Published writings exposing the CDC’s false Lyme disease narrative
Carl Tuttle
Hudson, NH, United States
MAR 17, 2023 —
Additional information sent to Mathematica Policy Research. It should be noted that there hasn’t been a single response from anyone at Mathematica or the CDC.
Truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged!
———- Original Message ———-
From: CARL TUTTLE <runagain@comcast.net>
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Date: 03/17/2023 11:48 AM Subject: Published writings exposing the CDC’s false Lyme disease narrative; “Hard to catch and easily treated”
Mathematica
Princeton, NJ
Attn: Arnold Chen, Senior Researcher
Dear Dr. Chen,
Now that we know that the Covid lab leak theory being a “conspiracy theory” was a lie and the “15 days to stop the spread” was a lie and “masks work” to stop the spread was a lie and “vaccine mandates will stop the spread” was a lie and “natural immunity is a myth” was a lie and the “there is no side effects” was a lie and the “safe and 100% effective” was a lie then you can pretty much bet that “chronic Lyme does not exist” is a lie. Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome is simply a fabricated medical condition disguising treatment failure because a chronic relapsing seronegative disease does not fit the business model of vaccine development, patent royalties and pharmaceutical profits.All this suffering for the sake of a vaccine. Just like the current mismanagement of Covid … all for the sake of a vaccine. It should be blatantly obvious to everyone; pharmaceutical profits over lifesaving care. Suppressing evidence of persistent infection after antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease is criminal.
Patient testimony across America is describing a disease that is destroying lives, ending careers while leaving its victims in financial ruin.
The false Lyme disease narrative “Hard to catch and easily treated” propagated by the CDC for nearly three decades has been exposed in countless books; first and foremost, frontline treating physician Dr. Kenneth Liegner’s 892-page book:
“In the fullness of time, the mainstream handling of chronic Lyme disease will be viewed as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of medicine because elements of academic medicine, elements of government and virtually the entire insurance industry have colluded to deny a disease.” -Kenneth B. Liegner M.D.
We are dealing with a life-altering/life-threatening infection with faulty/misleading antibody tests, inadequate treatment, misguided medical training and absolutely no disease control whatsoever; a public health disaster.
Has Mathematica Policy Research been pulled into this crime against humanity while being paid by the CDC to propagate the well-established false Lyme disease narrative under the guise of “GUIDANCE”?
Please watch the 6 minute Full Measure video here with investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson as she reports the findings of watchdog group Open The Books on government scientists collecting royalty payments from Big Pharma while working on the tax-payer’s dime.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Under the 1984 Bayh-Dole Act, government scientists can collect royalties from drug companies for discoveries they make while working on the public’s dime
Taxpayers fund government research, while Big Pharma, the National Institutes of Health and NIH scientists keep all the profits
As a patent holder who profits from royalties, the NIH has a significant stake in regulations that impact patents and vaccine mandates, and may use its influence to benefit itself rather than the public
The NIH distributes $32 billion of taxpayer funds as research grants each year. As the largest federal grant-maker, the NIH has a monopoly on what research gets done and what doesn’t
Scientists vying for grants also recognize that in order to get funding, they have to play by the rules, and that means doing work that supports establishment narratives on public health policy
In late February 2023, Moderna agreed to pay $400 million to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for the patent it holds on Moderna’s mRNA shot.1
The patent process is a part of the COVID mRNA shots that the media haven’t really addressed and people in general don’t know anything about — probably because it’s a total racket. Based on internal documents and correspondence, it appears the NIAID funded the creation of SARS-CoV-2. At the same time, it patented and receives royalty payments for the “vaccine” against said virus.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is supposed to be the primary government agency responsible for public health research, but by the looks of it, it appears instead to be in the business of creating public health threats in order to profit from them.
And the agency itself isn’t the only one raking in profits. Many patents are held by individuals working at the NIH/NIAID. So, taxpayers fund research that may or may not work out, while Big Pharma, the NIH and individuals at the NIH profit from products that end up on the market. This is a clear conflict of interest that can hurt public health in any number of ways.
For starters, it incentivizes the NIH to support and promote potentially dangerous drugs, as we’ve clearly seen during the COVID pandemic. The NIH also has a significant stake in regulations that impact patents and vaccine mandates, and may use its influence to benefit itself rather than the public.
Conflicts of Interest Influence Public Health Policy
In the Full Measure video above, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson reports the findings of watchdog group Open The Books, which recently took a deep dive into “the issue of government scientists collecting royalty payments from pharmaceutical companies for discoveries made while working on your dime.”
According to OpenTheBooks.com founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski, the NIH distributes $32 billion of taxpayer funds as research grants each year to an estimated 56,000 different entities. “That basically buys you the entire American health care space,” he says.
As the largest federal grant-maker, the NIH has a monopoly on what research gets done and what doesn’t, as it decides which scientists and projects get that money. Scientists vying for grants also recognize that in order to get a piece of that pie, they have to play by the rules, and that means doing work that supports establishment narratives on public health policy.
But that’s not all. The NIH is also gobbling up patents, which further weakens its incentive to protect and promote what’s truly in the public’s best interest due to the financial conflicts of interest that come into play.
How the Third-Party Royalty Complex Works
As explained by Andrzejewski, under the 1984 Bayh-Dole Act, government scientists can collect royalties from drug companies for discoveries they make while working on the public’s dime:
“Here’s how the third-party royalty complex works. You have a government scientist funded by taxpayers, and they work in a government lab that’s also funded by taxpayers. And when they have an invention [a drug, device or therapeutic] … the NIH … then licenses that invention … to the private sector.
And the private sector then pays royalties back to NIH. NIH then distributes those royalties on a royalty split schedule, back to the scientist. Details of those royalty payments to government scientists are kept as strictly held secrets.”
In fact, these royalty payments are kept under such closed wraps, scientists who receive them aren’t even required to divulge them on their financial statements, let alone to the public. Congress can’t even access those data.
In mid-June 2022, Sen. Rand Paul questioned then-NIAID chief Dr. Anthony Fauci about whether he’d ever received royalty payments from an entity to which he had given a research grant, and whether he or anyone else on the vaccine committee had ever received payments from vaccine makers.2Fauci suffered one of his now-famous lapses of memory and wouldn’t answer.
NIH Fights to Shield Conflicted Parties
Paul’s questioning of Fauci came on the heels of a lawsuit filed against the NIH to obtain these payment disclosures. The lawsuit was filed by Open The Books in October 2021. But while the NIH eventually did release them, many of the most crucial pieces of information were redacted, and Paul’s attempt to get answers led nowhere. As noted by Andrzejewski:
“That lawsuit unearthed 3,000 pages of royalty payments to NIH scientists from 2010 to 2021. During that time, 2,407 government scientists received $325 million in secretive royalty payments, averaging out to more than $135,000 each.
But much is left unknown. NIH redacted or blacked out key details. We don’t know who paid it. We don’t know how much each individual scientist received. We can only see their names and count the number of times that each scientist received a payment.
And they also redacted the invention, the license number or the patent number … So, every single one of those individual, third-party royalty payments has the appearance of a conflict of interest …
We need to be able to follow the money.Unelected bureaucrats are running the entire American health care complex without any scrutiny. They’re basically telling the American people, ‘Sit down, shut up, pay up. We’ll run things.’ And that’s not how the federal government is supposed to operate.”
COVID Jabs Are Rife With Conflicts of Interest
Conflicts of interest also appear to have played a role in the U.S. government’s preferential treatment of Pfizer and Moderna during the pandemic. Pfizer was the first to receive government authorization for its COVID jab, and it just so happens to be part of an NIH royalty-sharing agreement.
Moderna also has such an agreement. What this all means is that the NIH helped invent certain technologies that went into these shots, and then licensed those technologies to Pfizer and Moderna in return for royalty payments.
So, the NIH has been making tens of millions of dollars from the COVID shots. Could that financial incentive influence the NIH’s stance on vaccine mandates? What do you think?
As you may recall, Johnson & Johnson’s COVID jab was vilified for causing blood clots, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration even limited the authorized use of the Janssen shot to people over the age of 18 who have no access to Moderna’s or Pfizer’s jabs, and/or those who voluntarily opt for the Janssen shot, understanding the risks.3
Meanwhile, Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots also cause blood clots, but neither of them was placed under restrictions. Instead, both were added to the U.S. childhood and adult vaccination schedules. Janssen wasn’t.
The NIH Royalty Cash Cow
The NIH’s secret royalties and the conflicts of interest these payments create were also addressed by “Rising” hosts Robby Soave and Briahna Joy Gray in a recent episode (video above). Alexander Zaitchik, author of “Owning the Sun: A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines,” also joined them on the program.
In Zaitchik’s view, the biggest scandal is not that government scientists are receiving royalty payments from drug companies but, rather, the intimate relationship that exists between government and “an industry that is using the monopoly system to price gouge the American people.”
“The NIH has basically abandoned its role to serve the public,” Zaitchik says, “and instead has become much too aligned with the industry and is an enabler, an accomplice and a protector of these monopolies. The vaccines are a point in case.
Government science was basically given, along with these massive research subsidies, through Warp Speed, to Moderna, for example. And there were no public interest provisions attached.
There were no pricing promises, there were no requests that technology be transferred [shared] with other parts of the world. It was basically a conveyor belt for private industry … So, for me, the real problem is NIH [being] fully aligned with industry on the monopoly question when public science is involved …”
Public Gets Fleeced Coming and Going
When public monies are being used for research, any scientific discoveries ought to be used for the public’s benefit, and the patents should remain public property with broad licensing rights.
This used to be the default position, but not anymore. In the 1970s, Big Pharma convinced Congress that this policy was slowing down innovation, and that if companies were allowed to claim exclusive rights to the patents, they’d be more apt to innovate. The Bayh-Dole Act was an outgrowth of this.
But we can now see why and how that doesn’t work. Public health is literally being sacrificed for profit, and since government agencies are in on it, there’s no one left to look out for the public’s interests.
Additionally, the public ends up getting fleeced twice. First, our tax dollars are being used to fund the research that private companies then lay claim to, and then we end up paying top dollar for the products we funded the development of, as there’s no price competition.
As noted by Zaitchik, while the Bayh-Dole Act is a bad law, it does have a rider that says generic production of drugs created with government funding can be mandated. However, every time patient groups have approached the NIH and asked for this provision to be enforced, as the monopoly is hurting patients who cannot afford the exorbitant prices, the NIH has rejected those requests.
For example, the U.S. Army invented a breakthrough prostate cancer drug, and Americans are paying six times the price for this drug compared to other parts of the world. But even though the government has the power to lower the price by mandating generic production, it refuses to do so.
“The whole system, up and down, has been completely corrupted by the amount of money and power the industry has been allowed to amass, because of the corruption in the patent system in general,” Zaitchik says.
Big Pharma Endangers Public Health
In closing, I’d like to draw attention to a paper published in Surgical Neurology International in October 2022, titled “The Pharmaceutical Industry Is Dangerous To Health. Further Proof With COVID-19.”4
“The COVID-19 period highlights a huge problem that has been developing for decades, the control of science by industry,” the author, Fabien Deruelle, an independent researcher in France, writes.
“In the 1950s, the tobacco industry set the example, which the pharmaceutical industry followed. Since then, the latter has been regularly condemned for illegal marketing, misrepresentation of experimental results, dissimulation of information about the dangers of drugs, and considered as criminal.
Therefore, this study was conducted to show that knowledge is powerfully manipulated by harmful corporations, whose goals are: 1) financial; 2) to suppress our ability to make choices to acquire global control of public health.”
Deruelle’s paper reviews a long list of techniques that drug companies use to shape and control the science, including the following:
Falsification of clinical trials and making data inaccessible
Faked studies
Conflict-of-interest studies
Concealment of the jab’s short-term side effects
Concealment of the fact there is no knowledge of the long-term effects of the COVID-19 jab
Dubious composition of the COVID shots, with many ingredients remaining unlisted
Inadequate testing methods
Conflicts of interest within governments and international organizations
Bribing of physicians
Denigration of renowned scientists who express differing views
The banning of alternative effective treatments
Unscientific countermeasures that eviscerate liberties and freedoms
Government use of behavior modification and social engineering techniques to impose isolation, masks wearing and vaccine acceptance
Scientific censorship by the media
White Collar Crooks Are Running the Show
Deruelle points out that all but one of the primary drug companies producing COVID “vaccines” — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Merck and Johnson & Johnson —have long criminal histories, having been busted and fined huge sums for illegal marketing, recommending drugs for off-label use, misrepresenting trial results and concealing information about known dangers of their drugs. Moderna is the only exception, as it’s only been around since 2010. Deruelle writes:5
“In 2007, Merck paid $670 million, in 2009, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion, in 2010, AstraZeneca paid $520 million, and in 2012, Johnson and Johnson paid a fine of $1.1 billion …
Since 1995, Pfizer has been assessed more than $6.5 billion in penalties for 42 instances of misconduct; 36 instances of misconduct since 1995, resulting in over $11.5 billion in penalties for Johnson and Johnson; 35 instances of misconduct since 1995 and $8.8 billion in penalties for Merck.
Pfizer is singled out as having persistent criminal behavior and casual disregard for the health and well-being of patients. Pfizer is no different from other pharmaceutical companies, but it is larger and more egregious. Pfizer is a habitual offender, persistently engaging in illegal business practices, bribing physicians, and suppressing unfavorable trial results.”
Will Pfizer Stand Trial?
True to form, Pfizer is also accused of scientific fraud in its COVID-19 jab trial. Brook Jackson, who worked at one of Pfizer’s trial sites, sued Pfizer in 2021 for violating the False Claims Act.6 U.S. District Judge Michael Truncale heard oral arguments on the motions to dismiss, March 1, 2023.
As reported by The Epoch Times March 2, 2023,7 defense attorneys for Pfizer argued that “whether protocol violations occurred was ultimately irrelevant because the federal government was made aware of them but still granted emergency authorization to Pfizer’s vaccine.”
Jackson’s lawyers countered by saying the FDA authorized the vaccine before reviewing Jackson’s complaint. Judge Truncale has not issued a ruling as of this writing, and Jackson’s attorney suspects it may be weeks or even months before the judge issues his opinion.8
Conflicts of Interest Shaped COVID Responses
Deruelle also specifically delves into the conflicts of interest and relationships between the drug companies involved during COVID-19 and governments, international organizations and media — and how they worked the COVID “emergency” for their own benefit. Here are some select excerpts:9
“In 2009, the H1N1 episode should already have been enough to reveal that governments and the WHO are not autonomous. Work has shown that the 2009 H1N1 pandemic seems (based on case fatality rates [CFRs]) to have been the mildest influenza pandemic on record. Following investigations by the BMJ, it appears that this event declared by the WHO is significantly tainted by conflicts of interest.
A report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has heavily criticized the WHO, national governments, and EU agencies for their handling of the swine flu pandemic: distortion of priorities of public health services all over Europe, waste of huge sums of public money, provocation of unjustified fear among Europeans, and creation of health risks through vaccines and medications which might not have been sufficiently tested before being authorized in fast-track procedures.
According to former head of health at the Council of Europe, W. Wodarg, the swine flu outbreak was a false pandemic driven by drug companies that influenced scientists and official agencies …
During the COVID-19 period, France hired private consulting firms, mainly McKinsey and Company, which is known for working with pharmaceutical companies. The Senate Inquiry Commission reports that McKinsey contributed on all aspects of the health crisis, notably for social engineering strategies on the vaccination campaign and the extension of the health pass …
The suppression of good science and scientists is not new, but COVID-19 unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, suppressing science for political and financial reasons … Since the beginning of COVID-19, much scientific data and expert opinion have been censored or labeled as false or misleading by many internet platforms …
In June 2019, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations signed a partnership (2030 agenda). In the field of health, this alliance is designed to combat key emerging global health threats and achieve universal health coverage. In October 2019, in New York City, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and its partners the WEF and the Gates Foundation, hosted Event 201, a fictional coronavirus pandemic …
Among the partners of the WEF, there are: Pfizer, AstraZeneka, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, McKinsey, and Facebook et Google. A few months later, a coronavirus pandemic is declared, accompanied by its highly mediatized universal solution, the vaccine …
In addition to Event 201, other pandemic simulations, civil (MARS and SPARS in 2017) and military (Dark Winter in 2001, Atlantic Storm in 2003 and 2005, Global mercury in 2003, and Crimson Contagion in 2019), have taken place over the past 20 years. All these simulations correspond to fear programs induced by false media.
For the general welfare of the population, all these scenarios lead to the same methods (identical to those used during COVID-19): Isolation, control of movements and liberties, censorship, propaganda, and coercive vaccination of the population …
[T]here is no doubt that this is an event manipulated by governments, international agencies, pharmaceutical industries, and the media. In addition to the huge profits obtained by the pharmaceutical groups involved, the primary goal of this ‘pandemic’ seems to be compulsory vaccination, because the introduction of a European vaccine passport had already been planned since 2019 …
The objective of the WHO is to impose the Chinese model to become the norm. That is to say, a system with centralization of each person’s health data and restriction of freedoms for the unvaccinated … A period such as COVID-19 represents a powerful lever for increasing the effectiveness of global governance.”
Conflicts of Interest Threaten Our Freedom
In the final analysis, conflicts of interest and the collusion between government and industry does more than rob us of our hard-earned money. It now threatens our very freedom, as these monopolies are being used to further a totalitarian takeover of global proportions.
As such, we can no longer turn a blind eye or accept excuses such as “these relationships don’t influence our decision-making.” They absolutely influence the decisions being made, and the public is consistently on the losing end. Congress needs to start taking this seriously, and revisit laws such as the Bayh-Dole Act, which is currently allowing private monopolies to profit while no one is looking out for our interests.
Remember HHS paid the media $1 Billion to peddle the COVID gene therapy injections and also paid doctors to appear in commercials. They stooped to new lows by using children in ads and calling those who got the jab “superheroes,” and that they are “helping others” by getting vaccinated. This is pure and utter rubbish and a lie to boot.
Further, this surreal video compilation shows dozens of news anchors saying the same things verbatim, perfectly showing how mainstream media is bought out.
The Deputy Director of the CDC, Tom Shimabukuro, now acknowledges the problems of the COVID gene therapy injections. “We hope these people improve.” Can you believe this? What is the recourse for injured families?
Israeli health reporter Yaffa Shir-Raz stated that “Israel was Pfizer’s laboratory” and that Israel did not have any functioning monitoring system, yet the FDA’s decision to approve the booster shot was based on Israeli data
Professor Masanaka Nagao, Forensic Medical Dotor from Hiroshima University School of Medicine states that data shows ‘vaccination’ was sufficiently related to immune abnormalities
Professor Shigetoshi Sano, expert in dermatology, from Kochi University of Medicine used a special dye to examine tissues of the “vaccine” injured and found inflammatory areas flooded with spike proteins from the injections
Joseph Fraiman, an emergency physician and a clinical scientist from Louisiana who reanalyzed Pfizer and Moderna Trials found that the “vaccines” increase serious adverse events at a rate of 1 in 800 and calls for them to be withdrawn from the market
Dr. Ryan Cole, pathologist and CEO and medical director of Cole Diagnostics states that the spike protein is a toxin that is being injected into everyone that crossed the blood, brain, barrier and causes damage in organs
Dr. Hoffe has used D-dimer tests on the “vaccinated” and found microclotting causing capillaries to plug up
Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, world renowned virologist and professor states the “vaccines” are injuring and killing untold numbers of people globally & must be stopped
Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, Brazilian endocrinologist states the spike protein in the shots induces disease in the endocrine system
In this video, Vinay Prasad, discusses CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky’s ever changing statements. He also wrote a Substack article titled: Public Health Should Lose Your Trust. This important article breaks down the COVID issues and why public health failed, utterly. He also wrote this enlightening article titled Mask Studies Reach a New Scientific Low Point.
I had to chuckle when I read:
Enter a new study in MMWR— the CDC’s pet journal; It is getting widely tweeted and cited, and that is unfortunate. The paper is entirely, irredeemably flawed.Its flaws are so evident that it should not have been published nor promoted. When an issue is deeply polarizing, publishing bad science helps no one. It cannot convince skeptics, proponents don’t need convincing, and it deepens mistrust in institutions. Let’s consider the paper.
An interesting little tidbit about the MMWR is that while it has the look and feel of articles in medical journals, its published content constitutes the official voice of its parent, the CDC. Most MMWR articles are not “peer-reviewed” in the way submissions to medical journals are. The content in the MMWR agrees with CDC policy and every submission undergoes a rigorous multilevel clearance process, including a review by the CDC Director before publication.. By the time a report appears in the MMWR, it reflects or is completely consistent with CDC policy. Dissenting opinions simply will not be published.
Interestingly, the CDC did a similar mask study in 2020 and found a near-perfect lack of correlation so they simply buried the results in a table they ignored in the actual text of the MMWR.
Another particularly poignant quote:
The truth is the CDC has put out so many papers that borderline propaganda, that they create the space for people to seek alternative information. They have lost trust.
Ultimately, the CDC & NIH failed us. The agencies should have run a half dozen masking cluster RCTs under different conditions, and for different ages. We were starving, and we needed this loaf of bread. Instead, the CDC published flawed study after flawed study. It didn’t even give us crumbs; it gave us a fistful of sand. Starving, we swallowed each grain, and begged for more. Medical leaders told us to fill our bowl before it runs out. Science lies on its deathbed. ~ Dr. Vinay Prasad
Well, at least the CDC isn’t alone.
Germany’s Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, who once claimed that COVID-19 “vaccination” is free of side effects, admitted last week that he was wrong, saying adverse reactions occur at a rate of one in 10,000 doses and can cause “severe disabilities.” Unfortunately, a scientist has reviewed both the Pfizer and Moderna trial data and found it’s far worse. According to this data, it’s actually one serious adverse event per 800 vaccinees.
Report Linking Fluoride to Lower IQ in Children Made Public After CDC, HHS Tried to Block It
The National Toxicology Program on Wednesday released a draft report linking prenatal and childhood fluoride exposure to reduced IQ in children, after public health officials tried for almost a year to block its publication.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website.
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) on Wednesday released a draft reportlinking prenatal and childhood fluoride exposure to reduced IQ in children, after public health officials tried for almost a year to block its publication.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially blocked the NTP from releasing the report, according to emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
But a court order stemming from a lawsuit filed by Food and Water Watch against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced the report’s release this week.
The NTP, an interagency program run by HHS that researches and reports on environmental toxins, conducted a six-year systematic review to assess scientific studies on fluoride exposure and potential neurodevelopmental and cognitive health effects in humans.
The report, containing a monograph and a meta-analysis, went through two rounds of peer review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Comments from reviewers and HHS and NTP’s responses also were included in the report released Wednesday.
According to its website, the NTP “removed the hazardous classification of fluoride” in response to comments in the peer-review process. Yet, the report states:
“Our meta-analysis confirms results of previous meta-analyses and extends them by including newer, more precise studies with individual-level exposure measures.
“The data support a consistent inverse association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ …
“The results were robust to stratifications by risk of bias, gender, age group, outcome assessment, study location, exposure timing, and exposure type (including both drinking water and urinary fluoride).”
“These findings fly in the face of the empty, unscientific claims U.S. health officials have propagated for years, namely that water fluoridation is safe and beneficial,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Children’s Health Defense chairman and chief litigation counsel. “It’s past time to eliminate this neurotoxin from our water supply.”
The controversial report will play a key role in determining the outcome of a lawsuit brought in 2017 by several nonprofits against the EPA to end fluoridation of drinking water, plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Connett told The Defender.
“We had to fight hard to have this report even made public,” Connett said. “They [CDC and HHS] buried this. If they had gotten their way, this report would have never even seen the light of day,” Connett said.
Since the trial began in 2020, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen has been waiting for the NTP to complete a systematic review of fluoride’s neurotoxicity before ruling on the case.
Groups like the American Dental Association publicly pressured the NTP to “exclude any neurotoxin claims” from the reports.
Connett said during the trial, the EPA repeatedly claimed that the plaintiffs’ allegations about toxicity could not be verified because there was no “systematic review.”
The documents released Wednesday fill that gap.
Connett said:
“So now what do we have? We have a systematic review by one of the pioneering, leading, most authoritative research groups on toxicology in the world.
“They just completed a systematic review that took them six years to complete, so if that’s not enough to demonstrate a hazard under the toxic substances control act, then how would any citizen group ever be able to meet the standard?”
The findings: fluoride and lowered IQ in children
According to the NTP report:
“The current bodies of experimental animal studies and human mechanistic evidence do not provide clarity on the association between fluoride exposure and cognitive or neurodevelopmental human health effects.”
Yet, the report’s summary contradicts this statement by summarizing the evidence informing this conclusion, stating that nearly all studies examined for this literature review found evidence of cognitive or developmental issues associated with fluoride.
According to the report, 8 of the 9 “high-quality studies examining cognitive or neurodevelopmental outcomes reported associations with fluoride exposure.”
Of the 19 high-quality studies assessing the association between fluoride and IQ in children, 18 reported an association between higher fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children. Forty-six of the 53 low-quality studies also found evidence of that association.
The meta-analysis also states:
“The body of evidence from studies on adults is also limited and provides low confidence that fluoride exposure is associated with adverse effects on adult cognition. There is, however, a large body of evidence on IQ effects in children.”
The monograph and meta-analysis found that fluoride exposure at levels equivalent to 1.5 mg/L is associated with lower IQ in children. The abstract concludes:
“This review finds, with moderate confidence, that higher fluoride exposure (e.g., represented by populations whose total fluoride exposure approximates or exceeds the World Health Organization Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality of 1.5 mg/L of fluoride) is consistently associated with lower IQ in children.”
Levels of fluoride found in drinking water in the U.S. are typically 0.7 mg/L, which is lower than the 1.5 mg/L levels found to be neurotoxic by the reports.
On that basis, HHS’ review of the reports recommended the NTP revise its assessment such that, “all conclusory statements in this document should be explicit that any findings from the included studies only apply to water fluoride concentrations above 1.5 mg/L.”
The NTP responded:
“We do not agree with this comment. Our assessment considers fluoride exposures from all sources, not just water.
As discussed in the pre-publication 2022 NTP Monograph, because fluoride is also found in certain foods, dental products, some pharmaceuticals, and other sources, individual behaviors are likely an important determinant of actual exposures.”
Rick North, former CEO of the American Cancer Society’s Oregon division and Fluoride Action Network board member told The Defender that “people consume large amounts of fluoride through tea and other drinks and processed foods made with fluoridated water, not to mention pesticide ingestion and fluoride from air pollution.”
He also said that people’s fluoride exposure can depend on how much water they drink.
“Think about it,” North said. “Your level of risk depends upon, incredibly, how thirsty you are. That’s how absurd the entire premise of water fluoridation is,” he said.
The NTP confirmed that people exposed to levels of fluoride lower than 1.5 mg/L in the water system could have high levels of fluoride in their systems. It stated:
“Even in the optimally fluoridated cities [fluoridated at 0.7 mg/L] in Canada studied by Green et al. (2019), individual exposure levels, as documented by repeated urinary measurements, suggest widely varying total exposures from water combined with fluoride from other sources.”
It added, “our moderate confidence conclusion is primarily based on studies with total fluoride exposure that approximates or exceeds what is generally associated with consumption of optimally fluoridated water [0.7 mg/L] in the United States.”
“We have stressed in our monograph that our conclusions apply to total fluoride exposures rather than to exposures exclusively through drinking water.”
“What the NTP is pointing to here is that in some communities, where the dose of fluoride in the water is 0.7 mg/L, the NTP has found levels of fluoride found to be associated with lower IQ,” Connett told The Defender.
Also, different people have different risk levels, he said. Pregnant women and bottle-fed babies, for example, are some of the populations at highest risk.
On this point, the NTP responded to a different HHS critique, writing, “We have no basis on which to state that our findings are not relevant to some children or pregnant people in the United States.”
“The margin of safety here just doesn’t exist — it is precariously small,” Connett said. He added that the lawsuit is “basically a risk assessment of fluoride.”
To do a risk assessment, the EPA first identifies a hazard and determines at what dose — what level of human exposure — that hazard harms human health.
Then the agency determines in a given case whether the margin between the existing hazard levels and the human exposure levels is unacceptably close, which would make a toxin pose a risk to human health.
Connett said that in EPA’s previous risk assessments for other chemicals, such as methylene chloride or bromopropane, evaluated according to the 2020 risk evaluation method that guides this case, the agency found the hazard level exceeds the human exposure level by much higher margins — “usually in a range of ten to 20 times higher,” yet it has deemed those chemicals to present an unreasonable risk to human health.
In other words, the substances were found to be toxic to humans at levels significantly lower than what people may be exposed to in regular use, yet the EPA determined them to be risks.
When it makes that determination, the EPA must then take steps to mitigate the risk.
That can also be the finding in this case. According to a pre-trial document, both sides in the case agreed to the “undisputed fact” that the “EPA does not require that human exposure levels exceed a known adverse effect level to make an unreasonable risk determination under TSCA.”
The NTP documents also raised flags about the implications of seemingly small neurotoxic effects:
“Research on other neurotoxicants has shown that subtle shifts in IQ at the population level can have a profound impact on the number of people who fall within the high and low ranges of the population’s IQ distribution.
“For example, a 5-point decrease in a population’s IQ would nearly double the number of people classified as intellectually disabled.”
Top HHS and CDC officials tried to ‘water down’ and block the report
In 2016, a group of six nonprofit organizations and several individuals petitioned the EPA to end fluoridation of drinking water in the U.S. based on evidence of health risks associated with fluoride, namely neurotoxicity.
The EPA rejected the petition.
In response, Food and Water Watch, Fluoride Action Network and others sued the EPA in 2017, seeking an end to water fluoridation.
They based their initial claims on dozens of studies and reviews demonstrating fluoride’s neurotoxicity. Studies have also linked fluoride to a variety of other health risks in both children and adults, and evidence shows it to be an endocrine disruptor.
The EPA denied water fluoridation causes harm.
A seven-day trial took place in federal court in San Francisco in June 2020, but Judge Chen put the proceedings on hold pending the release of NTP’s systematic review of research available on the neurotoxic effects of fluoride.
The report, slated for release in May 2022, was delayed several times and sent for several rounds of peer review.
“The people on the [NTP] committee were experts in their fields who put years into this study, going back and forth with one external review after another,” North said. “You couldn’t ask for more peer review than what it already had. There were constant attempts to delay it, to water it down.”
In late October 2022, Judge Chen ended the stay on the NTP review, ruling that the parties involved could view the NTP review in its unpublished form to better inform his final decision.
However, due to concerns from the EPA, he also ruled the report could not be made public unless the NTP released it.
In December 2022, the plaintiffs filed several exhibits with Judge Chen, including a redacted version of the NTP’s assessment of fluoride’s neurotoxicity and internal emails between the CDC and the NTP obtained through FOIA demonstrating that HHS blocked the release of the long-delayed review, the plaintiffs argued.
The documents showed that on May 11, NTP notified the agencies that it was going to release the report on May 18, but the CDC opposed the release.
Emails also indicated that HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine was going to “get involved,” and, “the May 18 release date for [the monograph] is almost certainly not going to happen,” the Defender reported.
Connett said:
“It was only because we were tipped off by someone with knowledge on the inside that something was amiss that we went and did extensive FOIA requests and we were able to get documents showing that the NTP scientists considered this report to be complete and ready for publication last May, May of 2022.”
North said it was clear the agencies were blocking the release of the report, which was ready for publication.
“This was a clear case of stonewalling,” North said. “The National Toxicology Program, after over six years of research and numerous outside peer reviews, had completed its state-of-the-science report.”
Connett added:
“We have emails showing that Levine is the one who put it on hold. Rachel Levine said not to publish this report at this time. Then we got the FOIA emails showing that and NTP said they may not publish this [the report] at all. They may not publish it in final form but we did get them to agree to at least post a draft report. They will consider it a draft report.”
On January 20, Judge Chen denied the EPA’s request to add another six-month period to the stay he lifted in his October ruling.
The monograph and meta-analysis released yesterday on the NTP’s website are both labeled “draft.”
“Unfortunately, fluoridation promoters and high-level government officials have continued to label it a draft,” North said. “It wasn’t.”
Experts associated with the lawsuit against the EPA will now analyze and interpret the report in future hearings and then Judge Chen will rule.
The next hearing date is scheduled for April 11, 2023. At that time, the judge will set a date for the next phase of the trial.
Be On The Lookout, A New Type Of Tick Has Been Spotted In Massachusetts
Of all the creepy crawlies that are out there, ticks can invoke a sense of panic and disgust. They are disease carriers after all. Between Lyme Disease, Babesiosis, and Anaplasmosis, infected humans can experience fever, chills, body aches, fatigue, and worse. The most common ticks in Massachusetts are deer ticks, dog ticks, and Lone Star ticks. However, a new tick was discovered quite recently. Back in August 2022, the Asian long-horned tick, unfortunately, made its way to the Bay State. Here’s what you need to know:
The Asian long-horned tick, or Haemaphysalis longicornis, first made its appearance in the United States in 2017. Since then, they have been found on people, pets, and livestock.
(Pictured here is an unfed female Haemaphysalis longicornis.)
(See link for article)
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SUMMARY:
The Asian Longhorned tick has been found in: Missouri, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia
While not as attracted to human skin as other ticks, they can still be found on humans.
Females can reproduce without mating by simply cloning
It’s been known to carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF)
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 