The Gary Null Show

Supplementation with vitamins C and E associated with decreased risk of cognitive impairment, dementia

 CHU de Québec Research Center, November 1, 2021.

An article that appeared in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy reports an association between the intake of vitamin C and E supplements and a lower risk of developing cognitive decline among men and women aged 65 years and older.

The current investigation included 5,269 men and women who were free of dementia upon enrollment in the Canadian Study of Health and Aging from 1991 to 1992. Follow-up examinations conducted during 1996-1997 and 2001-2002 provided post-enrollment diagnoses of dementia or cognitive impairment without dementia. Information concerning current use of prescription drugs and vitamins was ascertained from interview or questionnaire responses at the beginning of the study.

Approximately 10% of the subjects reported using vitamin C or E. Over up to 11 years of follow up, 821 cases of all-cause dementia (including 560 Alzheimer’s disease cases) were diagnosed and 882 cases of cognitive impairment without dementia developed. In comparison with those who did not report supplementing with either vitamin, the use of vitamin C and/or vitamin E was associated with a 38% lower adjusted risk of all-cause dementia and a 40% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease. For cognitive impairment without dementia, the risk was 23% lower among those who used either or both vitamins. Evaluation of the effects of using either vitamin alone resulted in associations with similar risk reductions.

 “This study supports a protective role of vitamin E and C supplements in the risk for Alzheimer’s disease and all-cause dementia,” authors Luta L. Basambombo, MSc, of CHU de Québec Research Center and colleagues conclude. “In addition, these supplements may contribute to a reduced risk of CIND [cognitive impairment, not dementia]. Overall, these findings indicate additional support for the use of antioxidants as a preventive strategy against cognitive decline.”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 22 2021. 

Findings reported in Nature revealed that restricting the intake of calories, including fats, rather than adopting a regimen of restricted carbohydrates and increased fats as characterized by a ketogenic diet, was associated with slower tumor growth in mice. 

Evan Lien, PhD, and associates evaluated the effects of calorie restricted, ketogenic or normal diets in mice with pancreatic tumors. While both glucose and plasma and tumor lipid levels declined in calorie-restricted animals, ketogenic diet-fed mice had lower glucose levels, but an increase in lipids. 

In comparison with mice given ketogenic diets, slower tumor growth occurred in the calorie-restricted mice. The finding can be explained by the animals’ reduced levels of lipids, which are needed by cancer cells for membrane production. Diet-induced lipid depletion decreases cellular levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids because they can’t be manufactured by the body and must be obtained from food. When these lipids aren’t available, cells make their own in a process that requires the enzyme SCD, which converts saturated fatty acids into unsaturated fatty acids. Since both diets lowered SCD activity, mice that received calorie restricted diets couldn’t obtain enough fatty acids from their diet or produce their own, whereas animals on the ketogenic diet had abundant lipids. “Not only does caloric restriction starve tumors of lipids, it also impairs the process that allows them to adapt to it,” Dr Lien explained. “That combination is really contributing to the inhibition of tumor growth.” 

“The purpose of these studies isn’t necessarily to recommend a diet, but it’s to really understand the underlying biology,” Dr Lien stated. “They provide some sense of the mechanisms of how these diets work, and that can lead to rational ideas on how we might mimic those situations for cancer therapy.”

New York University, November 1, 2021

An increasing number of studies suggest a link between a neighborhood's built environment and the likelihood that its residents will develop chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes (T2D) and certain types of cancers. A new nationwide study led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine published online today in JAMA Network Open suggests that living in neighborhoods with higher availability of fast-food outlets across all regions of the United States is associated with higher subsequent risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Findings also indicated that the availability of more supermarkets could be protective against developing T2D, particularly in suburban and rural neighborhoods.

The study—notable for its large geographic breadth—uses data from a cohort of more than 4 million veterans living in 98 percent of U.S. census tracts across the country. It counted fast-food restaurants and supermarkets relative to other food outlets, and is the first, according to the researchers, to examine this relationship in four distinct types of neighborhoods (high-density urban, low-density urban, suburban, and rural) at the hyperlocal level nationwide.

"Most studies that examine the built food environment and its relationship to chronic diseases have been much smaller or conducted in localized areas," said Rania Kanchi, MPH, a researcher in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone and lead author of the study. "Our study design is national in scope and allowed us to identify the types of communities that people are living in, characterize their food environment, and observe what happens to them over time. The size of our cohort allows for geographic generalizability in a way that other studies do not." 

How the study was conducted

The research team used data from the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (the largest single-payer healthcare system in the country) that captures more than 9 million veterans seen at more than 1,200 health facilities around the country. Using this data, the researchers then constructed a national cohort of more than 4 million veterans without diabetes from the VA electronic health records (EHR) between 2008 and 2016. Each veteran's health status was followed through 2018 or until the individual either developed diabetes, died, or had no appointments for more than two years.

Within each of four distinct neighborhood types, the proportion of restaurants that were fast food, and the proportion of food outlets that were supermarkets were tabulated within a one-mile walk in high- density urban neighborhoods, a two-mile drive in low-density urban neighborhoods, a six-mile drive in suburban communities, and a 10-mile drive in rural communities.

Veterans were followed for a median of five and a half years. During that time, 13.2 percent of the cohort were newly diagnosed with T2D. Males developed T2D more frequently than females (13.6 versus 8.2 percent). Non-Hispanic Black adults had the highest incidence (16.9 percent), compared to non-Hispanic Whites (12.9 percent), non-White Asian and Hispanics (12.8 percent), Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (15 percent), and Native American and Alaskan Indians (14.2 percent).

When stratifying by community types, 14.3 percent of veterans living in high density urban communities developed T2D, while the lowest incidence was among those living in suburban and small town communities (12.6 percent).

Overall, the team concluded that the effect of the food environment on T2D incidence varied by how urban the community was, but did not vary further by region of the country.

"The more we learn about the relationship between the food environment and chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, the more policymakers can act by improving the mix of healthy food options sold in restaurants and food outlets, or by creating better zoning laws that promote optimal food options for residents," said Lorna Thorpe, Ph.D., MPH, professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone and senior author of the study.

One limitation of the study, according to the authors, is that the study may not be fully generalizable to non-veteran populations, as U.S. veterans tend to be predominantly male and have substantially greater health burdens and financial instability than the civilian population. They are also at greater risk of disability, obesity, and other chronic conditions.

The next phase of the research, say Thorpe and Kanchi, will be to better understand the impacts of the built environment on diabetes risk by subgroups. They plan to examine whether or not the relationships between fast-food restaurants, supermarkets and community types vary by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

Harvard Medical School, October November 1, 2021

Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese technique that has been used for millennia to treat chronic pain and other health problems associated with inflammation, yet the scientific basis of the technique remains poorly understood.

Now, a team of researchers led by neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School has elucidated the underlying neuroanatomy of acupuncture that activates a specific signaling pathway.

In a study conducted in mice and published Oct. 13 in Nature, the team identified a subset of neurons that must be present for acupuncture to trigger an anti-inflammatory response via this signaling pathway.

The scientists determined that these neurons occur only in a specific area of the hindlimb region—thus explaining why acupuncture in the hindlimb works, while acupuncture in the abdomen does not.

"This study touches on one of the most fundamental questions in the acupuncture field: What is the neuroanatomical basis for body region, or acupoint, selectivity?" said lead investigator Qiufu Ma, HMS professor of neurobiology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

One area of particular interest to the research team is the so-called cytokine storm—the rapid release of large quantities of cytokines that frequently drives severe, systemic inflammation, and can be triggered by many things, including COVID-19, cancer treatment, or sepsis.

"This exuberant immune response is a major medical problem with a very high fatality rate of 15 percent to 30 percent," Ma said. Even so, drugs to treat cytokine storm are lacking.

Adapting an ancient technique to treat aberrant inflammation

In recent decades, acupuncture has been increasingly embraced in Western medicine as a potential treatment for inflammation.

In this technique, acupoints on the body's surface are mechanically stimulated, triggering nerve signaling that affects the function of other parts of the body, including organs.

In a 2014 study, researchers reported that electroacupuncture, a modern version of traditional acupuncture that uses electrical stimulation, could reduce cytokine storm in mice by activating the vagal-adrenal axis—a pathway wherein the vagus nervesignals the adrenal glands to release dopamine.

In a study published in 2020, Ma and his team discovered that this electroacupuncture effect was region-specific: It was effective when given in the hindlimb region, but did not have an effect when administered in the abdominal region. The team hypothesized that there may be sensory neurons unique to the hindlimb region responsible for this difference in response.

In their new study, the researchers conducted a series of experiments in mice to investigate this hypothesis. First, they identified a small subset of sensory neurons marked by expression of the PROKR2Cre receptor. They determined that these neurons were three to four times more numerous in the deep fascia tissue of the hindlimb than in the fascia of the abdomen.

Then the team created mice that were missing these sensory neurons. They found that electroacupuncture in the hindlimb did not activate the vagal-adrenal axis in these mice. In another experiment, the team used light-based stimulation to directly target these sensory neurons in the deep fascia of the hindlimb.

This stimulation activated the vagal-adrenal axis in a manner similar to electroacupuncture. "Basically, the activation of these neurons is both necessary and sufficient to activate this vagal-adrenal axis," Ma said.

In a final experiment, the scientists explored the distribution of the neurons in the hindlimb. They discovered that there are considerably more neurons in the anterior muscles of the hindlimb than in the posterior muscles, resulting in a stronger response to electroacupuncture in the anterior region.

"Based on this nerve fiber distribution, we can almost precisely predict where electrical stimulation will be effective and where it will not be effective," Ma explained.

Together, these results provide "the first concrete, neuroanatomic explanation for acupoint selectivity and specificity," Ma added. "They tell us the acupuncture parameters, so where to go, how deep to go, how strong the intensity should be."

He noted that while the study was done in mice, the basic organization of neurons is likely evolutionarily conserved across mammals, including humans.

However, an important next step will be clinical testing of electroacupuncture in humans with inflammation caused by real-world infections such as COVID-19. Ma is also interested in exploring other signaling pathways that could be stimulated by acupuncture to treat conditions that cause excessive inflammation. 

"We have a lot of tough chronic diseases that still need better treatments," he said, such as inflammatory bowel syndrome and arthritis. Another area of need, he added, is excessive immune reactions that can be a side effect of cancer immunotherapy.

Ma hopes that his research will ultimately advance scientific understanding of acupuncture and provide practical information that can be used to improve and refine the technique.

Michigan State University, November 5, 2018

People who have fond memories of childhood, specifically their relationships with their parents, tend to have better health, less depression and fewer chronic illnesses as older adults, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

"We know that memory plays a huge part in how we make sense of the world—how we organize our past experiences and how we judge how we should act in the future. As a result, there are a lot of different ways that our memories of the past can guide us," said William J. Chopik, Ph.D., from Michigan State University and lead author of the study. "We found that good memories seem to have a positive effect on health and well-being, possibly through the ways that they reduce stress or help us maintain healthy choices in life."

The findings were published in the journal Health Psychology.

Previous research has shown a positive relationship between good memories and good health in young adults, including higher quality of work and personal relationships, lower substance use, lower depression and fewer health problems, according to Chopik. He and his co-author, Robin Edelstein, Ph.D., from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, wanted to see how this would apply to older adults.

Also, much of the existing research focused on mothers and rarely examined the role of fathers in child development. Chopik and Edelstein sought to expand on the existing studies to include participants' reflections of their relationships with both parents.

The researchers used data from two nationally representative samples, the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States and the Health and Retirement Study, with a total of more than 22,000 participants. The first study followed adults in their mid-40s for 18 years and the second followed adults 50 and over for six years. The surveys included questions about perceptions of parental affection, overall health, chronic conditions and depressive symptoms.

Participants in both groups who reported remembering higher levels of affection from their mothers in early childhood experienced better physical health and fewer depressive symptoms later in life. Those who reported memories with more support from their fathers also experienced fewer depressive symptoms, according to Chopik.

"The most surprising finding was that we thought the effects would fade over time because participants were trying to recall things that happened sometimes over 50 years ago. One might expect childhood memories to matter less and less over time, but these memories still predicted better physical and mental health when people were in middle age and older adulthood," said Chopik.

There was a stronger association in people who reported a more loving relationship with their mothers, noted Chopik, but that might change.

"These results may reflect the broader cultural circumstances of the time when the participants were raised because mothers were most likely the primary caregivers," said Edelstein. "With shifting cultural norms about the role of fathers in caregiving, it is possible that results from future studies of people born in more recent years will focus more on relationships with their fathers."

Chopik and Edelstein found that participants with positive childhood memories also had fewer chronic conditions in the first study of 7,100 people, but not in the second study of 15,200, making the results less straightforward

Emory University, October 28, 2021

In a paper published recently in Pharmacological Reviews, Emory University School of Medicine researchers outlined the impact of inflammation on motivation as it relates to depression.

The researchers propose that low grade inflammation affects brain chemicals and brain circuits that regulate motivation, ultimately leading to motivational deficits and a loss of interest or willingness to engage in usually pleasurable activities including work and play. These motivational deficits are reflected as anhedonia, a core and likely the most disabling symptom of depression, as well as other psychiatric disorders.

The paper also outlines how these effects of inflammation on the brain are an adaptation to the energy demands of inflammation that require conservation of energy resources, and thus the shutting down of behavior. Low grade inflammation can be caused by lifestyle changes such as poor diet and sedentary behavior.

"A vicious cycle can occur where poor lifestyle habits lead to increased inflammation that in turn reduce the wherewithal or motivation to change those habits. Such a vicious cycle may be especially relevant during pandemic life when even greater energy resources are required to sustain healthy eating and physical activity," says Andrew H. Miller, MD, William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine. Miller co-authored the paper, along with his colleagues in the Department of Psychology and the Emory Behavioral Immunology Program, where he serves as director.

Miller says novel treatment strategies to break this vicious cycle are currently under development. He and his colleagues raise the possibility of developing treatments specifically for the motivational deficits caused by inflammation, thus moving to a much more targeted approach to therapeutic development in psychiatry, as now seen in the oncology field, versus the current use of outdated and non-specific diagnostic categories of psychiatric disease such as "depression."

"We believe more therapies targeted to specific pathophysiologic pathways and symptoms will lead to better outcomes and more precision care. Non-specific therapies as represented by conventional antidepressants, which are still embraced by regulatory agencies, do not instill the confidence that a more personalized approach does. There is widespread interest in moving in this direction internationally," says Miller.

Gary takes on the real issues that the mainstream media is afraid to tackle. Tune in to find out the latest about health news, healing, politics, and the economy. 

Peter McCullough speaks at the 78th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeon. 

Gary takes on the real issues that the mainstream media is afraid to tackle. Tune in to find out the latest about health news, healing, politics, and the economy. In this episode Gary gives you the response from Noam Chomsky. 

Gary takes on the real issues that the mainstream media is afraid to tackle. Tune in to find out the latest about health news, healing, politics, and the economy.

Dear Prof Chomsky,

Please take a moment to read this letter and the accompanying attachments.

i was deeply concerned over the insensitive manner in which Jimmy Dore and other commentators took to criticize your stance on the Covid-19 vaccines. I have followed your work since my early days as a college student during the anti-war and civil rights protests in the 1960s, and later your writings. Your book Manufacturing Consent has been a guidebook over the years in my own syndicated national broadcasts and my criticisms of the mainstream media.  Later I used some of your material in the college courses I taught as an adjunct at Fairleigh Dickinson University. 

What I always highlighted was your deep scholarship, intellectual acumen, and historically being on the correct side of the most pressing issues of our time.

However, your recent comments are unfortunately inaccurate. Not only yours, but also many of those among us who espouse liberal values. Seemingly the entire liberal media, including Amy Goodman, have been in error and responsible for promulgating scientifically misleading information. Therefore I was perplexed that you would defend the very institutional structures, which have betrayed us repeatedly in history, that you have made a career to challenge.

My own background is in human nutritional health and science. I hold a doctorate and was a research fellow at the Institute of Applied Biology for over three decades. I have counseled tens of thousands of people and conducted over 50 clinical studies related to chronic illnesses and health.

When Anthony Fauci and other federal health officials began making very misleading statements about Covid-19, which independent reviews have found to be based on very shoddy scientific research and analysis, it drew my attention. I have attached several articles co-written with my producer, who is a former senior research analyst in the biotech and genomic industries, that provide alternative scenarios with scientific citations.  

It is widely accepted that the vaccinated are not protected from contracting the SARS-2 virus. This has been stated clearly by the vaccine makers and is clearly written in the manufacturers' product insert information. Over 100,000 physicians and medical researchers worldwide, including one of the inventors of mRNA vaccine technology Dr. Robert Malone, are formally challenging the official narrative about the efficacy and safety of these experimental vaccines. These are all doctors, who like myself, are pro-vaccine but are deeply concerned about these new experimental Covid vaccines because there is unsound clinical evidence to determine their safety, let alone whether they work or not. These doctors therefore are adhering to the precautionary principle, which has been upheld as a gold standard for questionable medical intervention before the pandemic. Medical professionals are risking their reputations to now warn that more children will die from these vaccines than from a SARS-2 infection. Physicians, scientists, highly educated parents who choose to avoid vaccination are now being labeld a threat to society and no better than a terrorist. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever that the virus is a matter of grave concern for children. The assumption being made by the federal agencies is that vaccinated children will protect the adults; however there is absolutely no proo whatsoever to substantiate this claim because there is still a great deal of controversy over whether an asymptomatic person with the virus can transmit it to others. 

If we look at Israel as an example of the most vaccinated nation in the world, which has started to administer a fourth booster shot, the hospitals are filling with Covid patients who are fully vaccinated. Recently in Europe, a suit has been filed by 1,000 attorneys and 10,000 medical professionals against the World Health Organization, the CDC and the World Economic Forum based upon the Nuremberg Code criteria. Another lawsuit is underway in the US against the CDC and Fauci's National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease for manipulating and massaging the data in the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) to reduce the evidence that the vaccines are causing enormous injuries and deaths. A federal whistleblower in the suit has estimated that the vaccines have caused approximately 40,000 American deaths already. If we consider the EU's EudraViligance adverse vaccine event monitoring system, which is far more robust and accurate than the CDC's VAERS based upon a Harvard review, then we are looking at over 27,000 deaths due the vaccines and over 2.5 million injuries. What is most worrisome is that over 90 percent of Covid-19 deaths were among the elderly with comorbidities. The CDC's own website states that only 6 percent of deaths was actually caused by the virus alone, the remainder with comorbidity complications; whereas we are observing more vaccination deaths in younger age groups than from the actual virus. Yet none of this is being reported by the mainstream media. It is a classic example of "manufacturing consent" to implement a narrative that is grossly compromised by commercial and perhaps political interests. 

So I would encourage you to please examine the literature and articles carefully and reflect upon the facts that are being intentionally ignored and denied by our health officials and by the media. If after reviewing the information you feel morally compelled to revise your earlier statements, many of us will be grateful

But no matter your decision, your legacy will remain as one of America's greatest political and social justice warriors. However, perhaps not on the matter of medical science and immunology.

I appreciate your consideration

Sincerely yours

Gary Null, PhD

Gary takes on the real issues that the mainstream media is afraid to tackle. Tune in to find out the latest about health news, healing, politics, and the economy and a commentary on "Isolate Unvaxxed From Society" says Noam Chomsky

The moral roots of liberals and conservatives - Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt joined New York University Stern School of Business in July 2011. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, based in the Business and Society Program.

Professor Haidt is a social psychologist whose research examines the intuitive foundations of morality. His most recent book is the New York Times bestseller, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. In that book Haidt offers an account of the origins of the human moral sense, and he shows how variations in moral intuitions can help explain the polarization and dysfunction of American politics. At Stern he is applying his research on moral psychology to rethink the way business ethics is studied and is integrated into the curriculum. His goal is to draw on the best behavioral science research to create organizations that function as ethical systems, with only minimal need for directly training people to behave ethically. He co-founded the research collaboration at EthicalSystems.org. His next book will be titled Three Stories About Capitalism: The Moral Psychology of Economic Life .

Before coming to Stern, Professor Haidt taught for 16 years at the University of Virginia. His first book was The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. His writings appear frequently in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and he has given four TED talks. He was named one of the top global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and also by Prospect magazine.

Professor Haidt received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Patrick Lawrence

THE SCRUM 

Oct 21

21 OCTOBER—Watch and listen, O you with open eyes and ears. The national security state’s long, very long campaign to control our press and broadcasters has taken a new turn of late. If independent media are what keep alive hope for a vigorous, authentic Fourth Estate, as argued severally in this space, independent media are now subject to an insidious, profoundly anti-democratic effort to undermine them.

The Independent Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Frances Haugen, Maria Ressa: Let us consider this institution and these people. They are all frauds, if by fraudulent we mean they are not what and who they tell us they are and their claim to independence from power is bogus.

The Deep State—and at this point it is mere pretense to object to this term—long ago made it a priority to turn the mainstream press and broadcasters to its purposes—to make a free press unfree. This has gone on since the earliest Cold War decades and is well and responsibly documented. (Alas, if more Americans read the many excellent books and exposés on this topic, assertions such as the one just made would not arrive as in the slightest outré.)   

But several new realities are now very evident. Chief among them, the Deep State’s colonization of corporate media is now more or less complete. CNN, filling its airtime with spooks, generals, and a variety of official and formerly official liars, can be counted a total takeover. The New York Times is prima facie government-supervised, as it confesses in its pages from time to time. The Washington Post, owned by a man with multimillion-dollar CIA contracts, has turned itself into a comic book.

For reasons I will never entirely fathom, corporate media have not merely surrendered their legitimacy, such as it may have been: They have actively, enthusiastically abandoned what frayed claim they may have had to credibility. The national-security state incorporates mainstream media into its apparatus, and then people stop believing mainstream media: The thrill is gone, let’s say. 

In consequence of these two factors, independent media have begun to rise as … independent media. They accumulate audiences. A little at a time, they acquire the very habits of professionalism the mainstream press and broadcasters have let decay. Gradually, they assume the credibility the mainstream has lost. The media ecosystem—horrible phrase but there it is—begins to take on a new shape. 

Certain phenomena engendered by independent media prove popular. There are whistleblowers. People inside Deep State institutions start to leak, and they turn to independent media, most famously WikiLeaks, to get information out. While the Deep State’s clerks in mainstream media keep their heads down and their mouths shut as they cash their checks, independent media take principled stands in favor of free expression, and people admire these stands. They are, after all admirable.

Those populating the national-security state’s sprawling apparatus are not stupid. They can figure out the logical response to these developments as well as anyone else. The new imperative is now before us: It is to colonize independent media just as they had the mainstream in previous decades.

There are some hopelessly clumsy cases. I urge all colleagues to stop bothering with The Young Turks in any capacity. Those running it, creatures of those who generously fund it, are simply infra-dig. As Matt Taibbi pointed out over the weekend in a piece wonderfully headed, “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Deep State,” they’ve now got some clod named Ben Carollo proclaiming the CIA as an accountable force for good, savior of democracy—this in a video appearing under the rubric “Rebel HQ.”

As an East European émigré friend used to say, “Gimme break.”

Democracy Now! is a subtler instance of colonization. The once-admirable Amy Goodman drank the Russiagate Kool-Aid, which I counted the first indication of covert intervention of one or another kind. Then she caved to the orthodoxy on the chemical-weapons scam during the Syrian crisis, and lately—you have to watch to believe—Goodman has begun broadcasting CNN “investigative” reports with unalloyed approval.

The debate in this household is whether Ms. Goodman had a long lunch in Langley or her donors started threatening to delay their checks. I have no evidence of either but tend to the latter explanation.

The three recent phenomena suggested at the top of this piece are indications of the Deep State’s latest tactics in its assault on independent media and the culture that arises among them. It behooves us to understand this. 

Two weeks ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published “The Pandora Papers,” a “leak” of 12 million electronic documents revealing the tax-fiddling, money-hiding doings of 300–odd political figures around the world. “The Pandora Papers” followed publication of “The Panama Papers” in 2016 and “The Paradise Papers” a year later. There are many useful revelations in these various releases, but we ought not be fooled as to the nature of the project.

Where did the ICIJ get the documents in “The Pandora Papers,” and how?  Are they complete? Were names redacted out? They have been verified? Explaining provenance, authenticity, and so forth is essential to any investigative undertaking, but ICIJ has nothing to say on this point.

Why, of all the people “The Pandora Papers” exposes, is there not one American on its list? As Moon of Alabama notes in an analysis of this release, it amounts to a list of “people the U.S. doesn’t like.”

The ICIJ vigorously insists on its independence. But on close inspection this turns out not to be so by any serious understanding of the term. Among its donors are the Ford Foundation, whose longtime ties to the CIA are well-documented, and the Open Societies Foundation, the (in)famous George Soros operation dedicated to cultivating coups in nations that fall outside the fence posts of neoliberalism. 

The group was founded in 1997 as a project of the Center for Public Integrity, another institution dedicated to “inspiring change using investigative reporting,” as the center describes itself. Among its sponsors are Ford, once again, and the Democracy Fund, which was founded by Pierre Omidyar, bankroller of The Intercept (another compromised “independent” medium). Omidyar is, like Soros, a sponsor of subversion ops in other countries masquerading as “civil society” projects.

ICIJ’s other sponsors (and for that matter the Democracy Fund’s) are comprised of the sorts of foundations that support NPR, PBS, and other such media. Let us be crystal clear on this point. Anyone who assumes media institutions taking money from such sponsors are authentically independent does not understand philanthropy as a well-established, highly effective conduit through which orthodoxies are enforced and public discourse circumscribed. 

What are we looking at here? Not what we are supposed to think we are looking at, certainly. I will return to this question.

There is the case of Maria Ressa, which I considered briefly in a previous commentary. Ressa is the supposedly courageous, speak-truth-to-power co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize this year, a Filipina journalist who co-founded The Rappler, a web publication in Manila. The Nobel committee cited Ressa for her “fight for freedom of expression.” Who is Maria Ressa, then, and what is The Rappler?

I grow weary of writing this sentence: She and her publication are not what we are supposed to think they are.

Ressa and The Rappler, each insisting on independence just as the ICIJ does, are straight-out lying on this point. The Rappler recently received a grant of $180,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA front—this according to an NED financial report issued earlier this year. None other than Pierre Omidyar and a group called North Base Media own nonvoting shares in the publication. Among North Base’s partners is the Media Development Investment Fund, which was founded by George Soros to do what George Soros likes to do in other countries.

Does a picture begin to emerge? Read the names together and one will. You have to figure they all party together.

Nobel in hand, Maria Ressa has already declared that Julian Assange is not a journalist and that independent media need new regulations, as in censorship. Henry Kissinger got a Nobel as a peacemaker: Ressa gets one as a defender of free expression. It’s a fit.

This brings us to the case of Frances Haugen, the former Facebook exec who recently appeared before Congress waving lots of documents she seems to have secreted (supposedly) out of Facebook’s offices to argue for—what else at this point?—increased government regulation of social media, as in censorship. Frances Haugen, you see, is a courageous, speak-truth-to-power whistleblower. Never mind that her appearance on Capitol Hill was carefully choreographed by Democratic Party operatives whose party simply cannot wait to censor our First Amendment rights out of existence. 

It is hard to say who is more courageous, I find—the ICIJ, Maria Ressa, or Frances Haugen. Where would we be without them?

The culture of independent media as it has germinated and developed over the past decade or so gave us WikiLeaks, and its effectiveness cannot be overstated. It gave us all manner of gutsy journalists standing for the principles of a genuinely free press, and people listened. It gave us whistleblowers who are admired even as the Deep State condemns them.    

And now the national-security state gives us none other than a secret-disclosing crew of mainstream hacks, a faux-independent journalist elevated to the highest honors, and a whistleblower who was handed her whistle and taught how to toot it—three crowd-pleasers, three simulacra. These are three frauds. They are to independent journalism what McDonald’s is to food. 

There is only one defense against this assault on truth and integrity, but it is a very good one. It is awareness. CNN, Democracy Now!, the ICIJ, Maria Ressa, Frances Haugen—none of these and many other media and people are properly labeled. But the labels can be written with modest efforts. Awareness and scrutiny, watching and listening, will prove enough.

Dr. John Campbell is a Senior Lecturer in Nursing studies at the University of Cumbria. He has been a clinical nurse and a nurse tutor for over 30 years. In addition to writing books, he has also produced a range of videos and podcasts on various health and nursing related topics. As well as selling his materials in the Western countries, many are distributed at no cost, or low cost, to students in poorer countries

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg | Full Interview | Planetlockdown. October 18, 2021. In this intimate sit down interview with Wolfgang Wodarg, we discuss the broad issue of corruption in the WHO, how we should understand the "pandemic," or lack there of and how we must stop this diabolical trend towards a fake medical dystopia that will take over all aspects of our lives. He is one of the most honest and thoughtful people we have ever met and has an amazing resume and has lived a rich life full of experiences that uniquely qualifies him to understand the depth and breadth of this complex situation we find ourselves in.