaimer: If Covid-19 were linked to animal vaccine research, it would be an unintended consequence, though the institutional response was anything but accidental.
The new revelation that America's top coronavirus scientist, Dr. Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina (UNC), worked with the intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the Covid-19 pandemic significantly raises the likelihood that Baric is the creator of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yet the evidence for and against this hypothesis remains incomplete because the US government is engaged in an ongoing coverup of key information. Regardless of the government's willingness to be forthcoming, Baric himself could shed copious light on a matter of major public and scientific importance by making available his lab materials from the period leading up to the pandemic.
There is strong evidence backing the following key points:
1. Baric's lab had the technical ability (reverse genetics systems, chimeric spike protein, infectious clone production) to build viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2.
2. The 2018 DEFUSE proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), led by Baric, explicitly outlined laboratory manipulations capable of producing a SARS-CoV-2–like virus.
3. Although DARPA declined to fund DEFUSE, most team members later received similar funding through other grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
4. US intelligence agencies (including CIA and ODNI) consulted Baric and other experts from 2015 onwards and even ran pandemic war games (e.g., Event 201, Crimson Contagion) just before the pandemic. The CIA now assesses, albeit with low confidence, that a lab-related incident in China is more likely than a purely natural origin.
5. This new assessment is consistent with the "lab-leak" hypothesis that Baric created the virus and "provided" it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for experiments on "wild-caught" Chinese bats.
6. Early in the pandemic, Baric omitted the furin cleavage site in his intelligence briefing. He later testified that he had seen it, and the idea of inserting such a site "was clearly mine."
7. SARS-CoV-2 remains the only known SARS-like (sarbecovirus) with such a furin cleavage site (FCS), which significantly enhances infectivity and transmissibility.

One of us (Haslam) has set forth the most detailed and likely hypothesis regarding the origin of the pandemic, in the book COVID-19: Mystery Solved: It leaked from a Wuhan lab but it's not Chinese junk (2024). No information has come to light that challenges or refutes the following sequence of events, as hypothesized in the book:
Baric's lab in North Carolina created a chimeric SARS-like virus (SARS-CoV-2 or its immediate progenitor called HKU3-Smix) using DEFUSE-style methods.
The proposed novel virus (HKU3-Smix) differed from SARS-CoV-1 by 25%; SARS-CoV-2's spike differed by 24.7%. Baric later testified, "We were within the range."
Baric used Egyptian fruit bats as a surrogate at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana (a high-containment NIH facility that conducts DARPA research). His biotechnology was designed to be portable in a small tube and usable under BSL-2 conditions.
The constructed virus was then sent to WIV for further experiments, likely at a Chinese bat colony (Rhinolophus sinicus) near the BSL-4 facility.
The virus infected a lab worker, probably asymptomatically, and spread (initially undetected) in Wuhan from the WIV, triggering the pandemic.
Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) have emerged as a non-natural reservoir host for SARS-CoV-2, and were referenced in DARPA DEFUSE.
Over the past year, we have debated this lab-leak hypothesis with the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). That debate became public with their recent Nature paper. We reminded SAGO that they have not identified a progenitor virus with 99% genome similarity, nor have th...]]> Jim Haslam 21:02 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 28 65825 Though I am an attorney in practice for almost thirty years now, I have always said that not all issues can be resolved in a court of law. I say this not because I lack confidence in our judicial system, but because not all issues are subject to the decision of a court. In other words, judges can't have a say in everything! This is the premise behind our stalwart foundational doctrine of Separation-of-Powers where each of our three, co-equal branches of government have their own sphere of influence and power, and each is to stay out of the others' lanes.
To the point, some issues are policy issues, not legal issues. And so, just as the Executive Branch (the president and his cabinet) cannot adjudicate a dispute between you and your neighbor, nor can a judge nullify an agency's lawfully permissible actions just because the judge doesn't like what the agency head has done.
Furthermore, there is a hierarchy to our judicial system in the United States, and in the federal court arena, the "District Courts" are the lowest on the totem pole. Everyone in the legal world knows this. Attorneys, court personnel, legal scholars, and unquestionably, above all others, the judges know this. However, there is a new phenomenon growing in our country which can be categorized as nothing short of lawlessness. There is a class of judges who feel so emboldened, they believe they have the authority to bestow upon themselves a supernatural power to trump the Constitution and "go it their own way," so to speak.
These rogue judges are a clear and present danger to our society, for they ignore our 250-year-old rules, and instead write their own playbook. To borrow a term from the Left (which is rather ironic considering these cagey judges were almost all appointed by Democrat presidents), these judges are "a threat to democracy!"
In response to this growing brazen disregard for law and order, our highest court in the land decided it had to step in and set the record straight. Like naughty children who refuse to obey their parents, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) gave the rogue judges a stern reprimand that left no room for interpretation.
To be exact, in June of last year, SCOTUS issued a decision that made it crystal clear that federal District Court judges (i.e. the lowest level court in the federal judiciary system) are limited in their reach. More specifically, inTrump v. Casa, SCOTUS ruled that these district court-level judges can only issue injunctions that are binding on the specific parties in that case. I analyzed this decision in more detail in an NTD interview shortly after the decision was released last summer. The bottom line is, these low courts (of which there are almost 100 in our country) cannot issue decisions that affect the entire country. That power lies only with SCOTUS. As it should. Remember folks, our Constitution only establishes the Supreme Court. All other courts are subservient thereto, and therefore must be obsequiously submissive by their very definition.
And yet, I got a phone call on March 16th from a colleague (though not a fellow attorney), who was clearly agitated, and I could probably say close to irate by the end of the call. He barely greeted me when I picked up the phone, and he dove right in with, "Did you hear about this stupid *ss judge in Massachusetts who just threw out Kennedy's ACIP panel and invalidated their changes to the childhood vaccine schedule?! What the hell is going on?! He can't do that! Can he?!"
I hadn't yet heard about the decision, so I immediately thought to myself, this colleague's got it wrong…There's absolutely no way a judge in Massachusetts can toss out the HHS Secretary's appointees to ACIP and undo the work they've done. As my colleague was huffing and puffing about it, I remained very calm, which confused him. "Why aren't you upset about this?" he asked me. So I told him with great confidence that I was sure he got the sto...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/when-judges-go-rogue/ Though I am an attorney in practice for almost thirty years now, I have always said that not all issues can be resolved in a court of law. I say this not because I lack confidence in our judicial system, but because not all issues are subject to the decision of a court. In other words, judges can't have a say in everything! This is the premise behind our stalwart foundational doctrine of Separation-of-Powers where each of our three, co-equal branches of government have their own sphere of influence and power, and each is to stay out of the others' lanes.
To the point, some issues are policy issues, not legal issues. And so, just as the Executive Branch (the president and his cabinet) cannot adjudicate a dispute between you and your neighbor, nor can a judge nullify an agency's lawfully permissible actions just because the judge doesn't like what the agency head has done.
Furthermore, there is a hierarchy to our judicial system in the United States, and in the federal court arena, the "District Courts" are the lowest on the totem pole. Everyone in the legal world knows this. Attorneys, court personnel, legal scholars, and unquestionably, above all others, the judges know this. However, there is a new phenomenon growing in our country which can be categorized as nothing short of lawlessness. There is a class of judges who feel so emboldened, they believe they have the authority to bestow upon themselves a supernatural power to trump the Constitution and "go it their own way," so to speak.
These rogue judges are a clear and present danger to our society, for they ignore our 250-year-old rules, and instead write their own playbook. To borrow a term from the Left (which is rather ironic considering these cagey judges were almost all appointed by Democrat presidents), these judges are "a threat to democracy!"
In response to this growing brazen disregard for law and order, our highest court in the land decided it had to step in and set the record straight. Like naughty children who refuse to obey their parents, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) gave the rogue judges a stern reprimand that left no room for interpretation.
To be exact, in June of last year, SCOTUS issued a decision that made it crystal clear that federal District Court judges (i.e. the lowest level court in the federal judiciary system) are limited in their reach. More specifically, inTrump v. Casa, SCOTUS ruled that these district court-level judges can only issue injunctions that are binding on the specific parties in that case. I analyzed this decision in more detail in an NTD interview shortly after the decision was released last summer. The bottom line is, these low courts (of which there are almost 100 in our country) cannot issue decisions that affect the entire country. That power lies only with SCOTUS. As it should. Remember folks, our Constitution only establishes the Supreme Court. All other courts are subservient thereto, and therefore must be obsequiously submissive by their very definition.
And yet, I got a phone call on March 16th from a colleague (though not a fellow attorney), who was clearly agitated, and I could probably say close to irate by the end of the call. He barely greeted me when I picked up the phone, and he dove right in with, "Did you hear about this stupid *ss judge in Massachusetts who just threw out Kennedy's ACIP panel and invalidated their changes to the childhood vaccine schedule?! What the hell is going on?! He can't do that! Can he?!"
I hadn't yet heard about the decision, so I immediately thought to myself, this colleague's got it wrong…There's absolutely no way a judge in Massachusetts can toss out the HHS Secretary's appointees to ACIP and undo the work they've done. As my colleague was huffing and puffing about it, I remained very calm, which confused him. "Why aren't you upset about this?" he asked me. So I told him with great confidence that I was sure he got the sto...]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 07:41:00 -0400 When Judges Go Rogue Though I am an attorney in practice for almost thirty years now, I have always said that not all issues can be resolved in a court of law. I say this not because I lack confidence in our judicial system,...]]> Though I am an attorney in practice for almost thirty years now, I have always said that not all issues can be resolved in a court of law. I say this not because I lack confidence in our judicial system, but because not all issues are subject to the decision of a court. In other words, judges can't have a say in everything! This is the premise behind our stalwart foundational doctrine of Separation-of-Powers where each of our three, co-equal branches of government have their own sphere of influence and power, and each is to stay out of the others' lanes.
To the point, some issues are policy issues, not legal issues. And so, just as the Executive Branch (the president and his cabinet) cannot adjudicate a dispute between you and your neighbor, nor can a judge nullify an agency's lawfully permissible actions just because the judge doesn't like what the agency head has done.
Furthermore, there is a hierarchy to our judicial system in the United States, and in the federal court arena, the "District Courts" are the lowest on the totem pole. Everyone in the legal world knows this. Attorneys, court personnel, legal scholars, and unquestionably, above all others, the judges know this. However, there is a new phenomenon growing in our country which can be categorized as nothing short of lawlessness. There is a class of judges who feel so emboldened, they believe they have the authority to bestow upon themselves a supernatural power to trump the Constitution and "go it their own way," so to speak.
These rogue judges are a clear and present danger to our society, for they ignore our 250-year-old rules, and instead write their own playbook. To borrow a term from the Left (which is rather ironic considering these cagey judges were almost all appointed by Democrat presidents), these judges are "a threat to democracy!"
In response to this growing brazen disregard for law and order, our highest court in the land decided it had to step in and set the record straight. Like naughty children who refuse to obey their parents, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) gave the rogue judges a stern reprimand that left no room for interpretation.
To be exact, in June of last year, SCOTUS issued a decision that made it crystal clear that federal District Court judges (i.e. the lowest level court in the federal judiciary system) are limited in their reach. More specifically, inTrump v. Casa, SCOTUS ruled that these district court-level judges can only issue injunctions that are binding on the specific parties in that case. I analyzed this decision in more detail in an NTD interview shortly after the decision was released last summer. The bottom line is, these low courts (of which there are almost 100 in our country) cannot issue decisions that affect the entire country. That power lies only with SCOTUS. As it should. Remember folks, our Constitution only establishes the Supreme Court. All other courts are subservient thereto, and therefore must be obsequiously submissive by their very definition.
And yet, I got a phone call on March 16th from a colleague (though not a fellow attorney), who was clearly agitated, and I could probably say close to irate by the end of the call. He barely greeted me when I picked up the phone, and he dove right in with, "Did you hear about this stupid *ss judge in Massachusetts who just threw out Kennedy's ACIP panel and invalidated their changes to the childhood vaccine schedule?! What the hell is going on?! He can't do that! Can he?!"
I hadn't yet heard about the decision, so I immediately thought to myself, this colleague's got it wrong…There's absolutely no way a judge in Massachusetts can toss out the HHS Secretary's appointees to ACIP and undo the work they've done. As my colleague was huffing and puffing about it, I remained very calm, which confused him. "Why aren't you upset about this?" he asked me. So I told him with great confidence that I was sure he got the sto...]]> Bobbie Anne Flower Cox 15:52 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 27 65936 [What follows is the foreword to 3/11 Viral Takeover: On March 11, 2020, a Pandemic was Declared and Our World Changed Forever by Sonia Elijah, newly published and available on Amazon.]
The Covid period was a turning point in our lives. We saw how the system that rules us truly operates and that of which it is capable. We experienced the apotheosis of the corporatist planning state, as close to dystopian-level totalitarianism as we ever knew. We observed how the media, tech, elected and unelected government, and the medical industry all work together when the stakes are high. And we observed and experienced just how completely controlling this cartel can be once it is unleashed on the entire population.
All the sloganeering – buy some time, slow the spread, flatten the curve, we are all in this together, socially distance, be careful, mask up, get the jab, ban disinformation and malinformation, it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and a thousand other cliches – turned over time into a tissue of lies. They all point to the same nefarious scheme, to weaponize public trust in a way that results in the consumption of a mislabeled product based on a gene-invading technology that had never before been deployed.
Even now, typing those words and trying to mentally grasp all that we went through still shocks me, even if I have written probably thousands of articles and two books on the topic. In so many ways, the Covid period feels like a war complete with the legendary fog and long period of recovery. The response to the pathogen left large parts of the world in shambles: illiteracy, substance abuse, tech addiction, health crisis, broken supply chains, bankrupted businesses, discredited medical elites, indebted governments running the presses full time, flat wages despite stimulus payments once corrected for the inevitable inflation, and the building of a surveillance state that began with disease tracking and mutated into the ambition of a digital system of vaccine passports.
In each nation, there were malefactors. But what's more remarkable is how similar the policies were in nearly every country on earth, thanks to the World Health Organization's messaging. I have attended post-apocalyptic briefings in several countries and I'm struck by how nearly every country adopted the same cockamamie protocols, from sanitizer dousing to forced masking to business closures to vaccine mandates. The outlying nations can be named on one hand and include unpredictables such as Tanzania, Nicaragua, and Sweden.
The topic absolutely requires a book-length treatment. Even then, there is no way to cover the entire calamity. What's more, such a book bears a huge burden of documentation in several areas of policy, science, and history. This is because the deck still remains stacked against anyone who would dare question that not all that transpired was the best they could do with the information they had. How many times have we heard that? How many commissions have concluded with this same claim and even promise to do more earlier the next time? Even as of this writing, there have been precious few admissions of wrongdoing, much less apologies. The medical journals and major media have just moved on as if none of this matters.
Which brings us to this masterful treatise by science journalist Sonia Elijah. She has been, from the very beginning, an essential source of reporting and truth-telling on the Covid calamity, writing from the point of view of a British journalist who followed every detail, day by day and hour by hour. She is the master of her topic. The book is five years in the writing and includes a level of documentation that will amaze you. This piety toward facts is backed by a fiery passion that is entirely appropriate to her subject.
The result is a book for the ages, one that will end the whitewashing that is taking place right now. Indeed, the appearance of 3/11: Viral Takeover becomes on its ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-turning-point-in-our-lives/ [What follows is the foreword to 3/11 Viral Takeover: On March 11, 2020, a Pandemic was Declared and Our World Changed Forever by Sonia Elijah, newly published and available on Amazon.]
The Covid period was a turning point in our lives. We saw how the system that rules us truly operates and that of which it is capable. We experienced the apotheosis of the corporatist planning state, as close to dystopian-level totalitarianism as we ever knew. We observed how the media, tech, elected and unelected government, and the medical industry all work together when the stakes are high. And we observed and experienced just how completely controlling this cartel can be once it is unleashed on the entire population.
All the sloganeering – buy some time, slow the spread, flatten the curve, we are all in this together, socially distance, be careful, mask up, get the jab, ban disinformation and malinformation, it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and a thousand other cliches – turned over time into a tissue of lies. They all point to the same nefarious scheme, to weaponize public trust in a way that results in the consumption of a mislabeled product based on a gene-invading technology that had never before been deployed.
Even now, typing those words and trying to mentally grasp all that we went through still shocks me, even if I have written probably thousands of articles and two books on the topic. In so many ways, the Covid period feels like a war complete with the legendary fog and long period of recovery. The response to the pathogen left large parts of the world in shambles: illiteracy, substance abuse, tech addiction, health crisis, broken supply chains, bankrupted businesses, discredited medical elites, indebted governments running the presses full time, flat wages despite stimulus payments once corrected for the inevitable inflation, and the building of a surveillance state that began with disease tracking and mutated into the ambition of a digital system of vaccine passports.
In each nation, there were malefactors. But what's more remarkable is how similar the policies were in nearly every country on earth, thanks to the World Health Organization's messaging. I have attended post-apocalyptic briefings in several countries and I'm struck by how nearly every country adopted the same cockamamie protocols, from sanitizer dousing to forced masking to business closures to vaccine mandates. The outlying nations can be named on one hand and include unpredictables such as Tanzania, Nicaragua, and Sweden.
The topic absolutely requires a book-length treatment. Even then, there is no way to cover the entire calamity. What's more, such a book bears a huge burden of documentation in several areas of policy, science, and history. This is because the deck still remains stacked against anyone who would dare question that not all that transpired was the best they could do with the information they had. How many times have we heard that? How many commissions have concluded with this same claim and even promise to do more earlier the next time? Even as of this writing, there have been precious few admissions of wrongdoing, much less apologies. The medical journals and major media have just moved on as if none of this matters.
Which brings us to this masterful treatise by science journalist Sonia Elijah. She has been, from the very beginning, an essential source of reporting and truth-telling on the Covid calamity, writing from the point of view of a British journalist who followed every detail, day by day and hour by hour. She is the master of her topic. The book is five years in the writing and includes a level of documentation that will amaze you. This piety toward facts is backed by a fiery passion that is entirely appropriate to her subject.
The result is a book for the ages, one that will end the whitewashing that is taking place right now. Indeed, the appearance of 3/11: Viral Takeover becomes on its ...]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 08:45:00 -0400 The Turning Point in Our Lives [What follows is the foreword to 3/11 Viral Takeover: On March 11, 2020, a Pandemic was Declared and Our World Changed Forever by Sonia Elijah, newly published and available on Amazon.]
The Covid period was a...]]> [What follows is the foreword to 3/11 Viral Takeover: On March 11, 2020, a Pandemic was Declared and Our World Changed Forever by Sonia Elijah, newly published and available on Amazon.]
The Covid period was a turning point in our lives. We saw how the system that rules us truly operates and that of which it is capable. We experienced the apotheosis of the corporatist planning state, as close to dystopian-level totalitarianism as we ever knew. We observed how the media, tech, elected and unelected government, and the medical industry all work together when the stakes are high. And we observed and experienced just how completely controlling this cartel can be once it is unleashed on the entire population.
All the sloganeering – buy some time, slow the spread, flatten the curve, we are all in this together, socially distance, be careful, mask up, get the jab, ban disinformation and malinformation, it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and a thousand other cliches – turned over time into a tissue of lies. They all point to the same nefarious scheme, to weaponize public trust in a way that results in the consumption of a mislabeled product based on a gene-invading technology that had never before been deployed.
Even now, typing those words and trying to mentally grasp all that we went through still shocks me, even if I have written probably thousands of articles and two books on the topic. In so many ways, the Covid period feels like a war complete with the legendary fog and long period of recovery. The response to the pathogen left large parts of the world in shambles: illiteracy, substance abuse, tech addiction, health crisis, broken supply chains, bankrupted businesses, discredited medical elites, indebted governments running the presses full time, flat wages despite stimulus payments once corrected for the inevitable inflation, and the building of a surveillance state that began with disease tracking and mutated into the ambition of a digital system of vaccine passports.
In each nation, there were malefactors. But what's more remarkable is how similar the policies were in nearly every country on earth, thanks to the World Health Organization's messaging. I have attended post-apocalyptic briefings in several countries and I'm struck by how nearly every country adopted the same cockamamie protocols, from sanitizer dousing to forced masking to business closures to vaccine mandates. The outlying nations can be named on one hand and include unpredictables such as Tanzania, Nicaragua, and Sweden.
The topic absolutely requires a book-length treatment. Even then, there is no way to cover the entire calamity. What's more, such a book bears a huge burden of documentation in several areas of policy, science, and history. This is because the deck still remains stacked against anyone who would dare question that not all that transpired was the best they could do with the information they had. How many times have we heard that? How many commissions have concluded with this same claim and even promise to do more earlier the next time? Even as of this writing, there have been precious few admissions of wrongdoing, much less apologies. The medical journals and major media have just moved on as if none of this matters.
Which brings us to this masterful treatise by science journalist Sonia Elijah. She has been, from the very beginning, an essential source of reporting and truth-telling on the Covid calamity, writing from the point of view of a British journalist who followed every detail, day by day and hour by hour. She is the master of her topic. The book is five years in the writing and includes a level of documentation that will amaze you. This piety toward facts is backed by a fiery passion that is entirely appropriate to her subject.
The result is a book for the ages, one that will end the whitewashing that is taking place right now. Indeed, the appearance of 3/11: Viral Takeover becomes on its ...]]> Jeffrey A. Tucker 04:17 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 26 65769 Pursuant to the order issued on March 16 in American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Kennedy et al., No. 1:25-cv-11916 (D. Mass.), the ACIP meeting previously scheduled for March 18-19 has been stayed until further notice.
In light of this notice, I want to outline what should have been addressed at this meeting and what still demands attention: DNA contaminants and byproducts in the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines.
mRNA vaccines were introduced as a technological breakthrough. They were rapidly developed, widely deployed, and presented as rigorously evaluated. But years into their global use, a basic scientific question still remains unresolved: What is the biological fate of the DNA byproducts known to be present in these vaccines?
This is not a speculative concern. The manufacturers acknowledge that their production process generates DNA byproducts in their publications and patents. Independent and regulatory laboratories have confirmed their presence in vaccine vials. And yet despite this, the FDA and the manufacturers have not publicly provided data addressing the fate, persistence, or appropriate safety thresholds for DNA encapsulated in LNPs present in mRNA vaccines. The manufacturers state that they provide data to the FDA in accordance with existing guidance. This combination— acknowledgment, confirmation, and absence of data—should give pause.
Pfizer and Moderna have been clear in their own scientific literature describing the manufacturing process used to produce mRNA vaccines. The process of in-vitro transcription generates nucleic-acid byproducts in the form of residual DNA fragments, double-stranded RNA, and RNA:DNA hybrid molecules. Pfizer and Moderna also acknowledge that these byproducts are not expected to be completely removed during purification.
Further, both companies have described how such nucleic-acid structures can interact with innate immune sensing pathways if present inside cells. None of this is controversial. It is very well-established molecular and cellular biology, and it is the manufacturers' own description of their technology. In other words, the existence of these byproducts, and their potential biological relevance, is not in dispute, although based on the media and public narrative, you might think otherwise.
Multiple laboratories, including both independent researchers and government-affiliated labs in Germany (PEI) and Australia (TGA), have directly analyzed vaccine vials. Their findings are consistent. DNA fragments are present in all tested vaccine lots and the fragments vary in size, with some extending into the kilobase range. Sequencing reveals DNA derived from across the original DNA template, including Spike-encoding sequences, and regulatory elements such as the SV40 promoter (in the Pfizer construct).
More importantly, several analyses have reported that DNA corresponding to the spike sequence appears at substantially higher levels than plasmid backbone. This matters, because most routine testing focuses on backbone markers potentially underrepresenting other DNA species that may be more abundant. And this means that the DNA being measured may not fully reflect the total amount of DNA that is present.
Given these findings, one might reasonably expect the FDA and the manufacturers to have performed comprehensive studies measuring how much spike-sequence DNA is present in finished vaccine products. One might expect data collected on whether RNA:DNA hybrid byproducts are being systematically measured, or what happens to LNP-encapsulated DNA fragments after they are delivered into cells. It would be expected that data exists related to whether the DNA persists in tissues, or whether it interacts with or integrates in the human genome. And one should reasonably expect that safety thresholds and guidance specific for lipid nanoparticle delivery of DNA would have been established prior to, or at least immediately following the vaccine rollout...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/they-acknowledge-the-byproducts-where-are-the-data/ Pursuant to the order issued on March 16 in American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Kennedy et al., No. 1:25-cv-11916 (D. Mass.), the ACIP meeting previously scheduled for March 18-19 has been stayed until further notice.
In light of this notice, I want to outline what should have been addressed at this meeting and what still demands attention: DNA contaminants and byproducts in the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines.
mRNA vaccines were introduced as a technological breakthrough. They were rapidly developed, widely deployed, and presented as rigorously evaluated. But years into their global use, a basic scientific question still remains unresolved: What is the biological fate of the DNA byproducts known to be present in these vaccines?
This is not a speculative concern. The manufacturers acknowledge that their production process generates DNA byproducts in their publications and patents. Independent and regulatory laboratories have confirmed their presence in vaccine vials. And yet despite this, the FDA and the manufacturers have not publicly provided data addressing the fate, persistence, or appropriate safety thresholds for DNA encapsulated in LNPs present in mRNA vaccines. The manufacturers state that they provide data to the FDA in accordance with existing guidance. This combination— acknowledgment, confirmation, and absence of data—should give pause.
Pfizer and Moderna have been clear in their own scientific literature describing the manufacturing process used to produce mRNA vaccines. The process of in-vitro transcription generates nucleic-acid byproducts in the form of residual DNA fragments, double-stranded RNA, and RNA:DNA hybrid molecules. Pfizer and Moderna also acknowledge that these byproducts are not expected to be completely removed during purification.
Further, both companies have described how such nucleic-acid structures can interact with innate immune sensing pathways if present inside cells. None of this is controversial. It is very well-established molecular and cellular biology, and it is the manufacturers' own description of their technology. In other words, the existence of these byproducts, and their potential biological relevance, is not in dispute, although based on the media and public narrative, you might think otherwise.
Multiple laboratories, including both independent researchers and government-affiliated labs in Germany (PEI) and Australia (TGA), have directly analyzed vaccine vials. Their findings are consistent. DNA fragments are present in all tested vaccine lots and the fragments vary in size, with some extending into the kilobase range. Sequencing reveals DNA derived from across the original DNA template, including Spike-encoding sequences, and regulatory elements such as the SV40 promoter (in the Pfizer construct).
More importantly, several analyses have reported that DNA corresponding to the spike sequence appears at substantially higher levels than plasmid backbone. This matters, because most routine testing focuses on backbone markers potentially underrepresenting other DNA species that may be more abundant. And this means that the DNA being measured may not fully reflect the total amount of DNA that is present.
Given these findings, one might reasonably expect the FDA and the manufacturers to have performed comprehensive studies measuring how much spike-sequence DNA is present in finished vaccine products. One might expect data collected on whether RNA:DNA hybrid byproducts are being systematically measured, or what happens to LNP-encapsulated DNA fragments after they are delivered into cells. It would be expected that data exists related to whether the DNA persists in tissues, or whether it interacts with or integrates in the human genome. And one should reasonably expect that safety thresholds and guidance specific for lipid nanoparticle delivery of DNA would have been established prior to, or at least immediately following the vaccine rollout...]]> Sat, 21 Mar 2026 08:35:00 -0400 They Acknowledge the Byproducts. Where Are the Data? Pursuant to the order issued on March 16 in American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Kennedy et al., No. 1:25-cv-11916 (D. Mass.), the ACIP meeting previously scheduled for March 18-19 has been stayed unt...]]> Pursuant to the order issued on March 16 in American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Kennedy et al., No. 1:25-cv-11916 (D. Mass.), the ACIP meeting previously scheduled for March 18-19 has been stayed until further notice.
In light of this notice, I want to outline what should have been addressed at this meeting and what still demands attention: DNA contaminants and byproducts in the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines.
mRNA vaccines were introduced as a technological breakthrough. They were rapidly developed, widely deployed, and presented as rigorously evaluated. But years into their global use, a basic scientific question still remains unresolved: What is the biological fate of the DNA byproducts known to be present in these vaccines?
This is not a speculative concern. The manufacturers acknowledge that their production process generates DNA byproducts in their publications and patents. Independent and regulatory laboratories have confirmed their presence in vaccine vials. And yet despite this, the FDA and the manufacturers have not publicly provided data addressing the fate, persistence, or appropriate safety thresholds for DNA encapsulated in LNPs present in mRNA vaccines. The manufacturers state that they provide data to the FDA in accordance with existing guidance. This combination— acknowledgment, confirmation, and absence of data—should give pause.
Pfizer and Moderna have been clear in their own scientific literature describing the manufacturing process used to produce mRNA vaccines. The process of in-vitro transcription generates nucleic-acid byproducts in the form of residual DNA fragments, double-stranded RNA, and RNA:DNA hybrid molecules. Pfizer and Moderna also acknowledge that these byproducts are not expected to be completely removed during purification.
Further, both companies have described how such nucleic-acid structures can interact with innate immune sensing pathways if present inside cells. None of this is controversial. It is very well-established molecular and cellular biology, and it is the manufacturers' own description of their technology. In other words, the existence of these byproducts, and their potential biological relevance, is not in dispute, although based on the media and public narrative, you might think otherwise.
Multiple laboratories, including both independent researchers and government-affiliated labs in Germany (PEI) and Australia (TGA), have directly analyzed vaccine vials. Their findings are consistent. DNA fragments are present in all tested vaccine lots and the fragments vary in size, with some extending into the kilobase range. Sequencing reveals DNA derived from across the original DNA template, including Spike-encoding sequences, and regulatory elements such as the SV40 promoter (in the Pfizer construct).
More importantly, several analyses have reported that DNA corresponding to the spike sequence appears at substantially higher levels than plasmid backbone. This matters, because most routine testing focuses on backbone markers potentially underrepresenting other DNA species that may be more abundant. And this means that the DNA being measured may not fully reflect the total amount of DNA that is present.
Given these findings, one might reasonably expect the FDA and the manufacturers to have performed comprehensive studies measuring how much spike-sequence DNA is present in finished vaccine products. One might expect data collected on whether RNA:DNA hybrid byproducts are being systematically measured, or what happens to LNP-encapsulated DNA fragments after they are delivered into cells. It would be expected that data exists related to whether the DNA persists in tissues, or whether it interacts with or integrates in the human genome. And one should reasonably expect that safety thresholds and guidance specific for lipid nanoparticle delivery of DNA would have been established prior to, or at least immediately following the vaccine rollout...]]> Charlotte Kuperwasser 06:53 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 25 65589 One of the most suggestive allusions to Artificial Intelligence that I have come across lately came from Renaud Beauchard, a French journalist writing for Brownstone Institute. Right at the beginning of his essay Beauchard writes:
As the AI winter draws near, we must refuse to let any chance slip by to awaken our numbed senses. That means staying alert, at every moment, to welcome any sign. And a true labor of love is always one of those gifts that life, sometimes, brings when you are ready to receive them. That's what a strange, luminous film projected at the Kennedy Center did for me a few days ago. Directed by David Josh Jordan, the movie is entitled El Tonto Por Cristo, which means 'The Fool for Christ.'
What signs are we seeking? C.S. Lewis, I think, captured it best in his dystopian novel That Hideous Strength, a parable about the birth of artificial intelligence and the technocratic order that paves its way. In the story, the protagonist Mark, an ambitious academic, is drawn into an elite institute called N.I.C.E., whose demonic aims are cloaked in the language of 'objectivity,' a preparation for the arrival of superior beings.
It is not only the strangely portentous opening sentence (alluding to the imminent 'AI winter') that I immediately found intriguing, but – and this functioned as a kind of 'sign' to myself – Beauchard's reference to the third of the so-called Space Trilogy of novels by C.S. Lewis, namely That Hideous Strength (published in 1945, after the earlier texts, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra), came as a timely reminder to me. What it prompted in my memory was the almost uncanny prescience that Lewis displayed in that powerful novelistic anticipation of what we have been living through in the last six years or so. This should not be surprising to anyone familiar with C.S. Lewis's profound literary and philosophical contribution to (the history of) Western culture, as my recent essay on the resonances between his book, The Four Loves, and the Three Colours cinematic trilogy of Krzysztof Kieslowski demonstrates.
In fact, the very title of Lewis's novel (That Hideous Strength) – which can be read as an oxymoron, because we usually associate strength with something attractive or handsome – could be applied to the globalist cabal which relishes wielding their evil medical-technological power. Through his obedient sycophant, Yuval Noah Harari, Klaus Schwab – until recently the leader of the WEF (arguably the 'head of the snake') – made no bones about these neo-fascists' megalomania when he claimed that the technocratic cabal had acquired 'divine powers.'
A condensed account of the novel's narrative will have to suffice. It would probably not appeal to literary purists who insist on the distinctiveness of genres, insofar as it is a synthesis of dystopian science fiction (which always thematically includes technology), Christian theology and supernaturalist mythology, and Arthurian myth. I am no purist of that sort, primarily because I believe that new genres may emerge from the experimental blending of extant ones. Its science-fictional character is significant, particularly for the present, given the quintessential feature defining science fiction – first revealed to me by science fiction authority and connoisseur, James Sey, years ago – namely, the literary and cinematic genre which demonstrates thematically that science and technology comprise a pharmakon (simultaneously poison and cure) capable of constructing new worlds, but also of destroying them.
That is what That Hideous Strength achieves, even in admixture with the other thematic and generic components mentioned earlier.
As you would know if you were familiar with the novel, the narrative's main thread concerns Mark and Jane Studdock, a recently married couple whose lives are disrupted when Mark – an idealistic academic – is accepted ('recruited') by the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments, ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/ai-humanity-and-the-tower-of-babel/ One of the most suggestive allusions to Artificial Intelligence that I have come across lately came from Renaud Beauchard, a French journalist writing for Brownstone Institute. Right at the beginning of his essay Beauchard writes:
As the AI winter draws near, we must refuse to let any chance slip by to awaken our numbed senses. That means staying alert, at every moment, to welcome any sign. And a true labor of love is always one of those gifts that life, sometimes, brings when you are ready to receive them. That's what a strange, luminous film projected at the Kennedy Center did for me a few days ago. Directed by David Josh Jordan, the movie is entitled El Tonto Por Cristo, which means 'The Fool for Christ.'
What signs are we seeking? C.S. Lewis, I think, captured it best in his dystopian novel That Hideous Strength, a parable about the birth of artificial intelligence and the technocratic order that paves its way. In the story, the protagonist Mark, an ambitious academic, is drawn into an elite institute called N.I.C.E., whose demonic aims are cloaked in the language of 'objectivity,' a preparation for the arrival of superior beings.
It is not only the strangely portentous opening sentence (alluding to the imminent 'AI winter') that I immediately found intriguing, but – and this functioned as a kind of 'sign' to myself – Beauchard's reference to the third of the so-called Space Trilogy of novels by C.S. Lewis, namely That Hideous Strength (published in 1945, after the earlier texts, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra), came as a timely reminder to me. What it prompted in my memory was the almost uncanny prescience that Lewis displayed in that powerful novelistic anticipation of what we have been living through in the last six years or so. This should not be surprising to anyone familiar with C.S. Lewis's profound literary and philosophical contribution to (the history of) Western culture, as my recent essay on the resonances between his book, The Four Loves, and the Three Colours cinematic trilogy of Krzysztof Kieslowski demonstrates.
In fact, the very title of Lewis's novel (That Hideous Strength) – which can be read as an oxymoron, because we usually associate strength with something attractive or handsome – could be applied to the globalist cabal which relishes wielding their evil medical-technological power. Through his obedient sycophant, Yuval Noah Harari, Klaus Schwab – until recently the leader of the WEF (arguably the 'head of the snake') – made no bones about these neo-fascists' megalomania when he claimed that the technocratic cabal had acquired 'divine powers.'
A condensed account of the novel's narrative will have to suffice. It would probably not appeal to literary purists who insist on the distinctiveness of genres, insofar as it is a synthesis of dystopian science fiction (which always thematically includes technology), Christian theology and supernaturalist mythology, and Arthurian myth. I am no purist of that sort, primarily because I believe that new genres may emerge from the experimental blending of extant ones. Its science-fictional character is significant, particularly for the present, given the quintessential feature defining science fiction – first revealed to me by science fiction authority and connoisseur, James Sey, years ago – namely, the literary and cinematic genre which demonstrates thematically that science and technology comprise a pharmakon (simultaneously poison and cure) capable of constructing new worlds, but also of destroying them.
That is what That Hideous Strength achieves, even in admixture with the other thematic and generic components mentioned earlier.
As you would know if you were familiar with the novel, the narrative's main thread concerns Mark and Jane Studdock, a recently married couple whose lives are disrupted when Mark – an idealistic academic – is accepted ('recruited') by the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments, ...]]> Fri, 20 Mar 2026 07:50:00 -0400 AI, Humanity, and the Tower of Babel One of the most suggestive allusions to Artificial Intelligence that I have come across lately came from Renaud Beauchard, a French journalist writing for Brownstone Institute. Right at the beginning of his essay ...]]> One of the most suggestive allusions to Artificial Intelligence that I have come across lately came from Renaud Beauchard, a French journalist writing for Brownstone Institute. Right at the beginning of his essay Beauchard writes:
As the AI winter draws near, we must refuse to let any chance slip by to awaken our numbed senses. That means staying alert, at every moment, to welcome any sign. And a true labor of love is always one of those gifts that life, sometimes, brings when you are ready to receive them. That's what a strange, luminous film projected at the Kennedy Center did for me a few days ago. Directed by David Josh Jordan, the movie is entitled El Tonto Por Cristo, which means 'The Fool for Christ.'
What signs are we seeking? C.S. Lewis, I think, captured it best in his dystopian novel That Hideous Strength, a parable about the birth of artificial intelligence and the technocratic order that paves its way. In the story, the protagonist Mark, an ambitious academic, is drawn into an elite institute called N.I.C.E., whose demonic aims are cloaked in the language of 'objectivity,' a preparation for the arrival of superior beings.
It is not only the strangely portentous opening sentence (alluding to the imminent 'AI winter') that I immediately found intriguing, but – and this functioned as a kind of 'sign' to myself – Beauchard's reference to the third of the so-called Space Trilogy of novels by C.S. Lewis, namely That Hideous Strength (published in 1945, after the earlier texts, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra), came as a timely reminder to me. What it prompted in my memory was the almost uncanny prescience that Lewis displayed in that powerful novelistic anticipation of what we have been living through in the last six years or so. This should not be surprising to anyone familiar with C.S. Lewis's profound literary and philosophical contribution to (the history of) Western culture, as my recent essay on the resonances between his book, The Four Loves, and the Three Colours cinematic trilogy of Krzysztof Kieslowski demonstrates.
In fact, the very title of Lewis's novel (That Hideous Strength) – which can be read as an oxymoron, because we usually associate strength with something attractive or handsome – could be applied to the globalist cabal which relishes wielding their evil medical-technological power. Through his obedient sycophant, Yuval Noah Harari, Klaus Schwab – until recently the leader of the WEF (arguably the 'head of the snake') – made no bones about these neo-fascists' megalomania when he claimed that the technocratic cabal had acquired 'divine powers.'
A condensed account of the novel's narrative will have to suffice. It would probably not appeal to literary purists who insist on the distinctiveness of genres, insofar as it is a synthesis of dystopian science fiction (which always thematically includes technology), Christian theology and supernaturalist mythology, and Arthurian myth. I am no purist of that sort, primarily because I believe that new genres may emerge from the experimental blending of extant ones. Its science-fictional character is significant, particularly for the present, given the quintessential feature defining science fiction – first revealed to me by science fiction authority and connoisseur, James Sey, years ago – namely, the literary and cinematic genre which demonstrates thematically that science and technology comprise a pharmakon (simultaneously poison and cure) capable of constructing new worlds, but also of destroying them.
That is what That Hideous Strength achieves, even in admixture with the other thematic and generic components mentioned earlier.
As you would know if you were familiar with the novel, the narrative's main thread concerns Mark and Jane Studdock, a recently married couple whose lives are disrupted when Mark – an idealistic academic – is accepted ('recruited') by the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments, ...]]> Bert Olivier 13:05 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 24 65552 "Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom."
– Clifford Stoll
"We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom."
– E.O. Wilson
The FDA's newly unveiled Adverse Event Monitoring System (AEMS) illustrates the truth of Stoll and Wilson's observations with uncomfortable clarity. While the agency is celebrating its consolidated, real-time dashboard as a modernization milestone, what the public needs is not just more data, but more action.
Since the nationwide rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines, federal health officials have repeatedly downplayed concerns about severe adverse events as "one in a million." Time and again, they reassured the public that if any true safety signals existed, their own monitoring systems, chiefly VAERS, would detect them. Yet when the vaccine-injured pointed to those very same VAERS statistics, often far above established signal thresholds, their concerns were abruptly dismissed because VAERS was deemed "unreliable." This paradox has defined the experience of injured individuals for the past five years: the system is reliable when officials need reassurance, but unreliable when the data raises uncomfortable questions.
Against that backdrop, the FDA now touts AEMS as a unified, intuitive platform that will draw vaccine, drug, and device reports into one place. Superficially, this represents a stark departure from the current Kafkaesque status quo of scattered databases and fragmented reporting pathways. But the fundamental problem has never been just fragmentation on the front end. It has been silence on the back end.
The bottleneck is not data collection alone. It is the absence of meaningful followup, verification, adjudication, and transparent signal evaluation. AEMS may streamline reporting, but if submitted reports simply become entries in a prettier database, then nothing essential has changed. The historic weakness of federal safety surveillance has been that individuals filing legitimate adverse-event reports almost never receive substantive followup, despite clinicians assuming that reporting triggers some form of investigation. In reality, most reports vanish into digital purgatory.
Dr. Danice Hertz's experience illustrates this failure unmistakably. After suffering a significant vaccine injury, she filed 11 separate reports over nearly three years. Only after relentless persistence did anyone at the CDC finally request her medical records. Her story is not an anomaly; it is a representative case. And it reinforces the truth that streamlining the filing cabinet does nothing for the people whose reports are gathering dust inside it.
The FDA's rollout materials emphasize aesthetics, modernization, real-time updating, and user-friendly design. But public trust was never lost because of an outdated interface. It was lost because the agencies responsible for analyzing these reports have shown little interest in turning raw data into answers. A unified dashboard does not resolve the primary underlying issues: unexplained signals, lack of investigation, vague thresholds for action, inconsistent coding decisions, and a culture that treats the vaccine-injured as statistical irritants rather than people seeking answers.
Fixing the front end without fixing the back end is not reform. It is rebranding.
Patients who experience adverse events do not want the illusion of improvement. They want a system that works. For AEMS to represent genuine progress rather than modernized theater, three principles must guide its rollout:
Transparency. The FDA must publicly disclose its algorithms, coding decisions, adjudication protocols, and thresholds for triggering deeper reviews. Without transparent criteria, the risk is that data filtering becomes a political exercise rather than a scientific one.
Accountability. A report submitted should not be the end of the story. There must be clear, tr...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/modern-interface-same-old-problem/ "Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom."
– Clifford Stoll
"We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom."
– E.O. Wilson
The FDA's newly unveiled Adverse Event Monitoring System (AEMS) illustrates the truth of Stoll and Wilson's observations with uncomfortable clarity. While the agency is celebrating its consolidated, real-time dashboard as a modernization milestone, what the public needs is not just more data, but more action.
Since the nationwide rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines, federal health officials have repeatedly downplayed concerns about severe adverse events as "one in a million." Time and again, they reassured the public that if any true safety signals existed, their own monitoring systems, chiefly VAERS, would detect them. Yet when the vaccine-injured pointed to those very same VAERS statistics, often far above established signal thresholds, their concerns were abruptly dismissed because VAERS was deemed "unreliable." This paradox has defined the experience of injured individuals for the past five years: the system is reliable when officials need reassurance, but unreliable when the data raises uncomfortable questions.
Against that backdrop, the FDA now touts AEMS as a unified, intuitive platform that will draw vaccine, drug, and device reports into one place. Superficially, this represents a stark departure from the current Kafkaesque status quo of scattered databases and fragmented reporting pathways. But the fundamental problem has never been just fragmentation on the front end. It has been silence on the back end.
The bottleneck is not data collection alone. It is the absence of meaningful followup, verification, adjudication, and transparent signal evaluation. AEMS may streamline reporting, but if submitted reports simply become entries in a prettier database, then nothing essential has changed. The historic weakness of federal safety surveillance has been that individuals filing legitimate adverse-event reports almost never receive substantive followup, despite clinicians assuming that reporting triggers some form of investigation. In reality, most reports vanish into digital purgatory.
Dr. Danice Hertz's experience illustrates this failure unmistakably. After suffering a significant vaccine injury, she filed 11 separate reports over nearly three years. Only after relentless persistence did anyone at the CDC finally request her medical records. Her story is not an anomaly; it is a representative case. And it reinforces the truth that streamlining the filing cabinet does nothing for the people whose reports are gathering dust inside it.
The FDA's rollout materials emphasize aesthetics, modernization, real-time updating, and user-friendly design. But public trust was never lost because of an outdated interface. It was lost because the agencies responsible for analyzing these reports have shown little interest in turning raw data into answers. A unified dashboard does not resolve the primary underlying issues: unexplained signals, lack of investigation, vague thresholds for action, inconsistent coding decisions, and a culture that treats the vaccine-injured as statistical irritants rather than people seeking answers.
Fixing the front end without fixing the back end is not reform. It is rebranding.
Patients who experience adverse events do not want the illusion of improvement. They want a system that works. For AEMS to represent genuine progress rather than modernized theater, three principles must guide its rollout:
Transparency. The FDA must publicly disclose its algorithms, coding decisions, adjudication protocols, and thresholds for triggering deeper reviews. Without transparent criteria, the risk is that data filtering becomes a political exercise rather than a scientific one.
Accountability. A report submitted should not be the end of the story. There must be clear, tr...]]> Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:05:08 -0400 Modern Interface, Same Old Problem? "Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom."
– Clifford Stoll
"We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom."
– E.O. W...]]> "Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom."
– Clifford Stoll
"We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom."
– E.O. Wilson
The FDA's newly unveiled Adverse Event Monitoring System (AEMS) illustrates the truth of Stoll and Wilson's observations with uncomfortable clarity. While the agency is celebrating its consolidated, real-time dashboard as a modernization milestone, what the public needs is not just more data, but more action.
Since the nationwide rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines, federal health officials have repeatedly downplayed concerns about severe adverse events as "one in a million." Time and again, they reassured the public that if any true safety signals existed, their own monitoring systems, chiefly VAERS, would detect them. Yet when the vaccine-injured pointed to those very same VAERS statistics, often far above established signal thresholds, their concerns were abruptly dismissed because VAERS was deemed "unreliable." This paradox has defined the experience of injured individuals for the past five years: the system is reliable when officials need reassurance, but unreliable when the data raises uncomfortable questions.
Against that backdrop, the FDA now touts AEMS as a unified, intuitive platform that will draw vaccine, drug, and device reports into one place. Superficially, this represents a stark departure from the current Kafkaesque status quo of scattered databases and fragmented reporting pathways. But the fundamental problem has never been just fragmentation on the front end. It has been silence on the back end.
The bottleneck is not data collection alone. It is the absence of meaningful followup, verification, adjudication, and transparent signal evaluation. AEMS may streamline reporting, but if submitted reports simply become entries in a prettier database, then nothing essential has changed. The historic weakness of federal safety surveillance has been that individuals filing legitimate adverse-event reports almost never receive substantive followup, despite clinicians assuming that reporting triggers some form of investigation. In reality, most reports vanish into digital purgatory.
Dr. Danice Hertz's experience illustrates this failure unmistakably. After suffering a significant vaccine injury, she filed 11 separate reports over nearly three years. Only after relentless persistence did anyone at the CDC finally request her medical records. Her story is not an anomaly; it is a representative case. And it reinforces the truth that streamlining the filing cabinet does nothing for the people whose reports are gathering dust inside it.
The FDA's rollout materials emphasize aesthetics, modernization, real-time updating, and user-friendly design. But public trust was never lost because of an outdated interface. It was lost because the agencies responsible for analyzing these reports have shown little interest in turning raw data into answers. A unified dashboard does not resolve the primary underlying issues: unexplained signals, lack of investigation, vague thresholds for action, inconsistent coding decisions, and a culture that treats the vaccine-injured as statistical irritants rather than people seeking answers.
Fixing the front end without fixing the back end is not reform. It is rebranding.
Patients who experience adverse events do not want the illusion of improvement. They want a system that works. For AEMS to represent genuine progress rather than modernized theater, three principles must guide its rollout:
Transparency. The FDA must publicly disclose its algorithms, coding decisions, adjudication protocols, and thresholds for triggering deeper reviews. Without transparent criteria, the risk is that data filtering becomes a political exercise rather than a scientific one.
Accountability. A report submitted should not be the end of the story. There must be clear, tr...]]> Christopher Dreisbach 04:57 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 23 65539 Vanity can make people do stupid things. Want to look better in a bathing suit? Great goal, now with a small potential wrinkle: the treatment your doctor prescribes might be so good you won't see your fat anymore, because that treatment made you go blind.
This latest dispatch from the world of pharmaceutical safety comes from that drug class that is a gift that keeps on giving, the blockbuster weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1's. Branded as Ozempic, Wegovy, or the pill version Rybelsus, these drugs continue to be hailed as modern miracles, loved by Oprah and other "influencers."
They are the darlings of Tech billionaires whose love affair with "innovative" cosmetic pharmacology has created some of the most costly and otherworldly disfigurements on the planet.
You gotta be careful talking about these drugs because almost everyone you know, and their cousin, has been experimenting with them. Slagging Ozempic these days has been likened to a modern form of fat-shaming which is a line even an unwoke person like myself would never cross.
Anyways, the drugs promise to shrink your waistline, rein in your appetite, and possibly extend your life. We hope. But now here's a new twist in the plot. According to a recent study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, people taking Wegovy may face a five-fold greater risk of a condition charmingly known as NAION for non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. The European Medicines Agency released a warning last year about this risk, known in plainer English as an "eye stroke."
Consider the optic nerve as the cable connecting your eyeball to the brain's projection room. Now imagine that cable suddenly losing blood flow. The lights flicker. The film stops. Curtains down.
Vision gone.
This is the pharmaceutical version of "Oops, didn't see that coming."
As usual in the world of drug safety warnings, this blindness risk is described as rare, which I hope you will allow me the indulgence to translate. It means: "Don't worry your pretty little head about going blind, just remember bathing suit season is coming."
Apparently it affects about one in 10,000 users. While that might seem 'small,' it is a similar order of magnitude as the risk of a middle-aged healthy man like me, dying from Covid in 2020; a magnitude of risk so small yet so wildly exaggerated, that it caused massive paroxysms of regulatory safetyism which essentially shut down our societies.
Here no individual looking at these data will even blink an eye at a 1 in 10,000 risk of going blind but when you multiply that by the millions of people on the GLP-1 bandwagon, that's thousands more blind people than before. The real risk could be higher, 10, possibly 100 times higher but we won't really know until the experiment runs its course.
On this file regulators are quick to reassure us that the "benefit-risk profile remains favorable," a cliché so bland it has pretty much lost its meaning among researchers like me who actually pay attention to these things. When the manufacturers face the bad news they turn up their noses like someone reacting to a fart in an elevator, and go back to emphasizing the positives: fewer heart attacks, better blood sugar control, great weight control. It's all rainbows and roses. Nothing to smell here. Sure hope they're right.
Still, there's something darkly comic about the situation. Millions of people are sprinting toward these injections hoping to see a thinner version of themselves in the mirror…while a small but real number might end up not seeing much of anything at all.
This irony practically writes itself.
The study suggests the higher dose used in Wegovy, compared with Ozempic, might be the culprit. Faster weight loss, stronger effect, higher risk. In other words, when it comes to these drugs, sprinting faster towards a more ideal weight may literally blind you.
The lesson I'd leave to consumers after having spent 30 years sifting through the un...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/you-cant-unsee-this/ Vanity can make people do stupid things. Want to look better in a bathing suit? Great goal, now with a small potential wrinkle: the treatment your doctor prescribes might be so good you won't see your fat anymore, because that treatment made you go blind.
This latest dispatch from the world of pharmaceutical safety comes from that drug class that is a gift that keeps on giving, the blockbuster weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1's. Branded as Ozempic, Wegovy, or the pill version Rybelsus, these drugs continue to be hailed as modern miracles, loved by Oprah and other "influencers."
They are the darlings of Tech billionaires whose love affair with "innovative" cosmetic pharmacology has created some of the most costly and otherworldly disfigurements on the planet.
You gotta be careful talking about these drugs because almost everyone you know, and their cousin, has been experimenting with them. Slagging Ozempic these days has been likened to a modern form of fat-shaming which is a line even an unwoke person like myself would never cross.
Anyways, the drugs promise to shrink your waistline, rein in your appetite, and possibly extend your life. We hope. But now here's a new twist in the plot. According to a recent study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, people taking Wegovy may face a five-fold greater risk of a condition charmingly known as NAION for non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. The European Medicines Agency released a warning last year about this risk, known in plainer English as an "eye stroke."
Consider the optic nerve as the cable connecting your eyeball to the brain's projection room. Now imagine that cable suddenly losing blood flow. The lights flicker. The film stops. Curtains down.
Vision gone.
This is the pharmaceutical version of "Oops, didn't see that coming."
As usual in the world of drug safety warnings, this blindness risk is described as rare, which I hope you will allow me the indulgence to translate. It means: "Don't worry your pretty little head about going blind, just remember bathing suit season is coming."
Apparently it affects about one in 10,000 users. While that might seem 'small,' it is a similar order of magnitude as the risk of a middle-aged healthy man like me, dying from Covid in 2020; a magnitude of risk so small yet so wildly exaggerated, that it caused massive paroxysms of regulatory safetyism which essentially shut down our societies.
Here no individual looking at these data will even blink an eye at a 1 in 10,000 risk of going blind but when you multiply that by the millions of people on the GLP-1 bandwagon, that's thousands more blind people than before. The real risk could be higher, 10, possibly 100 times higher but we won't really know until the experiment runs its course.
On this file regulators are quick to reassure us that the "benefit-risk profile remains favorable," a cliché so bland it has pretty much lost its meaning among researchers like me who actually pay attention to these things. When the manufacturers face the bad news they turn up their noses like someone reacting to a fart in an elevator, and go back to emphasizing the positives: fewer heart attacks, better blood sugar control, great weight control. It's all rainbows and roses. Nothing to smell here. Sure hope they're right.
Still, there's something darkly comic about the situation. Millions of people are sprinting toward these injections hoping to see a thinner version of themselves in the mirror…while a small but real number might end up not seeing much of anything at all.
This irony practically writes itself.
The study suggests the higher dose used in Wegovy, compared with Ozempic, might be the culprit. Faster weight loss, stronger effect, higher risk. In other words, when it comes to these drugs, sprinting faster towards a more ideal weight may literally blind you.
The lesson I'd leave to consumers after having spent 30 years sifting through the un...]]> Wed, 18 Mar 2026 07:49:50 -0400 You Can't Unsee This Vanity can make people do stupid things. Want to look better in a bathing suit? Great goal, now with a small potential wrinkle: the treatment your doctor prescribes might be so good you won't see your fat anymore,...]]> Vanity can make people do stupid things. Want to look better in a bathing suit? Great goal, now with a small potential wrinkle: the treatment your doctor prescribes might be so good you won't see your fat anymore, because that treatment made you go blind.
This latest dispatch from the world of pharmaceutical safety comes from that drug class that is a gift that keeps on giving, the blockbuster weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1's. Branded as Ozempic, Wegovy, or the pill version Rybelsus, these drugs continue to be hailed as modern miracles, loved by Oprah and other "influencers."
They are the darlings of Tech billionaires whose love affair with "innovative" cosmetic pharmacology has created some of the most costly and otherworldly disfigurements on the planet.
You gotta be careful talking about these drugs because almost everyone you know, and their cousin, has been experimenting with them. Slagging Ozempic these days has been likened to a modern form of fat-shaming which is a line even an unwoke person like myself would never cross.
Anyways, the drugs promise to shrink your waistline, rein in your appetite, and possibly extend your life. We hope. But now here's a new twist in the plot. According to a recent study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, people taking Wegovy may face a five-fold greater risk of a condition charmingly known as NAION for non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. The European Medicines Agency released a warning last year about this risk, known in plainer English as an "eye stroke."
Consider the optic nerve as the cable connecting your eyeball to the brain's projection room. Now imagine that cable suddenly losing blood flow. The lights flicker. The film stops. Curtains down.
Vision gone.
This is the pharmaceutical version of "Oops, didn't see that coming."
As usual in the world of drug safety warnings, this blindness risk is described as rare, which I hope you will allow me the indulgence to translate. It means: "Don't worry your pretty little head about going blind, just remember bathing suit season is coming."
Apparently it affects about one in 10,000 users. While that might seem 'small,' it is a similar order of magnitude as the risk of a middle-aged healthy man like me, dying from Covid in 2020; a magnitude of risk so small yet so wildly exaggerated, that it caused massive paroxysms of regulatory safetyism which essentially shut down our societies.
Here no individual looking at these data will even blink an eye at a 1 in 10,000 risk of going blind but when you multiply that by the millions of people on the GLP-1 bandwagon, that's thousands more blind people than before. The real risk could be higher, 10, possibly 100 times higher but we won't really know until the experiment runs its course.
On this file regulators are quick to reassure us that the "benefit-risk profile remains favorable," a cliché so bland it has pretty much lost its meaning among researchers like me who actually pay attention to these things. When the manufacturers face the bad news they turn up their noses like someone reacting to a fart in an elevator, and go back to emphasizing the positives: fewer heart attacks, better blood sugar control, great weight control. It's all rainbows and roses. Nothing to smell here. Sure hope they're right.
Still, there's something darkly comic about the situation. Millions of people are sprinting toward these injections hoping to see a thinner version of themselves in the mirror…while a small but real number might end up not seeing much of anything at all.
This irony practically writes itself.
The study suggests the higher dose used in Wegovy, compared with Ozempic, might be the culprit. Faster weight loss, stronger effect, higher risk. In other words, when it comes to these drugs, sprinting faster towards a more ideal weight may literally blind you.
The lesson I'd leave to consumers after having spent 30 years sifting through the un...]]> Alan Cassels 04:27 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 22 65516 Six years ago, on March 16, 2020, the world as I knew it slammed shut. In deep blue San Francisco, where I'd lived for three decades, panic hung in the air like fog rolling off the bay.
If you dared go outside, passersby on the sidewalk shrieked if you came within a few feet. If you went to the beach maskless with your 3-year-old – as I did – a woman might approach and spit at you that she wouldn't care when your children died because you were a murderer.
We lost our humanity as terror took hold.
Those braving the outdoors thought themselves brave warriors in a battle that would almost certainly take their lives. San Francisco – and arguably the world – became a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The only people outside were drug addicts in exploding tent cities and DoorDash food delivery workers.
Everything closed — schools, businesses, playgrounds. Officials promised it was just for two weeks to "flatten the curve." But I knew better. I'd been ranting about it on social media even before the lockdowns hit, warning that once the government seized such power, they wouldn't relinquish it easily. What followed was a nightmare of authoritarian overreach that upended my life and scarred an entire generation.
From day one, I resisted. As a mother of four and a senior executive at a major corporation where I'd worked for over 20 years, I couldn't stand by while children were treated as vectors of disease rather than human beings with rights. I simply didn't care about the cost to me personally for speaking up.
I pushed back online, building a following of like-minded dissenters who saw the madness unfolding. I attended virtual school board meetings that dragged on for nine hours, only to watch masked officials at home alone obsess over renaming schools – the names deemed "racist" – while ignoring the real crisis: the buildings themselves remained shuttered, trapping kids at home in isolation.
I appeared on local news as a "concerned public school mom" and led rallies for which the fliers were removed by Facebook as soon as they went up. In short, I pleaded then demanded that we reopen schools. For this, I paid dearly.
The consequences were swift and severe. Friends I'd known since college — 30 years of shared history — abandoned me, save for one. I remain estranged from some family members for five years now, all because I dared to say that even poor kids deserve an education.
My life became unrecognizable.
In the end, I fled San Francisco so my own children could attend school. In the Bay Area, private institutions reopened in the fall of 2020, their affluent students resuming sports and classes, while public schools stayed closed for a full year longer. And they remained disrupted – masking, distancing, periodic closures – for another year after that.
The most vulnerable children — those from low-income families, without resources for pods or tutors, often with very young children home alone to navigate online "school" — suffered the most. Learning loss mounted, developmental delays set in, and the emotional toll was catastrophic.
The message sent to these kids was that they don't matter, their education doesn't matter. And when school resumed in late 2021, chronic absenteeism skyrocketed and remains a serious problem to this day, 50% higher than pre-Covid levels.
I ended up resigning from my high-powered job in 2022.
That same day, I began work on a documentary to capture the human cost of these policies. I found a directing partner – Andrew James – who, like me, is driving the making of this film out of sheer belief and passion to tell this story so that it never happens again. Once an insider in the documentary world – an alumni of the Sundance Institute – Andrew also got himself ousted from polite society for his dissenting ways and we have made this film completely outside the system, with no access to the typical funding sources.
GENERATION COVID has been a labor of love, funded largely by ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-reckoning-we-owe-generation-covid/ Six years ago, on March 16, 2020, the world as I knew it slammed shut. In deep blue San Francisco, where I'd lived for three decades, panic hung in the air like fog rolling off the bay.
If you dared go outside, passersby on the sidewalk shrieked if you came within a few feet. If you went to the beach maskless with your 3-year-old – as I did – a woman might approach and spit at you that she wouldn't care when your children died because you were a murderer.
We lost our humanity as terror took hold.
Those braving the outdoors thought themselves brave warriors in a battle that would almost certainly take their lives. San Francisco – and arguably the world – became a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The only people outside were drug addicts in exploding tent cities and DoorDash food delivery workers.
Everything closed — schools, businesses, playgrounds. Officials promised it was just for two weeks to "flatten the curve." But I knew better. I'd been ranting about it on social media even before the lockdowns hit, warning that once the government seized such power, they wouldn't relinquish it easily. What followed was a nightmare of authoritarian overreach that upended my life and scarred an entire generation.
From day one, I resisted. As a mother of four and a senior executive at a major corporation where I'd worked for over 20 years, I couldn't stand by while children were treated as vectors of disease rather than human beings with rights. I simply didn't care about the cost to me personally for speaking up.
I pushed back online, building a following of like-minded dissenters who saw the madness unfolding. I attended virtual school board meetings that dragged on for nine hours, only to watch masked officials at home alone obsess over renaming schools – the names deemed "racist" – while ignoring the real crisis: the buildings themselves remained shuttered, trapping kids at home in isolation.
I appeared on local news as a "concerned public school mom" and led rallies for which the fliers were removed by Facebook as soon as they went up. In short, I pleaded then demanded that we reopen schools. For this, I paid dearly.
The consequences were swift and severe. Friends I'd known since college — 30 years of shared history — abandoned me, save for one. I remain estranged from some family members for five years now, all because I dared to say that even poor kids deserve an education.
My life became unrecognizable.
In the end, I fled San Francisco so my own children could attend school. In the Bay Area, private institutions reopened in the fall of 2020, their affluent students resuming sports and classes, while public schools stayed closed for a full year longer. And they remained disrupted – masking, distancing, periodic closures – for another year after that.
The most vulnerable children — those from low-income families, without resources for pods or tutors, often with very young children home alone to navigate online "school" — suffered the most. Learning loss mounted, developmental delays set in, and the emotional toll was catastrophic.
The message sent to these kids was that they don't matter, their education doesn't matter. And when school resumed in late 2021, chronic absenteeism skyrocketed and remains a serious problem to this day, 50% higher than pre-Covid levels.
I ended up resigning from my high-powered job in 2022.
That same day, I began work on a documentary to capture the human cost of these policies. I found a directing partner – Andrew James – who, like me, is driving the making of this film out of sheer belief and passion to tell this story so that it never happens again. Once an insider in the documentary world – an alumni of the Sundance Institute – Andrew also got himself ousted from polite society for his dissenting ways and we have made this film completely outside the system, with no access to the typical funding sources.
GENERATION COVID has been a labor of love, funded largely by ...]]> Tue, 17 Mar 2026 07:10:47 -0400 The Reckoning We Owe Generation Covid Six years ago, on March 16, 2020, the world as I knew it slammed shut. In deep blue San Francisco, where I'd lived for three decades, panic hung in the air like fog rolling off the bay.
If you dared go outside, pa...]]> Six years ago, on March 16, 2020, the world as I knew it slammed shut. In deep blue San Francisco, where I'd lived for three decades, panic hung in the air like fog rolling off the bay.
If you dared go outside, passersby on the sidewalk shrieked if you came within a few feet. If you went to the beach maskless with your 3-year-old – as I did – a woman might approach and spit at you that she wouldn't care when your children died because you were a murderer.
We lost our humanity as terror took hold.
Those braving the outdoors thought themselves brave warriors in a battle that would almost certainly take their lives. San Francisco – and arguably the world – became a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The only people outside were drug addicts in exploding tent cities and DoorDash food delivery workers.
Everything closed — schools, businesses, playgrounds. Officials promised it was just for two weeks to "flatten the curve." But I knew better. I'd been ranting about it on social media even before the lockdowns hit, warning that once the government seized such power, they wouldn't relinquish it easily. What followed was a nightmare of authoritarian overreach that upended my life and scarred an entire generation.
From day one, I resisted. As a mother of four and a senior executive at a major corporation where I'd worked for over 20 years, I couldn't stand by while children were treated as vectors of disease rather than human beings with rights. I simply didn't care about the cost to me personally for speaking up.
I pushed back online, building a following of like-minded dissenters who saw the madness unfolding. I attended virtual school board meetings that dragged on for nine hours, only to watch masked officials at home alone obsess over renaming schools – the names deemed "racist" – while ignoring the real crisis: the buildings themselves remained shuttered, trapping kids at home in isolation.
I appeared on local news as a "concerned public school mom" and led rallies for which the fliers were removed by Facebook as soon as they went up. In short, I pleaded then demanded that we reopen schools. For this, I paid dearly.
The consequences were swift and severe. Friends I'd known since college — 30 years of shared history — abandoned me, save for one. I remain estranged from some family members for five years now, all because I dared to say that even poor kids deserve an education.
My life became unrecognizable.
In the end, I fled San Francisco so my own children could attend school. In the Bay Area, private institutions reopened in the fall of 2020, their affluent students resuming sports and classes, while public schools stayed closed for a full year longer. And they remained disrupted – masking, distancing, periodic closures – for another year after that.
The most vulnerable children — those from low-income families, without resources for pods or tutors, often with very young children home alone to navigate online "school" — suffered the most. Learning loss mounted, developmental delays set in, and the emotional toll was catastrophic.
The message sent to these kids was that they don't matter, their education doesn't matter. And when school resumed in late 2021, chronic absenteeism skyrocketed and remains a serious problem to this day, 50% higher than pre-Covid levels.
I ended up resigning from my high-powered job in 2022.
That same day, I began work on a documentary to capture the human cost of these policies. I found a directing partner – Andrew James – who, like me, is driving the making of this film out of sheer belief and passion to tell this story so that it never happens again. Once an insider in the documentary world – an alumni of the Sundance Institute – Andrew also got himself ousted from polite society for his dissenting ways and we have made this film completely outside the system, with no access to the typical funding sources.
GENERATION COVID has been a labor of love, funded largely by ...]]> Jennifer Sey 07:29 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 21 65429 The New York Times recently ran an article about efforts to pass medical freedom legislation in states across the nation. The article mischaracterized not only what health freedom advocates like myself seek, but also portrayed medical freedom as unpopular with the electorate. The article, and the fake polls it cited, was one of the reasons that my organization, Health Freedom Defense Fund, and Brownstone Institute collaborated to commission our own poll – an honest, objective survey which revealed staggering supermajority support for medical freedom, informed consent, transparency, and accountability.
On February 15, the New York Times published an article that was filled with misrepresentations. The article portrays those asking for legislative changes to enshrine individual control over personal health choices as dangerous, and politically unsupported by the public. Unfortunately, the article relied on off-question polling, third-party insults (activists are "drunk with power"), and a stunning lack of context to drive these points home.
The model medical freedom legislation we are sharing applies to all mandates and coercive medical care for all people, not just vaccine mandates for children. It is stunning that the article does not mention Covid-19 excesses and abuses at all. Only five years ago, the American public was facing unprecedented employer mandates for workers, soldiers, teachers, and college students to either take the mRNA vaccine or be fired or expelled. This was on the heels of a year of mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, capricious school closures, and online censorship of dissenting opinion. How can the Times ignore this important context in terms of the public's skeptical relationship with both medical and non-pharmaceutical health mandates?
To support the claim that the public is not interested in having full control over our medical choices, the author refers to polling data throughout. In the poll cited as showing the political danger of making any changes to the current vaccine paradigm, the pollsters only asked Congressional swing district voters (not voters overall) about a hypothetical candidate "eliminating recommendations" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The poll did not ask about potential state-level changes that protect each individual's or guardian's full control over personal health decisions or that actual mandates do exist in many states. If it had, the results would surely have been different.
Furthermore, the article cites the same poll, in which most swing district voters think the benefits of vaccinating for certain diseases outweigh the risks (though in fact, half of the injections inquired about had less than half of respondents say benefits "definitely" outweigh the risks, a fact the Times omits). The salient question would simply be whether the public thinks a state government has the right to use coercion (threats of lost work, schooling, etc.) to push a pharmaceutical product or medical procedure on anyone, adult or child.
As for the 9% deficit in support for vaccine policy cited in the article from a Jan 19th Wall Street Journal poll, that is a similar deficit that the incumbent party has on healthcare, inflation, tariffs, and the economy overall. More importantly, the Times ignores far more rigorous survey data on the question at hand and the marked deficit of trust in vaccine mandates following the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.
By the end of the Covid-19 debacle, less than 40% of parents and soon-to-be-parents in polling planned to follow the required vaccination schedule and recommended seasonal shots. The rest were either planning to delay, refuse some, or all of the shots, or were undecided. This is a clear signal that mandates were headed for public opposition.
In terms of due diligence, this article also quotes an activist who has publicly stated ties with pharmaceutical companies, a fact that should have bee...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-deceptions-of-the-press-and-the-why-of-the-poll/ The New York Times recently ran an article about efforts to pass medical freedom legislation in states across the nation. The article mischaracterized not only what health freedom advocates like myself seek, but also portrayed medical freedom as unpopular with the electorate. The article, and the fake polls it cited, was one of the reasons that my organization, Health Freedom Defense Fund, and Brownstone Institute collaborated to commission our own poll – an honest, objective survey which revealed staggering supermajority support for medical freedom, informed consent, transparency, and accountability.
On February 15, the New York Times published an article that was filled with misrepresentations. The article portrays those asking for legislative changes to enshrine individual control over personal health choices as dangerous, and politically unsupported by the public. Unfortunately, the article relied on off-question polling, third-party insults (activists are "drunk with power"), and a stunning lack of context to drive these points home.
The model medical freedom legislation we are sharing applies to all mandates and coercive medical care for all people, not just vaccine mandates for children. It is stunning that the article does not mention Covid-19 excesses and abuses at all. Only five years ago, the American public was facing unprecedented employer mandates for workers, soldiers, teachers, and college students to either take the mRNA vaccine or be fired or expelled. This was on the heels of a year of mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, capricious school closures, and online censorship of dissenting opinion. How can the Times ignore this important context in terms of the public's skeptical relationship with both medical and non-pharmaceutical health mandates?
To support the claim that the public is not interested in having full control over our medical choices, the author refers to polling data throughout. In the poll cited as showing the political danger of making any changes to the current vaccine paradigm, the pollsters only asked Congressional swing district voters (not voters overall) about a hypothetical candidate "eliminating recommendations" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The poll did not ask about potential state-level changes that protect each individual's or guardian's full control over personal health decisions or that actual mandates do exist in many states. If it had, the results would surely have been different.
Furthermore, the article cites the same poll, in which most swing district voters think the benefits of vaccinating for certain diseases outweigh the risks (though in fact, half of the injections inquired about had less than half of respondents say benefits "definitely" outweigh the risks, a fact the Times omits). The salient question would simply be whether the public thinks a state government has the right to use coercion (threats of lost work, schooling, etc.) to push a pharmaceutical product or medical procedure on anyone, adult or child.
As for the 9% deficit in support for vaccine policy cited in the article from a Jan 19th Wall Street Journal poll, that is a similar deficit that the incumbent party has on healthcare, inflation, tariffs, and the economy overall. More importantly, the Times ignores far more rigorous survey data on the question at hand and the marked deficit of trust in vaccine mandates following the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.
By the end of the Covid-19 debacle, less than 40% of parents and soon-to-be-parents in polling planned to follow the required vaccination schedule and recommended seasonal shots. The rest were either planning to delay, refuse some, or all of the shots, or were undecided. This is a clear signal that mandates were headed for public opposition.
In terms of due diligence, this article also quotes an activist who has publicly stated ties with pharmaceutical companies, a fact that should have bee...]]> Mon, 16 Mar 2026 07:45:00 -0400 The Deceptions of the Press and the Why of the Poll The New York Times recently ran an article about efforts to pass medical freedom legislation in states across the nation. The article mischaracterized not only what health freedom advocates like myself seek, b...]]> The New York Times recently ran an article about efforts to pass medical freedom legislation in states across the nation. The article mischaracterized not only what health freedom advocates like myself seek, but also portrayed medical freedom as unpopular with the electorate. The article, and the fake polls it cited, was one of the reasons that my organization, Health Freedom Defense Fund, and Brownstone Institute collaborated to commission our own poll – an honest, objective survey which revealed staggering supermajority support for medical freedom, informed consent, transparency, and accountability.
On February 15, the New York Times published an article that was filled with misrepresentations. The article portrays those asking for legislative changes to enshrine individual control over personal health choices as dangerous, and politically unsupported by the public. Unfortunately, the article relied on off-question polling, third-party insults (activists are "drunk with power"), and a stunning lack of context to drive these points home.
The model medical freedom legislation we are sharing applies to all mandates and coercive medical care for all people, not just vaccine mandates for children. It is stunning that the article does not mention Covid-19 excesses and abuses at all. Only five years ago, the American public was facing unprecedented employer mandates for workers, soldiers, teachers, and college students to either take the mRNA vaccine or be fired or expelled. This was on the heels of a year of mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, capricious school closures, and online censorship of dissenting opinion. How can the Times ignore this important context in terms of the public's skeptical relationship with both medical and non-pharmaceutical health mandates?
To support the claim that the public is not interested in having full control over our medical choices, the author refers to polling data throughout. In the poll cited as showing the political danger of making any changes to the current vaccine paradigm, the pollsters only asked Congressional swing district voters (not voters overall) about a hypothetical candidate "eliminating recommendations" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The poll did not ask about potential state-level changes that protect each individual's or guardian's full control over personal health decisions or that actual mandates do exist in many states. If it had, the results would surely have been different.
Furthermore, the article cites the same poll, in which most swing district voters think the benefits of vaccinating for certain diseases outweigh the risks (though in fact, half of the injections inquired about had less than half of respondents say benefits "definitely" outweigh the risks, a fact the Times omits). The salient question would simply be whether the public thinks a state government has the right to use coercion (threats of lost work, schooling, etc.) to push a pharmaceutical product or medical procedure on anyone, adult or child.
As for the 9% deficit in support for vaccine policy cited in the article from a Jan 19th Wall Street Journal poll, that is a similar deficit that the incumbent party has on healthcare, inflation, tariffs, and the economy overall. More importantly, the Times ignores far more rigorous survey data on the question at hand and the marked deficit of trust in vaccine mandates following the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.
By the end of the Covid-19 debacle, less than 40% of parents and soon-to-be-parents in polling planned to follow the required vaccination schedule and recommended seasonal shots. The rest were either planning to delay, refuse some, or all of the shots, or were undecided. This is a clear signal that mandates were headed for public opposition.
In terms of due diligence, this article also quotes an activist who has publicly stated ties with pharmaceutical companies, a fact that should have bee...]]> Leslie Manookian 05:36 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 20 65556 For the first time since the pandemic began, a federal vaccine advisory body in the United States has acknowledged a major blind spot in the country's vaccine safety system.
A leaked report prepared for the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) finds that many people with long-term illness after Covid-19 vaccination have gone largely unrecognised by the medical system meant to monitor vaccine safety.
The document was written by the Covid-19 vaccine workgroup advising ACIP, chaired by MIT professor Retsef Levi.
The workgroup writes that reforms are "fundamental and necessary to regain public trust in vaccination programs that have moral and bioethical obligations for solidarity, justice and equity."
The document, obtained exclusively by MD Reports, arrives amid political sensitivities surrounding the issue. ACIP's scheduled February meeting was abruptly cancelled without a public explanation.
A senior CDC researcher familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested the report may have been politically delicate.
"Obviously there were some politics involved when the February ACIP meeting was postponed," the researcher told MD Reports. "But I think the workgroup itself generally supported the document."
The researcher added that they "wholeheartedly support" the policy document, noting that it is "long overdue to acknowledge and treat the vaccine-injured."
The report has not yet been publicly released and is expected to be discussed at ACIP's upcoming meeting on March 18–19. Levi declined to comment.
The system's blind spot
The report focuses on what it calls Post-Acute Covid-19 Vaccination Syndrome, or PACVS.
The term refers to symptoms that persist for at least 12 weeks after vaccination and cannot be explained by another medical condition.
Patients with PACVS often present with complex, multi-system illness. Symptoms may involve the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic nervous system.
The clinical picture varies widely. Some people develop severe fatigue, cognitive impairment, neuropathy, or dysautonomia.
Others experience chest pain, immune disturbances, or endocrine problems. Symptoms often fluctuate and evolve over time, making early diagnosis difficult.
Clinical features frequently overlap with long Covid — including fatigue, cognitive impairment, dysautonomia, neuropathy, chest pain, and immune disturbances.
Yet many patients fall into a diagnostic no-man's-land, particularly in the early stages of illness.
Some eventually meet criteria for recognised conditions such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), small fibre neuropathy, or ME/CFS.
But even then, the path to recognition can take years.
The workgroup argues that these difficulties do not necessarily reflect the absence of disease. Instead, they reflect the limits of the systems used to detect and classify illness.
The surveillance gap
A major problem identified in the report is the limitations of existing surveillance systems.
The United States has multiple systems designed to detect vaccine injuries, but most were built to capture acute reactions — events that occur within days or weeks of vaccination.
Persistent, evolving illness does not fit easily into those frameworks.
In practice, vaccine injuries are mainly tracked through broad diagnostic codes and passive reporting systems such as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
These systems depend heavily on clinicians recognising a problem and reporting it.
But when symptoms develop gradually, involve multiple organs, or resemble other conditions, they are far harder to classify.
The report notes that there is currently no specific diagnostic code for chronic post-vaccination illness. There are also no standard diagnostic guidelines and no coordinated system for long-term follow-up.
The result is a fragmented landscape.
Doctors struggle to d...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/leaked-report-to-federal-advisers-calls-for-urgent-recognition-of-covid-vaccine-injuries/ For the first time since the pandemic began, a federal vaccine advisory body in the United States has acknowledged a major blind spot in the country's vaccine safety system.
A leaked report prepared for the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) finds that many people with long-term illness after Covid-19 vaccination have gone largely unrecognised by the medical system meant to monitor vaccine safety.
The document was written by the Covid-19 vaccine workgroup advising ACIP, chaired by MIT professor Retsef Levi.
The workgroup writes that reforms are "fundamental and necessary to regain public trust in vaccination programs that have moral and bioethical obligations for solidarity, justice and equity."
The document, obtained exclusively by MD Reports, arrives amid political sensitivities surrounding the issue. ACIP's scheduled February meeting was abruptly cancelled without a public explanation.
A senior CDC researcher familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested the report may have been politically delicate.
"Obviously there were some politics involved when the February ACIP meeting was postponed," the researcher told MD Reports. "But I think the workgroup itself generally supported the document."
The researcher added that they "wholeheartedly support" the policy document, noting that it is "long overdue to acknowledge and treat the vaccine-injured."
The report has not yet been publicly released and is expected to be discussed at ACIP's upcoming meeting on March 18–19. Levi declined to comment.
The system's blind spot
The report focuses on what it calls Post-Acute Covid-19 Vaccination Syndrome, or PACVS.
The term refers to symptoms that persist for at least 12 weeks after vaccination and cannot be explained by another medical condition.
Patients with PACVS often present with complex, multi-system illness. Symptoms may involve the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic nervous system.
The clinical picture varies widely. Some people develop severe fatigue, cognitive impairment, neuropathy, or dysautonomia.
Others experience chest pain, immune disturbances, or endocrine problems. Symptoms often fluctuate and evolve over time, making early diagnosis difficult.
Clinical features frequently overlap with long Covid — including fatigue, cognitive impairment, dysautonomia, neuropathy, chest pain, and immune disturbances.
Yet many patients fall into a diagnostic no-man's-land, particularly in the early stages of illness.
Some eventually meet criteria for recognised conditions such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), small fibre neuropathy, or ME/CFS.
But even then, the path to recognition can take years.
The workgroup argues that these difficulties do not necessarily reflect the absence of disease. Instead, they reflect the limits of the systems used to detect and classify illness.
The surveillance gap
A major problem identified in the report is the limitations of existing surveillance systems.
The United States has multiple systems designed to detect vaccine injuries, but most were built to capture acute reactions — events that occur within days or weeks of vaccination.
Persistent, evolving illness does not fit easily into those frameworks.
In practice, vaccine injuries are mainly tracked through broad diagnostic codes and passive reporting systems such as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
These systems depend heavily on clinicians recognising a problem and reporting it.
But when symptoms develop gradually, involve multiple organs, or resemble other conditions, they are far harder to classify.
The report notes that there is currently no specific diagnostic code for chronic post-vaccination illness. There are also no standard diagnostic guidelines and no coordinated system for long-term follow-up.
The result is a fragmented landscape.
Doctors struggle to d...]]> Sun, 15 Mar 2026 08:20:00 -0400 Leaked Report to Federal Advisers Calls for Urgent Recognition of Covid Vaccine Injuries For the first time since the pandemic began, a federal vaccine advisory body in the United States has acknowledged a major blind spot in the country's vaccine safety system.
A leaked report prepared for the Adv...]]> For the first time since the pandemic began, a federal vaccine advisory body in the United States has acknowledged a major blind spot in the country's vaccine safety system.
A leaked report prepared for the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) finds that many people with long-term illness after Covid-19 vaccination have gone largely unrecognised by the medical system meant to monitor vaccine safety.
The document was written by the Covid-19 vaccine workgroup advising ACIP, chaired by MIT professor Retsef Levi.
The workgroup writes that reforms are "fundamental and necessary to regain public trust in vaccination programs that have moral and bioethical obligations for solidarity, justice and equity."
The document, obtained exclusively by MD Reports, arrives amid political sensitivities surrounding the issue. ACIP's scheduled February meeting was abruptly cancelled without a public explanation.
A senior CDC researcher familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested the report may have been politically delicate.
"Obviously there were some politics involved when the February ACIP meeting was postponed," the researcher told MD Reports. "But I think the workgroup itself generally supported the document."
The researcher added that they "wholeheartedly support" the policy document, noting that it is "long overdue to acknowledge and treat the vaccine-injured."
The report has not yet been publicly released and is expected to be discussed at ACIP's upcoming meeting on March 18–19. Levi declined to comment.
The system's blind spot
The report focuses on what it calls Post-Acute Covid-19 Vaccination Syndrome, or PACVS.
The term refers to symptoms that persist for at least 12 weeks after vaccination and cannot be explained by another medical condition.
Patients with PACVS often present with complex, multi-system illness. Symptoms may involve the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic nervous system.
The clinical picture varies widely. Some people develop severe fatigue, cognitive impairment, neuropathy, or dysautonomia.
Others experience chest pain, immune disturbances, or endocrine problems. Symptoms often fluctuate and evolve over time, making early diagnosis difficult.
Clinical features frequently overlap with long Covid — including fatigue, cognitive impairment, dysautonomia, neuropathy, chest pain, and immune disturbances.
Yet many patients fall into a diagnostic no-man's-land, particularly in the early stages of illness.
Some eventually meet criteria for recognised conditions such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), small fibre neuropathy, or ME/CFS.
But even then, the path to recognition can take years.
The workgroup argues that these difficulties do not necessarily reflect the absence of disease. Instead, they reflect the limits of the systems used to detect and classify illness.
The surveillance gap
A major problem identified in the report is the limitations of existing surveillance systems.
The United States has multiple systems designed to detect vaccine injuries, but most were built to capture acute reactions — events that occur within days or weeks of vaccination.
Persistent, evolving illness does not fit easily into those frameworks.
In practice, vaccine injuries are mainly tracked through broad diagnostic codes and passive reporting systems such as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
These systems depend heavily on clinicians recognising a problem and reporting it.
But when symptoms develop gradually, involve multiple organs, or resemble other conditions, they are far harder to classify.
The report notes that there is currently no specific diagnostic code for chronic post-vaccination illness. There are also no standard diagnostic guidelines and no coordinated system for long-term follow-up.
The result is a fragmented landscape.
Doctors struggle to d...]]> Maryanne Demasi 07:50 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 19 65426 The sound I remember most from the early days of Covid-19 is not the alarms. It was the silence between them. Intensive care units became Covid wards. Monitors glowed in dark rooms while ventilators pushed air into failing lungs. Nurses, shrouded in protective gear, moved quietly. Families were absent—barred from being with loved ones in their final hours.
One night at 3 am, I stood by a patient whose oxygen levels were steadily falling. Outside the room, another patient crashed. Down the hall, a third awaited intubation. For months, this was every night. For 715 consecutive days, I worked in that environment without taking a single day off. In moments like that, medicine becomes very simple. There are no politics in an ICU at 3 am. There is only a physician and a patient, and the responsibility to do everything possible to keep that patient alive.
That philosophy has guided physicians for generations. It is the foundation of clinical medicine: when a patient is dying, you explore every reasonable option that might help.
Yet during Covid, something extraordinary happened. What made the shift so jarring was not simply the presence of disagreement. Physicians have always disagreed. In fact, disagreement is the normal language of medicine. Grand rounds exist for that reason. Journal clubs exist for that reason. The entire structure of scientific publication—from peer review to replication—exists because medicine advances through argument, not obedience. During the pandemic, however, the culture of medicine changed almost overnight. Instead of asking whether a treatment might work, institutions began asking whether discussing that treatment might create the wrong public message. The priority quietly shifted from discovery to control.
Scientific debate faded. Physicians who questioned policies or explored treatments were treated as threats rather than colleagues. Instead of debate, there was enforcement.
Hospitals warned physicians to stay quiet. Medical boards hinted at disciplinary action. Social media platforms censored discussion of therapies that doctors around the world were actively studying. Media outlets portrayed dissenting physicians as reckless or dangerous. What had once been normal scientific discourse was suddenly labeled misinformation.
To physicians trained in earlier decades, this shift was deeply unsettling. Medicine has always lived with uncertainty. Treatments begin as hypotheses and evolve through observation and debate. During the AIDS crisis, clinicians tried multiple strategies before effective therapies emerged. The same was true for sepsis, trauma care, and organ transplantation. No one expected immediate unanimity. Yet during Covid, uncertainty itself became suspect. If a physician acknowledged that evidence was incomplete—or that clinical experience suggested alternative approaches—those statements were sometimes interpreted as challenges to authority rather than contributions to knowledge.
For those of us working inside the ICU, the shift was startling. Medicine had always thrived on disagreement. Physicians argued over treatment strategies, debated emerging evidence, and learned from one another's experiences. The process was messy, sometimes loud, and occasionally uncomfortable—but it was also the engine of medical progress. During Covid, that process was replaced by something else entirely: the expectation of unanimity. I experienced this transformation firsthand.
During the pandemic, I spoke publicly about what I was seeing inside the ICU—what treatments appeared to help, what policies seemed ineffective, and why physicians needed the freedom to treat patients according to their clinical judgment.
Those comments triggered a reaction that made clear how medical freedom—a core value of our profession—had come under threat. Professional attacks followed, and colleagues were pressured to distance themselves. Invitations disappeared. Media narratives were constr...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/what-covid-policy-did-to-doctors-who-refused-to-stay-silent/ The sound I remember most from the early days of Covid-19 is not the alarms. It was the silence between them. Intensive care units became Covid wards. Monitors glowed in dark rooms while ventilators pushed air into failing lungs. Nurses, shrouded in protective gear, moved quietly. Families were absent—barred from being with loved ones in their final hours.
One night at 3 am, I stood by a patient whose oxygen levels were steadily falling. Outside the room, another patient crashed. Down the hall, a third awaited intubation. For months, this was every night. For 715 consecutive days, I worked in that environment without taking a single day off. In moments like that, medicine becomes very simple. There are no politics in an ICU at 3 am. There is only a physician and a patient, and the responsibility to do everything possible to keep that patient alive.
That philosophy has guided physicians for generations. It is the foundation of clinical medicine: when a patient is dying, you explore every reasonable option that might help.
Yet during Covid, something extraordinary happened. What made the shift so jarring was not simply the presence of disagreement. Physicians have always disagreed. In fact, disagreement is the normal language of medicine. Grand rounds exist for that reason. Journal clubs exist for that reason. The entire structure of scientific publication—from peer review to replication—exists because medicine advances through argument, not obedience. During the pandemic, however, the culture of medicine changed almost overnight. Instead of asking whether a treatment might work, institutions began asking whether discussing that treatment might create the wrong public message. The priority quietly shifted from discovery to control.
Scientific debate faded. Physicians who questioned policies or explored treatments were treated as threats rather than colleagues. Instead of debate, there was enforcement.
Hospitals warned physicians to stay quiet. Medical boards hinted at disciplinary action. Social media platforms censored discussion of therapies that doctors around the world were actively studying. Media outlets portrayed dissenting physicians as reckless or dangerous. What had once been normal scientific discourse was suddenly labeled misinformation.
To physicians trained in earlier decades, this shift was deeply unsettling. Medicine has always lived with uncertainty. Treatments begin as hypotheses and evolve through observation and debate. During the AIDS crisis, clinicians tried multiple strategies before effective therapies emerged. The same was true for sepsis, trauma care, and organ transplantation. No one expected immediate unanimity. Yet during Covid, uncertainty itself became suspect. If a physician acknowledged that evidence was incomplete—or that clinical experience suggested alternative approaches—those statements were sometimes interpreted as challenges to authority rather than contributions to knowledge.
For those of us working inside the ICU, the shift was startling. Medicine had always thrived on disagreement. Physicians argued over treatment strategies, debated emerging evidence, and learned from one another's experiences. The process was messy, sometimes loud, and occasionally uncomfortable—but it was also the engine of medical progress. During Covid, that process was replaced by something else entirely: the expectation of unanimity. I experienced this transformation firsthand.
During the pandemic, I spoke publicly about what I was seeing inside the ICU—what treatments appeared to help, what policies seemed ineffective, and why physicians needed the freedom to treat patients according to their clinical judgment.
Those comments triggered a reaction that made clear how medical freedom—a core value of our profession—had come under threat. Professional attacks followed, and colleagues were pressured to distance themselves. Invitations disappeared. Media narratives were constr...]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 08:30:00 -0400 What Covid Policy Did to Doctors Who Refused to Stay Silent The sound I remember most from the early days of Covid-19 is not the alarms. It was the silence between them. Intensive care units became Covid wards. Monitors glowed in dark rooms while ventilators pushed air int...]]> The sound I remember most from the early days of Covid-19 is not the alarms. It was the silence between them. Intensive care units became Covid wards. Monitors glowed in dark rooms while ventilators pushed air into failing lungs. Nurses, shrouded in protective gear, moved quietly. Families were absent—barred from being with loved ones in their final hours.
One night at 3 am, I stood by a patient whose oxygen levels were steadily falling. Outside the room, another patient crashed. Down the hall, a third awaited intubation. For months, this was every night. For 715 consecutive days, I worked in that environment without taking a single day off. In moments like that, medicine becomes very simple. There are no politics in an ICU at 3 am. There is only a physician and a patient, and the responsibility to do everything possible to keep that patient alive.
That philosophy has guided physicians for generations. It is the foundation of clinical medicine: when a patient is dying, you explore every reasonable option that might help.
Yet during Covid, something extraordinary happened. What made the shift so jarring was not simply the presence of disagreement. Physicians have always disagreed. In fact, disagreement is the normal language of medicine. Grand rounds exist for that reason. Journal clubs exist for that reason. The entire structure of scientific publication—from peer review to replication—exists because medicine advances through argument, not obedience. During the pandemic, however, the culture of medicine changed almost overnight. Instead of asking whether a treatment might work, institutions began asking whether discussing that treatment might create the wrong public message. The priority quietly shifted from discovery to control.
Scientific debate faded. Physicians who questioned policies or explored treatments were treated as threats rather than colleagues. Instead of debate, there was enforcement.
Hospitals warned physicians to stay quiet. Medical boards hinted at disciplinary action. Social media platforms censored discussion of therapies that doctors around the world were actively studying. Media outlets portrayed dissenting physicians as reckless or dangerous. What had once been normal scientific discourse was suddenly labeled misinformation.
To physicians trained in earlier decades, this shift was deeply unsettling. Medicine has always lived with uncertainty. Treatments begin as hypotheses and evolve through observation and debate. During the AIDS crisis, clinicians tried multiple strategies before effective therapies emerged. The same was true for sepsis, trauma care, and organ transplantation. No one expected immediate unanimity. Yet during Covid, uncertainty itself became suspect. If a physician acknowledged that evidence was incomplete—or that clinical experience suggested alternative approaches—those statements were sometimes interpreted as challenges to authority rather than contributions to knowledge.
For those of us working inside the ICU, the shift was startling. Medicine had always thrived on disagreement. Physicians argued over treatment strategies, debated emerging evidence, and learned from one another's experiences. The process was messy, sometimes loud, and occasionally uncomfortable—but it was also the engine of medical progress. During Covid, that process was replaced by something else entirely: the expectation of unanimity. I experienced this transformation firsthand.
During the pandemic, I spoke publicly about what I was seeing inside the ICU—what treatments appeared to help, what policies seemed ineffective, and why physicians needed the freedom to treat patients according to their clinical judgment.
Those comments triggered a reaction that made clear how medical freedom—a core value of our profession—had come under threat. Professional attacks followed, and colleagues were pressured to distance themselves. Invitations disappeared. Media narratives were constr...]]> Joseph Varon 10:37 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 18 65419 In recent weeks, a major pipeline erupted in Maryland spilling over 243 million gallons of sewage into the Potomac River that flows along the southern border of Washington, D.C. You couldn't have missed this news because it was reported everywhere: NPR, NBC, the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.
Even the British Guardian ran several stories, reporting that the sewage spill caused a rift between Maryland's Governor and President Trump over who bears blame.
A disaster declaration was approved.
But each year, as our primary means of sewage disposal, millions of tons of toxic sewage sludge, labeled as "biosolids," are spread as agricultural fertilizer across our nation's farmland, where rural Americans call home. I know this because my family lived it, and it made us very sick. We had to leave our home to save our health.
The unthinkable illnesses my family suffered motivated me to seek independent facts. After all, we had authorities at every level telling us that this practice was safe, but our experience told us otherwise.
What we uncovered in our testing and research—including the statistically significant increased relative risk of disease in a community where sludge is used on farmland—left us no option but to take action.
I founded the nonprofit Mission503, to not only raise awareness of this practice, but to end it, and lead the way to real solutions.
As Americans are aligning on concerns regarding toxic chemical exposure, including PFAS from sludge practices, it's timely to share some of our key findings. But first, let's level set on three quick things about our nation's sewage disposal practices.
Number one. Sewage sludge is the solid material that remains after liquid is separated from wastewater that enters the nation's sewer plants. It's typically the consistency of thick brownie batter. While the facilities are designed to treat and discharge the liquid effluent into our natural waters, like rivers, streams, and lakes, the cleaner the liquid, the more concentrated the toxins and pathogens are in the solids. Although sludge is considered "treated" and is often digested to reduce its volume, the more than 17,000 sewer plants in the US are neither engineered for, nor mechanically capable of, safely disposing or destroying sewage solids.
Number two. Consider what flows into city sewers—then imagine it concentrated. Sludge isn't just flushed toilets (though human waste is chemically and biologically hazardous); it is the condensed residual of everything entering the sewer system: industrial and manufacturing discharge, institutional and medical waste, mortuary and slaughter operation drains, residential waste, street drains, fuels, narcotics, poisons, parasites and pathogens, microplastics, toxic chemicals—including PFAS "forever chemicals"—and so much more.
Number three. Yes, we have a US federal rule, 40 CFR Part 503, that promotes using municipal sewage sludge as fertilizer on agricultural land—where food is grown, beef and dairy cattle graze, among rural communities across the nation. For sludge to qualify for land application (the term for spreading sludge on farmland), the rule regulates only nine metals and a fecal indicator. All other pollutants are ignored. Even mercury, lead, and arsenic are allowed at certain levels, meaning these toxic metals can legally be present in sludge.
We've utilized this practice for decades and have successfully kept it off the American people's radar. Sludge is rebranded as "biosolids," promoted as "beneficial reuse," and misleadingly described as "organic," while farmers are not informed of its contents. Medical practitioners and researchers are largely unaware of it as well, complicating diagnosis and treatment for families who suffer illness from it. That, alone, is a topic for another day.
Proponents of the rule—those whose budgets generally benefit from it and are contractually bound to deploy it—often refer to sludge practices a...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-sludging-of-rural-america/ In recent weeks, a major pipeline erupted in Maryland spilling over 243 million gallons of sewage into the Potomac River that flows along the southern border of Washington, D.C. You couldn't have missed this news because it was reported everywhere: NPR, NBC, the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.
Even the British Guardian ran several stories, reporting that the sewage spill caused a rift between Maryland's Governor and President Trump over who bears blame.
A disaster declaration was approved.
But each year, as our primary means of sewage disposal, millions of tons of toxic sewage sludge, labeled as "biosolids," are spread as agricultural fertilizer across our nation's farmland, where rural Americans call home. I know this because my family lived it, and it made us very sick. We had to leave our home to save our health.
The unthinkable illnesses my family suffered motivated me to seek independent facts. After all, we had authorities at every level telling us that this practice was safe, but our experience told us otherwise.
What we uncovered in our testing and research—including the statistically significant increased relative risk of disease in a community where sludge is used on farmland—left us no option but to take action.
I founded the nonprofit Mission503, to not only raise awareness of this practice, but to end it, and lead the way to real solutions.
As Americans are aligning on concerns regarding toxic chemical exposure, including PFAS from sludge practices, it's timely to share some of our key findings. But first, let's level set on three quick things about our nation's sewage disposal practices.
Number one. Sewage sludge is the solid material that remains after liquid is separated from wastewater that enters the nation's sewer plants. It's typically the consistency of thick brownie batter. While the facilities are designed to treat and discharge the liquid effluent into our natural waters, like rivers, streams, and lakes, the cleaner the liquid, the more concentrated the toxins and pathogens are in the solids. Although sludge is considered "treated" and is often digested to reduce its volume, the more than 17,000 sewer plants in the US are neither engineered for, nor mechanically capable of, safely disposing or destroying sewage solids.
Number two. Consider what flows into city sewers—then imagine it concentrated. Sludge isn't just flushed toilets (though human waste is chemically and biologically hazardous); it is the condensed residual of everything entering the sewer system: industrial and manufacturing discharge, institutional and medical waste, mortuary and slaughter operation drains, residential waste, street drains, fuels, narcotics, poisons, parasites and pathogens, microplastics, toxic chemicals—including PFAS "forever chemicals"—and so much more.
Number three. Yes, we have a US federal rule, 40 CFR Part 503, that promotes using municipal sewage sludge as fertilizer on agricultural land—where food is grown, beef and dairy cattle graze, among rural communities across the nation. For sludge to qualify for land application (the term for spreading sludge on farmland), the rule regulates only nine metals and a fecal indicator. All other pollutants are ignored. Even mercury, lead, and arsenic are allowed at certain levels, meaning these toxic metals can legally be present in sludge.
We've utilized this practice for decades and have successfully kept it off the American people's radar. Sludge is rebranded as "biosolids," promoted as "beneficial reuse," and misleadingly described as "organic," while farmers are not informed of its contents. Medical practitioners and researchers are largely unaware of it as well, complicating diagnosis and treatment for families who suffer illness from it. That, alone, is a topic for another day.
Proponents of the rule—those whose budgets generally benefit from it and are contractually bound to deploy it—often refer to sludge practices a...]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 07:56:23 -0400 The Sludging of Rural America In recent weeks, a major pipeline erupted in Maryland spilling over 243 million gallons of sewage into the Potomac River that flows along the southern border of Washington, D.C. You couldn't have missed this news ...]]> In recent weeks, a major pipeline erupted in Maryland spilling over 243 million gallons of sewage into the Potomac River that flows along the southern border of Washington, D.C. You couldn't have missed this news because it was reported everywhere: NPR, NBC, the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.
Even the British Guardian ran several stories, reporting that the sewage spill caused a rift between Maryland's Governor and President Trump over who bears blame.
A disaster declaration was approved.
But each year, as our primary means of sewage disposal, millions of tons of toxic sewage sludge, labeled as "biosolids," are spread as agricultural fertilizer across our nation's farmland, where rural Americans call home. I know this because my family lived it, and it made us very sick. We had to leave our home to save our health.
The unthinkable illnesses my family suffered motivated me to seek independent facts. After all, we had authorities at every level telling us that this practice was safe, but our experience told us otherwise.
What we uncovered in our testing and research—including the statistically significant increased relative risk of disease in a community where sludge is used on farmland—left us no option but to take action.
I founded the nonprofit Mission503, to not only raise awareness of this practice, but to end it, and lead the way to real solutions.
As Americans are aligning on concerns regarding toxic chemical exposure, including PFAS from sludge practices, it's timely to share some of our key findings. But first, let's level set on three quick things about our nation's sewage disposal practices.
Number one. Sewage sludge is the solid material that remains after liquid is separated from wastewater that enters the nation's sewer plants. It's typically the consistency of thick brownie batter. While the facilities are designed to treat and discharge the liquid effluent into our natural waters, like rivers, streams, and lakes, the cleaner the liquid, the more concentrated the toxins and pathogens are in the solids. Although sludge is considered "treated" and is often digested to reduce its volume, the more than 17,000 sewer plants in the US are neither engineered for, nor mechanically capable of, safely disposing or destroying sewage solids.
Number two. Consider what flows into city sewers—then imagine it concentrated. Sludge isn't just flushed toilets (though human waste is chemically and biologically hazardous); it is the condensed residual of everything entering the sewer system: industrial and manufacturing discharge, institutional and medical waste, mortuary and slaughter operation drains, residential waste, street drains, fuels, narcotics, poisons, parasites and pathogens, microplastics, toxic chemicals—including PFAS "forever chemicals"—and so much more.
Number three. Yes, we have a US federal rule, 40 CFR Part 503, that promotes using municipal sewage sludge as fertilizer on agricultural land—where food is grown, beef and dairy cattle graze, among rural communities across the nation. For sludge to qualify for land application (the term for spreading sludge on farmland), the rule regulates only nine metals and a fecal indicator. All other pollutants are ignored. Even mercury, lead, and arsenic are allowed at certain levels, meaning these toxic metals can legally be present in sludge.
We've utilized this practice for decades and have successfully kept it off the American people's radar. Sludge is rebranded as "biosolids," promoted as "beneficial reuse," and misleadingly described as "organic," while farmers are not informed of its contents. Medical practitioners and researchers are largely unaware of it as well, complicating diagnosis and treatment for families who suffer illness from it. That, alone, is a topic for another day.
Proponents of the rule—those whose budgets generally benefit from it and are contractually bound to deploy it—often refer to sludge practices a...]]> Paula Yockel 12:46 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 17 65423 Consider the below statements. Do any of them resonate? Make you angry? Do some not even merit a response?
Any group differences in outcomes can be traced to systemic racism.
If systemic racism exists at all, it works against so-called privileged groups.
Abortion is murder, period.
The sanctity of human life is a made-up concept.
Jews have a biblical right to Israel.
Hitler was right about a few things.
Masculinity is inherently toxic.
If women ran the world, we would still be living in grass huts.
The colonialists need to give back the land they stole.
Indigenous people need to get over the fact that they were conquered.
Providing sex is an obligation within a marriage.
Any sexual coercion constitutes rape.
I can't tell you exactly how I would respond to a dude who defended Hitler, but I know what I wouldn't do: stalk him on social media, contact his employer to try to get him fired, or lobby my government representative to help criminalize such talk.
Does this make me a free speech absolutist? Not quite. Like Robert Jensen, a professor emeritus at the University of Austin and prolific blogger, I suspect that most people who call themselves free speech absolutists don't actually mean it. They wouldn't countenance speech like "Let's go kill a few Germans this morning. Here, have a gun." Instead, they're prepared to "impose a high standard in evaluating any restriction on speech," Jensen writes. "In complex cases where there are conflicts concerning competing values, [they] will default to the most expansive space possible for speech."
In other words, they're free speech maximalists. A more contemporary and nuanced variant of absolutism, the maximalist position grants special status to free speech and puts the burden of proof on those who wish to curtail it. While accepting some restrictions in time, place, and manner, free speech maximalism defaults to freedom of content. It aligns with the litmus test developed by US Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, which holds that government should limit its regulation of speech to speech that dovetails with lawless action. Let's go kill a few Germans? Not kosher. The only good German is a dead one? Fair game.
Some pundits view this position as misguided. A 2025 Dispatch article titled "Is Free Speech Too Sacred?" laments America's descent into an era of "free speech supramaximalism," in which "not only must speech prevail over other regulation, but nearly everything is sooner or later described and defended as speech."
A New Statesman essay about Elon Musk, written a few months before he acquired Twitter (now X), decries Musk's "maximalist conception of free speech usually adopted by teenage boys and libertarian men in their early 20s, before they realise its limitations and grow out of it." The implication: free speech maximalism is an unserious pitstop on the way to more mature thinking. Only testosterone-soaked young men, drunk on their first taste of freedom, would spend more than a minute on such a naïve view.
This 69-year-old woman disagrees. I grew into my passion for free speech during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the pressure to conform in both word and deed reached an intensity I had never witnessed before. Any concerns about the labyrinthine lockdown rules elicited retorts like "moral degenerate" or "mouth-breathing Trumptard." (Ask me how I know.)
Unexpectedly jolted into awareness of free speech principles, I began reading John Stuart Mill and Jean-Paul Sartre and writing essays about freedom of expression in the Covid era. One thing led to another, and in 2025 the newly minted Free Speech Union of Canada found a spot for me on its organizing committee. What most of us in the group shared, along with age spots and facial wrinkles, was a maximalist position on free speech. Perhaps we're all immature. Or maybe we've lived long enough to understand exactly what we lose when free speech goes A...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/is-free-speech-maximalism-just-for-young-men/ Consider the below statements. Do any of them resonate? Make you angry? Do some not even merit a response?
Any group differences in outcomes can be traced to systemic racism.
If systemic racism exists at all, it works against so-called privileged groups.
Abortion is murder, period.
The sanctity of human life is a made-up concept.
Jews have a biblical right to Israel.
Hitler was right about a few things.
Masculinity is inherently toxic.
If women ran the world, we would still be living in grass huts.
The colonialists need to give back the land they stole.
Indigenous people need to get over the fact that they were conquered.
Providing sex is an obligation within a marriage.
Any sexual coercion constitutes rape.
I can't tell you exactly how I would respond to a dude who defended Hitler, but I know what I wouldn't do: stalk him on social media, contact his employer to try to get him fired, or lobby my government representative to help criminalize such talk.
Does this make me a free speech absolutist? Not quite. Like Robert Jensen, a professor emeritus at the University of Austin and prolific blogger, I suspect that most people who call themselves free speech absolutists don't actually mean it. They wouldn't countenance speech like "Let's go kill a few Germans this morning. Here, have a gun." Instead, they're prepared to "impose a high standard in evaluating any restriction on speech," Jensen writes. "In complex cases where there are conflicts concerning competing values, [they] will default to the most expansive space possible for speech."
In other words, they're free speech maximalists. A more contemporary and nuanced variant of absolutism, the maximalist position grants special status to free speech and puts the burden of proof on those who wish to curtail it. While accepting some restrictions in time, place, and manner, free speech maximalism defaults to freedom of content. It aligns with the litmus test developed by US Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, which holds that government should limit its regulation of speech to speech that dovetails with lawless action. Let's go kill a few Germans? Not kosher. The only good German is a dead one? Fair game.
Some pundits view this position as misguided. A 2025 Dispatch article titled "Is Free Speech Too Sacred?" laments America's descent into an era of "free speech supramaximalism," in which "not only must speech prevail over other regulation, but nearly everything is sooner or later described and defended as speech."
A New Statesman essay about Elon Musk, written a few months before he acquired Twitter (now X), decries Musk's "maximalist conception of free speech usually adopted by teenage boys and libertarian men in their early 20s, before they realise its limitations and grow out of it." The implication: free speech maximalism is an unserious pitstop on the way to more mature thinking. Only testosterone-soaked young men, drunk on their first taste of freedom, would spend more than a minute on such a naïve view.
This 69-year-old woman disagrees. I grew into my passion for free speech during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the pressure to conform in both word and deed reached an intensity I had never witnessed before. Any concerns about the labyrinthine lockdown rules elicited retorts like "moral degenerate" or "mouth-breathing Trumptard." (Ask me how I know.)
Unexpectedly jolted into awareness of free speech principles, I began reading John Stuart Mill and Jean-Paul Sartre and writing essays about freedom of expression in the Covid era. One thing led to another, and in 2025 the newly minted Free Speech Union of Canada found a spot for me on its organizing committee. What most of us in the group shared, along with age spots and facial wrinkles, was a maximalist position on free speech. Perhaps we're all immature. Or maybe we've lived long enough to understand exactly what we lose when free speech goes A...]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2026 07:21:07 -0400 Is Free Speech Maximalism Just for Young Men? Consider the below statements. Do any of them resonate? Make you angry? Do some not even merit a response?
Any group differences in outcomes can be traced to systemic racism.
If systemic racism exists at all, i...]]> Consider the below statements. Do any of them resonate? Make you angry? Do some not even merit a response?
Any group differences in outcomes can be traced to systemic racism.
If systemic racism exists at all, it works against so-called privileged groups.
Abortion is murder, period.
The sanctity of human life is a made-up concept.
Jews have a biblical right to Israel.
Hitler was right about a few things.
Masculinity is inherently toxic.
If women ran the world, we would still be living in grass huts.
The colonialists need to give back the land they stole.
Indigenous people need to get over the fact that they were conquered.
Providing sex is an obligation within a marriage.
Any sexual coercion constitutes rape.
I can't tell you exactly how I would respond to a dude who defended Hitler, but I know what I wouldn't do: stalk him on social media, contact his employer to try to get him fired, or lobby my government representative to help criminalize such talk.
Does this make me a free speech absolutist? Not quite. Like Robert Jensen, a professor emeritus at the University of Austin and prolific blogger, I suspect that most people who call themselves free speech absolutists don't actually mean it. They wouldn't countenance speech like "Let's go kill a few Germans this morning. Here, have a gun." Instead, they're prepared to "impose a high standard in evaluating any restriction on speech," Jensen writes. "In complex cases where there are conflicts concerning competing values, [they] will default to the most expansive space possible for speech."
In other words, they're free speech maximalists. A more contemporary and nuanced variant of absolutism, the maximalist position grants special status to free speech and puts the burden of proof on those who wish to curtail it. While accepting some restrictions in time, place, and manner, free speech maximalism defaults to freedom of content. It aligns with the litmus test developed by US Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, which holds that government should limit its regulation of speech to speech that dovetails with lawless action. Let's go kill a few Germans? Not kosher. The only good German is a dead one? Fair game.
Some pundits view this position as misguided. A 2025 Dispatch article titled "Is Free Speech Too Sacred?" laments America's descent into an era of "free speech supramaximalism," in which "not only must speech prevail over other regulation, but nearly everything is sooner or later described and defended as speech."
A New Statesman essay about Elon Musk, written a few months before he acquired Twitter (now X), decries Musk's "maximalist conception of free speech usually adopted by teenage boys and libertarian men in their early 20s, before they realise its limitations and grow out of it." The implication: free speech maximalism is an unserious pitstop on the way to more mature thinking. Only testosterone-soaked young men, drunk on their first taste of freedom, would spend more than a minute on such a naïve view.
This 69-year-old woman disagrees. I grew into my passion for free speech during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the pressure to conform in both word and deed reached an intensity I had never witnessed before. Any concerns about the labyrinthine lockdown rules elicited retorts like "moral degenerate" or "mouth-breathing Trumptard." (Ask me how I know.)
Unexpectedly jolted into awareness of free speech principles, I began reading John Stuart Mill and Jean-Paul Sartre and writing essays about freedom of expression in the Covid era. One thing led to another, and in 2025 the newly minted Free Speech Union of Canada found a spot for me on its organizing committee. What most of us in the group shared, along with age spots and facial wrinkles, was a maximalist position on free speech. Perhaps we're all immature. Or maybe we've lived long enough to understand exactly what we lose when free speech goes A...]]> Gabrielle Bauer 08:10 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 16 65312 President Donald Trump's executive order of Feb. 18 invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950 to ensure US glyphosate production and availability is neither necessary nor helpful. HHS Secretary and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) founder Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s endorsement of the order has created a firestorm in that health-interested base.
On Feb. 22, Kennedy conducted triage explanations to his base with this statement:
"Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals." He went on to post that "if these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous."
Kennedy then described the many weed control alternatives that are being developed. All of us farmers in the nonchemical community already use many of these innovative alternatives: lasers, AI-driven wipes, steam nozzles, cover crop crimping, and soil balancing. The grain farmers I patronize for our chicken and pig feeds do not use glyphosate or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We pay a slight premium, but these farmers have great yields and are certainly not going out of business like many more conventional operations.
This showdown has been a long time developing. On Apr. 14, 2025, The Wall Street Journal's Patrick Thomas reported that "Bayer said it could stop producing the world's most popular weed killer unless it gets court protection against lawsuits blaming the herbicide for causing cancer." Bayer and friends tried to slip in liability protection in an appropriations bill earlier this year, but the effort failed.
With thousands of lawsuits, many of them winning, still scheduled for court hearings, and its multibillion-dollar war chest to fight them and/or settle them impacting profits, Bayer, manufacturer of the popular Roundup brand, is desperate to shed this liability. Most of the time, things like this executive order happen after long-term wrangling and cogitating behind the curtain, and I suspect that is the case now.
At the risk of irritating my MAHA friends, I take umbrage with this whole sordid affair because glyphosate is a deadly poison, is not needed, and certainly does not jeopardize American security. Its use is primarily on genetically modified corn and soybeans. But consider that nearly half of America's corn production goes to ethanol fuel; it has nothing to do with food.
What about soybeans? Half of them are exported and not even used in America. Roughly 40 percent of glyphosate is made by Bayer in the United States, Belgium, and Argentina, which are all friendlies. If we eliminated half the corn and half the soybeans because they aren't needed for food, we'd only need half the glyphosate, which is nearly all manufactured either domestically or in friendly nations.
That's giving the benefit of the doubt to the inherent need for glyphosate, which is a dubious argument. It's like demanding special concessions for cocaine because some addicts have an inherent need for cocaine. While they may be addicted, arguing that funding and fueling their continued addiction is necessary for their survival is dubious at best and erroneous at worst.
The real national security breach is that we have thousands of farmers producing unnecessary corn and soybeans and a federal government determined to keep them in business.
Herbivores don't need grain; they were not built to eat grain any more than children were built to eat candy bars. If we drop the exports and drop the fuel, America's need for corn and soybeans is only 30 percent of current production, which can easily be met by the glyphosate produced domestically and in friendly nations. The point is none of the scaremongering and none of the math adds up or makes sense.
Something else is going on here, and it has nothing to do with national defense. It has to do with offering a sh...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/who-needs-glyphosate/ President Donald Trump's executive order of Feb. 18 invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950 to ensure US glyphosate production and availability is neither necessary nor helpful. HHS Secretary and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) founder Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s endorsement of the order has created a firestorm in that health-interested base.
On Feb. 22, Kennedy conducted triage explanations to his base with this statement:
"Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals." He went on to post that "if these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous."
Kennedy then described the many weed control alternatives that are being developed. All of us farmers in the nonchemical community already use many of these innovative alternatives: lasers, AI-driven wipes, steam nozzles, cover crop crimping, and soil balancing. The grain farmers I patronize for our chicken and pig feeds do not use glyphosate or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We pay a slight premium, but these farmers have great yields and are certainly not going out of business like many more conventional operations.
This showdown has been a long time developing. On Apr. 14, 2025, The Wall Street Journal's Patrick Thomas reported that "Bayer said it could stop producing the world's most popular weed killer unless it gets court protection against lawsuits blaming the herbicide for causing cancer." Bayer and friends tried to slip in liability protection in an appropriations bill earlier this year, but the effort failed.
With thousands of lawsuits, many of them winning, still scheduled for court hearings, and its multibillion-dollar war chest to fight them and/or settle them impacting profits, Bayer, manufacturer of the popular Roundup brand, is desperate to shed this liability. Most of the time, things like this executive order happen after long-term wrangling and cogitating behind the curtain, and I suspect that is the case now.
At the risk of irritating my MAHA friends, I take umbrage with this whole sordid affair because glyphosate is a deadly poison, is not needed, and certainly does not jeopardize American security. Its use is primarily on genetically modified corn and soybeans. But consider that nearly half of America's corn production goes to ethanol fuel; it has nothing to do with food.
What about soybeans? Half of them are exported and not even used in America. Roughly 40 percent of glyphosate is made by Bayer in the United States, Belgium, and Argentina, which are all friendlies. If we eliminated half the corn and half the soybeans because they aren't needed for food, we'd only need half the glyphosate, which is nearly all manufactured either domestically or in friendly nations.
That's giving the benefit of the doubt to the inherent need for glyphosate, which is a dubious argument. It's like demanding special concessions for cocaine because some addicts have an inherent need for cocaine. While they may be addicted, arguing that funding and fueling their continued addiction is necessary for their survival is dubious at best and erroneous at worst.
The real national security breach is that we have thousands of farmers producing unnecessary corn and soybeans and a federal government determined to keep them in business.
Herbivores don't need grain; they were not built to eat grain any more than children were built to eat candy bars. If we drop the exports and drop the fuel, America's need for corn and soybeans is only 30 percent of current production, which can easily be met by the glyphosate produced domestically and in friendly nations. The point is none of the scaremongering and none of the math adds up or makes sense.
Something else is going on here, and it has nothing to do with national defense. It has to do with offering a sh...]]> Wed, 11 Mar 2026 07:54:39 -0400 Who Needs Glyphosate? President Donald Trump's executive order of Feb. 18 invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950 to ensure US glyphosate production and availability is neither necessary nor helpful. HHS Secretary and Make America ...]]> President Donald Trump's executive order of Feb. 18 invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950 to ensure US glyphosate production and availability is neither necessary nor helpful. HHS Secretary and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) founder Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s endorsement of the order has created a firestorm in that health-interested base.
On Feb. 22, Kennedy conducted triage explanations to his base with this statement:
"Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals." He went on to post that "if these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous."
Kennedy then described the many weed control alternatives that are being developed. All of us farmers in the nonchemical community already use many of these innovative alternatives: lasers, AI-driven wipes, steam nozzles, cover crop crimping, and soil balancing. The grain farmers I patronize for our chicken and pig feeds do not use glyphosate or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We pay a slight premium, but these farmers have great yields and are certainly not going out of business like many more conventional operations.
This showdown has been a long time developing. On Apr. 14, 2025, The Wall Street Journal's Patrick Thomas reported that "Bayer said it could stop producing the world's most popular weed killer unless it gets court protection against lawsuits blaming the herbicide for causing cancer." Bayer and friends tried to slip in liability protection in an appropriations bill earlier this year, but the effort failed.
With thousands of lawsuits, many of them winning, still scheduled for court hearings, and its multibillion-dollar war chest to fight them and/or settle them impacting profits, Bayer, manufacturer of the popular Roundup brand, is desperate to shed this liability. Most of the time, things like this executive order happen after long-term wrangling and cogitating behind the curtain, and I suspect that is the case now.
At the risk of irritating my MAHA friends, I take umbrage with this whole sordid affair because glyphosate is a deadly poison, is not needed, and certainly does not jeopardize American security. Its use is primarily on genetically modified corn and soybeans. But consider that nearly half of America's corn production goes to ethanol fuel; it has nothing to do with food.
What about soybeans? Half of them are exported and not even used in America. Roughly 40 percent of glyphosate is made by Bayer in the United States, Belgium, and Argentina, which are all friendlies. If we eliminated half the corn and half the soybeans because they aren't needed for food, we'd only need half the glyphosate, which is nearly all manufactured either domestically or in friendly nations.
That's giving the benefit of the doubt to the inherent need for glyphosate, which is a dubious argument. It's like demanding special concessions for cocaine because some addicts have an inherent need for cocaine. While they may be addicted, arguing that funding and fueling their continued addiction is necessary for their survival is dubious at best and erroneous at worst.
The real national security breach is that we have thousands of farmers producing unnecessary corn and soybeans and a federal government determined to keep them in business.
Herbivores don't need grain; they were not built to eat grain any more than children were built to eat candy bars. If we drop the exports and drop the fuel, America's need for corn and soybeans is only 30 percent of current production, which can easily be met by the glyphosate produced domestically and in friendly nations. The point is none of the scaremongering and none of the math adds up or makes sense.
Something else is going on here, and it has nothing to do with national defense. It has to do with offering a sh...]]> Joel Salatin 05:42 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 15 65138 If the keening of pessimists is to be believed, this paper is written in the midst of the darkling dusk of an authoritarian age. Studies of the fate of democracy around the world—the countries that can be classified as democratic according to various criteria and the expansion and contraction in their numbers over time—has become a mini cottage industry in the academic and think tank worlds.
In theory, setbacks and curtailments can come from either or both conservative and liberal sides of the ideological political divide, often reflecting their differences in how best to reconcile the tension between the liberal and democratic components of the aggregative concept of 'liberal democracy.' Majoritarian excesses can ride roughshod over the liberal protections for individuals against the state and society as collective entities, while unbalanced liberal emphases can ignore majority policy preferences.
This was seen in the clash between the individual-centric civil libertarians and the collective focus of public health during the Covid years. Political polarisation in the age of falling confidence in the mainstream media and the amplifying potential of social media has exacerbated the pathologies of shifting perceptions of the other side as not merely people with a different point of view but as immoral and a threat to the system.
As the world's most populous democracy by far, more than four times bigger than the US as the second most populous albeit the world's most important democracy, India occupies a place of special significance in the global comparison of the measures of democracy and their rise and fall over time. Not too many would have rated its prospects highly against the apparently unfavourable correlates of poverty and illiteracy at independence in 1947, yet it has survived as a recognisably functioning democracy. Conversely, the UK, known as the mother of parliamentary democracy with Westminster as the mother parliament, seems to be backsliding on its democratic credentials. Concerns about the health of democracy in both India and the UK exist alongside worries about its status in several other countries.
I. Measuring the Health of Democracy
My interest in democracy has spanned my entire professional life. My very first academic article, exactly fifty years ago, was on 'The Fate of India's Parliamentary Democracy' (Pacific Affairs, Summer 1976). This was a reaction to the declaration of an emergency by Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi in 1975. It was followed by the more reflective 'Liberalism, Democracy and Development: Philosophical Dilemmas in Third World Politics' (Political Studies (September 1982). As someone who grew up in India; voted as a national in elections in Australia, Canada and New Zealand; with advanced degrees in political science; lived for periods of my life in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US; and participated in discussions on the topic with real-world examples with colleagues in the United Nations, I have a particular appreciation of the role of electoral systems in mediating popular voting preferences into political outcomes.
When I last looked at the democracy ratings five years ago, the Economist Intelligence Unit classified India as a 'flawed' democracy; Freedom House called it only 'partly free,' and the Gothenburg-based V-Dem described it as an 'electoral autocracy.' That's quite a dishonourable trifecta from three reputable international democracy ratings agencies. The disparate indexes have their individual flaws and strengths, but they do provide a latitudinal snapshot of almost all countries at any given time, permit a longitudinal analysis of trendlines in any given country, and are a useful externally validated prop for civil-society advocates in countries of concern that are trying to improve standards of governance within the framework of inclusive democratic citizenship.
That said, as a cross-country comparison, any classifica...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/is-the-uk-still-a-liberal-democracy/ If the keening of pessimists is to be believed, this paper is written in the midst of the darkling dusk of an authoritarian age. Studies of the fate of democracy around the world—the countries that can be classified as democratic according to various criteria and the expansion and contraction in their numbers over time—has become a mini cottage industry in the academic and think tank worlds.
In theory, setbacks and curtailments can come from either or both conservative and liberal sides of the ideological political divide, often reflecting their differences in how best to reconcile the tension between the liberal and democratic components of the aggregative concept of 'liberal democracy.' Majoritarian excesses can ride roughshod over the liberal protections for individuals against the state and society as collective entities, while unbalanced liberal emphases can ignore majority policy preferences.
This was seen in the clash between the individual-centric civil libertarians and the collective focus of public health during the Covid years. Political polarisation in the age of falling confidence in the mainstream media and the amplifying potential of social media has exacerbated the pathologies of shifting perceptions of the other side as not merely people with a different point of view but as immoral and a threat to the system.
As the world's most populous democracy by far, more than four times bigger than the US as the second most populous albeit the world's most important democracy, India occupies a place of special significance in the global comparison of the measures of democracy and their rise and fall over time. Not too many would have rated its prospects highly against the apparently unfavourable correlates of poverty and illiteracy at independence in 1947, yet it has survived as a recognisably functioning democracy. Conversely, the UK, known as the mother of parliamentary democracy with Westminster as the mother parliament, seems to be backsliding on its democratic credentials. Concerns about the health of democracy in both India and the UK exist alongside worries about its status in several other countries.
I. Measuring the Health of Democracy
My interest in democracy has spanned my entire professional life. My very first academic article, exactly fifty years ago, was on 'The Fate of India's Parliamentary Democracy' (Pacific Affairs, Summer 1976). This was a reaction to the declaration of an emergency by Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi in 1975. It was followed by the more reflective 'Liberalism, Democracy and Development: Philosophical Dilemmas in Third World Politics' (Political Studies (September 1982). As someone who grew up in India; voted as a national in elections in Australia, Canada and New Zealand; with advanced degrees in political science; lived for periods of my life in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US; and participated in discussions on the topic with real-world examples with colleagues in the United Nations, I have a particular appreciation of the role of electoral systems in mediating popular voting preferences into political outcomes.
When I last looked at the democracy ratings five years ago, the Economist Intelligence Unit classified India as a 'flawed' democracy; Freedom House called it only 'partly free,' and the Gothenburg-based V-Dem described it as an 'electoral autocracy.' That's quite a dishonourable trifecta from three reputable international democracy ratings agencies. The disparate indexes have their individual flaws and strengths, but they do provide a latitudinal snapshot of almost all countries at any given time, permit a longitudinal analysis of trendlines in any given country, and are a useful externally validated prop for civil-society advocates in countries of concern that are trying to improve standards of governance within the framework of inclusive democratic citizenship.
That said, as a cross-country comparison, any classifica...]]> Tue, 10 Mar 2026 07:53:01 -0400 Is the UK Still a Liberal Democracy? If the keening of pessimists is to be believed, this paper is written in the midst of the darkling dusk of an authoritarian age. Studies of the fate of democracy around the world—the countries that can be classif...]]> If the keening of pessimists is to be believed, this paper is written in the midst of the darkling dusk of an authoritarian age. Studies of the fate of democracy around the world—the countries that can be classified as democratic according to various criteria and the expansion and contraction in their numbers over time—has become a mini cottage industry in the academic and think tank worlds.
In theory, setbacks and curtailments can come from either or both conservative and liberal sides of the ideological political divide, often reflecting their differences in how best to reconcile the tension between the liberal and democratic components of the aggregative concept of 'liberal democracy.' Majoritarian excesses can ride roughshod over the liberal protections for individuals against the state and society as collective entities, while unbalanced liberal emphases can ignore majority policy preferences.
This was seen in the clash between the individual-centric civil libertarians and the collective focus of public health during the Covid years. Political polarisation in the age of falling confidence in the mainstream media and the amplifying potential of social media has exacerbated the pathologies of shifting perceptions of the other side as not merely people with a different point of view but as immoral and a threat to the system.
As the world's most populous democracy by far, more than four times bigger than the US as the second most populous albeit the world's most important democracy, India occupies a place of special significance in the global comparison of the measures of democracy and their rise and fall over time. Not too many would have rated its prospects highly against the apparently unfavourable correlates of poverty and illiteracy at independence in 1947, yet it has survived as a recognisably functioning democracy. Conversely, the UK, known as the mother of parliamentary democracy with Westminster as the mother parliament, seems to be backsliding on its democratic credentials. Concerns about the health of democracy in both India and the UK exist alongside worries about its status in several other countries.
I. Measuring the Health of Democracy
My interest in democracy has spanned my entire professional life. My very first academic article, exactly fifty years ago, was on 'The Fate of India's Parliamentary Democracy' (Pacific Affairs, Summer 1976). This was a reaction to the declaration of an emergency by Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi in 1975. It was followed by the more reflective 'Liberalism, Democracy and Development: Philosophical Dilemmas in Third World Politics' (Political Studies (September 1982). As someone who grew up in India; voted as a national in elections in Australia, Canada and New Zealand; with advanced degrees in political science; lived for periods of my life in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US; and participated in discussions on the topic with real-world examples with colleagues in the United Nations, I have a particular appreciation of the role of electoral systems in mediating popular voting preferences into political outcomes.
When I last looked at the democracy ratings five years ago, the Economist Intelligence Unit classified India as a 'flawed' democracy; Freedom House called it only 'partly free,' and the Gothenburg-based V-Dem described it as an 'electoral autocracy.' That's quite a dishonourable trifecta from three reputable international democracy ratings agencies. The disparate indexes have their individual flaws and strengths, but they do provide a latitudinal snapshot of almost all countries at any given time, permit a longitudinal analysis of trendlines in any given country, and are a useful externally validated prop for civil-society advocates in countries of concern that are trying to improve standards of governance within the framework of inclusive democratic citizenship.
That said, as a cross-country comparison, any classifica...]]> Ramesh Thakur 24:39 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 14 65247 Many people want to be done with Covid lockdowns as a topic. The trouble is that Covid lockdowns are not done with us. Nothing like this had ever been tried in real life, a forced stoppage of most human activity as it affects the material and social world. The impact would be far reaching, long lasting, and devastation – one of the more significant calamities of modern times.
Prevailing economic weakness and resulting stagnation for living standards is only one result. It's nowhere near over.
The Friday, March 6, 2026, jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was far more grim than anyone expected. Employers shed 92,000 positions for the month as the unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4 percent. December and January jobs growth was revised down by 69,000.
The more alarming fact (which you can peruse at B-1) is that these losses were unconstrained.
In addition to health-sector sector losses, we have:
Leisure and hospitality: Down 27,000 jobs, including accommodation and food services down 34,700, indicating ongoing weakness or contraction in consumer-facing services.
Transportation and warehousing: Down 11,300 jobs, with couriers and messengers seeing a steep drop of 16,600.
Information sector: Down 11,000 jobs, including movies and sound recording industries down 9,500.
Administrative and support services (within professional and business services): Down 14,300 jobs, signaling problems in business support.
Manufacturing: Down 12,000 jobs (with nondurable goods down 8,000).
Construction: Down 11,000 jobs.
None of these sectors had fully recovered from the body blow of 2020, as small businesses were forcibly shut and large businesses shot up their employees with an experimental potion. All enterprises have struggled ever since. But with high tariffs and soaring costs of health insurance hitting in 2025, it was just too much.
There's nothing to be gained by blaming AI. These are not jobs AI can do. Labor costs eat into profitability so maintaining it requires offloading as much as possible to deal with hard times.
More revealing are the numbers of employment/population ratios. They were dealt a huge hit with lockdowns, obviously, and have not regained their strength going from 2019. It amounts to a permanent downshift. Every time we see gains here, the gravity of the economic environment pushes them down again.
The chart itself makes for a salient picture, a huge gash into labor markets, resulting in many permanently sidelined and many having left the labor force permanently. You cannot just "close the economy" without long-lasting consequences.


Among many existing workers, we've seen an explosion of people listed as disabled. You might think this is partially due to increased benefit offerings and probably some degree of fraud. But you might also consider that vaccine injury is far more extensive than people know, amounting to millions of people who have been physically harmed by the shots distributed to prevent against a virus that everyone contracted anyway.
There is no way the truth about these injuries can be permanently suppressed.

The higher gas prices are in the news and the obvious culprit is the war on Iran which has disturbed shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. But there is another factor here rarely mentioned. Refining capacity in the US never recovered from lockdowns. Before, the previous peak was 19M barrels per calendar day. That dropped in 2021 to 18.1M and further to 17.9M in 2022. We are still 0.5-0.6 million below the pre-lockdown peak, meaning that any disruption was destined to have a big effect on oil prices and prices at the pump.
That disruption came with the Iran war. As for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that was already tapped out during the last lockdown-driven and inflation-induced price spike. The low prices of 2025 could not last with any stress on production structures.

And speaking of inflation, that lockdown-triggered mone...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/observe-the-economic-fallout-six-years-later/ Many people want to be done with Covid lockdowns as a topic. The trouble is that Covid lockdowns are not done with us. Nothing like this had ever been tried in real life, a forced stoppage of most human activity as it affects the material and social world. The impact would be far reaching, long lasting, and devastation – one of the more significant calamities of modern times.
Prevailing economic weakness and resulting stagnation for living standards is only one result. It's nowhere near over.
The Friday, March 6, 2026, jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was far more grim than anyone expected. Employers shed 92,000 positions for the month as the unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4 percent. December and January jobs growth was revised down by 69,000.
The more alarming fact (which you can peruse at B-1) is that these losses were unconstrained.
In addition to health-sector sector losses, we have:
Leisure and hospitality: Down 27,000 jobs, including accommodation and food services down 34,700, indicating ongoing weakness or contraction in consumer-facing services.
Transportation and warehousing: Down 11,300 jobs, with couriers and messengers seeing a steep drop of 16,600.
Information sector: Down 11,000 jobs, including movies and sound recording industries down 9,500.
Administrative and support services (within professional and business services): Down 14,300 jobs, signaling problems in business support.
Manufacturing: Down 12,000 jobs (with nondurable goods down 8,000).
Construction: Down 11,000 jobs.
None of these sectors had fully recovered from the body blow of 2020, as small businesses were forcibly shut and large businesses shot up their employees with an experimental potion. All enterprises have struggled ever since. But with high tariffs and soaring costs of health insurance hitting in 2025, it was just too much.
There's nothing to be gained by blaming AI. These are not jobs AI can do. Labor costs eat into profitability so maintaining it requires offloading as much as possible to deal with hard times.
More revealing are the numbers of employment/population ratios. They were dealt a huge hit with lockdowns, obviously, and have not regained their strength going from 2019. It amounts to a permanent downshift. Every time we see gains here, the gravity of the economic environment pushes them down again.
The chart itself makes for a salient picture, a huge gash into labor markets, resulting in many permanently sidelined and many having left the labor force permanently. You cannot just "close the economy" without long-lasting consequences.


Among many existing workers, we've seen an explosion of people listed as disabled. You might think this is partially due to increased benefit offerings and probably some degree of fraud. But you might also consider that vaccine injury is far more extensive than people know, amounting to millions of people who have been physically harmed by the shots distributed to prevent against a virus that everyone contracted anyway.
There is no way the truth about these injuries can be permanently suppressed.

The higher gas prices are in the news and the obvious culprit is the war on Iran which has disturbed shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. But there is another factor here rarely mentioned. Refining capacity in the US never recovered from lockdowns. Before, the previous peak was 19M barrels per calendar day. That dropped in 2021 to 18.1M and further to 17.9M in 2022. We are still 0.5-0.6 million below the pre-lockdown peak, meaning that any disruption was destined to have a big effect on oil prices and prices at the pump.
That disruption came with the Iran war. As for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that was already tapped out during the last lockdown-driven and inflation-induced price spike. The low prices of 2025 could not last with any stress on production structures.

And speaking of inflation, that lockdown-triggered mone...]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 07:01:09 -0400 Observe the Economic Fallout Six Years Later Many people want to be done with Covid lockdowns as a topic. The trouble is that Covid lockdowns are not done with us. Nothing like this had ever been tried in real life, a forced stoppage of most human activ...]]> Many people want to be done with Covid lockdowns as a topic. The trouble is that Covid lockdowns are not done with us. Nothing like this had ever been tried in real life, a forced stoppage of most human activity as it affects the material and social world. The impact would be far reaching, long lasting, and devastation – one of the more significant calamities of modern times.
Prevailing economic weakness and resulting stagnation for living standards is only one result. It's nowhere near over.
The Friday, March 6, 2026, jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was far more grim than anyone expected. Employers shed 92,000 positions for the month as the unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4 percent. December and January jobs growth was revised down by 69,000.
The more alarming fact (which you can peruse at B-1) is that these losses were unconstrained.
In addition to health-sector sector losses, we have:
Leisure and hospitality: Down 27,000 jobs, including accommodation and food services down 34,700, indicating ongoing weakness or contraction in consumer-facing services.
Transportation and warehousing: Down 11,300 jobs, with couriers and messengers seeing a steep drop of 16,600.
Information sector: Down 11,000 jobs, including movies and sound recording industries down 9,500.
Administrative and support services (within professional and business services): Down 14,300 jobs, signaling problems in business support.
Manufacturing: Down 12,000 jobs (with nondurable goods down 8,000).
Construction: Down 11,000 jobs.
None of these sectors had fully recovered from the body blow of 2020, as small businesses were forcibly shut and large businesses shot up their employees with an experimental potion. All enterprises have struggled ever since. But with high tariffs and soaring costs of health insurance hitting in 2025, it was just too much.
There's nothing to be gained by blaming AI. These are not jobs AI can do. Labor costs eat into profitability so maintaining it requires offloading as much as possible to deal with hard times.
More revealing are the numbers of employment/population ratios. They were dealt a huge hit with lockdowns, obviously, and have not regained their strength going from 2019. It amounts to a permanent downshift. Every time we see gains here, the gravity of the economic environment pushes them down again.
The chart itself makes for a salient picture, a huge gash into labor markets, resulting in many permanently sidelined and many having left the labor force permanently. You cannot just "close the economy" without long-lasting consequences.


Among many existing workers, we've seen an explosion of people listed as disabled. You might think this is partially due to increased benefit offerings and probably some degree of fraud. But you might also consider that vaccine injury is far more extensive than people know, amounting to millions of people who have been physically harmed by the shots distributed to prevent against a virus that everyone contracted anyway.
There is no way the truth about these injuries can be permanently suppressed.

The higher gas prices are in the news and the obvious culprit is the war on Iran which has disturbed shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. But there is another factor here rarely mentioned. Refining capacity in the US never recovered from lockdowns. Before, the previous peak was 19M barrels per calendar day. That dropped in 2021 to 18.1M and further to 17.9M in 2022. We are still 0.5-0.6 million below the pre-lockdown peak, meaning that any disruption was destined to have a big effect on oil prices and prices at the pump.
That disruption came with the Iran war. As for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that was already tapped out during the last lockdown-driven and inflation-induced price spike. The low prices of 2025 could not last with any stress on production structures.

And speaking of inflation, that lockdown-triggered mone...]]> Jeffrey A. Tucker 07:03 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 13 65102
This is a slightly shortened version of a Feb 26 New York Times article where journalist Katrin Bennhold interviews Dani Blum of the Times' "Well Team" about Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs.
The Fifth Doctor snoops in on the conversation and adds his two cents' worth.
I've known several people who are on Ozempic who lost weight really fast. How exactly do these drugs work?
Dani: …Basically, the drugs mimic naturally occurring hormones that blunt our appetites and leave us feeling fuller, for longer. When people take these drugs, they're just less hungry.
Fifth Doctor: Yes, less hungry, but also potentially more mentally unwell. Mounting reports of anxiety, worsening depression, and thoughts of suicide surround those taking GLP-1s, drugs like Ozempic. While it might be rare that the drugs make you go crazy, the potential troublesome psychiatric effects added to the long list of nasty physical effects makes the treatment intolerable for most patients. These effects are so severe that most patients stop taking the drug and thus a trial of these drugs becomes an expensive failed experiment for most people.
Do people have to stay on them forever to keep the weight off?
Dani: Basically, yes. It's possible, but rare, for people to keep the weight off when they go off these drugs. Even Oprah gained back 20 pounds when she went off them. Doctors I talk to say we should think of these medications like statins — something to be taken long term.
Fifth Doctor: Look, if Oprah can't sustain weight-loss post-Ozempic, what are your chances? Problem is, she probably found out the hard way that the weight comes back but the muscle you've also lost on GLP-1s stays lost, so you may end up in worse shape after you stop the drug than before you started. Also: "What the heck is '"long term?'" At best we have up to 18 months randomized data for current doses of GLP-1s, plus several years of followup from real-world studies, but not decades-long randomized exposure at obesity doses. As for staying on statins "forever," geez, that statement ranks among the dumbest bits of medical advice possible. It would take me a whole article to explain why "statins for life" is a loser's game, so stand by for the Fifth Doctor's advice on that file. But back to these game-changing weight loss drugs.
Do we know yet what the side effects of long-term use might be?
Dani: No, we don't really know a lot about potential long-term side effects yet. We just don't have decades and decades of data. We do know that these medications can have side effects in the short term. Most commonly, these are gastrointestinal issues: nausea, constipation, diarrhea, stomach pain. People can also get fatigued. In rare cases, people can experience more severe problems, like kidney or gallbladder issues, or pancreatitis.
Fifth Doctor: The tip-of-the-iceberg side effects are the ones we know, but like any new, widely-used drug there is that other thorny class of drug effects, the Rumsfeldian "Unknown unknowns" which for GLP-1s, are undoubtedly a minefield. Before you embark on your Ozempic-trip, you have to imagine yourself staring down the barrel of a .44 magnum and Clint Eastwood saying: "Ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk?"
But at the same time, there seems to be a new study out every week showing GLP-1s help treat various ailments. What's going on there?
Dani: Such a good question. We've seen positive data on how these drugs can help with things like sleep apnea, heart issues and kidney issues…Some think that these drugs can reduce inflammation throughout the body, which could have big benefits. But again, these drugs are pretty new, and there are many open questions.
Fifth Doctor: The caveats are welcome in an ass-covering sort of way, but let's call a spade a spade. Every new study of a new drug is often little more than a marketing opportunity for the companies making them. When the manufacturers control the release of the research, ie: publishing th...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/what-does-the-fifth-doctor-think-about-ozempic/
This is a slightly shortened version of a Feb 26 New York Times article where journalist Katrin Bennhold interviews Dani Blum of the Times' "Well Team" about Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs.
The Fifth Doctor snoops in on the conversation and adds his two cents' worth.
I've known several people who are on Ozempic who lost weight really fast. How exactly do these drugs work?
Dani: …Basically, the drugs mimic naturally occurring hormones that blunt our appetites and leave us feeling fuller, for longer. When people take these drugs, they're just less hungry.
Fifth Doctor: Yes, less hungry, but also potentially more mentally unwell. Mounting reports of anxiety, worsening depression, and thoughts of suicide surround those taking GLP-1s, drugs like Ozempic. While it might be rare that the drugs make you go crazy, the potential troublesome psychiatric effects added to the long list of nasty physical effects makes the treatment intolerable for most patients. These effects are so severe that most patients stop taking the drug and thus a trial of these drugs becomes an expensive failed experiment for most people.
Do people have to stay on them forever to keep the weight off?
Dani: Basically, yes. It's possible, but rare, for people to keep the weight off when they go off these drugs. Even Oprah gained back 20 pounds when she went off them. Doctors I talk to say we should think of these medications like statins — something to be taken long term.
Fifth Doctor: Look, if Oprah can't sustain weight-loss post-Ozempic, what are your chances? Problem is, she probably found out the hard way that the weight comes back but the muscle you've also lost on GLP-1s stays lost, so you may end up in worse shape after you stop the drug than before you started. Also: "What the heck is '"long term?'" At best we have up to 18 months randomized data for current doses of GLP-1s, plus several years of followup from real-world studies, but not decades-long randomized exposure at obesity doses. As for staying on statins "forever," geez, that statement ranks among the dumbest bits of medical advice possible. It would take me a whole article to explain why "statins for life" is a loser's game, so stand by for the Fifth Doctor's advice on that file. But back to these game-changing weight loss drugs.
Do we know yet what the side effects of long-term use might be?
Dani: No, we don't really know a lot about potential long-term side effects yet. We just don't have decades and decades of data. We do know that these medications can have side effects in the short term. Most commonly, these are gastrointestinal issues: nausea, constipation, diarrhea, stomach pain. People can also get fatigued. In rare cases, people can experience more severe problems, like kidney or gallbladder issues, or pancreatitis.
Fifth Doctor: The tip-of-the-iceberg side effects are the ones we know, but like any new, widely-used drug there is that other thorny class of drug effects, the Rumsfeldian "Unknown unknowns" which for GLP-1s, are undoubtedly a minefield. Before you embark on your Ozempic-trip, you have to imagine yourself staring down the barrel of a .44 magnum and Clint Eastwood saying: "Ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk?"
But at the same time, there seems to be a new study out every week showing GLP-1s help treat various ailments. What's going on there?
Dani: Such a good question. We've seen positive data on how these drugs can help with things like sleep apnea, heart issues and kidney issues…Some think that these drugs can reduce inflammation throughout the body, which could have big benefits. But again, these drugs are pretty new, and there are many open questions.
Fifth Doctor: The caveats are welcome in an ass-covering sort of way, but let's call a spade a spade. Every new study of a new drug is often little more than a marketing opportunity for the companies making them. When the manufacturers control the release of the research, ie: publishing th...]]> Sun, 08 Mar 2026 08:40:00 -0400 What Does the Fifth Doctor Think about Ozempic?
This is a slightly shortened version of a Feb 26 New York Times article where journalist Katrin Bennhold interviews Dani Blum of the Times' "Well Team" about Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs.
The Fifth Doctor snoops in on...]]>
This is a slightly shortened version of a Feb 26 New York Times article where journalist Katrin Bennhold interviews Dani Blum of the Times' "Well Team" about Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs.
The Fifth Doctor snoops in on the conversation and adds his two cents' worth.
I've known several people who are on Ozempic who lost weight really fast. How exactly do these drugs work?
Dani: …Basically, the drugs mimic naturally occurring hormones that blunt our appetites and leave us feeling fuller, for longer. When people take these drugs, they're just less hungry.
Fifth Doctor: Yes, less hungry, but also potentially more mentally unwell. Mounting reports of anxiety, worsening depression, and thoughts of suicide surround those taking GLP-1s, drugs like Ozempic. While it might be rare that the drugs make you go crazy, the potential troublesome psychiatric effects added to the long list of nasty physical effects makes the treatment intolerable for most patients. These effects are so severe that most patients stop taking the drug and thus a trial of these drugs becomes an expensive failed experiment for most people.
Do people have to stay on them forever to keep the weight off?
Dani: Basically, yes. It's possible, but rare, for people to keep the weight off when they go off these drugs. Even Oprah gained back 20 pounds when she went off them. Doctors I talk to say we should think of these medications like statins — something to be taken long term.
Fifth Doctor: Look, if Oprah can't sustain weight-loss post-Ozempic, what are your chances? Problem is, she probably found out the hard way that the weight comes back but the muscle you've also lost on GLP-1s stays lost, so you may end up in worse shape after you stop the drug than before you started. Also: "What the heck is '"long term?'" At best we have up to 18 months randomized data for current doses of GLP-1s, plus several years of followup from real-world studies, but not decades-long randomized exposure at obesity doses. As for staying on statins "forever," geez, that statement ranks among the dumbest bits of medical advice possible. It would take me a whole article to explain why "statins for life" is a loser's game, so stand by for the Fifth Doctor's advice on that file. But back to these game-changing weight loss drugs.
Do we know yet what the side effects of long-term use might be?
Dani: No, we don't really know a lot about potential long-term side effects yet. We just don't have decades and decades of data. We do know that these medications can have side effects in the short term. Most commonly, these are gastrointestinal issues: nausea, constipation, diarrhea, stomach pain. People can also get fatigued. In rare cases, people can experience more severe problems, like kidney or gallbladder issues, or pancreatitis.
Fifth Doctor: The tip-of-the-iceberg side effects are the ones we know, but like any new, widely-used drug there is that other thorny class of drug effects, the Rumsfeldian "Unknown unknowns" which for GLP-1s, are undoubtedly a minefield. Before you embark on your Ozempic-trip, you have to imagine yourself staring down the barrel of a .44 magnum and Clint Eastwood saying: "Ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk?"
But at the same time, there seems to be a new study out every week showing GLP-1s help treat various ailments. What's going on there?
Dani: Such a good question. We've seen positive data on how these drugs can help with things like sleep apnea, heart issues and kidney issues…Some think that these drugs can reduce inflammation throughout the body, which could have big benefits. But again, these drugs are pretty new, and there are many open questions.
Fifth Doctor: The caveats are welcome in an ass-covering sort of way, but let's call a spade a spade. Every new study of a new drug is often little more than a marketing opportunity for the companies making them. When the manufacturers control the release of the research, ie: publishing th...]]> Alan Cassels 07:36 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 12 65043 The United States' withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) is more than a diplomatic rupture. It creates a unique opening to rethink how global health cooperation should actually work.
The real question is not whether countries should cooperate. They must. Humans matter. Health brings economic stability. Pathogens cross borders. Data sharing matters. Standards matter. Scientific collaboration matters.
The question is architectural: how do we cooperate without recreating the institutional incentives that weakened trust in the first place?
The WHO was established as a normative and technical body — to set standards, coordinate information, and support struggling national health systems to achieve self-reliance. It was not designed as a centralized global emergency authority. Not intended to be a perpetual role expander. but to reduce the necessity of its own existence. Yet over time, and especially during Covid-19, the emergency function came to dominate its identity. Pandemic governance, compliance frameworks, and centralized preparedness structures increasingly overshadowed the WHO's original role.
This shift was not merely political. It was structural.
Permanent emergency infrastructures create permanent incentives. Staff, budgets, and institutional relevance depend on the continued salience of crisis. A bureaucracy organized around exceptional events will struggle to declare normality. That is not conspiracy; it is institutional logic.
At the same time, the WHO's funding model — heavily dependent on earmarked voluntary contributions — has diffused accountability and encouraged agenda distortion. When financing is fragmented and politically directed, priorities inevitably drift.
Withdrawal alone does not solve these problems. Simply constructing a new institution with the same permanent emergency mandate would reproduce the same incentive distortions under a different name. While permanent disengagement amounts to self-harm.
If reform is to mean anything, it must begin with functional differentiation.
Certain global health functions are inherently multilateral and relatively non-controversial: disease classification, laboratory standards, burden-of-disease measurement, and the efficiencies attained by standardization of disease management across borders. These require legitimacy, transparency, and wide participation — not coercive authority.
Emergency powers are different.
Border closures, lockdown recommendations, stockpile deployment, and compliance monitoring directly affect domestic law, civil liberties, and economic life. These effects, like those of the target disease, vary widely between populations and demand local context. These decisions carry political consequences and must remain anchored in national accountability. Embedding such authority within permanent global bureaucracies risks normalizing emergency governance and weakening democratic oversight.
Preparedness is essential. Permanent centralized command is not.
A more disciplined alternative would rely on event-triggered compacts among willing states. These would activate only when predefined epidemiological thresholds are met. They would be time-limited. They would include automatic sunset clauses and mandatory post-event scientific and fiscal review. They would preserve domestic implementation authority, and work only within the fundamental human rights norms on which modern public health is supposed to be based.
Such a system aligns incentives differently. It allows rapid cooperation without building a standing workforce whose institutional survival depends on crisis continuity. It implements through subsidiarity.
Covid-19 revealed weaknesses not only in the WHO's performance but in the broader architecture of global health security. Expanding permanent emergency authority is unlikely to restore public confidence. Transparency, proportionality, and time-bounded and accountable authority are more likely to ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/how-to-build-a-post-who-global-health-architecture/ The United States' withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) is more than a diplomatic rupture. It creates a unique opening to rethink how global health cooperation should actually work.
The real question is not whether countries should cooperate. They must. Humans matter. Health brings economic stability. Pathogens cross borders. Data sharing matters. Standards matter. Scientific collaboration matters.
The question is architectural: how do we cooperate without recreating the institutional incentives that weakened trust in the first place?
The WHO was established as a normative and technical body — to set standards, coordinate information, and support struggling national health systems to achieve self-reliance. It was not designed as a centralized global emergency authority. Not intended to be a perpetual role expander. but to reduce the necessity of its own existence. Yet over time, and especially during Covid-19, the emergency function came to dominate its identity. Pandemic governance, compliance frameworks, and centralized preparedness structures increasingly overshadowed the WHO's original role.
This shift was not merely political. It was structural.
Permanent emergency infrastructures create permanent incentives. Staff, budgets, and institutional relevance depend on the continued salience of crisis. A bureaucracy organized around exceptional events will struggle to declare normality. That is not conspiracy; it is institutional logic.
At the same time, the WHO's funding model — heavily dependent on earmarked voluntary contributions — has diffused accountability and encouraged agenda distortion. When financing is fragmented and politically directed, priorities inevitably drift.
Withdrawal alone does not solve these problems. Simply constructing a new institution with the same permanent emergency mandate would reproduce the same incentive distortions under a different name. While permanent disengagement amounts to self-harm.
If reform is to mean anything, it must begin with functional differentiation.
Certain global health functions are inherently multilateral and relatively non-controversial: disease classification, laboratory standards, burden-of-disease measurement, and the efficiencies attained by standardization of disease management across borders. These require legitimacy, transparency, and wide participation — not coercive authority.
Emergency powers are different.
Border closures, lockdown recommendations, stockpile deployment, and compliance monitoring directly affect domestic law, civil liberties, and economic life. These effects, like those of the target disease, vary widely between populations and demand local context. These decisions carry political consequences and must remain anchored in national accountability. Embedding such authority within permanent global bureaucracies risks normalizing emergency governance and weakening democratic oversight.
Preparedness is essential. Permanent centralized command is not.
A more disciplined alternative would rely on event-triggered compacts among willing states. These would activate only when predefined epidemiological thresholds are met. They would be time-limited. They would include automatic sunset clauses and mandatory post-event scientific and fiscal review. They would preserve domestic implementation authority, and work only within the fundamental human rights norms on which modern public health is supposed to be based.
Such a system aligns incentives differently. It allows rapid cooperation without building a standing workforce whose institutional survival depends on crisis continuity. It implements through subsidiarity.
Covid-19 revealed weaknesses not only in the WHO's performance but in the broader architecture of global health security. Expanding permanent emergency authority is unlikely to restore public confidence. Transparency, proportionality, and time-bounded and accountable authority are more likely to ...]]> Sat, 07 Mar 2026 08:25:00 -0500 How to Build a Post-WHO Global Health Architecture The United States' withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) is more than a diplomatic rupture. It creates a unique opening to rethink how global health cooperation should actually work.
The real question ...]]> The United States' withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) is more than a diplomatic rupture. It creates a unique opening to rethink how global health cooperation should actually work.
The real question is not whether countries should cooperate. They must. Humans matter. Health brings economic stability. Pathogens cross borders. Data sharing matters. Standards matter. Scientific collaboration matters.
The question is architectural: how do we cooperate without recreating the institutional incentives that weakened trust in the first place?
The WHO was established as a normative and technical body — to set standards, coordinate information, and support struggling national health systems to achieve self-reliance. It was not designed as a centralized global emergency authority. Not intended to be a perpetual role expander. but to reduce the necessity of its own existence. Yet over time, and especially during Covid-19, the emergency function came to dominate its identity. Pandemic governance, compliance frameworks, and centralized preparedness structures increasingly overshadowed the WHO's original role.
This shift was not merely political. It was structural.
Permanent emergency infrastructures create permanent incentives. Staff, budgets, and institutional relevance depend on the continued salience of crisis. A bureaucracy organized around exceptional events will struggle to declare normality. That is not conspiracy; it is institutional logic.
At the same time, the WHO's funding model — heavily dependent on earmarked voluntary contributions — has diffused accountability and encouraged agenda distortion. When financing is fragmented and politically directed, priorities inevitably drift.
Withdrawal alone does not solve these problems. Simply constructing a new institution with the same permanent emergency mandate would reproduce the same incentive distortions under a different name. While permanent disengagement amounts to self-harm.
If reform is to mean anything, it must begin with functional differentiation.
Certain global health functions are inherently multilateral and relatively non-controversial: disease classification, laboratory standards, burden-of-disease measurement, and the efficiencies attained by standardization of disease management across borders. These require legitimacy, transparency, and wide participation — not coercive authority.
Emergency powers are different.
Border closures, lockdown recommendations, stockpile deployment, and compliance monitoring directly affect domestic law, civil liberties, and economic life. These effects, like those of the target disease, vary widely between populations and demand local context. These decisions carry political consequences and must remain anchored in national accountability. Embedding such authority within permanent global bureaucracies risks normalizing emergency governance and weakening democratic oversight.
Preparedness is essential. Permanent centralized command is not.
A more disciplined alternative would rely on event-triggered compacts among willing states. These would activate only when predefined epidemiological thresholds are met. They would be time-limited. They would include automatic sunset clauses and mandatory post-event scientific and fiscal review. They would preserve domestic implementation authority, and work only within the fundamental human rights norms on which modern public health is supposed to be based.
Such a system aligns incentives differently. It allows rapid cooperation without building a standing workforce whose institutional survival depends on crisis continuity. It implements through subsidiarity.
Covid-19 revealed weaknesses not only in the WHO's performance but in the broader architecture of global health security. Expanding permanent emergency authority is unlikely to restore public confidence. Transparency, proportionality, and time-bounded and accountable authority are more likely to ...]]> Roger Bate 06:26 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 11 65030 I dedicate this article to all women invited to mammography screening and those who love them because the public has consistently been lied to, for over 40 years. In invitations to screening, women have been told that by detecting cancers early, screening saves lives and leads to less invasive surgery. I shall demonstrate that all three statements are wrong.
Women are still being told these lies, by professional associations, screening advocates, screening researchers, cancer charities, and national boards of health. The American Cancer Society declares in a headline that "Mammography Saves Lives" and claims, with no references, that results from many decades of research clearly show that women who have regular mammograms are less likely to need aggressive treatments like surgery to remove the entire breast (mastectomy).
Screening Does Not Save Lives
In the randomised trials of mammography screening, the risk ratio for overall mortality after 13 years of follow-up was 0.99 (95% confidence interval 0.93 to 1.03) for those trials with adequate randomisation. The estimate happened to be the same for the other trials, some of which were so poorly randomised that the average age in the two compared groups was not the same, which makes an analysis of overall mortality unreliable.
For two of the three adequately randomised trials, those from Canada and the UK, there are follow-up data after 25 and 23 years, respectively. The risk ratio for overall mortality was 1.01 (95% confidence interval 0.98 to 1.03) for all three trials (both with a fixed effect and a random effects model, Comprehensive Meta Analysis Version 3.0). In the table, the year means the year the trial started:

This is a very strong result as it is derived from a total of 25,046 deaths. We can therefore say with great confidence that mammography screening does not save lives.
If we restrict the analysis to the two trials with a very long follow-up, the result is the same, a risk ratio of 1.01 (0.99 to 1.04).
Breast Cancer Mortality Is a Seriously Flawed Outcome
It will surprise most people to learn that we cannot trust what has been reported in the randomised trials about the effect of screening on breast cancer mortality but this is an objective fact.
A minority of the women who died were autopsied, and in several trials, cause of death was not assessed blindly. I have documented that assessment of cause of death was seriously biased. If we include all trials in the analysis, we would expect to see the greatest reduction in breast cancer mortality in those trials that were most effective in lowering the rate of node-positive cancers (cancers that had metastasised) in the screened group.
This was indeed the case, but the regression line was in the wrong place. It predicts that a screening effectiveness of zero (i.e. the rate of node-positive cancers is the same in the screened groups as in the control groups) results in a 16% reduction in breast cancer mortality (95% confidence interval 9% to 23% reduction). This can only happen if there is bias, and further analyses showed that assessment of cause of death and of the number of cancers in advanced stages were both biased in favour of screening.
Systematic reviews that include all the trials, also the poorly randomised ones, have reported that mammography screening reduces breast cancer mortality by 16-19%. As this estimate is of the same size as the bias in the regression analysis, this suggests that screening does not lower breast cancer mortality.
Another reason why breast cancer mortality is a flawed outcome is that screening leads to overdiagnosis, which is the detection of cancers and precursors to cancer (carcinoma in situ), which would not have come to the attention of the woman in her remaining lifetime and therefore would not have become a problem without screening. Since it is not possible to distinguish between harmless cancers and dangerous ones, they are all t...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-three-big-lies-about-mammography-screening/ I dedicate this article to all women invited to mammography screening and those who love them because the public has consistently been lied to, for over 40 years. In invitations to screening, women have been told that by detecting cancers early, screening saves lives and leads to less invasive surgery. I shall demonstrate that all three statements are wrong.
Women are still being told these lies, by professional associations, screening advocates, screening researchers, cancer charities, and national boards of health. The American Cancer Society declares in a headline that "Mammography Saves Lives" and claims, with no references, that results from many decades of research clearly show that women who have regular mammograms are less likely to need aggressive treatments like surgery to remove the entire breast (mastectomy).
Screening Does Not Save Lives
In the randomised trials of mammography screening, the risk ratio for overall mortality after 13 years of follow-up was 0.99 (95% confidence interval 0.93 to 1.03) for those trials with adequate randomisation. The estimate happened to be the same for the other trials, some of which were so poorly randomised that the average age in the two compared groups was not the same, which makes an analysis of overall mortality unreliable.
For two of the three adequately randomised trials, those from Canada and the UK, there are follow-up data after 25 and 23 years, respectively. The risk ratio for overall mortality was 1.01 (95% confidence interval 0.98 to 1.03) for all three trials (both with a fixed effect and a random effects model, Comprehensive Meta Analysis Version 3.0). In the table, the year means the year the trial started:

This is a very strong result as it is derived from a total of 25,046 deaths. We can therefore say with great confidence that mammography screening does not save lives.
If we restrict the analysis to the two trials with a very long follow-up, the result is the same, a risk ratio of 1.01 (0.99 to 1.04).
Breast Cancer Mortality Is a Seriously Flawed Outcome
It will surprise most people to learn that we cannot trust what has been reported in the randomised trials about the effect of screening on breast cancer mortality but this is an objective fact.
A minority of the women who died were autopsied, and in several trials, cause of death was not assessed blindly. I have documented that assessment of cause of death was seriously biased. If we include all trials in the analysis, we would expect to see the greatest reduction in breast cancer mortality in those trials that were most effective in lowering the rate of node-positive cancers (cancers that had metastasised) in the screened group.
This was indeed the case, but the regression line was in the wrong place. It predicts that a screening effectiveness of zero (i.e. the rate of node-positive cancers is the same in the screened groups as in the control groups) results in a 16% reduction in breast cancer mortality (95% confidence interval 9% to 23% reduction). This can only happen if there is bias, and further analyses showed that assessment of cause of death and of the number of cancers in advanced stages were both biased in favour of screening.
Systematic reviews that include all the trials, also the poorly randomised ones, have reported that mammography screening reduces breast cancer mortality by 16-19%. As this estimate is of the same size as the bias in the regression analysis, this suggests that screening does not lower breast cancer mortality.
Another reason why breast cancer mortality is a flawed outcome is that screening leads to overdiagnosis, which is the detection of cancers and precursors to cancer (carcinoma in situ), which would not have come to the attention of the woman in her remaining lifetime and therefore would not have become a problem without screening. Since it is not possible to distinguish between harmless cancers and dangerous ones, they are all t...]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0500 The Three Big Lies about Mammography Screening I dedicate this article to all women invited to mammography screening and those who love them because the public has consistently been lied to, for over 40 years. In invitations to screening, women have been ...]]> I dedicate this article to all women invited to mammography screening and those who love them because the public has consistently been lied to, for over 40 years. In invitations to screening, women have been told that by detecting cancers early, screening saves lives and leads to less invasive surgery. I shall demonstrate that all three statements are wrong.
Women are still being told these lies, by professional associations, screening advocates, screening researchers, cancer charities, and national boards of health. The American Cancer Society declares in a headline that "Mammography Saves Lives" and claims, with no references, that results from many decades of research clearly show that women who have regular mammograms are less likely to need aggressive treatments like surgery to remove the entire breast (mastectomy).
Screening Does Not Save Lives
In the randomised trials of mammography screening, the risk ratio for overall mortality after 13 years of follow-up was 0.99 (95% confidence interval 0.93 to 1.03) for those trials with adequate randomisation. The estimate happened to be the same for the other trials, some of which were so poorly randomised that the average age in the two compared groups was not the same, which makes an analysis of overall mortality unreliable.
For two of the three adequately randomised trials, those from Canada and the UK, there are follow-up data after 25 and 23 years, respectively. The risk ratio for overall mortality was 1.01 (95% confidence interval 0.98 to 1.03) for all three trials (both with a fixed effect and a random effects model, Comprehensive Meta Analysis Version 3.0). In the table, the year means the year the trial started:

This is a very strong result as it is derived from a total of 25,046 deaths. We can therefore say with great confidence that mammography screening does not save lives.
If we restrict the analysis to the two trials with a very long follow-up, the result is the same, a risk ratio of 1.01 (0.99 to 1.04).
Breast Cancer Mortality Is a Seriously Flawed Outcome
It will surprise most people to learn that we cannot trust what has been reported in the randomised trials about the effect of screening on breast cancer mortality but this is an objective fact.
A minority of the women who died were autopsied, and in several trials, cause of death was not assessed blindly. I have documented that assessment of cause of death was seriously biased. If we include all trials in the analysis, we would expect to see the greatest reduction in breast cancer mortality in those trials that were most effective in lowering the rate of node-positive cancers (cancers that had metastasised) in the screened group.
This was indeed the case, but the regression line was in the wrong place. It predicts that a screening effectiveness of zero (i.e. the rate of node-positive cancers is the same in the screened groups as in the control groups) results in a 16% reduction in breast cancer mortality (95% confidence interval 9% to 23% reduction). This can only happen if there is bias, and further analyses showed that assessment of cause of death and of the number of cancers in advanced stages were both biased in favour of screening.
Systematic reviews that include all the trials, also the poorly randomised ones, have reported that mammography screening reduces breast cancer mortality by 16-19%. As this estimate is of the same size as the bias in the regression analysis, this suggests that screening does not lower breast cancer mortality.
Another reason why breast cancer mortality is a flawed outcome is that screening leads to overdiagnosis, which is the detection of cancers and precursors to cancer (carcinoma in situ), which would not have come to the attention of the woman in her remaining lifetime and therefore would not have become a problem without screening. Since it is not possible to distinguish between harmless cancers and dangerous ones, they are all t...]]> Peter C. Gøtzsche 24:33 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 10 65029 [The third author of this article is David Shuldman.]
Two hundred and seventy-one. That is the number of serious cardiovascular events reported among adolescents in Israel's national surveillance system in just a few weeks during mid-2021.
This is the core finding of our study, published this week in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Research & Innovation. Our analysis examined a dataset of 294,877 adverse event reports submitted by healthcare professionals within Clalit Health Services, Israel's largest health organization, during the Covid-19 vaccination campaign. These reports were formally transferred to the Ministry of Health. In May 2024, the Israeli State Comptroller revealed that approximately 279,300 of those reports had not been processed by the Ministry. The dataset we analyzed consists of those very reports.
When we examined the file, the clustering was immediately visible. The structured fields alone revealed hundreds of cardiovascular cases. After applying deliberately conservative deduplication rules and excluding potential duplicate entries, 271 unique reports of cardiovascular events remained among adolescents aged 12 to 16. Nearly all occurred within a narrow window of just a few weeks, coinciding with the expansion of vaccine eligibility to this age group. Even under restrictive assumptions, this amounts to a minimum observed rate of approximately one cardiovascular event per 939 vaccinated adolescents.
In response to the Comptroller's findings, the Ministry dismissed the dataset as flawed, citing missing fields and duplicate entries. The Head of Public Health Services publicly described the report as "garbage." Yet the structure of the data allows straightforward filtering and analysis. Even with its limitations, the clustering is evident and required immediate examination.
This leaves only two possible conclusions. Either the reports reflected real clinical events, meaning a disproportionately large and temporally concentrated safety signal was present in the national system while the vaccination campaign for children was being expanded. Or, if the Ministry is correct and the file is indeed "garbage," then the monitoring system itself was not functioning as publicly presented. If so, authorities were flying blind, promoting a product as "safe" while the very mechanism meant to monitor that safety was fundamentally broken.
Hidden in Plain Sight
The full picture that emerges from the file is presented below.
To ensure our findings rested on the most solid ground, we applied a deliberately conservative analytical strategy. We counted only unique reports in which key variables – sex, birth year, or dose number – were distinct. If there was any doubt about duplication or reliability, we excluded the report.
Despite this conservative approach, we identified 277 unique cardiovascular cases among minors, including acute cardiovascular injury, myocarditis, and pericarditis. The timing is impossible to ignore: 271 of these cases (98%) occurred among adolescents aged 12-16 within a narrow window of just a few weeks, temporally coinciding with the expansion of vaccine eligibility to this age group.
This pattern stands in direct contradiction to the risk profile presented to the public at the time. Official health authorities repeatedly described cardiac risks as "rare," "mild," and largely confined to young males following the second dose. The distribution observed in the dataset shows something different: cases were recorded across both sexes, across doses, and within a concentrated calendar window that coincided with the adolescent rollout.
The sheer scale of these reports is even more alarming when you look at the numbers. Approximately 254,000 Clalit-insured adolescents received at least one dose during that period. To derive a minimum risk estimate, we again leaned on the most restrictive assumptions possible, treating the 271 cases as the absolute total and i...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/271-teenage-cardiac-reports-buried-in-a-file-labeled-garbage/ [The third author of this article is David Shuldman.]
Two hundred and seventy-one. That is the number of serious cardiovascular events reported among adolescents in Israel's national surveillance system in just a few weeks during mid-2021.
This is the core finding of our study, published this week in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Research & Innovation. Our analysis examined a dataset of 294,877 adverse event reports submitted by healthcare professionals within Clalit Health Services, Israel's largest health organization, during the Covid-19 vaccination campaign. These reports were formally transferred to the Ministry of Health. In May 2024, the Israeli State Comptroller revealed that approximately 279,300 of those reports had not been processed by the Ministry. The dataset we analyzed consists of those very reports.
When we examined the file, the clustering was immediately visible. The structured fields alone revealed hundreds of cardiovascular cases. After applying deliberately conservative deduplication rules and excluding potential duplicate entries, 271 unique reports of cardiovascular events remained among adolescents aged 12 to 16. Nearly all occurred within a narrow window of just a few weeks, coinciding with the expansion of vaccine eligibility to this age group. Even under restrictive assumptions, this amounts to a minimum observed rate of approximately one cardiovascular event per 939 vaccinated adolescents.
In response to the Comptroller's findings, the Ministry dismissed the dataset as flawed, citing missing fields and duplicate entries. The Head of Public Health Services publicly described the report as "garbage." Yet the structure of the data allows straightforward filtering and analysis. Even with its limitations, the clustering is evident and required immediate examination.
This leaves only two possible conclusions. Either the reports reflected real clinical events, meaning a disproportionately large and temporally concentrated safety signal was present in the national system while the vaccination campaign for children was being expanded. Or, if the Ministry is correct and the file is indeed "garbage," then the monitoring system itself was not functioning as publicly presented. If so, authorities were flying blind, promoting a product as "safe" while the very mechanism meant to monitor that safety was fundamentally broken.
Hidden in Plain Sight
The full picture that emerges from the file is presented below.
To ensure our findings rested on the most solid ground, we applied a deliberately conservative analytical strategy. We counted only unique reports in which key variables – sex, birth year, or dose number – were distinct. If there was any doubt about duplication or reliability, we excluded the report.
Despite this conservative approach, we identified 277 unique cardiovascular cases among minors, including acute cardiovascular injury, myocarditis, and pericarditis. The timing is impossible to ignore: 271 of these cases (98%) occurred among adolescents aged 12-16 within a narrow window of just a few weeks, temporally coinciding with the expansion of vaccine eligibility to this age group.
This pattern stands in direct contradiction to the risk profile presented to the public at the time. Official health authorities repeatedly described cardiac risks as "rare," "mild," and largely confined to young males following the second dose. The distribution observed in the dataset shows something different: cases were recorded across both sexes, across doses, and within a concentrated calendar window that coincided with the adolescent rollout.
The sheer scale of these reports is even more alarming when you look at the numbers. Approximately 254,000 Clalit-insured adolescents received at least one dose during that period. To derive a minimum risk estimate, we again leaned on the most restrictive assumptions possible, treating the 271 cases as the absolute total and i...]]> Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:36:25 -0500 271 Teenage Cardiac Reports Buried in a File Labeled "Garbage" [The third author of this article is David Shuldman.]
Two hundred and seventy-one. That is the number of serious cardiovascular events reported among adolescents in Israel's national surveillance system in just ...]]> [The third author of this article is David Shuldman.]
Two hundred and seventy-one. That is the number of serious cardiovascular events reported among adolescents in Israel's national surveillance system in just a few weeks during mid-2021.
This is the core finding of our study, published this week in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Research & Innovation. Our analysis examined a dataset of 294,877 adverse event reports submitted by healthcare professionals within Clalit Health Services, Israel's largest health organization, during the Covid-19 vaccination campaign. These reports were formally transferred to the Ministry of Health. In May 2024, the Israeli State Comptroller revealed that approximately 279,300 of those reports had not been processed by the Ministry. The dataset we analyzed consists of those very reports.
When we examined the file, the clustering was immediately visible. The structured fields alone revealed hundreds of cardiovascular cases. After applying deliberately conservative deduplication rules and excluding potential duplicate entries, 271 unique reports of cardiovascular events remained among adolescents aged 12 to 16. Nearly all occurred within a narrow window of just a few weeks, coinciding with the expansion of vaccine eligibility to this age group. Even under restrictive assumptions, this amounts to a minimum observed rate of approximately one cardiovascular event per 939 vaccinated adolescents.
In response to the Comptroller's findings, the Ministry dismissed the dataset as flawed, citing missing fields and duplicate entries. The Head of Public Health Services publicly described the report as "garbage." Yet the structure of the data allows straightforward filtering and analysis. Even with its limitations, the clustering is evident and required immediate examination.
This leaves only two possible conclusions. Either the reports reflected real clinical events, meaning a disproportionately large and temporally concentrated safety signal was present in the national system while the vaccination campaign for children was being expanded. Or, if the Ministry is correct and the file is indeed "garbage," then the monitoring system itself was not functioning as publicly presented. If so, authorities were flying blind, promoting a product as "safe" while the very mechanism meant to monitor that safety was fundamentally broken.
Hidden in Plain Sight
The full picture that emerges from the file is presented below.
To ensure our findings rested on the most solid ground, we applied a deliberately conservative analytical strategy. We counted only unique reports in which key variables – sex, birth year, or dose number – were distinct. If there was any doubt about duplication or reliability, we excluded the report.
Despite this conservative approach, we identified 277 unique cardiovascular cases among minors, including acute cardiovascular injury, myocarditis, and pericarditis. The timing is impossible to ignore: 271 of these cases (98%) occurred among adolescents aged 12-16 within a narrow window of just a few weeks, temporally coinciding with the expansion of vaccine eligibility to this age group.
This pattern stands in direct contradiction to the risk profile presented to the public at the time. Official health authorities repeatedly described cardiac risks as "rare," "mild," and largely confined to young males following the second dose. The distribution observed in the dataset shows something different: cases were recorded across both sexes, across doses, and within a concentrated calendar window that coincided with the adolescent rollout.
The sheer scale of these reports is even more alarming when you look at the numbers. Approximately 254,000 Clalit-insured adolescents received at least one dose during that period. To derive a minimum risk estimate, we again leaned on the most restrictive assumptions possible, treating the 271 cases as the absolute total and i...]]> Yaffa Shir-Raz 14:28 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 9 64841 In recent years, I have observed a concerning trend in clinical practice. Patients often present not at the beginning of their diagnostic journey, but after undergoing multiple procedures. Many have already experienced numerous tests, interventions, injections, ablations, endoscopies, and even surgeries, frequently within a brief timeframe and sometimes without a clearly defined, stepwise rationale.
In many of these cases, I find myself asking a simple but uncomfortable question: Why was all of this done?
Procedures are essential and life-saving. Interventional medicine has markedly improved outcomes in cardiology, oncology, critical care, trauma, and other specialties. With decades of experience in resuscitation medicine, I fully support decisive intervention when clinically indicated. However, the prevailing challenge is not under-treatment, but the normalization of reflexive intervention. Medicine has shifted from a discipline rooted in thoughtful clinical reasoning to one increasingly driven by algorithmic escalation, often to the detriment of patients.
The Procedural Cascade
There is a phenomenon in modern healthcare that is rarely discussed openly: the procedural cascade. A patient presents with symptoms of back pain, reflux, mild arrhythmia, knee discomfort, and fatigue. An imaging study is ordered early. An incidental finding appears. The incidental finding triggers a referral. The referral triggers a diagnostic procedure. The diagnostic procedure reveals a "borderline" abnormality. The borderline abnormality leads to intervention.
Each step in this process may appear justified when considered in isolation. The MRI revealed a finding. The specialist aimed to avoid missing a diagnosis. The procedure was technically indicated.
However, when we examine the entire sequence, it often becomes apparent that no one paused to assess whether the patient was improving, deteriorating, or genuinely required intervention. Each step in this cascade carries risk: infection, bleeding, anesthesia complications, nerve injury, medication side effects, psychological distress, financial strain, and, in some cases, permanent harm.
In the intensive care unit, clinicians are trained to evaluate the risk–benefit balance of every intervention. Each line placed, medication administered, or procedure performed must be justified by its potential benefits relative to its risks. Outside of critical care, however, this discipline of restraint often diminishes.
When "More" Becomes the Default
Modern healthcare systems reward activity. Activity generates revenue. Procedures are reimbursed at higher rates than conversations. Interventions are billable. Observation is not.
This is not a moral critique of individual physicians. Most enter the profession with a genuine desire to help. However, clinicians function within systems that shape behavior. When compensation models prioritize procedural throughput, hospital systems depend on service-line revenue, and time constraints limit nuanced discussion, the pressure to act intensifies. In many clinical environments, the most challenging decision is not which action to take, but whether to refrain from intervention.
Defensive medicine also contributes significantly. Fear of litigation often compels physicians to order additional tests. This approach is understandable, as it is generally easier to defend action than inaction in legal settings. However, defensive ordering introduces its own risks, including radiation exposure, false positives, unnecessary biopsies, and further invasive procedures.
It is essential to ask: when a procedure is performed, is it primarily driven by patient-centered benefit, or by systemic pressures unrelated to the individual patient?
The Training Question
Another concerning possibility is a decline in the art of clinical judgment. The older generation of physicians was trained in an era when diagnostic imaging was limited, and laboratory test...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-quiet-crisis-of-procedural-medicine/ In recent years, I have observed a concerning trend in clinical practice. Patients often present not at the beginning of their diagnostic journey, but after undergoing multiple procedures. Many have already experienced numerous tests, interventions, injections, ablations, endoscopies, and even surgeries, frequently within a brief timeframe and sometimes without a clearly defined, stepwise rationale.
In many of these cases, I find myself asking a simple but uncomfortable question: Why was all of this done?
Procedures are essential and life-saving. Interventional medicine has markedly improved outcomes in cardiology, oncology, critical care, trauma, and other specialties. With decades of experience in resuscitation medicine, I fully support decisive intervention when clinically indicated. However, the prevailing challenge is not under-treatment, but the normalization of reflexive intervention. Medicine has shifted from a discipline rooted in thoughtful clinical reasoning to one increasingly driven by algorithmic escalation, often to the detriment of patients.
The Procedural Cascade
There is a phenomenon in modern healthcare that is rarely discussed openly: the procedural cascade. A patient presents with symptoms of back pain, reflux, mild arrhythmia, knee discomfort, and fatigue. An imaging study is ordered early. An incidental finding appears. The incidental finding triggers a referral. The referral triggers a diagnostic procedure. The diagnostic procedure reveals a "borderline" abnormality. The borderline abnormality leads to intervention.
Each step in this process may appear justified when considered in isolation. The MRI revealed a finding. The specialist aimed to avoid missing a diagnosis. The procedure was technically indicated.
However, when we examine the entire sequence, it often becomes apparent that no one paused to assess whether the patient was improving, deteriorating, or genuinely required intervention. Each step in this cascade carries risk: infection, bleeding, anesthesia complications, nerve injury, medication side effects, psychological distress, financial strain, and, in some cases, permanent harm.
In the intensive care unit, clinicians are trained to evaluate the risk–benefit balance of every intervention. Each line placed, medication administered, or procedure performed must be justified by its potential benefits relative to its risks. Outside of critical care, however, this discipline of restraint often diminishes.
When "More" Becomes the Default
Modern healthcare systems reward activity. Activity generates revenue. Procedures are reimbursed at higher rates than conversations. Interventions are billable. Observation is not.
This is not a moral critique of individual physicians. Most enter the profession with a genuine desire to help. However, clinicians function within systems that shape behavior. When compensation models prioritize procedural throughput, hospital systems depend on service-line revenue, and time constraints limit nuanced discussion, the pressure to act intensifies. In many clinical environments, the most challenging decision is not which action to take, but whether to refrain from intervention.
Defensive medicine also contributes significantly. Fear of litigation often compels physicians to order additional tests. This approach is understandable, as it is generally easier to defend action than inaction in legal settings. However, defensive ordering introduces its own risks, including radiation exposure, false positives, unnecessary biopsies, and further invasive procedures.
It is essential to ask: when a procedure is performed, is it primarily driven by patient-centered benefit, or by systemic pressures unrelated to the individual patient?
The Training Question
Another concerning possibility is a decline in the art of clinical judgment. The older generation of physicians was trained in an era when diagnostic imaging was limited, and laboratory test...]]> Thu, 05 Mar 2026 07:00:12 -0500 The Quiet Crisis of Procedural Medicine In recent years, I have observed a concerning trend in clinical practice. Patients often present not at the beginning of their diagnostic journey, but after undergoing multiple procedures. Many have already experi...]]> In recent years, I have observed a concerning trend in clinical practice. Patients often present not at the beginning of their diagnostic journey, but after undergoing multiple procedures. Many have already experienced numerous tests, interventions, injections, ablations, endoscopies, and even surgeries, frequently within a brief timeframe and sometimes without a clearly defined, stepwise rationale.
In many of these cases, I find myself asking a simple but uncomfortable question: Why was all of this done?
Procedures are essential and life-saving. Interventional medicine has markedly improved outcomes in cardiology, oncology, critical care, trauma, and other specialties. With decades of experience in resuscitation medicine, I fully support decisive intervention when clinically indicated. However, the prevailing challenge is not under-treatment, but the normalization of reflexive intervention. Medicine has shifted from a discipline rooted in thoughtful clinical reasoning to one increasingly driven by algorithmic escalation, often to the detriment of patients.
The Procedural Cascade
There is a phenomenon in modern healthcare that is rarely discussed openly: the procedural cascade. A patient presents with symptoms of back pain, reflux, mild arrhythmia, knee discomfort, and fatigue. An imaging study is ordered early. An incidental finding appears. The incidental finding triggers a referral. The referral triggers a diagnostic procedure. The diagnostic procedure reveals a "borderline" abnormality. The borderline abnormality leads to intervention.
Each step in this process may appear justified when considered in isolation. The MRI revealed a finding. The specialist aimed to avoid missing a diagnosis. The procedure was technically indicated.
However, when we examine the entire sequence, it often becomes apparent that no one paused to assess whether the patient was improving, deteriorating, or genuinely required intervention. Each step in this cascade carries risk: infection, bleeding, anesthesia complications, nerve injury, medication side effects, psychological distress, financial strain, and, in some cases, permanent harm.
In the intensive care unit, clinicians are trained to evaluate the risk–benefit balance of every intervention. Each line placed, medication administered, or procedure performed must be justified by its potential benefits relative to its risks. Outside of critical care, however, this discipline of restraint often diminishes.
When "More" Becomes the Default
Modern healthcare systems reward activity. Activity generates revenue. Procedures are reimbursed at higher rates than conversations. Interventions are billable. Observation is not.
This is not a moral critique of individual physicians. Most enter the profession with a genuine desire to help. However, clinicians function within systems that shape behavior. When compensation models prioritize procedural throughput, hospital systems depend on service-line revenue, and time constraints limit nuanced discussion, the pressure to act intensifies. In many clinical environments, the most challenging decision is not which action to take, but whether to refrain from intervention.
Defensive medicine also contributes significantly. Fear of litigation often compels physicians to order additional tests. This approach is understandable, as it is generally easier to defend action than inaction in legal settings. However, defensive ordering introduces its own risks, including radiation exposure, false positives, unnecessary biopsies, and further invasive procedures.
It is essential to ask: when a procedure is performed, is it primarily driven by patient-centered benefit, or by systemic pressures unrelated to the individual patient?
The Training Question
Another concerning possibility is a decline in the art of clinical judgment. The older generation of physicians was trained in an era when diagnostic imaging was limited, and laboratory test...]]> Joseph Varon 09:47 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 8 64800 In my epidemiology coursework, many years ago, I was taught that the smallpox vaccine had eradicated that dreadful disease. It was common knowledge, so I did not question the claim.
They did not tell me about favorable time trends in the natural course of other infectious diseases for which there was no vaccine, nor about the correlation of those trends with improved living conditions, sanitation, personal hygiene, and nutrition. The unexplained transition from the severe form of smallpox (variola major) to the mild form (variola minor) in the Western world was not mentioned. All the credit was given to the smallpox vaccine.
Of course, no randomized trial of that vaccine was ever conducted. There was, however, a natural experiment in Yugoslavia in 1972—a short-lived outbreak of smallpox with a total of 175 infected people and 35 deaths. Besides a vaccination campaign, there are interesting parallels to the Covid story, so it is worthwhile to re-examine that outbreak.
My primary sources were a document published by the WHO in November 1972 and a paper published 50 years later. Another recent paper also provided a historical review of the population of Kosovo, where almost three-quarters of the cases have occurred. As expected, all three papers and others attribute the end of the smallpox outbreak in Yugoslavia to the public health response, which included contact tracing, quarantines, lockdowns, and mass vaccination. Was that indeed the case?

The Course of the Outbreak
The epidemic graph (below) was taken from the WHO document. I added the blue curve. The index case, a villager from Kosovo, was identified in February and was probably infected during a trip to Mecca. Reportedly, he was vaccinated in his youth and received the obligatory vaccine against smallpox before his trip "without a control of vaccination success."

The WHO document refers to "three generations" of the outbreak based on presumed chains of infection, or what they imagined as three waves: two small and one large in between. In fact, we observe a classical, single epidemic curve that peaked on March 23. (Allowing for some randomness in the date of a few cases should eliminate any doubt about the underlying bell-shaped distribution.)
The timeline of the outbreak and the public health response are summarized in the table. It was about four weeks between the detection of the first cases and the last cases.

Of 175 cases, 124 (71%) were Kosovo residents. They are highlighted in the graph below. The wave pattern is evident both within and outside Kosovo.

The incubation period of smallpox was at least one week long and might have been as long as two weeks. Here is what the WHO document states on the topic, based on the presumed date of contact with an infected person.
"For 88% of the patients, the incubation period ranged from 9 to 13 days. These observations are in accord with those described in the literature." Shifting the graph of cases (displayed by date of symptom onset) to the left by 9 days, we get an approximate graph by date of infection. The arrows indicate three milestones.

The graph shows that the number of infections peaked and declined before any public health intervention.
Note that a shift of the symptom-based graph by 9 days is conservative. The mean incubation period in the outbreak was 11 days, placing March 16—the date of the first interventions—well within the tail of the infection-based wave. Moreover, no intervention has an instantaneous effect on the risk of infection.
In summary, it was a self-limited epidemic wave, mainly concentrated in the Kosovo population whose unique characteristics will be described later. Most likely, the panic-triggered official response added close to nothing and caused collateral damage.
The Public Health Response
A series of quotes from various publications should give an idea of the measures that were taken in Yugoslavia:
"On 16 March, when virological examination con...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/covid-of-the-past-smallpox-in-yugoslavia-1972/ In my epidemiology coursework, many years ago, I was taught that the smallpox vaccine had eradicated that dreadful disease. It was common knowledge, so I did not question the claim.
They did not tell me about favorable time trends in the natural course of other infectious diseases for which there was no vaccine, nor about the correlation of those trends with improved living conditions, sanitation, personal hygiene, and nutrition. The unexplained transition from the severe form of smallpox (variola major) to the mild form (variola minor) in the Western world was not mentioned. All the credit was given to the smallpox vaccine.
Of course, no randomized trial of that vaccine was ever conducted. There was, however, a natural experiment in Yugoslavia in 1972—a short-lived outbreak of smallpox with a total of 175 infected people and 35 deaths. Besides a vaccination campaign, there are interesting parallels to the Covid story, so it is worthwhile to re-examine that outbreak.
My primary sources were a document published by the WHO in November 1972 and a paper published 50 years later. Another recent paper also provided a historical review of the population of Kosovo, where almost three-quarters of the cases have occurred. As expected, all three papers and others attribute the end of the smallpox outbreak in Yugoslavia to the public health response, which included contact tracing, quarantines, lockdowns, and mass vaccination. Was that indeed the case?

The Course of the Outbreak
The epidemic graph (below) was taken from the WHO document. I added the blue curve. The index case, a villager from Kosovo, was identified in February and was probably infected during a trip to Mecca. Reportedly, he was vaccinated in his youth and received the obligatory vaccine against smallpox before his trip "without a control of vaccination success."

The WHO document refers to "three generations" of the outbreak based on presumed chains of infection, or what they imagined as three waves: two small and one large in between. In fact, we observe a classical, single epidemic curve that peaked on March 23. (Allowing for some randomness in the date of a few cases should eliminate any doubt about the underlying bell-shaped distribution.)
The timeline of the outbreak and the public health response are summarized in the table. It was about four weeks between the detection of the first cases and the last cases.

Of 175 cases, 124 (71%) were Kosovo residents. They are highlighted in the graph below. The wave pattern is evident both within and outside Kosovo.

The incubation period of smallpox was at least one week long and might have been as long as two weeks. Here is what the WHO document states on the topic, based on the presumed date of contact with an infected person.
"For 88% of the patients, the incubation period ranged from 9 to 13 days. These observations are in accord with those described in the literature." Shifting the graph of cases (displayed by date of symptom onset) to the left by 9 days, we get an approximate graph by date of infection. The arrows indicate three milestones.

The graph shows that the number of infections peaked and declined before any public health intervention.
Note that a shift of the symptom-based graph by 9 days is conservative. The mean incubation period in the outbreak was 11 days, placing March 16—the date of the first interventions—well within the tail of the infection-based wave. Moreover, no intervention has an instantaneous effect on the risk of infection.
In summary, it was a self-limited epidemic wave, mainly concentrated in the Kosovo population whose unique characteristics will be described later. Most likely, the panic-triggered official response added close to nothing and caused collateral damage.
The Public Health Response
A series of quotes from various publications should give an idea of the measures that were taken in Yugoslavia:
"On 16 March, when virological examination con...]]> Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:32:01 -0500 Covid of the Past: Smallpox in Yugoslavia, 1972 In my epidemiology coursework, many years ago, I was taught that the smallpox vaccine had eradicated that dreadful disease. It was common knowledge, so I did not question the claim.
They did not tell me about favor...]]> In my epidemiology coursework, many years ago, I was taught that the smallpox vaccine had eradicated that dreadful disease. It was common knowledge, so I did not question the claim.
They did not tell me about favorable time trends in the natural course of other infectious diseases for which there was no vaccine, nor about the correlation of those trends with improved living conditions, sanitation, personal hygiene, and nutrition. The unexplained transition from the severe form of smallpox (variola major) to the mild form (variola minor) in the Western world was not mentioned. All the credit was given to the smallpox vaccine.
Of course, no randomized trial of that vaccine was ever conducted. There was, however, a natural experiment in Yugoslavia in 1972—a short-lived outbreak of smallpox with a total of 175 infected people and 35 deaths. Besides a vaccination campaign, there are interesting parallels to the Covid story, so it is worthwhile to re-examine that outbreak.
My primary sources were a document published by the WHO in November 1972 and a paper published 50 years later. Another recent paper also provided a historical review of the population of Kosovo, where almost three-quarters of the cases have occurred. As expected, all three papers and others attribute the end of the smallpox outbreak in Yugoslavia to the public health response, which included contact tracing, quarantines, lockdowns, and mass vaccination. Was that indeed the case?

The Course of the Outbreak
The epidemic graph (below) was taken from the WHO document. I added the blue curve. The index case, a villager from Kosovo, was identified in February and was probably infected during a trip to Mecca. Reportedly, he was vaccinated in his youth and received the obligatory vaccine against smallpox before his trip "without a control of vaccination success."

The WHO document refers to "three generations" of the outbreak based on presumed chains of infection, or what they imagined as three waves: two small and one large in between. In fact, we observe a classical, single epidemic curve that peaked on March 23. (Allowing for some randomness in the date of a few cases should eliminate any doubt about the underlying bell-shaped distribution.)
The timeline of the outbreak and the public health response are summarized in the table. It was about four weeks between the detection of the first cases and the last cases.

Of 175 cases, 124 (71%) were Kosovo residents. They are highlighted in the graph below. The wave pattern is evident both within and outside Kosovo.

The incubation period of smallpox was at least one week long and might have been as long as two weeks. Here is what the WHO document states on the topic, based on the presumed date of contact with an infected person.
"For 88% of the patients, the incubation period ranged from 9 to 13 days. These observations are in accord with those described in the literature." Shifting the graph of cases (displayed by date of symptom onset) to the left by 9 days, we get an approximate graph by date of infection. The arrows indicate three milestones.

The graph shows that the number of infections peaked and declined before any public health intervention.
Note that a shift of the symptom-based graph by 9 days is conservative. The mean incubation period in the outbreak was 11 days, placing March 16—the date of the first interventions—well within the tail of the infection-based wave. Moreover, no intervention has an instantaneous effect on the risk of infection.
In summary, it was a self-limited epidemic wave, mainly concentrated in the Kosovo population whose unique characteristics will be described later. Most likely, the panic-triggered official response added close to nothing and caused collateral damage.
The Public Health Response
A series of quotes from various publications should give an idea of the measures that were taken in Yugoslavia:
"On 16 March, when virological examination con...]]> Eyal Shahar 15:04 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 7 65068 The right of individuals to make their own health care decisions is a topic of intense public concern. Proponents of medical freedom argue that no government, business, or other institution can override a person's ultimate authority over what medicines or vaccines they choose to take.
The health freedom movement more generally encompasses the related issues of clean air and water, over-prescription of drugs to children, pesticide use, dangerous food additives, legal immunities granted for vaccine manufacturers, and the right of doctors to speak freely about their opinions without fear of censure or loss of livelihood.
Despite the timeliness of these topics, and the passionate opinions held on them, most major media outlets, polling groups, and political strategists would have us believe that support for medical freedom is very low. On top of that claim, they insist these priorities are "bad politics" that would endanger a candidate in a close race if embraced.
To justify these claims, they point to opinion polls commissioned by established political groups that are not nearly as unhappy with the status quo as the average American is. In this way, polls are used less as a way to capture public opinion than as a tool to shape the policy landscape.
We've been subjected to several of these lately. What we've lacked is an objective poll that addresses the curiosities everyone has, with plain questions that get to the root of the controversies over health and medical issues.
Health Freedom Defense Fund and Brownstone Institute initiated such a poll to find out. This February 26-27, 2026 poll, conducted by Zogby Strategies, has documented remarkable supermajorities in favor of medical and health freedom, with numbers on objective questions exceeding 80 percent.
Polled were 1,000 registered voters with 93.6% definitely or very likely to vote. The party breakdown is 37% Republican, 36% Democrat, 27% Independent. Party breakdown shows broad support. The margin of error for overall results is +/- 3.2 percentage points.
Such supermajorities are rare in polling outcomes. Polling documents embedded below.
Strongest areas of agreement (broad majority support):
Right to refuse medical treatment generally: 87.9% agree (58.8% strongly).
Right to make one's own medical choices as a basic human right protected by law: 87.2% agree (59.5% strongly).
Doctors should discuss vaccine concerns openly without fear of medical board backlash: 88.1% agree (64.5% strongly — one of the highest "strongly agree" levels in the survey).
Health insurance should cover chosen treatments, including holistic/alternative options: 76.1% agree (43.6% strongly).
Right to refuse vaccines for adults: 80.4% agree (50.5% strongly).
Personal medical/vaccine decisions should never lead to employment denial: 70.6% agree (47.3% strongly).
Parents' right to refuse vaccines for children/dependents: 65.7% agree — still a clear majority, but softer than adult refusal (37.4% strongly agree vs. 50.5% for adults).
On matters of school vaccine mandates, results show majorities:
Parents should be able to opt children out of school vaccine mandates: 54.5% agree (31.0% strongly). Among parents with children under 17, the agreement was 66.7%, with 42.8% strongly agreeing. To put this staggering result in context, other polls in recent years have concluded that more than 70% of the public support school vaccine mandates.
College students should not have been expelled for refusing Covid-19 vaccine: 65.4% agree (44.4% strongly).
On matters related to the Covid-19 Era, the poll documents a strong majority opposed measures in retrospect:
Covid lockdowns/restrictions caused excessive damage to American society: 61.9% agree (35.0% strongly) vs. 32.0% disagree.
On other matters related to medical freedom:
Childhood vaccine schedule expansion likely contributed to rise in chronic diseases (among other factors): 48.3% agree vs. 38.2% disagree + 13.6% undec...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/supermajority-of-voters-support-health-and-medical-freedom-poll-shows/ The right of individuals to make their own health care decisions is a topic of intense public concern. Proponents of medical freedom argue that no government, business, or other institution can override a person's ultimate authority over what medicines or vaccines they choose to take.
The health freedom movement more generally encompasses the related issues of clean air and water, over-prescription of drugs to children, pesticide use, dangerous food additives, legal immunities granted for vaccine manufacturers, and the right of doctors to speak freely about their opinions without fear of censure or loss of livelihood.
Despite the timeliness of these topics, and the passionate opinions held on them, most major media outlets, polling groups, and political strategists would have us believe that support for medical freedom is very low. On top of that claim, they insist these priorities are "bad politics" that would endanger a candidate in a close race if embraced.
To justify these claims, they point to opinion polls commissioned by established political groups that are not nearly as unhappy with the status quo as the average American is. In this way, polls are used less as a way to capture public opinion than as a tool to shape the policy landscape.
We've been subjected to several of these lately. What we've lacked is an objective poll that addresses the curiosities everyone has, with plain questions that get to the root of the controversies over health and medical issues.
Health Freedom Defense Fund and Brownstone Institute initiated such a poll to find out. This February 26-27, 2026 poll, conducted by Zogby Strategies, has documented remarkable supermajorities in favor of medical and health freedom, with numbers on objective questions exceeding 80 percent.
Polled were 1,000 registered voters with 93.6% definitely or very likely to vote. The party breakdown is 37% Republican, 36% Democrat, 27% Independent. Party breakdown shows broad support. The margin of error for overall results is +/- 3.2 percentage points.
Such supermajorities are rare in polling outcomes. Polling documents embedded below.
Strongest areas of agreement (broad majority support):
Right to refuse medical treatment generally: 87.9% agree (58.8% strongly).
Right to make one's own medical choices as a basic human right protected by law: 87.2% agree (59.5% strongly).
Doctors should discuss vaccine concerns openly without fear of medical board backlash: 88.1% agree (64.5% strongly — one of the highest "strongly agree" levels in the survey).
Health insurance should cover chosen treatments, including holistic/alternative options: 76.1% agree (43.6% strongly).
Right to refuse vaccines for adults: 80.4% agree (50.5% strongly).
Personal medical/vaccine decisions should never lead to employment denial: 70.6% agree (47.3% strongly).
Parents' right to refuse vaccines for children/dependents: 65.7% agree — still a clear majority, but softer than adult refusal (37.4% strongly agree vs. 50.5% for adults).
On matters of school vaccine mandates, results show majorities:
Parents should be able to opt children out of school vaccine mandates: 54.5% agree (31.0% strongly). Among parents with children under 17, the agreement was 66.7%, with 42.8% strongly agreeing. To put this staggering result in context, other polls in recent years have concluded that more than 70% of the public support school vaccine mandates.
College students should not have been expelled for refusing Covid-19 vaccine: 65.4% agree (44.4% strongly).
On matters related to the Covid-19 Era, the poll documents a strong majority opposed measures in retrospect:
Covid lockdowns/restrictions caused excessive damage to American society: 61.9% agree (35.0% strongly) vs. 32.0% disagree.
On other matters related to medical freedom:
Childhood vaccine schedule expansion likely contributed to rise in chronic diseases (among other factors): 48.3% agree vs. 38.2% disagree + 13.6% undec...]]> Wed, 04 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0500 Supermajority of Voters Support Health and Medical Freedom, Poll Shows The right of individuals to make their own health care decisions is a topic of intense public concern. Proponents of medical freedom argue that no government, business, or other institution can override a pers...]]> The right of individuals to make their own health care decisions is a topic of intense public concern. Proponents of medical freedom argue that no government, business, or other institution can override a person's ultimate authority over what medicines or vaccines they choose to take.
The health freedom movement more generally encompasses the related issues of clean air and water, over-prescription of drugs to children, pesticide use, dangerous food additives, legal immunities granted for vaccine manufacturers, and the right of doctors to speak freely about their opinions without fear of censure or loss of livelihood.
Despite the timeliness of these topics, and the passionate opinions held on them, most major media outlets, polling groups, and political strategists would have us believe that support for medical freedom is very low. On top of that claim, they insist these priorities are "bad politics" that would endanger a candidate in a close race if embraced.
To justify these claims, they point to opinion polls commissioned by established political groups that are not nearly as unhappy with the status quo as the average American is. In this way, polls are used less as a way to capture public opinion than as a tool to shape the policy landscape.
We've been subjected to several of these lately. What we've lacked is an objective poll that addresses the curiosities everyone has, with plain questions that get to the root of the controversies over health and medical issues.
Health Freedom Defense Fund and Brownstone Institute initiated such a poll to find out. This February 26-27, 2026 poll, conducted by Zogby Strategies, has documented remarkable supermajorities in favor of medical and health freedom, with numbers on objective questions exceeding 80 percent.
Polled were 1,000 registered voters with 93.6% definitely or very likely to vote. The party breakdown is 37% Republican, 36% Democrat, 27% Independent. Party breakdown shows broad support. The margin of error for overall results is +/- 3.2 percentage points.
Such supermajorities are rare in polling outcomes. Polling documents embedded below.
Strongest areas of agreement (broad majority support):
Right to refuse medical treatment generally: 87.9% agree (58.8% strongly).
Right to make one's own medical choices as a basic human right protected by law: 87.2% agree (59.5% strongly).
Doctors should discuss vaccine concerns openly without fear of medical board backlash: 88.1% agree (64.5% strongly — one of the highest "strongly agree" levels in the survey).
Health insurance should cover chosen treatments, including holistic/alternative options: 76.1% agree (43.6% strongly).
Right to refuse vaccines for adults: 80.4% agree (50.5% strongly).
Personal medical/vaccine decisions should never lead to employment denial: 70.6% agree (47.3% strongly).
Parents' right to refuse vaccines for children/dependents: 65.7% agree — still a clear majority, but softer than adult refusal (37.4% strongly agree vs. 50.5% for adults).
On matters of school vaccine mandates, results show majorities:
Parents should be able to opt children out of school vaccine mandates: 54.5% agree (31.0% strongly). Among parents with children under 17, the agreement was 66.7%, with 42.8% strongly agreeing. To put this staggering result in context, other polls in recent years have concluded that more than 70% of the public support school vaccine mandates.
College students should not have been expelled for refusing Covid-19 vaccine: 65.4% agree (44.4% strongly).
On matters related to the Covid-19 Era, the poll documents a strong majority opposed measures in retrospect:
Covid lockdowns/restrictions caused excessive damage to American society: 61.9% agree (35.0% strongly) vs. 32.0% disagree.
On other matters related to medical freedom:
Childhood vaccine schedule expansion likely contributed to rise in chronic diseases (among other factors): 48.3% agree vs. 38.2% disagree + 13.6% undec...]]> Leslie Manookian 06:55 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 6 64759 Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a referendum for October 19. It will ask Albertans a slate of policy and constitutional questions. Independence, she said the next day, will be added to the ballot if the requisite number of signatures is met in the petition drive, which is likely. Albertans will get their chance to say if they want to leave Canada. But Canadian federalists can relax. The Alberta premier is one of them. The referendum is the fix to defeat Alberta independence. It will undermine the separatist cause and split the independence vote.
Smith's referendum will ask whether the province should exercise more control over immigration, social programs, and voter identification. And whether Alberta should pursue constitutional amendments. Give provinces the power to appoint judges to superior courts? Abolish the unelected Senate? Grant provinces the right to opt out of federal programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction without losing federal funding? Give provincial laws priority over federal ones when they conflict?
These referendum questions lead nowhere. Alberta already has constitutional authority over the policy questions. It could exercise more control in these areas tomorrow if it wanted. There is no realistic prospect of amending the Canadian constitution on controversial matters. Smith and her advisors must know that.
Smith has repeatedly said that her mandate is a sovereign Alberta inside a united Canada. But many of her fellow Albertans are fed up. They perceive that their province has long received a raw deal in Confederation. They tire of Ottawa throwing obstacles in the way of their primary industries. They resent having their wealth taxed and sent elsewhere around the country. A growing number of Albertans are determined to leave Canada. Recent polls peg it at about one in three.
But even among restless Albertans, there's a moderate middle. They are unhappy with the status quo but have not yet resolved to ditch the country. Smith's referendum will give them a third way. Choose constitutional and policy reforms to create a fairer deal.
It's a chimera, of course. In 2021, 62 percent of Albertans voted in favor of removing equalization from the constitution. "Equalization" means that the federal government will collect more taxes from wealthy provinces and spend it on poorer ones. Alberta is Canada's wealthiest province per capita, and the main source of equalization funds. Its equalization referendum produced no change. The rest of the country ignored it. Alberta will not get more constitutional powers, whatever the voters say about Smith's referendum questions. No constitutional amendments are coming. But many voters will not realize that when they mark their ballots.
Smith's referendum will undermine the prospect for independence in another way too. An independence referendum requires a "clear question." That's what the Supreme Court of Canada said in its 1998 reference case about Quebec. It makes sense. Voters should understand, beyond a shadow of doubt, what they are voting on and what is at stake. But the Court did not say exactly what a "clear question" consists of.
The proposed independence question is clear. "Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?" But a clear question becomes muddy when combined with other questions. If voters support independence but also other constitutional changes, what do they mean? Which should be pursued first? Which is the last resort? What if voters support independence but also support Alberta having the right to opt out of federal programs while retaining federal funding? Both of those things cannot happen. One requires that Alberta be a province, and the other requires that it not be. Any referendum result that requires interpretation is not clear.
The federal Clarity Act legislatures the requirement for a clear question, but it does not give...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-fix-is-in-to-defeat-alberta-independence/ Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a referendum for October 19. It will ask Albertans a slate of policy and constitutional questions. Independence, she said the next day, will be added to the ballot if the requisite number of signatures is met in the petition drive, which is likely. Albertans will get their chance to say if they want to leave Canada. But Canadian federalists can relax. The Alberta premier is one of them. The referendum is the fix to defeat Alberta independence. It will undermine the separatist cause and split the independence vote.
Smith's referendum will ask whether the province should exercise more control over immigration, social programs, and voter identification. And whether Alberta should pursue constitutional amendments. Give provinces the power to appoint judges to superior courts? Abolish the unelected Senate? Grant provinces the right to opt out of federal programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction without losing federal funding? Give provincial laws priority over federal ones when they conflict?
These referendum questions lead nowhere. Alberta already has constitutional authority over the policy questions. It could exercise more control in these areas tomorrow if it wanted. There is no realistic prospect of amending the Canadian constitution on controversial matters. Smith and her advisors must know that.
Smith has repeatedly said that her mandate is a sovereign Alberta inside a united Canada. But many of her fellow Albertans are fed up. They perceive that their province has long received a raw deal in Confederation. They tire of Ottawa throwing obstacles in the way of their primary industries. They resent having their wealth taxed and sent elsewhere around the country. A growing number of Albertans are determined to leave Canada. Recent polls peg it at about one in three.
But even among restless Albertans, there's a moderate middle. They are unhappy with the status quo but have not yet resolved to ditch the country. Smith's referendum will give them a third way. Choose constitutional and policy reforms to create a fairer deal.
It's a chimera, of course. In 2021, 62 percent of Albertans voted in favor of removing equalization from the constitution. "Equalization" means that the federal government will collect more taxes from wealthy provinces and spend it on poorer ones. Alberta is Canada's wealthiest province per capita, and the main source of equalization funds. Its equalization referendum produced no change. The rest of the country ignored it. Alberta will not get more constitutional powers, whatever the voters say about Smith's referendum questions. No constitutional amendments are coming. But many voters will not realize that when they mark their ballots.
Smith's referendum will undermine the prospect for independence in another way too. An independence referendum requires a "clear question." That's what the Supreme Court of Canada said in its 1998 reference case about Quebec. It makes sense. Voters should understand, beyond a shadow of doubt, what they are voting on and what is at stake. But the Court did not say exactly what a "clear question" consists of.
The proposed independence question is clear. "Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?" But a clear question becomes muddy when combined with other questions. If voters support independence but also other constitutional changes, what do they mean? Which should be pursued first? Which is the last resort? What if voters support independence but also support Alberta having the right to opt out of federal programs while retaining federal funding? Both of those things cannot happen. One requires that Alberta be a province, and the other requires that it not be. Any referendum result that requires interpretation is not clear.
The federal Clarity Act legislatures the requirement for a clear question, but it does not give...]]> Tue, 03 Mar 2026 07:38:27 -0500 The Fix Is in to Defeat Alberta Independence Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a referendum for October 19. It will ask Albertans a slate of policy and constitutional questions. Independence, she said the next day, will be added to the ballo...]]> Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a referendum for October 19. It will ask Albertans a slate of policy and constitutional questions. Independence, she said the next day, will be added to the ballot if the requisite number of signatures is met in the petition drive, which is likely. Albertans will get their chance to say if they want to leave Canada. But Canadian federalists can relax. The Alberta premier is one of them. The referendum is the fix to defeat Alberta independence. It will undermine the separatist cause and split the independence vote.
Smith's referendum will ask whether the province should exercise more control over immigration, social programs, and voter identification. And whether Alberta should pursue constitutional amendments. Give provinces the power to appoint judges to superior courts? Abolish the unelected Senate? Grant provinces the right to opt out of federal programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction without losing federal funding? Give provincial laws priority over federal ones when they conflict?
These referendum questions lead nowhere. Alberta already has constitutional authority over the policy questions. It could exercise more control in these areas tomorrow if it wanted. There is no realistic prospect of amending the Canadian constitution on controversial matters. Smith and her advisors must know that.
Smith has repeatedly said that her mandate is a sovereign Alberta inside a united Canada. But many of her fellow Albertans are fed up. They perceive that their province has long received a raw deal in Confederation. They tire of Ottawa throwing obstacles in the way of their primary industries. They resent having their wealth taxed and sent elsewhere around the country. A growing number of Albertans are determined to leave Canada. Recent polls peg it at about one in three.
But even among restless Albertans, there's a moderate middle. They are unhappy with the status quo but have not yet resolved to ditch the country. Smith's referendum will give them a third way. Choose constitutional and policy reforms to create a fairer deal.
It's a chimera, of course. In 2021, 62 percent of Albertans voted in favor of removing equalization from the constitution. "Equalization" means that the federal government will collect more taxes from wealthy provinces and spend it on poorer ones. Alberta is Canada's wealthiest province per capita, and the main source of equalization funds. Its equalization referendum produced no change. The rest of the country ignored it. Alberta will not get more constitutional powers, whatever the voters say about Smith's referendum questions. No constitutional amendments are coming. But many voters will not realize that when they mark their ballots.
Smith's referendum will undermine the prospect for independence in another way too. An independence referendum requires a "clear question." That's what the Supreme Court of Canada said in its 1998 reference case about Quebec. It makes sense. Voters should understand, beyond a shadow of doubt, what they are voting on and what is at stake. But the Court did not say exactly what a "clear question" consists of.
The proposed independence question is clear. "Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?" But a clear question becomes muddy when combined with other questions. If voters support independence but also other constitutional changes, what do they mean? Which should be pursued first? Which is the last resort? What if voters support independence but also support Alberta having the right to opt out of federal programs while retaining federal funding? Both of those things cannot happen. One requires that Alberta be a province, and the other requires that it not be. Any referendum result that requires interpretation is not clear.
The federal Clarity Act legislatures the requirement for a clear question, but it does not give...]]> Bruce Pardy 05:34 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 5 64844 [I wrote the following essay for a book celebrating the 100th birthday of Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995). He was a dear friend and I'm proud to be part of this thrilling book, which will appear later in print. For now you can download it: Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Houston: Papinian Press, 2026)]
My introduction to Murray Rothbard came when I was 20 and sitting in the office of my political philosophy teacher. The professor had on his shelf a two-volume blue book called Man, Economy, and State (1962). The title was so stark that I asked about it. He warned me not to read it because the author is an anarchist. Fascinating. I excused myself and hurried to the library to get the book. It consumed my evenings for weeks.
Far from being an anarchist rant, it was a detailed defense of classic economics as it existed before John Maynard Keynes, alongside insights from Ludwig von Mises and some innovative theories concerning monopoly, utility, and other matters. It was sweeping, a real treatise on economic theory for which I had become intellectually desperate.
I learned later that this book was commissioned as a commentary on Mises's own book Human Action (1949) but took on a life of its own. Reading it from the first page to the last was the beginning of a journey that would consume my entire career.
Having only known him from these early works, I had this vision of Rothbard as a towering, all-knowing, and probably terrifying intellectual force. I was beside myself with nerves when I met him some three years later (1985 or so). I was astounded to meet a short man with a huge smile who seemed to find humor in everything. Though we had never met, he greeted me like an old friend.
From then on, I treated him as a friend, and we remained close for the next ten years before his death in 1995. The phone calls were nearly daily, and the letters back and forth frequent. He remains my muse to this day. (Ironically, my time knowing him overlaps almost exactly with Hans-Hermann Hoppe's ten years with Murray over the same time period.)
Far from being a dogmatic preacher of deductive truths—he came across this way in his earlier theoretical writings—the man I knew was liberally minded, radical and curious enough to entertain a huge range of ideas, broadly tolerant of a diversity of opinion, and endlessly and creatively curious. He was an absolute joy in any social framework, like a light that illuminated the entire room. To say something that sent him into uproarious laughter was a deeply satisfying achievement. And as Hoppe and others have pointed out, he had a singular genius, unlike any other I have encountered.
Rothbard was a voracious speed reader, inspired by his unquenchable desire to know. I once dropped him off at a university bookstore to search for a parking place. Finding none, I was back at the front entrance in 20 or so minutes. I found him on a bench reading, sitting next to a stack of books. Getting in my car, he sat down in the passenger seat and was speaking excitedly about what he had found. Stopping at a light he showed me some passages, and I was astounded to see a third of the book already marked up. He had done this already with several books. I simply could not believe my eyes. He read books the way others eat fast food.
He was often on deadline with my various projects. Once the fax machine came along—he loved it once he figured out how it worked—he would send in impressive works in under an hour. I can imagine his typing ferociously to get his ideas on paper. His mind worked far faster than any technology could record his thoughts. He always had long papers already composed in his head, complete with citations, and the only limit was finding the time to type.
As for his social interactions, he had this way of extracting knowledge and information from every source. If he knew you to be an expert on mathematics or ...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/the-murray-rothbard-i-knew/ [I wrote the following essay for a book celebrating the 100th birthday of Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995). He was a dear friend and I'm proud to be part of this thrilling book, which will appear later in print. For now you can download it: Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Houston: Papinian Press, 2026)]
My introduction to Murray Rothbard came when I was 20 and sitting in the office of my political philosophy teacher. The professor had on his shelf a two-volume blue book called Man, Economy, and State (1962). The title was so stark that I asked about it. He warned me not to read it because the author is an anarchist. Fascinating. I excused myself and hurried to the library to get the book. It consumed my evenings for weeks.
Far from being an anarchist rant, it was a detailed defense of classic economics as it existed before John Maynard Keynes, alongside insights from Ludwig von Mises and some innovative theories concerning monopoly, utility, and other matters. It was sweeping, a real treatise on economic theory for which I had become intellectually desperate.
I learned later that this book was commissioned as a commentary on Mises's own book Human Action (1949) but took on a life of its own. Reading it from the first page to the last was the beginning of a journey that would consume my entire career.
Having only known him from these early works, I had this vision of Rothbard as a towering, all-knowing, and probably terrifying intellectual force. I was beside myself with nerves when I met him some three years later (1985 or so). I was astounded to meet a short man with a huge smile who seemed to find humor in everything. Though we had never met, he greeted me like an old friend.
From then on, I treated him as a friend, and we remained close for the next ten years before his death in 1995. The phone calls were nearly daily, and the letters back and forth frequent. He remains my muse to this day. (Ironically, my time knowing him overlaps almost exactly with Hans-Hermann Hoppe's ten years with Murray over the same time period.)
Far from being a dogmatic preacher of deductive truths—he came across this way in his earlier theoretical writings—the man I knew was liberally minded, radical and curious enough to entertain a huge range of ideas, broadly tolerant of a diversity of opinion, and endlessly and creatively curious. He was an absolute joy in any social framework, like a light that illuminated the entire room. To say something that sent him into uproarious laughter was a deeply satisfying achievement. And as Hoppe and others have pointed out, he had a singular genius, unlike any other I have encountered.
Rothbard was a voracious speed reader, inspired by his unquenchable desire to know. I once dropped him off at a university bookstore to search for a parking place. Finding none, I was back at the front entrance in 20 or so minutes. I found him on a bench reading, sitting next to a stack of books. Getting in my car, he sat down in the passenger seat and was speaking excitedly about what he had found. Stopping at a light he showed me some passages, and I was astounded to see a third of the book already marked up. He had done this already with several books. I simply could not believe my eyes. He read books the way others eat fast food.
He was often on deadline with my various projects. Once the fax machine came along—he loved it once he figured out how it worked—he would send in impressive works in under an hour. I can imagine his typing ferociously to get his ideas on paper. His mind worked far faster than any technology could record his thoughts. He always had long papers already composed in his head, complete with citations, and the only limit was finding the time to type.
As for his social interactions, he had this way of extracting knowledge and information from every source. If he knew you to be an expert on mathematics or ...]]> Mon, 02 Mar 2026 07:04:00 -0500 The Murray Rothbard I Knew [I wrote the following essay for a book celebrating the 100th birthday of Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995). He was a dear friend and I'm proud to be part of this thrilling book, which will appear later in print...]]> [I wrote the following essay for a book celebrating the 100th birthday of Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995). He was a dear friend and I'm proud to be part of this thrilling book, which will appear later in print. For now you can download it: Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Houston: Papinian Press, 2026)]
My introduction to Murray Rothbard came when I was 20 and sitting in the office of my political philosophy teacher. The professor had on his shelf a two-volume blue book called Man, Economy, and State (1962). The title was so stark that I asked about it. He warned me not to read it because the author is an anarchist. Fascinating. I excused myself and hurried to the library to get the book. It consumed my evenings for weeks.
Far from being an anarchist rant, it was a detailed defense of classic economics as it existed before John Maynard Keynes, alongside insights from Ludwig von Mises and some innovative theories concerning monopoly, utility, and other matters. It was sweeping, a real treatise on economic theory for which I had become intellectually desperate.
I learned later that this book was commissioned as a commentary on Mises's own book Human Action (1949) but took on a life of its own. Reading it from the first page to the last was the beginning of a journey that would consume my entire career.
Having only known him from these early works, I had this vision of Rothbard as a towering, all-knowing, and probably terrifying intellectual force. I was beside myself with nerves when I met him some three years later (1985 or so). I was astounded to meet a short man with a huge smile who seemed to find humor in everything. Though we had never met, he greeted me like an old friend.
From then on, I treated him as a friend, and we remained close for the next ten years before his death in 1995. The phone calls were nearly daily, and the letters back and forth frequent. He remains my muse to this day. (Ironically, my time knowing him overlaps almost exactly with Hans-Hermann Hoppe's ten years with Murray over the same time period.)
Far from being a dogmatic preacher of deductive truths—he came across this way in his earlier theoretical writings—the man I knew was liberally minded, radical and curious enough to entertain a huge range of ideas, broadly tolerant of a diversity of opinion, and endlessly and creatively curious. He was an absolute joy in any social framework, like a light that illuminated the entire room. To say something that sent him into uproarious laughter was a deeply satisfying achievement. And as Hoppe and others have pointed out, he had a singular genius, unlike any other I have encountered.
Rothbard was a voracious speed reader, inspired by his unquenchable desire to know. I once dropped him off at a university bookstore to search for a parking place. Finding none, I was back at the front entrance in 20 or so minutes. I found him on a bench reading, sitting next to a stack of books. Getting in my car, he sat down in the passenger seat and was speaking excitedly about what he had found. Stopping at a light he showed me some passages, and I was astounded to see a third of the book already marked up. He had done this already with several books. I simply could not believe my eyes. He read books the way others eat fast food.
He was often on deadline with my various projects. Once the fax machine came along—he loved it once he figured out how it worked—he would send in impressive works in under an hour. I can imagine his typing ferociously to get his ideas on paper. His mind worked far faster than any technology could record his thoughts. He always had long papers already composed in his head, complete with citations, and the only limit was finding the time to type.
As for his social interactions, he had this way of extracting knowledge and information from every source. If he knew you to be an expert on mathematics or ...]]> Jeffrey A. Tucker 25:13 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 4 64653 You read the labels. You check the ingredients. You avoid seed oils, limit sugar, and side-eye anything with a barcode longer than a haiku. You subscribe to Substacks that dissect institutional capture. You understand, probably better than most, that "the science" can be quietly purchased by the people it is supposed to regulate.
So let me ask you a question that might sting.
What did you feed your dog this morning?
If the answer is a brown pellet from a bag, you are running the same ultraprocessed food experiment on your dog that you have spent the last few years learning to reject for yourself and your family. And you are doing it for entirely understandable reasons, because the same machinery of institutional capture, industry-funded research, and reassuring pseudo-scientific language that once told you margarine was healthier than butter has been quietly operating in veterinary medicine for decades.
I am a practising veterinary surgeon in the UK. I have spent over 30 years in clinical practice, and I am the founding president of the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society. I also lecture on canine nutrition at the University of Glasgow and around the world. I was in Florida last year and San Diego the year before. I am writing a book on ultraprocessed food for dogs, because someone needs to say plainly what the pet food industry would rather you never thought about: your dog has been subjected to the most sustained ultraprocessed feeding experiment in mammalian history, and almost nobody noticed.
The Cleverest Marketing You Never Saw
Here is how it works, and it will feel familiar to anyone who has followed the corruption of nutritional science in human medicine.
The major pet food corporations do not merely sell food. They fund the university departments in the UK and the US where veterinary nutritional science is researched. They endow professorships. They provide free student packs and educational materials to veterinary schools. They sponsor the conferences where vets gather for continuing professional development. They supply the textbooks. They fund the bursaries. They stock the waiting room shelves and put posters on the surgery walls.
They do this so quietly and so comprehensively that most vets do not even realise they have been swimming in industry-sponsored water since the first day of vet school.
The result is predictable. Almost all large-scale nutrition studies published over the past 50 years have been conducted on extruded, grain-based diets produced by the very companies that funded the research. That research became what vets are taught.
Raw and fresh diets, by contrast, have received almost no industry funding, which means almost no large-scale trials. Vets are then honestly told there is "no evidence" for raw, because nobody with money has paid for that evidence to exist.
It is rather like sponsoring every study on buses and then declaring there is "no evidence" that bicycles work.
The World Small Animal Veterinary Association's Global Nutrition Committee now explicitly warns that most pet nutrition studies are industry-funded and says conflicts of interest should always be declared. RCVS Knowledge, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in the UK, which runs the Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Network, notes that funding source is one of the strongest predictors of outcome in nutrition trials. JAVMA News has run pieces on corporate influence in veterinary education.
This is in the official documents. It is no longer fringe grumbling.
What Is Actually in the Bag
Commercial kibble is manufactured through a process called extrusion: ingredients are forced through a barrel at extreme temperatures and pressures, then puffed, dried, and coated with fats and flavour enhancers to make the result palatable. The process is industrial and efficient, producing a product with a shelf life measured in months or years.
It also does things to food that would alarm you if you thou...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/they-are-experimenting-on-your-dog/ You read the labels. You check the ingredients. You avoid seed oils, limit sugar, and side-eye anything with a barcode longer than a haiku. You subscribe to Substacks that dissect institutional capture. You understand, probably better than most, that "the science" can be quietly purchased by the people it is supposed to regulate.
So let me ask you a question that might sting.
What did you feed your dog this morning?
If the answer is a brown pellet from a bag, you are running the same ultraprocessed food experiment on your dog that you have spent the last few years learning to reject for yourself and your family. And you are doing it for entirely understandable reasons, because the same machinery of institutional capture, industry-funded research, and reassuring pseudo-scientific language that once told you margarine was healthier than butter has been quietly operating in veterinary medicine for decades.
I am a practising veterinary surgeon in the UK. I have spent over 30 years in clinical practice, and I am the founding president of the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society. I also lecture on canine nutrition at the University of Glasgow and around the world. I was in Florida last year and San Diego the year before. I am writing a book on ultraprocessed food for dogs, because someone needs to say plainly what the pet food industry would rather you never thought about: your dog has been subjected to the most sustained ultraprocessed feeding experiment in mammalian history, and almost nobody noticed.
The Cleverest Marketing You Never Saw
Here is how it works, and it will feel familiar to anyone who has followed the corruption of nutritional science in human medicine.
The major pet food corporations do not merely sell food. They fund the university departments in the UK and the US where veterinary nutritional science is researched. They endow professorships. They provide free student packs and educational materials to veterinary schools. They sponsor the conferences where vets gather for continuing professional development. They supply the textbooks. They fund the bursaries. They stock the waiting room shelves and put posters on the surgery walls.
They do this so quietly and so comprehensively that most vets do not even realise they have been swimming in industry-sponsored water since the first day of vet school.
The result is predictable. Almost all large-scale nutrition studies published over the past 50 years have been conducted on extruded, grain-based diets produced by the very companies that funded the research. That research became what vets are taught.
Raw and fresh diets, by contrast, have received almost no industry funding, which means almost no large-scale trials. Vets are then honestly told there is "no evidence" for raw, because nobody with money has paid for that evidence to exist.
It is rather like sponsoring every study on buses and then declaring there is "no evidence" that bicycles work.
The World Small Animal Veterinary Association's Global Nutrition Committee now explicitly warns that most pet nutrition studies are industry-funded and says conflicts of interest should always be declared. RCVS Knowledge, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in the UK, which runs the Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Network, notes that funding source is one of the strongest predictors of outcome in nutrition trials. JAVMA News has run pieces on corporate influence in veterinary education.
This is in the official documents. It is no longer fringe grumbling.
What Is Actually in the Bag
Commercial kibble is manufactured through a process called extrusion: ingredients are forced through a barrel at extreme temperatures and pressures, then puffed, dried, and coated with fats and flavour enhancers to make the result palatable. The process is industrial and efficient, producing a product with a shelf life measured in months or years.
It also does things to food that would alarm you if you thou...]]> Sun, 01 Mar 2026 08:40:00 -0500 They Are Experimenting on Your Dog You read the labels. You check the ingredients. You avoid seed oils, limit sugar, and side-eye anything with a barcode longer than a haiku. You subscribe to Substacks that dissect institutional capture. You under...]]> You read the labels. You check the ingredients. You avoid seed oils, limit sugar, and side-eye anything with a barcode longer than a haiku. You subscribe to Substacks that dissect institutional capture. You understand, probably better than most, that "the science" can be quietly purchased by the people it is supposed to regulate.
So let me ask you a question that might sting.
What did you feed your dog this morning?
If the answer is a brown pellet from a bag, you are running the same ultraprocessed food experiment on your dog that you have spent the last few years learning to reject for yourself and your family. And you are doing it for entirely understandable reasons, because the same machinery of institutional capture, industry-funded research, and reassuring pseudo-scientific language that once told you margarine was healthier than butter has been quietly operating in veterinary medicine for decades.
I am a practising veterinary surgeon in the UK. I have spent over 30 years in clinical practice, and I am the founding president of the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society. I also lecture on canine nutrition at the University of Glasgow and around the world. I was in Florida last year and San Diego the year before. I am writing a book on ultraprocessed food for dogs, because someone needs to say plainly what the pet food industry would rather you never thought about: your dog has been subjected to the most sustained ultraprocessed feeding experiment in mammalian history, and almost nobody noticed.
The Cleverest Marketing You Never Saw
Here is how it works, and it will feel familiar to anyone who has followed the corruption of nutritional science in human medicine.
The major pet food corporations do not merely sell food. They fund the university departments in the UK and the US where veterinary nutritional science is researched. They endow professorships. They provide free student packs and educational materials to veterinary schools. They sponsor the conferences where vets gather for continuing professional development. They supply the textbooks. They fund the bursaries. They stock the waiting room shelves and put posters on the surgery walls.
They do this so quietly and so comprehensively that most vets do not even realise they have been swimming in industry-sponsored water since the first day of vet school.
The result is predictable. Almost all large-scale nutrition studies published over the past 50 years have been conducted on extruded, grain-based diets produced by the very companies that funded the research. That research became what vets are taught.
Raw and fresh diets, by contrast, have received almost no industry funding, which means almost no large-scale trials. Vets are then honestly told there is "no evidence" for raw, because nobody with money has paid for that evidence to exist.
It is rather like sponsoring every study on buses and then declaring there is "no evidence" that bicycles work.
The World Small Animal Veterinary Association's Global Nutrition Committee now explicitly warns that most pet nutrition studies are industry-funded and says conflicts of interest should always be declared. RCVS Knowledge, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in the UK, which runs the Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Network, notes that funding source is one of the strongest predictors of outcome in nutrition trials. JAVMA News has run pieces on corporate influence in veterinary education.
This is in the official documents. It is no longer fringe grumbling.
What Is Actually in the Bag
Commercial kibble is manufactured through a process called extrusion: ingredients are forced through a barrel at extreme temperatures and pressures, then puffed, dried, and coated with fats and flavour enhancers to make the result palatable. The process is industrial and efficient, producing a product with a shelf life measured in months or years.
It also does things to food that would alarm you if you thou...]]> Nick Thompson 10:28 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 3 64832 People are asking about the background to a major effort sponsored by Brownstone Institute and many partnering organizations. It is CovidJustice.org, a proposed Senate resolution on the entire epoch that condemns the bad science and coercion and pledges to do better next time. The petition has already attracted 20K signers in two days.
What gave rise to this idea and what is its purpose?
Two years ago, I was saddled up to the bar at an airport awaiting my departure time. The man sitting next to me asked about my bracelet. I said that it says "I Won't Be Locked Down." He asked why I would wear such a thing.
I explained that just a few years ago, we were locked in our homes. People were sometimes arrested for going out. Business was forcibly shut. Proprietors were fined if they were caught opening their doors or giving haircuts. Indeed, getting a haircut required paying someone under the table and meeting in secret. Skateboard parks were sanded in and basketball hoops boarded up.
That was just the beginning. The CDC announced that rental payments cannot be enforced. Churches on military bases were closed and then closed all over the country. Parking lots of hospitals and medical offices were empty coast to coast, as people missed diagnostics. Schools were shuttered and students were locked in their dorm rooms and policed for parties.
Drones flew overhead looking for too many cars parked in residential homes and pictures were sent to the media which dutifully reported house parties. Weddings and funerals were out of the question.
I stopped there but could have gone on for another hour. I didn't even get to the part wherein millions were forced to take an experimental injection that did not stop infection and ended up hurting and even killing people.
He sat there in silence for a moment and took another sip of beer.
"Yeah. We've not really had a reckoning over all that, haven't we?"
"Nope."
Those words have long haunted me. I don't see how the US or any nation can move forward past this grim period that harmed so many lives. Students were robbed of two years of in-person education. Millions of businesses were wrecked. Congressional authorization of multiple-trillions in spending turned into inflation that ate away 25-30 percent of purchasing power, gutting the value of savings and capital.
This fiasco in the name of public health ended up harming health. People turned to substances to get by and put on 20 pounds from overeating and sloth. Families were shattered in arguments about the shot. Churches struggled to recover. Many civic groups from bowling leagues to garage bands broke up permanently. Countless numbers lost jobs, changed careers, and fled states that heavily enforced lockdowns and shot mandates.
After a few years, the disastrous experiment in human control and messaging just gradually faded away. Media never really said much. Academia was quiet. Public health just hunkered down in silence. Suddenly we were all told to forget about it and think instead about things like partisan politics, AI, Russia-Ukraine, the Iran threat, the culture war, and so on. Just move on, we have been told.
Think about a historical analogy here with the Great War. It was an upheaval without precedent resulting in shattered communities and nations plus death on a mass scale. It was a horror. Fully six years went by before literature started appearing that dealt with the topic. There was Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf, A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway, All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque, and many others.
In politics, there were some efforts too, like Albert Jay Nock's The Myth of a Guilty Nation (1922), Merchants of Death (1934) by H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen ,and many others.
People don't know that A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) was also constructed as an attack on the war. Milne wanted to write a book about the realities of war. His pu...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/why-the-resolution/ People are asking about the background to a major effort sponsored by Brownstone Institute and many partnering organizations. It is CovidJustice.org, a proposed Senate resolution on the entire epoch that condemns the bad science and coercion and pledges to do better next time. The petition has already attracted 20K signers in two days.
What gave rise to this idea and what is its purpose?
Two years ago, I was saddled up to the bar at an airport awaiting my departure time. The man sitting next to me asked about my bracelet. I said that it says "I Won't Be Locked Down." He asked why I would wear such a thing.
I explained that just a few years ago, we were locked in our homes. People were sometimes arrested for going out. Business was forcibly shut. Proprietors were fined if they were caught opening their doors or giving haircuts. Indeed, getting a haircut required paying someone under the table and meeting in secret. Skateboard parks were sanded in and basketball hoops boarded up.
That was just the beginning. The CDC announced that rental payments cannot be enforced. Churches on military bases were closed and then closed all over the country. Parking lots of hospitals and medical offices were empty coast to coast, as people missed diagnostics. Schools were shuttered and students were locked in their dorm rooms and policed for parties.
Drones flew overhead looking for too many cars parked in residential homes and pictures were sent to the media which dutifully reported house parties. Weddings and funerals were out of the question.
I stopped there but could have gone on for another hour. I didn't even get to the part wherein millions were forced to take an experimental injection that did not stop infection and ended up hurting and even killing people.
He sat there in silence for a moment and took another sip of beer.
"Yeah. We've not really had a reckoning over all that, haven't we?"
"Nope."
Those words have long haunted me. I don't see how the US or any nation can move forward past this grim period that harmed so many lives. Students were robbed of two years of in-person education. Millions of businesses were wrecked. Congressional authorization of multiple-trillions in spending turned into inflation that ate away 25-30 percent of purchasing power, gutting the value of savings and capital.
This fiasco in the name of public health ended up harming health. People turned to substances to get by and put on 20 pounds from overeating and sloth. Families were shattered in arguments about the shot. Churches struggled to recover. Many civic groups from bowling leagues to garage bands broke up permanently. Countless numbers lost jobs, changed careers, and fled states that heavily enforced lockdowns and shot mandates.
After a few years, the disastrous experiment in human control and messaging just gradually faded away. Media never really said much. Academia was quiet. Public health just hunkered down in silence. Suddenly we were all told to forget about it and think instead about things like partisan politics, AI, Russia-Ukraine, the Iran threat, the culture war, and so on. Just move on, we have been told.
Think about a historical analogy here with the Great War. It was an upheaval without precedent resulting in shattered communities and nations plus death on a mass scale. It was a horror. Fully six years went by before literature started appearing that dealt with the topic. There was Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf, A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway, All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque, and many others.
In politics, there were some efforts too, like Albert Jay Nock's The Myth of a Guilty Nation (1922), Merchants of Death (1934) by H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen ,and many others.
People don't know that A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) was also constructed as an attack on the war. Milne wanted to write a book about the realities of war. His pu...]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 07:18:33 -0500 Why the Resolution? People are asking about the background to a major effort sponsored by Brownstone Institute and many partnering organizations. It is CovidJustice.org, a proposed Senate resolution on the entire epoch that cond...]]> People are asking about the background to a major effort sponsored by Brownstone Institute and many partnering organizations. It is CovidJustice.org, a proposed Senate resolution on the entire epoch that condemns the bad science and coercion and pledges to do better next time. The petition has already attracted 20K signers in two days.
What gave rise to this idea and what is its purpose?
Two years ago, I was saddled up to the bar at an airport awaiting my departure time. The man sitting next to me asked about my bracelet. I said that it says "I Won't Be Locked Down." He asked why I would wear such a thing.
I explained that just a few years ago, we were locked in our homes. People were sometimes arrested for going out. Business was forcibly shut. Proprietors were fined if they were caught opening their doors or giving haircuts. Indeed, getting a haircut required paying someone under the table and meeting in secret. Skateboard parks were sanded in and basketball hoops boarded up.
That was just the beginning. The CDC announced that rental payments cannot be enforced. Churches on military bases were closed and then closed all over the country. Parking lots of hospitals and medical offices were empty coast to coast, as people missed diagnostics. Schools were shuttered and students were locked in their dorm rooms and policed for parties.
Drones flew overhead looking for too many cars parked in residential homes and pictures were sent to the media which dutifully reported house parties. Weddings and funerals were out of the question.
I stopped there but could have gone on for another hour. I didn't even get to the part wherein millions were forced to take an experimental injection that did not stop infection and ended up hurting and even killing people.
He sat there in silence for a moment and took another sip of beer.
"Yeah. We've not really had a reckoning over all that, haven't we?"
"Nope."
Those words have long haunted me. I don't see how the US or any nation can move forward past this grim period that harmed so many lives. Students were robbed of two years of in-person education. Millions of businesses were wrecked. Congressional authorization of multiple-trillions in spending turned into inflation that ate away 25-30 percent of purchasing power, gutting the value of savings and capital.
This fiasco in the name of public health ended up harming health. People turned to substances to get by and put on 20 pounds from overeating and sloth. Families were shattered in arguments about the shot. Churches struggled to recover. Many civic groups from bowling leagues to garage bands broke up permanently. Countless numbers lost jobs, changed careers, and fled states that heavily enforced lockdowns and shot mandates.
After a few years, the disastrous experiment in human control and messaging just gradually faded away. Media never really said much. Academia was quiet. Public health just hunkered down in silence. Suddenly we were all told to forget about it and think instead about things like partisan politics, AI, Russia-Ukraine, the Iran threat, the culture war, and so on. Just move on, we have been told.
Think about a historical analogy here with the Great War. It was an upheaval without precedent resulting in shattered communities and nations plus death on a mass scale. It was a horror. Fully six years went by before literature started appearing that dealt with the topic. There was Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf, A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway, All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque, and many others.
In politics, there were some efforts too, like Albert Jay Nock's The Myth of a Guilty Nation (1922), Merchants of Death (1934) by H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen ,and many others.
People don't know that A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) was also constructed as an attack on the war. Milne wanted to write a book about the realities of war. His pu...]]> Jeffrey A. Tucker 05:18 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 2 64507 There is a question that has haunted me since the moment I watched institutions fail children during the pandemic: Who will ask the hard questions if the agencies charged with asking them refuse to?
I have spent the past six years trying to answer that question through film, through advocacy, through lawsuits, through grassroots organizing. Now, Restore Childhood is trying to answer it through science.
Restore Childhood is a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit with no pharmaceutical backers, no government grants, and no institutional patrons with interests to protect. We were founded in the crucible of America's pandemic school closures by parents who watched decisions get made behind closed doors, decisions that cost children years of their lives, while the institutions entrusted with protecting them looked the other way. We documented those failures in 15 DAYS: The Real Story of America's Pandemic School Closures, a feature documentary examining how and why American schools remained shuttered long after the evidence demanded they reopen. It has now been viewed over 1,000,000 times in its brief run on X.
Recently, we did something else. We funded independent, peer-reviewed scientific research. What that research found should trouble every parent in America.
What the FDA Got Wrong — And What Our Team Got Right
Prior to granting full approval of Moderna's mRNA-1273 Covid vaccine on January 31, 2022, the FDA conducted a benefit–risk assessment of the vaccine. That assessment concluded that vaccine benefits outweighed the risks of vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis — even for 18–25-year-old males, the demographic at highest known risk of cardiac injury from the shot.
A team of independent researchers — mathematician Paul S. Bourdon, PhD, our own board member Ram Duriseti, MD, PhD, mathematician H. Christian Gromoll, PhD, immunologist Dyana K. Dalton, PhD, epidemiologist Allison E. Krug, MPH, and bioethicist Kevin Bardosh, PhD — set out to reanalyze that assessment. Their peer-reviewed study, published February 10, 2026 in the journal Vaccines, reaches a starkly different conclusion.
When you account for what the FDA failed to account for, the math changes. Vaccine risks outweighed benefits for the general population of 18–25-year-old males relative to hospitalizations: those caused by vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis exceeded the hospitalizations prevented via vaccination — by between 8% and 52%, with the team's most likely scenario showing a 38% excess.
Three Things the FDA Ignored
First, prior Covid infection. By October 1, 2022, the CDC estimated that more than half of 18–49-year-olds had already been infected. The author team estimated (using CDC data) that by January 1, 2022 that approximately 70% of 18–25-year-old males had experienced a Covid infection. Prior infection confers meaningful protection — protection that substantially reduces the benefit of vaccination. The FDA's model treated the entire population as if every unvaccinated young man were encountering the virus for the first time, dramatically inflating the hospitalizations that vaccination could prevent.
Second, age and sex stratification. The FDA assumed Covid hospitalization rates were uniform across all males aged 18 to 45 — contradicting the CDC's own modeling, which shows men 30–49 are hospitalized at roughly twice the rate of men 18–29. Lumping these groups together overstated the hospitalization risk facing young men, inflating the apparent benefit of vaccination for precisely the group most endangered by cardiac risks.
Third, incidental hospitalizations. By January 2022, the CDC director had publicly acknowledged that up to 40% of patients hospitalized with a Covid-positive test were there for something else entirely. The FDA's hospitalization counts did not meaningfully account for this.
On the risk side, multiple independent data sources — from Ontario, England, and the United States — sugge...]]> https://brownstone.org/articles/a-small-nonprofit-did-what-the-fda-would-not/ There is a question that has haunted me since the moment I watched institutions fail children during the pandemic: Who will ask the hard questions if the agencies charged with asking them refuse to?
I have spent the past six years trying to answer that question through film, through advocacy, through lawsuits, through grassroots organizing. Now, Restore Childhood is trying to answer it through science.
Restore Childhood is a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit with no pharmaceutical backers, no government grants, and no institutional patrons with interests to protect. We were founded in the crucible of America's pandemic school closures by parents who watched decisions get made behind closed doors, decisions that cost children years of their lives, while the institutions entrusted with protecting them looked the other way. We documented those failures in 15 DAYS: The Real Story of America's Pandemic School Closures, a feature documentary examining how and why American schools remained shuttered long after the evidence demanded they reopen. It has now been viewed over 1,000,000 times in its brief run on X.
Recently, we did something else. We funded independent, peer-reviewed scientific research. What that research found should trouble every parent in America.
What the FDA Got Wrong — And What Our Team Got Right
Prior to granting full approval of Moderna's mRNA-1273 Covid vaccine on January 31, 2022, the FDA conducted a benefit–risk assessment of the vaccine. That assessment concluded that vaccine benefits outweighed the risks of vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis — even for 18–25-year-old males, the demographic at highest known risk of cardiac injury from the shot.
A team of independent researchers — mathematician Paul S. Bourdon, PhD, our own board member Ram Duriseti, MD, PhD, mathematician H. Christian Gromoll, PhD, immunologist Dyana K. Dalton, PhD, epidemiologist Allison E. Krug, MPH, and bioethicist Kevin Bardosh, PhD — set out to reanalyze that assessment. Their peer-reviewed study, published February 10, 2026 in the journal Vaccines, reaches a starkly different conclusion.
When you account for what the FDA failed to account for, the math changes. Vaccine risks outweighed benefits for the general population of 18–25-year-old males relative to hospitalizations: those caused by vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis exceeded the hospitalizations prevented via vaccination — by between 8% and 52%, with the team's most likely scenario showing a 38% excess.
Three Things the FDA Ignored
First, prior Covid infection. By October 1, 2022, the CDC estimated that more than half of 18–49-year-olds had already been infected. The author team estimated (using CDC data) that by January 1, 2022 that approximately 70% of 18–25-year-old males had experienced a Covid infection. Prior infection confers meaningful protection — protection that substantially reduces the benefit of vaccination. The FDA's model treated the entire population as if every unvaccinated young man were encountering the virus for the first time, dramatically inflating the hospitalizations that vaccination could prevent.
Second, age and sex stratification. The FDA assumed Covid hospitalization rates were uniform across all males aged 18 to 45 — contradicting the CDC's own modeling, which shows men 30–49 are hospitalized at roughly twice the rate of men 18–29. Lumping these groups together overstated the hospitalization risk facing young men, inflating the apparent benefit of vaccination for precisely the group most endangered by cardiac risks.
Third, incidental hospitalizations. By January 2022, the CDC director had publicly acknowledged that up to 40% of patients hospitalized with a Covid-positive test were there for something else entirely. The FDA's hospitalization counts did not meaningfully account for this.
On the risk side, multiple independent data sources — from Ontario, England, and the United States — sugge...]]> Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:26:39 -0500 A Small Nonprofit Did What the FDA Would Not There is a question that has haunted me since the moment I watched institutions fail children during the pandemic: Who will ask the hard questions if the agencies charged with asking them refuse to?
I have sp...]]> There is a question that has haunted me since the moment I watched institutions fail children during the pandemic: Who will ask the hard questions if the agencies charged with asking them refuse to?
I have spent the past six years trying to answer that question through film, through advocacy, through lawsuits, through grassroots organizing. Now, Restore Childhood is trying to answer it through science.
Restore Childhood is a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit with no pharmaceutical backers, no government grants, and no institutional patrons with interests to protect. We were founded in the crucible of America's pandemic school closures by parents who watched decisions get made behind closed doors, decisions that cost children years of their lives, while the institutions entrusted with protecting them looked the other way. We documented those failures in 15 DAYS: The Real Story of America's Pandemic School Closures, a feature documentary examining how and why American schools remained shuttered long after the evidence demanded they reopen. It has now been viewed over 1,000,000 times in its brief run on X.
Recently, we did something else. We funded independent, peer-reviewed scientific research. What that research found should trouble every parent in America.
What the FDA Got Wrong — And What Our Team Got Right
Prior to granting full approval of Moderna's mRNA-1273 Covid vaccine on January 31, 2022, the FDA conducted a benefit–risk assessment of the vaccine. That assessment concluded that vaccine benefits outweighed the risks of vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis — even for 18–25-year-old males, the demographic at highest known risk of cardiac injury from the shot.
A team of independent researchers — mathematician Paul S. Bourdon, PhD, our own board member Ram Duriseti, MD, PhD, mathematician H. Christian Gromoll, PhD, immunologist Dyana K. Dalton, PhD, epidemiologist Allison E. Krug, MPH, and bioethicist Kevin Bardosh, PhD — set out to reanalyze that assessment. Their peer-reviewed study, published February 10, 2026 in the journal Vaccines, reaches a starkly different conclusion.
When you account for what the FDA failed to account for, the math changes. Vaccine risks outweighed benefits for the general population of 18–25-year-old males relative to hospitalizations: those caused by vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis exceeded the hospitalizations prevented via vaccination — by between 8% and 52%, with the team's most likely scenario showing a 38% excess.
Three Things the FDA Ignored
First, prior Covid infection. By October 1, 2022, the CDC estimated that more than half of 18–49-year-olds had already been infected. The author team estimated (using CDC data) that by January 1, 2022 that approximately 70% of 18–25-year-old males had experienced a Covid infection. Prior infection confers meaningful protection — protection that substantially reduces the benefit of vaccination. The FDA's model treated the entire population as if every unvaccinated young man were encountering the virus for the first time, dramatically inflating the hospitalizations that vaccination could prevent.
Second, age and sex stratification. The FDA assumed Covid hospitalization rates were uniform across all males aged 18 to 45 — contradicting the CDC's own modeling, which shows men 30–49 are hospitalized at roughly twice the rate of men 18–29. Lumping these groups together overstated the hospitalization risk facing young men, inflating the apparent benefit of vaccination for precisely the group most endangered by cardiac risks.
Third, incidental hospitalizations. By January 2022, the CDC director had publicly acknowledged that up to 40% of patients hospitalized with a Covid-positive test were there for something else entirely. The FDA's hospitalization counts did not meaningfully account for this.
On the risk side, multiple independent data sources — from Ontario, England, and the United States — sugge...]]> Natalya Murakhver 07:44 ["public health, social policy, economics, government, censorship, media, technology, pharma, education"] false full 1