Small fiber neuropathy in Lyme disease and COVID-19
Small fiber neuropathy (SFN) is a disorder that affects the small sensory cutaneous nerves, resulting in unusual sensations such as tingling, pins-and-needles and numbness. Some patients may experience burning pain or coldness and electric shock-like brief painful sensations. In most patients, these symptoms start in the feet and progress upwards.¹
Small fiber neuropathy with autonomic and sensory dysfunction has been described in Lyme disease patients. In fact, a small study suggests that SFN may be a viable biomarker of post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, particularly for patients whose main symptoms involve sensory issues.²
Lyme disease causes small fiber neuropathy in an elderly woman. Complete resolution of symptoms after antibiotic treatment.
Lyme disease testing was positive. “She was then treated with a 40-day course of oral antibiotics for Lyme disease with complete resolution of her neuropathic symptoms.”
“Painful small fiber neuropathy may be a manifestation of Lyme disease,” the authors suggest. “Antibiotic treatment of Lyme disease can result in resolution of the neuropathic pain symptoms.”
Small fiber neuropathy and COVID-19
Now, small fiber neuropathy is being recognized in patients with COVID-19.
A 52-year-old man, who contracted SARS-CoV-2, developed moderate respiratory problems (shortness of breath and productive cough).
“About 3 weeks later, he began to experience burning pain in the feet that spread up to the knees that was associated with imbalance and falls,” the authors explain.
“The pain would wake him at night, impacted his functional capacity, and was associated with allodynia.” (Note: Allodynia is the experience of pain from stimuli that typically is not painful, for example, light touch.)
He was diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy based on symptoms and test results.
The patient’s symptoms were “most compatible with a small fiber-predominant sensory neuropathy unmasked by COVID-19 infection.”
His neuropathic symptoms improved with gabapentin, and a topical lidocaine cream improved his neuropathic symptoms.
Patient 2
A 67-year-old woman with a 10-year history of mild acral tingling and burning pain had been diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy associated with psoriatic arthritis, based upon biopsy results.
Her symptoms had been stable for 10 years until she contracted SARS-CoV-2 and developed severe burning pain in her hands and feet.
“She presented 6 months later with persistent symptoms and occasional orthostasis.”
Her examination and test results supported a diagnosis of small fiber neuropathy.
“This is an example of a chronic pre-morbid sensory and small fiber-predominant autonomic neuropathy exacerbated by COVID-19 infection,” the authors write.
This study was observational and “cannot draw reliable conclusions regarding causative relationships or underlying mechanisms.”
Novak P, Felsenstein D, Mao C, Octavien NR, Zubcevik N. Association of small fiber neuropathy and post treatment Lyme disease syndrome. PLoS One. 2019;14(2):e0212222. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0212222
Resolution of Pain in the Absence of Nerve Regeneration in Small Fiber Neuropathy Following Treatment of Lyme Disease (P06.228) Naomi Feuer, Armin Alaedini Neurology Feb 2013, 80 (7 Supplement) P06.228;
Shouman K, Vanichkachorn G, Cheshire WP, et al. Autonomic dysfunction following COVID-19 infection: an early experience. Clin Auton Res. Apr 16 2021;doi:10.1007/s10286-021-00803-8
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**Comment**
For pain we have also found gabapentin to be extremely helpful as well as LDN, CBD, and MSM. I’ve also used lidocaine patches with good success as well as a pain cream you can make yourself either with or without DMSO, which is a very powerful pain killer but please read and learn about it before using. You can also purchase ready-made DMSO creams but realize they are often stored in plastic and have other ingredients that are potentially harmful. The plastic issue is important because DMSO is a carrier/penetrating agent which will absorb/penetrate anything in or around it.
For more on small fiber neuropathy and Lyme/MSIDS:
Now, a group of scientists that includes Jacques van Helden of Aix-Marseille University in France, Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, and 14 others have published a new article in The Lancetcalling out Fauci and his apologists’ unscientific Fake News “which claimed overwhelming support for the hypothesis that the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic originated in wildlife.”
“The authors associated any alternative view with conspiracy theories by stating: ‘We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.’” these scientists wrote. “The statement has imparted a silencing effect on the wider scientific debate, including among science journalists.”
Head vaccine pusher Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper on Sunday and did something shocking, he actually admitted people who get infected with COVID and recover have a “considerable degree of immunity.”
In a rare moment of journalism for Tapper, he asked Fauci why Biden’s vaxx mandate, “has to apply to people that have had COVID? Given that they have some protection already?” (See link for article)
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**Comment**
True to form, Fauci then casts doubt on natural immunity by implying it may not be durable, and that’s why everyone, regardless of health status or previous infection needs a jab in the arm with a product he has a vested interest in.
Fauci lies further by stating that those who have recovered from COVID increase their protection by getting the jab. In fact, reality paints a far starker picture.
The article points out that a recent study out of Israel showed:
recovered patients are 13 times less likely to be infected than those who have Pfizer jabs
those who were double jabbed were 5.96 times more likely to be infected and 7.13 times more likely to experience symptoms than those with natural immunity after recovery
On July 5, 2021, a Correspondence was published in The Lancet called “Science, not speculation, is essential to determine how SARS-CoV-2 reached humans”.1
The letter recapitulates the arguments of an earlier letter (published in February, 2020) by the same authors,2 which claimed overwhelming support for the hypothesis that the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic originated in wildlife. The authors associated any alternative view with conspiracy theories by stating: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin”. The statement has imparted a silencing effect on the wider scientific debate, including among science journalists.3
The 2021 letter did not repeat the proposition that scientists open to alternative hypotheses were conspiracy theorists, but did state: “We believe the strongest clue from new, credible, and peer-reviewed evidence in the scientific literature is that the virus evolved in nature, while suggestions of a laboratory leak source of the pandemic remain without scientifically validated evidence that directly supports it in peer-reviewed scientific journals”. In fact, this argument could literally be reversed. As will be shown below, there is no direct support for the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2, and a laboratory-related accident is plausible.
There is so far no scientifically validated evidence that directly supports a natural origin. Among the references cited in the two letters by Calisher and colleagues,1, 2 all but one simply show that SARS-CoV-2 is phylogenetically related to other betacoronaviruses. The fact that the causative agent of COVID-19 descends from a natural virus is widely accepted, but this does not explain how it came to infect humans. The question of the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2—ie, the final virus and host before passage to humans—was expressly addressed in only one highly cited opinion piece, which supports the natural origin hypothesis,4 but suffers from a logical fallacy:5 it opposes two hypotheses—laboratory engineering versus zoonosis—wrongly implying that there are no other possible scenarios. The article then provides arguments against the laboratory engineering hypothesis, which are not conclusive for the following reasons. First, it assumes that the optimisation of the receptor binding domain for human ACE2 requires prior knowledge of the adaptive mutations, whereas selection in cell culture or animal models would lead to the same effect. Second, the absence of traces of reverse-engineering systems does not preclude genome editing, which is performed with so-called seamless techniques. 6, 7
Finally, the absence of a previously known backbone is not a proof, since researchers can work for several years on viruses before publishing their full genome (this was the case for RaTG13, the closest known virus, which was collected in 2013 and published in 2020).8
Based on these indirect and questionable arguments, the authors conclude in favour of a natural proximal origin. In the last part of the article, they briefly evoke selection during passage (ie, experiments aiming to test the capacity of a virus to infect cell cultures or model animals) and acknowledge the documented cases of laboratory escapes of SARS-CoV, but they dismiss this scenario, based on the argument that the strong similarity between receptor binding domains of SARS-CoV-2 and pangolins provides a more parsimonious explanation of the specific mutations. However, the pangolin hypothesis has since been abandoned,9, 10, 11, 12 so the whole reasoning should be re-evaluated.
Although considerable evidence supports the natural origins of other outbreaks (eg, Nipah, MERS, and the 2002–04 SARS outbreak) direct evidence for a natural origin for SARS-CoV-2 is missing.After 19 months of investigations, the proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 is still lacking. Neither the host pathway from bats to humans, nor the geographical route from Yunnan (where the viruses most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 have been sampled) to Wuhan (where the pandemic emerged) have been identified. More than 80,000 samples collected from Chinese wildlife sites and animal farms all proved negative.13
In addition, the international research community has no access to the sites, samples, or raw data. Although the Joint WHO-China Study concluded that the laboratory origin was “extremely unlikely”,13WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that all hypotheses remained on the table including that of a laboratory leak.14
A research-related origin is plausible. Two questions need to be addressed: virus evolution and introduction into the human population. Since July, 2020, several peer-reviewed scientific papers have discussed the likelihood of a research-related origin of the virus.Some unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence suggest that they may have resulted from genetic engineering,15, 16 an approach widely used in some virology labs.17
Alternatively, adaptation to humans might result from undirected laboratory selection during serial passage in cell cultures or laboratory animals,5, 18, 19 including humanised mice.20 Mice genetically modified to display the human receptor for entry of SARS-CoV-2 (ACE2) were used in research projects funded before the pandemic, to test the infectivity of different virus strains.21
Laboratory research also includes more targeted approaches such as gain-of-function experiments relying on chimeric viruses to test their potential to cross species barriers.17, 22
A research-related contamination could result from contact with a natural virus during field collection, transportation from the field to a laboratory,23 characterisation of bats and bat viruses in a laboratory, or from a non-natural virus modified in a laboratory.There are well-documented cases of pathogen escapes from laboratories.24, 25, 26, 27
Field collection, field survey, and in-laboratory research on potential pandemic pathogens require high-safety protections and a strong and transparent safety culture. However, experiments on SARS-related coronaviruses are routinely performed at biosafety level 2,22, 28 which complies with the recommendations for viruses infecting non-human animals, but is inappropriate for experiments that might produce human-adapted viruses by effects of selection or oriented mutations.
Overwhelming evidence for either a zoonotic or research-related origin is lacking: the jury is still out. On the basis of the current scientific literature, complemented by our own analyses of coronavirus genomes and proteins,5, 15, 16, 18, 29, 30 we hold that there is currently no compelling evidence to choose between a natural origin (ie, a virus that has evolved and been transmitted to humans solely via contact with wild or farmed animals) and a research-related origin (which might have occurred at sampling sites, during transportation or within the laboratory, and might have involved natural, selected, or engineered viruses).
An evidence-based, independent, and prejudice-free evaluation will require an international consultation of high-level experts with no conflicts of interest, from various disciplines and countries; the mandate will be to establish the different scenarios, and the associated hypotheses, and then to propose protocols, methods, and required data in order to elucidate the question of SARS-CoV-2’s origin. Beyond this issue, it is important to continue debating about the risk–benefit balance of current practices of field and laboratory research, including gain-of-function experiments, as well as the human activities contributing to zoonotic events.
Scientific journals should open their columns to in-depth analyses of all hypotheses. As scientists, we need to evaluate all hypotheses on a rational basis, and to weigh their likelihood based on facts and evidence, devoid of speculation concerning possible political impacts. Contrary to the first letter published in The Lancet by Calisher and colleagues,2 we do not think that scientists should promote “unity” (“We support the call from the Director-General of WHO to promote scientific evidence and unity over misinformation and conjecture”).
As shown above, research-related hypotheses are not misinformation and conjecture. More importantly, science embraces alternative hypotheses, contradictory arguments, verification, refutability, and controversy. Departing from this principle risks establishing dogmas, abandoning the essence of science, and, even worse, paving the way for conspiracy theories. Instead, the scientific community should bring this debate to a place where it belongs: the columns of scientific journals.31, 32
JvH, CDB, ED, and JH contributed equally. They wrote the first version of the manuscript, integrated the other authors’ modifications, and managed the interactions with the editors. All the other authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript and acknowledged the latest version. We declare no competing interests.
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**Comment**
All I can say is “AMEN.”
These rational voices are desperately needed as mob mentality is growing – particularly in medicine and science with more & more articles shaming and attacking doctors who depart from the accepted narrative. There are also calls for these doctors to be sanctioned by medical boards. There is a push for “consensus” based medicine which will effectively stop all progressive thought and progress, and will punish those who think for themselves or have an original thought.
We are living through perilous times where freedom of thought and speech is being threatened daily.
SARS-CoV-2 appears to be a benign bat coronavirus modified to integrate spike proteins that allows the virus to enter human cells by attaching to ACE-2 receptors
The virus also appears to have been modified to integrate an envelope protein from HIV called GP141, which tends to impair the immune system. A third modification appears to involve nanotechnology, which allows the virus to remain airborne longer
COVID-19 — the disease — is not caused by SARS-CoV-2 alone, but rather that it’s the result of a combination of SARS-CoV-2 and XMRVs (human gammaretroviruses)
SARS-CoV-2 also appears to have been manipulated to include components of HIV that destroys immune function along with XMRVs
Project Veritas has received “thousands” of emails (hundreds a day) from people wanting to share their stories as whistleblowers – even willing to wear a hidden mic to tell their stories.
Recently someone translated the Spanish study, “Nanotechnological Investigations on COVID-9 Vaccines: Detection of Toxic Nanoparticles of Graphene Oxide and Heavy Metals,” into English. Spanish version here: informe-es(1)
The pictures are quite clear that COVID injections contain graphene oxide and other potentially harmful substances. Since these substances are not disclosed in the manufacturer’s technical data sheets, the researchers are calling for a stop to the injections and for extensive, independent counter-analysis be done on all COVID shots. The nanoparticles found are not bio compatible and can cause thrombotic activity, hemorrhaging, strokes, myocarditis, and can enter the brain.
“THESE PATIENTS DESERVE TO BE HEARD” – VAERS WHISTLEBLOWER
In a Highwire exclusive, Deborah Conrad, a hospitalist physician’s assistant on the frontlines of the pandemic, pulls back the curtain on the complete lack and disregard in her hospital for reporting Covid vaccine injury to VAERS, this country’s only mechanism to track the safety of these rushed-to-market, mandated products. In riveting detail, including emails & recorded phone conversations, Conrad exposes the internal push to turn a blind eye to injuries and “tow the company line” that this vaccine is safe.
FDA Allows Whistleblower Testimony: “Vaccines Kill More People Than They Save”
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
The FDA held a Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting yesterday (September 17, 2021) to discuss authorizing a third Pfizer COVID-19 “booster shot.”
There were signs heading into the meeting this week that there could be some fireworks at this hearing, as two top vaccine research scientists at the FDA, Dr. Marion Gruber and Dr. Phillip Kause, the Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Vaccines Research, recently resigned.
This followed a report published in The Lancet from 18 officials at the FDA opposing the Biden Administration’s plan to start distributing Pfizer “booster shots” later this month (September, 2021) before the FDA had even approved them.
To say that there were fireworks at the Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting yesterday might be a gross understatement. The 18 member committee voted 16 to 2 AGAINST approving the booster shots, although later they did give their endorsement on approving them for people 65 and older.
During the “open session” part of the meeting, dissenting doctors questioning the Pfizer shots were given a chance to address the public with their concerns, and they presented to the public REAL data about the shots that up until now has been heavily censored.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, an emergency room physician from New Orleans who did his studies at Cornell Medical School, stated that there are no trials large enough yet to prove that the COVID-19 vaccines reduce hospitalization without causing serious harm.
He lamented the fact that the “vaccine hesitant” coming into his emergency room were more educated on the risks of the COVID-19 vaccine than those vaccinated.
I know many think that vaccine hesitants are dumb, or just misinformed. That’s not at all what I’ve seen.
In fact typically, independent of education level, the vaccine hesitant I’ve met in the ER are more familiar with vaccine studies, and more aware of their own COVID risks than the vaccinated.
For example, many of my nurses have refused the vaccine despite seeing COVID-19 cause more death and devastation than most people have.
I ask them why refuse the vaccine?
They tell me while they’ve seen the first hand dangers of COVID, the elderly, the obese, diabetics; they think their risk is low.
They’re not wrong. A 30-year-old female has about a 1 in 7000 chance of catching COVID and being hospitalized over it.
He pointed out that a recent study showed that the risk of vaccine-induced Myocarditis (heart disease) in young males is higher than their risk from hospitalization from COVID.
He called for larger studies to be conducted.
We the medical establishment cannot confidently call out anti-COVID-19 activists who publicly claim the vaccines harm more than they save, especially in the young and healthy, the fact that we do not have the clinical evidence to say these activists are wrong, should terrify us all.
Steve Kirsch, the Executive Director of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, also gave testimony, and he began his comments with:
I am going to focus my remarks today with the elephant in the room that nobody likes to talk about, that the vaccines kill more people than they save.
He presented data to prove that the belief that these vaccines are “safe” simply isn’t true. He gives several facts to show this, most all of which we have previously covered here at Health Impact News.
For example, people have 71 times more risk of heart attack following COVID-19 vaccines than any other vaccine.
Kirsch claims that expert analysis of existing data, including the 6-month Pfizer trials and VAERS data, prove that the shots kill more people than they allegedly save.
About 411 deaths per million doses. That translates into about 150,000 people have died (from the Pfizer shots).
He then presented some data from the Israel Ministry of Health.
The real numbers confirm that we kill more than we save. And I would love to look at the Israel ministry of health data on the 90+ year olds where we went from a 94.4% vaccinated group to 82.9% vaccinated in the last 4 months.
In the most optimistic scenario it means that 50% of the vaccinated people died and 0% of unvaccinated people died. Unless you can explain that to the public you cannot approve the boosters.
Dr. Jessica Rose, PhD, MSc, BSc, whom we have featured previously here on Health Impact News and has done extensive studies on the VAERS data, also gave a presentation where she showed that we have had a 1000% percent increase in adverse events following COVID vaccines, as compared to all previous vaccines in prior years, something we have covered extensively here at Health Impact News.
Will the FDA and Biden Administration Approve the 3rd Pfizer COVID-19 “Booster shots”?
It is important to understand that this was an “Advisory” committee meeting, and they do not set policy. The FDA could still approve the 3rd Pfizer COVID-19 shot against the recommendation of the Advisory Committee.
Also, these three doctors who shared the truth about the data are not part of that committee, but testified during the “open comments” section of the meeting.
But the fact that the FDA allowed their comments is very significant, as they are now in the public record.
There is obviously some infighting going on at the FDA regarding the Pfizer COVID-19 shots. What could be the reasons for this?
I see two potential reasons why this could be happening.
First, this could be a “drug war,” where Pfizer’s competitors are upset that Pfizer is getting so much of the market share on the COVID-19 vaccines, and they are applying pressure through their contacts at the FDA to start discrediting Pfizer and slow down their rapid race to dominate this market.
Or, secondly, people are starting to abandon ship on the Biden Administration as the current COVID-19 vaccine narrative is now falling apart very quickly, as hundreds of thousands of people are now screaming to have their voices heard regarding their negative experiences with the COVID-19 shots, and the FDA and others are trying to cover their butts in the event that there is a regime change and people start getting arrested for crimes against humanity.
I hope for the second scenario, but fear it is probably the first one.
If the Biden Administration and their handlers on Wall Street believe they are still firmly in control of this mass vaccination campaign that is really an act of genocide and crimes against humanity, then they will just go ahead and approve Pfizer’s third shot anyway, without the approval of this committee.
They will basically tell the American people and their business rivals that they know we are on to them, and that they don’t care because they believe that nobody is going to do anything to stop them.
We know what side the corporate media is on, as they continue to publish the lies that the unvaccinated are filling up hospitals and responsible for spreading COVID-19 variants, and of course they gave no press coverage to the dissenting doctors who testified at the Committee meeting yesterday (at least I did not find anything after doing a corporate media news search.)
Will America do what is necessary to fight these medical tyrants, who are the minority and could be easily overpowered if enough people resisted, or will the nation continue to stand aside and let them press on with their mass eugenics program to reduce the world’s population?
This is most certainly a turning point in human history, not just for the United States, but for the entire world.
Pulmonary Nurse: “I’m the Guy Who Euthanized People”
by Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News
Albert Spence is a pulmonary nurse with 31 years of experience. He recently gave public testimony before the South Carolina State Legislature on “therapeutic options” for COVID-19.
Once again, we are finding that nurses who have been working on the frontlines treating COVID-19 patients are the most informed people in the U.S. right now who truly know what is going on in the hospitals, especially when it comes to COVID-19 protocols, and the experimental COVID-19 “vaccines.”
We absolutely need to be listening to these frontline workers right now instead of the talking head “doctors” on TV who never actually treat patients, if we truly want to know what the truth is. Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry now control the corporate media, and they will never publish testimonies like this, even though it is public knowledge now having been recorded by the South Carolina legislature.
In this public testimony, Mr. Spence relates how he followed all the advice in the beginning of how the medical system wanted him to treat COVID patients, even though so much of it went against his 30+ years of experience in treating patients with respiratory illnesses.
But when the COVID patients started dwindling down in his ward at the beginning of this year, and he found out that the CDC had changed the threshold for PCR tests by reducing the tests from 40 cycles to 28, then he realized what was happening, and it horrified him.
He had been unwittingly assisting in killing his patients by just “doing what I was told.” He now knows that these patients were dying from the COVID protocols, and not COVID-19.
I lost sleep over it. I was having chest pain over it. It woke me up in the middle of the night – hit me hard. I could not sleep.
Because my first week or two there (COVID ward), I didn’t lead them to the gate, but I’m the guy that euthanized people.
They call it “comfort care.” But when you get to the point where you can’t take (oxygen mask) off, you get so upset. You haven’t seen your family except through maybe an iPad, in weeks.
And you’re never going to come off the high flow, and the doctor says: “You’ve done your best. But this is going to be it for you.”
And so the patients get all teary eyed and upset, and they call in the palliative team, and they all hold their hands and cry.
But they said: “We can keep you comfortable.”
Here comes Albert (referring to himself). He’s got the morphine and ativan, and I load them up and take off the high flow, and they gas themselves to death.
And I’m the guy who was pushing the buttons, like in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
In a July 1, 2021, commentary in The Lancet Microbe,3 Piero Olliaro, Els Torreele and Michel Vaillant also argue for the use of absolute risk reduction when discussing vaccine efficacy with the public. They too went through the calculations, coming up with the following:
The top rated article on this website was written by a PhD who conclusively shows the dystopian COVID “pandemic” was planned with purpose, and that what has occurred is a global crime quite similar in many aspects to what has occurred in Lyme-land, but is even more extensive. If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
The following article clearly spells out how mainstream media has been bought-out and simply parrots an accepted narrative. This is blatantly seen right now with the COVID debacle but has also been seen in Lyme-land. This is important, foundational information to know and understand for the times we find ourselves living through.
Leaked documents reveal Reuters and BBC News have been involved in a covert program by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to weaken Russia’s influence through a multipronged propaganda campaign
Operation Mockingbird was a clandestine CIA media infiltration campaign launched in 1948 under the Office of Special Projects. The CIA spent about one-third of its budget on bribes to hundreds of journalists who published fake stories at the CIA’s request
However, infiltration and manipulation of the media have been a routine occurrence since 1915, when J.P. Morgan interests, including the steel and shipbuilding industries, purchased editorial control of 25 of the most influential newspapers, thereby allowing them to control news about military preparedness, financial policies and other news that were crucial to their private and corporate interests
Operation Mockingbird was the CIA’s effort to consolidate and expand this secret hold over the media some three decades later
While the propaganda messages change with the times, the basic modus operandi remains the same to this day. If anything, the system has only gotten more efficient and effective, as the number of major media outlets have shrunk and a vast majority of journalists simply parrot what’s reported by the three global news agencies
This article was previously published March 10, 2021, and has been updated with new information.
Operation Mockingbird,1,2 publicly revealed during a 1975 Congressional hearing, was a clandestine CIA media infiltration campaign launched in 1948 under the Office of Special Projects.3
The CIA reportedly spent $1 billion a year (about one-third of its entire budget4) on under-the-table bribes to hundreds of American journalists who in return published fake stories at the CIA’s request. CIA-recruited journalists worked in most major news organizations, including CBS News, Time, Life, Newsweek and The New York Times, just to name a few.5 Later on, the campaign expanded to include foreign media as well.6 As reported by the Free Press:7
“In 1976, Senator Frank Church’s investigation into the CIA exposed their corruption of the media. The Church Committee reported: ‘The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda.
These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets’ …
The tactic was straightforward. False news reports or propaganda would be provided by CIA writers to knowing and unknowing reporters who would simply repeat the falsehoods over and over again.”
Reuters and BBC News Were Paid for Propaganda Campaign
While Operation Mockingbird may sound like ancient history, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest it’s still in full swing. During the Cold War, CIA propaganda disparaged communist ideologies. Today, it promotes radical socialist ideas that support a technocratic economic system instead.
While the propaganda messages change with the times, the basic modus operandi of their dissemination remains the same. If anything, the system has only gotten more efficient and effective, as the number of major media outlets has shrunk over these past decades, and a vast majority of journalists and news anchors simply parrot what’s reported by the three global news agencies.
The CIA also isn’t the only intelligence agency using the media for its own propaganda purposes. Leaked documents8 reveal Reuters and BBC News have been involved in a covert program by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to weaken Russia’s influence on its neighbors. In his extensive February 20, 2021, GrayZone article, Max Blumenthal writes:9
“Working through a shadowy department within the UK FCO known as the Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD), the media organizations operated alongside a collection of intelligence contractors in a secret entity known simply as ‘the Consortium.’
Through training programs of Russian journalists overseen by Reuters, the British Foreign Office sought to produce an ‘attitudinal change in the participants,’ promoting a ‘positive impact’ on their ‘perception of the UK’ …
In effect, the British government was seeking to infiltrate Russian media and propagate its own narrative through an influence network of Russian journalists trained in the UK …
‘These revelations show that when MPs were railing about Russia, British agents were using the BBC and Reuters to deploy precisely the same tactics that politicians and media commentators were accusing Russia of using,’ Chris Williamson, a former UK Labour MP who attempted to apply public scrutiny to the CDMD’s covert activities and was stonewalled on national security grounds, told The Grayzone.
‘The BBC and Reuters portray themselves as an unimpeachable, impartial, and authoritative source of world news,’ Williamson continued, ‘but both are now hugely compromised by these disclosures. Double standards like this just bring establishment politicians and corporate media hacks into further disrepute.'”
Reuters, BBC Hired to Promote Pro-NATO Narratives
The leaked documents show both Reuters and the BBC received “multimillion-dollar contracts to advance the British state’s interventionist aims.” The FCO funded:
The cultivation of Russian journalists
The establishment of “influence networks” in and around Russia
The promotion of pro-NATO narratives in Russian-speaking regions
In its proposals, Reuters stated it has 15,000 journalists and staff within its global network, including 400 journalists within Russia. Reuters and BBC carried out their covert influencing mission in partnership with other high-profile media companies, including Bellingcat, Meduza and Mediazona.
Overseeing the operation was the Zinc Network, an intelligence contractor, which was also responsible for the establishment of a network of Russian and Central Asian YouTubers who were not registered as external sources. The Zinc Network also claimed to have the ability to “activate a range of content; to support anti-government protests inside Russia.”
This isn’t the first time Reuters and the BBC have been implicated in a Mockingbird-type media influencing operation. Documents declassified in January 2020 showed the British government funded Reuters “throughout the 1960s and 1970s to assist an anti-Soviet propaganda organization run by the MI6 intelligence agency,” Blumenthal writes.10 The BBC, meanwhile, was used as “a pass-through to conceal payments” to Reuters.
180-Degrees From the Truth
It’s no small irony that most of the organizations claiming to promote truth and counter disinformation are in fact doing the exact opposite. The Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD) group sounds very much like the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The CCDH is an opaquely funded group run by Imran Ahmed, who is also a member of the Steering Committee on the Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government’s Commission for Countering Extremism.
Ahmed has gone on record saying he considers anti-vaxxers “an extremist group that pose a national security risk,”11 and admits tracking and spying on 425 vaccine-related Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter accounts.12
In addition to stating that medical and scientific professionals must “convince the public that COVID is dangerous and give them confidence that a vaccine is safe and effective,”13 the CCDH is also calling for deplatforming anyone who questions vaccines,14 and to “hold platforms accountable” through fines, criminal sanctions and other measures that can impact the platform’s bottom line.
So, just as the CDMD is actually not countering disinformation but, rather, creating it, the CCDH is not in the business of countering digital hate; it’s actively creating and promoting online hate by baselessly labeling millions of law-abiding parents — whose only crime is to be concerned about their children’s health — as extremist threats and enemies of the state.
Media Have Become Integral Part of Intelligence Spy Network
Other media reports15,16,17 have also highlighted the role of intelligence agencies in the global effort to eliminate “anti-vaccine propaganda” from public discussion, and the fact that they’re using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools to do so. For example, independent investigative journalist Whitney Webb writes:18
“British and American state intelligence agencies are ‘weaponizing truth’ to quash vaccine hesitancy as both nations prepare for mass inoculations, in a recently announced ‘cyber war’ to be commanded by AI-powered arbiters of truth against information sources that challenge official narratives …
The UK’s GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters19] ‘has begun an offensive cyber-operation to disrupt anti-vaccine propaganda being spread by hostile states’ and ‘is using a toolkit developed to tackle disinformation and recruitment material peddled by Islamic State’ to do so.20
In addition, the UK government has ordered the British military’s 77th Brigade, which specializes in ‘information warfare,’ to launch an online campaign to counter ‘deceptive narratives’ about COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
The newly announced GCHQ ‘cyber war’ will not only take down ‘anti-vaccine propaganda’ but will also seek to ‘disrupt the operations of the cyberactors responsible for it, including encrypting their data so they cannot access it and blocking their communications with each other.’
The effort will also involve GCHQ reaching out to other countries in the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance (U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Canada) to alert their partner agencies in those countries to target such ‘propaganda’ sites hosted within their borders.”
Intelligence-Led Information Warfare Against the Public
Clues that U.S. intelligence agencies — not just the CIA but also the FBI — support this cyberwar against the public can also be found in a white paper21 published in the InfraGard Journal in June 2019. InfraGard, a nonprofit national security group, collaborates with the FBI22 on educational and information-sharing initiatives “that help mitigate threats” to national security.23
The InfraGard paper24 claims the American anti-vaccine movement is being orchestrated by Russian government-aligned organizations seeking to “sow discontent and distrust in topics and initiatives that serve U.S. interests,”25 and that “The biggest threat in controlling an outbreak comes from those who categorically reject vaccination.“26
Other evidence includes the fact that the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command have awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to the U.S.-based “machine intelligence” company Primer, to develop “the first-ever machine learning platform to automatically identify and assess suspected disinformation.“27
According to Webb, “Primer’s ultimate goal is to use their AI to entirely automate the shaping of public perceptions and become the arbiter of ‘truth,’ as defined by the state.”28
The self-appointed arbiter of truth NewsGuard — which rates websites on criteria of “credibility” and “transparency” — is also partnered with both the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Defense,29 which strongly suggests government support (if not direct involvement) of censorship.
NewsGuard is also funded by the PR firm Publicis, which also appears to have an important role in this information war.
Most Mainstream Media Are Now Propagandists
Were it not for the mainstream media pumping out misleading if not flat-out false information on a daily basis for months on end, the COVID-19 pandemic would have been a mere blip on the public’s radar. None of the draconian, freedom-robbing measures would have been remotely possible.
Considering the consistency of the narratives across the world this past year, it’s inconceivable that there isn’t some central “agency” of sorts directing it all. And, if so, there clearly must be a reason behind it. One does not fear-monger for no reason whatsoever. It has a purpose.
Historically, fear has been used by every would-be authoritarian and totalitarian regime you can think of, so there’s every reason to suspect the same applies now. The main difference is that today’s totalitarian ruler is more or less wholly unknown.
Who is it that wants to rule the world’s population through fear? Who is trying to take control over the whole globe? Who is guiding and instructing virtually all government leaders? Intelligence agencies and their media partners undoubtedly play key roles, but they’re unlikely to be the true core of the power structure behind it all.
No, the real power and leadership resides with the technocratic elite, the members of which have quietly and diligently worked to forward the agenda of a New World Order (NWO) for decades. What was once known as the NWO is now referred to as the Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with a public focus on a “green” carbon-based economy to “build back better” by reinventing capitalism, as defined by the World Economic Forum.30
The not-so-public focus is technological surveillance and control over every facet of everyone’s life, from health and civic involvement to labor, education and economy. Unfortunately, members of the technocracy no longer carry member cards or pay membership dues, which obscures their affiliation, but certain organizations are so intimately involved in furthering the Great Reset agenda that you can safely assume a majority of their members play some role in this scheme.
The Council on Foreign Relations
Aside from intelligence agencies, another key player behind the Great Reset is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). As explained by Swiss Policy Research, “Executives and top journalists of almost all major U.S. media outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations.”31
Not to be confused with the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations or the European Council on Foreign Relations, CFR is a nonprofit think tank, the 5,000-plus members of which also include past and present presidents, politicians, secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, academic professors and corporate leaders, just to name a few.32
CFR also operates the David Rockefeller Studies Program, which in turn advises the White House on foreign policy matters. Overall, the CFR wields incredible power and influence over the U.S. White House and its policies. As reported by Swiss Policy Research:33
“In his famous article about ‘The American Establishment,’ political columnist Richard H. Rovere noted: ‘The directors of the CFR make up a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation …
[I]t rarely fails to get one of its members, or at least one of its allies, into the White House. In fact, it generally is able to see to it that both nominees are men acceptable to it.’ It was not until the 2016 election that the Council couldn’t, apparently, prevail.”
The Synchronization of Fake News
CFR has two international affiliates: the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, both of which were established by CFR leaders “to foster elite cooperation at the global level.”
Well-known names in the Trilateral group’s U.S. branch include David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg and Google heavyweights Eric Schmidt and Susan Molinari, vice president for public policy at Google. Many of its board members are also members of the Aspen Institute, which grooms and mentors executives from around the world about the subtleties of globalization.
As you can see in the graphic below, major media are well represented in all three groups. As mentioned, CFR members also include current and former CIA directors. In his book, “American War Machine,”34,35 Peter Dale Scott also documents the ties between CFR, the CIA, the national security apparatus and the banking industry. Taken together, these ties explain how a false narrative (whatever it might be) can be so widely coordinated and synchronized.
Richard Stengel — Technocracy Poster Boy
Knowing what you now know about the CFR, comments by Richard Stengel, the top state media appointee for President Biden’s transition team, will probably make a lot more sense.
During a 2018 CFR forum on fake news, Stengel — a CFR member and Atlantic Council fellow, former State Department official for the Obama administration, former managing editor for Time magazine, strategic adviser to Snap Inc., which runs Snapchat and Bitmoji and a political analyst on MSNBC — insisted governments must use propaganda on their citizens.36
He repeated this sentiment in November 2020, after being appointed to President Biden’s transition team, saying he’s “not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”37 As reported by The GrayZone:38
“A committed crusader in what he openly describes as a global ‘information war,’ Stengel has proudly proclaimed his dedication to the careful management of the public’s access to information.”
Stengel has even proposed abolishing — “rethinking” — the First Amendment, which guarantees the freedom of speech and press, “for practical reasons in society.”39
Stengel’s presence in the Biden administration may be an augury of things to come, considering he created a nonclassified government entity during his Obama years, specifically to combat Russian disinformation.40 This entity, the Global Engagement Center, now facilitates the U.S. government’s efforts to spread its own propaganda around the world.
Stengel, with his close ties to several key centers of technocratic power — the U.S. government, the CFR, the Atlantic Council, mainstream media and Big Tech — is a veritable poster boy for modern technocracy, which makes his shameless promotion of censorship and propaganda more than a little understandable.
Pre-Mockingbird Media Manipulation
While Operation Mockingbird has earned a place in history as a point at which the free press was compromised, in reality, the infiltration of the press occurred long before the 1950s.
In his February 9, 1917, Congressional remarks, Congressman Oscar Callaway, D-Texas, explained the origin and execution of the plan to control and manipulate public opinion and mindset through media, which had taken shape just two years earlier:41
“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press.
They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.”
Operation Mockingbird was essentially the CIA’s effort to consolidate, while simultaneously expanding, this secret hold over the media some three decades later. It’s a sobering thought to realize that virtually no one alive today has ever been informed by a truly free and independent press.
While the situation has surely deteriorated in more recent years, the covert use of mainstream media to manipulate and misdirect the public to protect the interests of the elite few has been par for the course for over 100 years.
The Propaganda Multipliers
When it comes to the actual dissemination of fake news and propaganda, news agencies play a central role, and there’s only three of them: The Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP). As explained in the Swiss Policy Research post, “The Propaganda Multiplier”:42
“The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.
A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in whole or in part on agency reports … 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of a U.S. and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed exclusively to the opposite side.”
In short, until or unless at least one of these news agencies sends out a notice, national and local media are unlikely to report on certain events. Even photos and videos are often sourced directly from these global news agencies. This way, people hear, see and read the exact same message everywhere.
“This dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics, using many of the same phrases — a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated with ‘controlled media’ in authoritarian states,” Swiss Policy Research writes.43
Even media outlets that have foreign correspondents on their payroll do not expect those correspondents to conduct independent investigations. They too simply report whatever the Big Three news agencies want covered,and from the angle they want it covered. What you end up with is a sort of echo-chamber where only one view is presented. As one might expect, this setup makes for a perfect propaganda machine.
As noted by Swiss Policy Research, “Due to the rather low journalistic performance of the mainstream media and their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience.” Intelligence agencies and defense ministries are well aware of this and use it with regularity, as surely does the CFR and the rest of the technocratic apparatus.
In short, the current censoring and labeling of anything that threatens the technocratic agenda and the profiteering of its members as “misinformation” and “disinformation” is a top-down scheme. It’s not random, by any means, and it’s not driven by the opinions of private companies themselves. Social media companies, for example, are mere tools for the technocratic deep state, which operates worldwide.
The question then becomes, if propaganda is that deeply entrenched in our media structure, how do we know what is true and what is not? There’s no easy answer to this question, but the solution involves first becoming aware of the fact that media lies, and that there is a reason for why the media narrative is what it is. One way to evaluate the news is to ask yourself, “Why might they want me to think of this in this particular way?” Eventually, patterns begin to form.
Ultimately, to find the truth, you must be willing to look for it, and to look in places outside the mainstream media consortium. You have to ask questions and reason your way through the information you find. If something doesn’t make sense yet you’re told to accept it without question, it’s probably propaganda.
Any number of COVID-19 restrictions, for example, have been illogical in the extreme, which tells us they’re not about protecting people from infection. It’s about something else, and that something else has often been the purposeful destruction of small businesses to facilitate wealth transfer from the middle- and lower class to the top echelon. Ultimately, that is the plan, and to stop it, we have to stop believing the propaganda. It’s just that simple. And that challenging.
Sen. Warren Threatens Amazon to Ban ‘The Truth About COVID-19’
Since the publication of my latest book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” which became an instant best seller on Amazon.com, there’s been a significant increase in calls for censorship and ruthless attacks against me.
Most recently, so-called “progressive” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in an outrageous, slanderous and basically unconstitutional attempt to suppress free speech, sent a letter to Amazon, demanding an “immediate review” of their algorithms to weed out books peddling “COVID misinformation.”
Warren specifically singled out “The Truth About COVID-19” as a prime example of “highly ranked and favorably tagged books based on falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures” that she wants to see banned from sale.
Two days later, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., followed in Warren’s footsteps, sending letters to Facebook and Amazon, calling for more prolific censorship of vaccine information. Even President Joe Biden has recently used a debunked report as his sole source to call for my censorship.
Sadly, these attacks are being levied by the very people elected to safeguard democracy and our Constitutional rights. Essentially, what they are calling for is modern-day book burning. This is a democracy, not a monarchy.
“The Truth About COVID-19” exposes the hidden agenda behind the pandemic, showing the countermeasures have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with ushering in a new social and economic system based on totalitarian, technocracy-led control. So, it’s not misinformation they fear. It’s the truth they want to prevent from spreading. Pick up a copy of this best-selling book today before it’s too late.
“She presented 6 months later with persistent symptoms and occasional orthostasis.”
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 