The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can no longer ignore that risk, and must take regulatory action, Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California wrote in the long-awaited landmark decision.

More than 200 million Americans drink water treated with fluoride at the “optimal” level of 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L). However, Chen ruled that a preponderance of scientific evidence shows this level of fluoride exposure may damage human health, particularly that of pregnant mothers and young children.

The verdict delivers a major blow to the EPA, public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and professional lobbying groups like the American Dental Association (ADA), which have staked their reputations on the claim that water fluoridation is one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century and an unqualified public good.

Fluoride proponents refused to reexamine that stance despite mounting scientific evidence from top researchers and government agencies of fluoride’s neurotoxic risks, particularly for infants’ developing brains.

Instead, they attempted to weaken and suppress the research and discredit the scientists carrying it out.

Rick North, board member of Fluoride Action Network, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told The Defender, “What’s false is the CDC claiming that fluoridation is one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 20th century. What’s true is that ending fluoridation will be one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 21st century.”

“The judge did what EPA has long refused to do, and that is to apply the EPA standard risk assessment framework to fluoride,” said Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs. “In so doing, the court has shown that the widespread exposure to fluoride that we now have in the United States is unreasonably and precariously close to the levels that we know cause harm.”

The EPA can appeal Tuesday’s decision. The agency told The Defender it is reviewing the decision and has no comment at this time. The U.S. Department of Justice, which represents the EPA in the lawsuit, also said it has no comment.

EPA’s argument ‘not persuasive’

The ruling concludes a historic lawsuit — one that has dragged on for seven years — brought against the EPA by environmental and consumer advocacy organizations like the Fluoride Action Network, Moms Against Fluoridation and Food & Water Watch, along with individual parents and children.

It is the first lawsuit to go to a federal trial under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended by Congress in 2016. The TSCA allows U.S. citizens to petition the EPA to evaluate whether a chemical presents an unreasonable risk to public health and should be regulated.

If the EPA denies a TSCA citizen petition — which the agency did when the plaintiffs asked it to reexamine water fluoridation in 2016 — the petitioners are entitled to a “de novo” judicial review of the science without the deference to the agency typically afforded it in legal cases.

Chen’s 80-page ruling, issued six months after closing arguments in February, offers a careful and detailed articulation of the EPA’s review process for chemicals that pose a hazard to human health and evaluates and summarizes the extensive scientific data presented at trial.

Chen wrote, “EPA’s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level.” He cited a key report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) National Toxicology Program (NTP), which undertook a systematic review of all available scientific research at the time of publication.

The report “concluded that fluoride is indeed associated with reduced IQ in children, at least at exposure levels at or above 1.5 mg/L,” Chen wrote.

The NTP also reported that although there are technical challenges to measuring fluoride’s toxic effects at low levels, “scientists have observed a statistically significant association between fluoride and adverse effects in children even at such ‘lower’ exposure levels,” Chen wrote.

He said that despite recognizing that fluoride is hazardous, the EPA’s defense rested largely on the fact that the exact level at which it is hazardous is too unclear for the agency to determine whether the chemical presents an unreasonable risk.

This argument is “not persuasive,” Chen wrote.

Pregnant women exposed to fluoride in water at levels exceeding the hazard level

The EPA requires a margin of error by a factor of at least 10 to exist between the hazard level for a toxin and the acceptable human exposure level. “Put differently, only an exposure that is below 1/10th of the hazard level would be deemed safe under Amended TSCA, given the margin of error required,” Chen wrote.

That means that even if the hazard level were 4 mg/L — well above the 1.5 mg/L identified by the NTP — the safe level of fluoride exposure would be 0.4 mg/L, well below the current “optimal” fluoride level in the U.S., Chen wrote.

The much lower probable hazard level established by high-quality studies indicates that many pregnant women in the U.S. are already exposed to fluoride in water at levels exceeding the hazard level.

“Under even the most conservative estimates of this level, there is not enough of a margin between the accepted hazard level and the actual human exposure levels to find that fluoride is safe,” Chen concluded.

“Simply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA under Amended TSCA.”

The law dictates that the EPA must take regulatory action, but it does not specify what that action has to be. EPA regulatory actions can range from notifying the public of risks to banning chemicals.

Philippe Grandjean, M.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor in environmental health at Harvard and chair of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, top researcher on fluoride’s neurotoxicity and expert witness for plaintiffs in the case told The Defender he thought the court’s decision was “well-justified.”

He said the ruling made it incumbent on the EPA to go beyond simply ending water fluoridation.

“EPA will have to consider what to do in the southwestern parts of the country where the fluoride content of groundwater is too high due to minerals in the soil containing fluoride,” he said. “And then there is the question about ingestion of toothpaste.”

The CDC and the ADA did not immediately respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

More than 70 years of controversy

For more than seven decades, U.S. public health officials have steadfastly supported water fluoridation, claiming the practice is a key strategy for maintaining and improving dental health.

Proponents of water fluoridation, with help from the mainstream press, often attempted to cast those questioning fluoride’s benefits and raising concerns about its safety as conspiracy theorists.

The EPA in 1975 recommended adding fluoride to water at an optimal level of 1.2 mg/L for its dental benefits, but recommended a maximum level of 4 mg/L, the ruling said.

As more evidence has emerged about fluoride’s adverse health effects, including skeletal fluorosis, recommended levels were revised.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, officially lowered the recommended dosage for water fluoridation in 2015 from 0.7-1.2 mg/L to 0.7 mg/L after considering “adverse health effects” along with alleged benefits.

However, evidence that fluoride poses a neurotoxic risk has existed for decades.

In 2017, after the EPA rejected their citizen petition to end fluoridation of drinking water in the U.S. based on evidence of health risks, namely neurotoxicity, the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit.

A seven-day trial took place in federal court in San Francisco in June 2020, but Chen put the proceedings on hold pending the release of the NTP’s systematic review of research available on the neurotoxic effects of fluoride.

The NTP sought to publish its report — which consisted of a “state of the science” monograph and a meta-analysis — in May 2022, but dental officials at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research pressured HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine to prevent the review from being published.

The ADA also sought to suppress the report.

Levine told the NTP to not publish the report but to put it on hold and allow for further review.

Plaintiffs submitted documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act exposing this intervention to the court. The revelation prompted Chen to rule that the trial should go forward using the draft report from the NTP.

The trial resumed in January in San Francisco, with arguments presented over the course of two weeks.

The NTP’s monograph was finalized and published last month on its website. The meta-analysis is forthcoming in a peer-reviewed journal.

Connett said that Congress created the citizen petition provision in TSCA as a counterweight to bureaucratic lethargy and as a check on the EPA.

The statute, he said, is a powerful tool for overcoming politicized science.

“When science becomes fossilized in political inertia, the citizen petition provision of TSCA is a very powerful tool for citizens,” Connett said. “Through this case, we have been able to, I think we’ve been able to effectuate what Congress had envisioned with this part of the statute.”

Researchers from the Zucker School of Medicine in New York reviewed a World Health Organization global database of adverse drug effects between November 2000 and August 2023.

They compared reporting rates for semaglutide — the active ingredient in the blockbuster drugs — to other similar weight-loss drugs and all drugs in the database. They found that semaglutide was associated with “disproportionately increased reporting of suicidality.”

“Authorities should consider issuing a warning to inform about this risk,” the authors concluded, particularly given the increasing off-label use of the drug. They said in half of the cases where suicidal thoughts occurred, the drug was being taken off-label.

The signal “warrants urgent clarification,” they added.

The researchers also found a higher risk for suicidal thoughts among people on antidepressants or benzodiazepines, likely prescribed for depression or anxiety, who were also taking semaglutide.

They recommended that physicians who prescribe semaglutide inform patients of the risk and assess their psychiatric history and mental state before prescribing the drug.

‘If you want to check if a drug causes suicidality, you have to interview people’

In more than half of the cases the researchers studied, suicidal thoughts stopped when people stopped taking the drugs.

Dr. David Healy, a psychiatrist who was not involved in the study, told The Defender this was one of the more significant findings. The overall number of suicidal thoughts reported was small, he said, but the proportion of cases where the thoughts stopped when the drug was stopped was high.

This is telling, he said. However, he said investigations must happen at the clinical level to determine causality. “If you want to check if a drug causes suicidality — you have to interview people,” he said.

The researchers also found a slight increase in reports of suicidal ideation in the database for the earlier version of the weight loss medication, liraglutide — sold under the brand name Victoza and Saxenda.

Liraglutide is in the same broader class of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist drugs as semaglutide.

Accompanying commentary by authors Francesco Salvo, M.D., Ph.D., of the Université de Bordeaux and Jean-Luc Faillie, M.D., Ph.D., of the Université de Montpellier in France, affirmed that GLP-1 receptor agonists should be prescribed with “great caution in patients with a history of depression or suicidal attempts.”

They added that the drug should be discontinued if new depression symptoms occur when on the drugs.

FDA and EMA claim no evidence of link

The injectable prescription drugs were originally developed to manage blood sugar levels in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, but they became wildly popular over the last several years for their ability to help people lose weight.

GLP-1 receptor agonists are chemicals derived from lizard venom that can change people’s metabolism and eating behaviors as long as they continue to take the drugs.

When people stop taking the drugs, they typically regain most or all of the weight they lost.

The drugs have been touted by Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities as a key to overcoming the obesity epidemic.

Mainstream health publications like StatNews have advocated for increasing access to the expensive obesity drugs in the name of racial justice, and there has been growing pressure for the drugs to be covered without restrictions by Medicare.

And medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics rushed to recommend the drugs for children as young as 8, just weeks after they were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for children.

And in October 2023, Novo Nordisk announced that it is testing semaglutide in children as young as 6.

The drugs are new to the market. Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company that makes Ozempic, Wegovy and Saxenda only published its clinical trial showing weight loss effects of semaglutide in February of 2021 and the FDA approved Wegovy for weight loss in June 2021.

Between 2020 and 2023, GLP-1 receptor agonists use increased by 594% in young people, particularly among women.

Despite the hype, serious concerns have been raised about the safety of the drugs. They’ve been linked to cancers in the digestive system, thyroid cancer, stomach paralysis, a wide range of other gastrointestinal disorders, among other issues and the drugs pose a serious but little-known risk for pregnant women.

Last year, suicidal ideation linked to Ozempic and Saxenda, and one case of self-harm ideation linked to Saxenda were reported in Iceland, which led to an investigation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Similar reports were also made to the FDA.

The EMA reported in April that its follow-up investigation, which reviewed non-clinical studies, clinical trials and postmarketing surveillance data, “does not support a causal association” between GLP-1 drugs and suicidal or self-harm thoughts.

The FDA reported in January that its investigation of reports to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) showed no safety signal for the drugs and that it had a meta-analysis underway.

A study published in Nature in January found no link between the drugs and suicidal thoughts

The EMA continues to maintain that no warning is warranted, but in U.S. labeling, the product information for semaglutide does list thoughts of suicide as a possible side effect.

Novo flagged “several limitations” of the new study and maintained that it will continue to work with the FDA and other regulators to monitor the safety of the drugs, Fierce Pharma reported.

“We stand behind the safety and efficacy of all of our GLP-1RA medicines when they are used as indicated and when taken under the care of a licensed healthcare professional,” the spokesperson said. “The known risks associated with use of these medicines are reflected in their current FDA- and EMA-approved product labeling.”

Suicidal thoughts and suicides occurred in clinical trials

Despite the EMA and FDA’s continued claims of safety for GLP-1 agonists, in the clinical trials for liraglutide there was a higher incidence of suicidal thoughts versus the placebo, although the number was not statistically significant, the Japanese journal MedCheck reported in its overview of the drug, recommending against its use.

In another liraglutide trial, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, of 125 trial participants, there were three reported suicidal cases — two attempted and one completed suicide. The suicide was judged by the clinicians not to be related to the drug.

In its reporting to the FDA for Wegovy approval, Novo Nordisk also reported a slightly higher rate of suicide, which they said was not statistically significant, among participants in the semaglutide group.

They also reported four fatal events of suicide — one serious attempt and three completed suicides — in blinded data. Because the data were blinded, they reported that it could not be assessed whether the suicides were linked to the drugs.

Some argue that obese people have a mental illness that leads to an increased risk of suicidal ideation, but research doesn’t support that theory. One recent study showed that obese men in the U.S. actually have lower rates of suicidal ideation.

The issue of suicidal thoughts linked to weight-loss drugs has been a major hurdle to the drug industry’s ability to develop lucrative weight-loss drugs.

An earlier weight-loss drug — Sanofi’s Acomplia (rimonabant) — was pulled from European markets because it caused suicidal ideation. It never won approval in the U.S.

Diet pills Contrave by Currax Pharmaceuticals and Qsymia by Vivus, approved in the U.S. in 2014 and 2012, respectively, also carry warnings on their labels about the increased risk of suicidal thoughts.

Perchlorate is a natural and human-made chemical that’s mostly used in the U.S. as a highly water-soluble salt component for rocket fuel and missiles. It’s also used in the production of other explosives, matches, batteries and plastics.

Perchlorate gets into food through contaminated groundwater used to irrigate crops or make processed foods. It’s also transferred to food from plastic food storage containers and old bleach — which can break down into perchlorate — used at food and water processing facilities.

The chemical is known to cause thyroid issues, which increases risk for metabolic disorders, and disruption of the brain and nervous system development in infants.

Federal regulators responsible for food and water safety have for decades been aware of water and soil contamination at locations where perchlorate has been stored, used or manufactured, according to the report, but haven’t taken the steps necessary to protect public health.

About 67% of the samples had ‘measurable’ levels of perchlorate

To assess perchlorate contamination in commonly eaten foods, researchers from Consumer Reports tested 196 samples of 73 grocery store foods and fast food items and their packaging.

About 67% of the samples had “measurable” levels of perchlorate. Overall, foods consumed by babies and children, along with fast food and fresh fruits and vegetables had the highest levels. In terms of packaging, foods in plastic containers had the highest levels, followed by foods in plastic wrap and paperboard.

None of the foods contained dangerous levels of perchlorate. However, the report said, that several servings of many of the foods in a day could add up to hazardous levels.

Also, because the chemical is present in so many foods, exposure over time can be dangerous — especially for pregnant women and children.

The researchers didn’t name the brands investigated. However, they did contact the manufacturers of the contaminated foods, none of whom responded.

James E. Rogers, Ph.D., director of product safety testing at Consumer Reports said, “Regulators should do more to protect the public from contaminants like perchlorate, but at the same time, parents shouldn’t panic about what we found.”

“Feeding your children a wide variety of healthy foods is the best way to make sure they get the nutrients they need and to minimize the potentially harmful effects of contaminants in food and water,” Rogers said.

Key questions answered by the report:

1. How much perchlorate is safe?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2005 set a “reference dose” or safe exposure level for perchlorate at 0.7 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day.

However, according to the European Food Safety Authority, perchlorate is safe at only 0.3 micrograms per kilogram of body weight — less than half the level determined safe by the EPA. Many food safety experts think the EPA’s level is too high, according to Consumer Reports.

Children are particularly at risk, even when the amount of perchlorate in food or water is relatively low because they are small and have lower body weight.

The researchers found perchlorate levels in food ranged from about 2 parts per billion to 79 parts per billion, and food in plastic containers averaged about 54 parts per billion.

The report gave some examples of what those numbers could mean. For a child between the ages of 1 and 2, they found that the boxed mac and cheese they tested would give the child 50% of the European Food Safety limit for perchlorate in a day.

The rice cereal, baby multigrain cereal and organic yogurt they tested each would give a child about 25% of the limit and a serving of cucumbers or baby carrots would provide over 50% of the limit, presumably because it had been irrigated with contaminated water.

2. What are the health risks?

According to the EPA, perchlorate toxicity in humans primarily targets the thyroid gland, which plays an important role in regulating metabolism and is key for normal growth and development in infants and children.

Perchlorate is a known endocrine disruptor that can interfere with the thyroid’s ability to absorb iodide, which the body needs to make thyroid hormones.

In adults, this could lead to hypothyroidism and related issues. But for children, the report said, “Thyroid hormones are critical for brain growth and development, and any disruption to that has the potential for lifelong effects.”

According to the report, research has shown that women with thyroid dysfunction who have higher perchlorate exposures during pregnancy have children who are three times as likely to show negative cognitive effects, including lowered IQ.

3. Why isn’t perchlorate regulated?

Because it is so difficult for consumers to avoid perchlorate, Consumer Reports said it is important for regulators to act — but the EPA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) haven’t done much to protect public health, despite knowing about the problem since 1985.

At that time, perchlorate contamination was identified in wells near California Superfund sites — remnants of weapons testing by the U.S. Department of Defense — according to a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Despite several public controversies over perchlorate, the FDA in 2005 permitted companies to use the chemical in food-contact materials. Within a few years, high levels of the chemical were detected in baby food that uses the packaging, the report said.

In 2019, the FDA for the third time denied a petition by food and environmental advocacy groups to ban the chemical from food packaging.

In 2011, the EPA concluded that between 5.2 and 16.6 million people could be exposed to contaminated water, yet the agency continually delayed plans to set perchlorate limits in drinking water. In 2020, the EPA argued that the chemical didn’t need to be regulated at all, because state and local governments were doing so.

After the Natural Resources Defense Council challenged that decision in a lawsuit, a court ordered the EPA to regulate the chemical. The agency said it will propose new drinking water limits by Nov. 21, 2025.

The EPA should also reconsider its recommended safe level, experts said, and the agency needs to set maximum contaminant levels for perchlorate in water, following the leads of states like Massachusetts, where the limit is 2 parts per billion and California, where it is 6 parts per billion, but with a stated goal to lower it.

Tom Neltner, a chemical engineer and attorney who is the national director for the nonprofit group Unleaded Kids, told Consumer Reports the FDA should revoke permission to use perchlorate in food contact materials.

The report also said the FDA could set a limit for perchlorate in food considering the unique health effects on kids.

Instead, the authors concluded the major causes of death globally stemmed from the public health establishment’s response, including lockdowns, harmful medical interventions and the COVID-19 vaccines.

The study by researchers from the nonprofit Correlation Research in the Public Interest analyzed excess mortality in 125 countries — about 35% of the global population — during the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning with the March 11, 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic declaration and ending on May 5, 2023, when the WHO declared the pandemic over.

The investigation concluded that “nothing special would have occurred in terms of mortality had a pandemic not been declared and had the declaration not been acted upon.”

LONG AWAITED: Today here is our research group's latest and massive report about excess mortality in the world during the full Covid period: 521 pages, 40K words, hundreds of figures, top analysis, deep insights, overall understanding…
An absolute reference, some hard… pic.twitter.com/7r69AgQIDs

— Denis Rancourt (@denisrancourt) July 19, 2024

The 521-page analysis — by Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., former physics professor and lead scientist for 23 years at the University of Ottawa, Correlation’s president Joseph Hickey, Ph.D., and Christian Linard, Ph.D., from the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières — was published July 19.

The paper builds on work Rancourt and his colleagues have been doing since the start of the pandemic tracking and analyzing all-cause mortality to understand the underlying dynamics of mortality during the pandemic.

Their findings led them to challenge dominant scientific models and public health claims used to inform pandemic response policies.

They have published a series of papers on COVID-19 and vaccination in places like India, Australia and Israel, the U.S., Canada and a larger study of 17 countries over the last several years, with this study bringing together that work and adding to it.

In addition to the overarching conclusions that deaths during the COVID-19 period were caused by public health interventions rather than by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the authors provided a detailed contextualization of the data, explaining how such a large dataset could provide substantial insight into how these interventions led to excess mortality across the world.

Some of those key insights are detailed here.

Five takeaways from largest pandemic excess mortality study to date

1. Vaccines caused approximately 17 million deaths and vaccine toxicity increased with age and number of doses.

Based on their calculations and extrapolated to the world, the researchers estimated the vaccines caused approximately 17 million deaths, confirming the results of their previous research on a smaller data set.

That means vaccines were a primary cause of death, and they found that the vaccine dose fatality rate — the chances of dying from the vaccine — increased with age and with the number of doses.

Consistently, they found, that the more vaccine doses given, the greater the number of excess deaths. There are outliers, Rancourt said, but their graphs consistently showed this proportionality, even for countries that also had all-cause mortality peaks unrelated to the vaccines.

Rancourt told The Defender that they were able to essentially graph vaccine toxicity and that generally speaking, the boosters tended to be more associated with mortality.

“They’re more toxic, they’re more dangerous,” he said.

He added:

“That is a general trend that we see in all the data is that as you have higher and higher doses, the correlation with mortality is stronger and stronger and the peaks are more and more visibly associated. So as the assaults and all the reasons for dying at the beginning [lockdowns, medical interventions] taper off, then it becomes the vaccines that are more the killing agent.”

The researchers wrote that the mechanisms through which the vaccines caused death were complex.

One mechanism for lethality may be death by direct vaccine toxicity from, for example, cationic lipids. Alternatively, the injections could cause death by inducing an immune overreaction to the spike proteins.

Rancourt said they didn’t think those were the primary causes of vaccine-induced death, particularly given that excess deaths were so highly correlated to the boosters. Instead, he said, the initial and repeated injections likely weakened people’s immune systems.

Extensive scientific research has shown how such stressors weaken the immune system, causing a generalized immunosuppression that makes a person less able to fight existing or new infections of any kind, which can lead to death when it wouldn’t have occurred under normal circumstances, he said.

They also noted that such frail people — made frailer by repeated injections — are also more likely to be sick and therefore more infectious, spreading disease.

That meant a lot more people were getting illnesses like lung infections, Rancourt said. And people who were getting lung infections or other illnesses because of their vaccine-induced immunosuppression could also transmit those to unvaccinated people who may also become part of the excess mortality associated with the vaccines, even though they are not vaccinated.

2. Pandemic interventions led to about 30.9 million deaths globally and vaccines didn’t prevent any deaths.

Using the excess all-cause mortality rate for the 93 countries that had sufficient data, the researchers calculated the global excess deaths to be between 30.7 and 31.1 million people, which is significantly higher than the 7.03 million total number of COVID-19 deaths reported by the WHO through Feb. 11, 2024.

They created a figure, showing excess deaths as a percentage of the world population by country, with darker colors indicating a higher percentage of the population and gray indicating places for which they had no data.

There was no single pattern of excess deaths, but there were some strong commonalities across different groups of countries. Only one country analyzed, Greenland, had no excess mortality.

For example, 26 countries had a strong peak at the beginning of the pandemic in March to April 2020, including places like the U.S., Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and other countries showed a similar pattern but with less intensity.

Eighty-eight countries showed no excess mortality at the start of the pandemic in spring 2020, but some of those countries had excess mortality spikes before the vaccine rollout.

However, there was no evidence of the vaccine rollouts being associated with a reduction in excess deaths in any country.

Instead, in 113 of the 121 countries with sufficient data, the researchers found a significant excess mortality peak within a month of Jan. 1, 2022, which was temporally associated with the rollout of the boosters, and which happened nearly simultaneously across the world.

In some countries, Rancourt said, that was more clear than in others. And sometimes there is a lot of complexity to the data because it’s not, for example, age-discriminated.

To deal with some of that complexity, Rancourt’s team analyzed the data through several filters. For example, they examined age-discriminated data and also correlations between excess mortality and a variety of socioeconomic factors like sex, population-wide income and life expectancy.

Even with the non-discriminated data, there is a clear link between vaccine rollouts and excess mortality in many countries. For example, the graph for Brazil shows there is some excess mortality leading up to the vaccine rollouts that began at the end of 2020. Immediately following the rollouts there was a large spike in mortality.

In French Polynesia, one can see the excess mortality spike correlates to the start of the booster rollouts in mid-2021, whereas the first rollout didn’t affect mortality.

Rancourt also emphasized that excess mortality isn’t something that happens on average across a society — it usually happens among those who are frail enough to die, people who have compromised health — “the vulnerable,” often the elderly — tended to be prioritized in the initial rollouts and the booster campaigns.

3. Many deaths were linked to respiratory viruses that could have been treated, but treatment was withheld.

One key issue Rancourt’s team tried to address in the paper is how to sort out the primary cause of death from the clinical cause of death, which was often identified as a respiratory virus.

Rancourt said they did find that there was excess mortality quantitatively associated with respiratory conditions at death, which he also noted is generally common outside of the pandemic period as well.

One likely cause behind the high number of respiratory viruses could be immune suppression from the vaccines.

Also, he said, people with respiratory infections are typically treated with antibiotics or other appropriate interventions, but during the COVID-19 pandemic period, such treatment was restricted or completely withheld.

For example, they wrote, more than half of the deaths assigned as COVID-19 in the U.S. “could include life-threatening co-occurring bacterial pneumonia, according to CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] tabulations of death certificates.”

Other respiratory causes of death pervasive throughout the world, like tuberculosis or fungal infections, Rancourt said, couldn’t simply disappear. Instead, they went untreated and likely led to excess deaths.

“Normally in a modern country, we try to identify what the main pathogens are and we treat them in a targeted way with specific antibiotics,” Rancourt said. “We stopped doing all of that and we stopped even recognizing that there was this complexity and that there was this natural fragility and susceptibility to lung infections in the human body.”

Instead, he added, “We just wiped all that out and thought purely in terms of this new virus and that could be the only cause.”

There were respiratory problems associated with excess mortality, they concluded, “but we believe that you had to have suppressed the immune systems of people in order to get them into that state,” and leave those people untreated with interventions that would have saved them.

4. There was essentially no excess mortality before the WHO declared a pandemic.

Overall, they found that there was “essentially no excess mortality” in any of the countries analyzed before March 11, 2020, when the WHO declared a pandemic.

This supports their conclusion that deaths were not related to a pandemic virus, Rancourt told The Defender, because all-cause mortality from a virus would not manifest suddenly and in many places once a pandemic was declared.

Despite flawed epidemiological models claiming otherwise, the timing of deaths from a virus spread doesn’t happen simultaneously in different societies, he said. That’s the case even if a pathogen is “popped down in all the cities in the world,” because how mortality occurs is “extraordinarily sensitive” to different society’s social habits and health structures.

For example, a society with an older and frailer population would have people who were infectious for longer and who die more easily would have a different effect on mortality than in a society that was younger and healthier. Their excess death curves would change on different timelines and with different magnitudes, Rancourt said.

Excess mortality in different places would also be affected by the size of the initial virus introduction.

He added that many researchers claim from genomic measurements that the virus was present for months before it was announced, but there is no evidence of excess deaths during that time.

“So there should have been these rises that were just all over the place in time, but instead the virus waited for the political announcement by the World Health Organization,” he said.

5. An ‘elegant’ methodology for analyzing all-cause and excess mortality.

All-cause mortality — a measure of the total number of deaths from all causes in a given time frame for a given population — is the most reliable data used by epidemiologists for detecting and characterizing events that cause death and for evaluating the population-level impact of deaths from any cause.

Unlike other measures, all-cause mortality data are not susceptible to reporting bias or biases that may exist in subjective assessments of the cause of death. Any event, from a natural disaster like an earthquake to a wave of seasonal or pandemic illness, appears in all-cause mortality data.

For this study, the authors identified baseline all-cause mortality rates by tracking all-cause mortality, where data were available, from 2015 and 2019 to estimate forward what the expected all-cause mortality would have been absent the pandemic conditions for 2020 to 2023.

They compared the baseline data to the actual all-cause mortality data reported in those years to track how mortality changed during that time and identify excess mortality.

Excess mortality refers to the number of deaths from all causes during a crisis above and beyond what we would have expected to see under “normal” conditions.

In an extensive series of graphs for each country, the researchers tracked and statistically analyzed the temporal relationship between spikes in national all-cause mortality rates, stratified by age where data were available, and the COVID-19 pandemic period and the vaccine and booster rollouts.

For example, one graph shows excess mortality for the U.S. during the pandemic period. Gray vertical lines indicate the announced start and end of the pandemic. The blue curve is raw all-cause mortality data by week. The orange curve is the average from Rancourt et al.’s analysis prediction of expected all-cause mortality. The green curve shows total excess mortality, which is the difference between the historic trend and the actual mortality during the pandemic period.

After they established excess mortality in each country, Rancourt and his team analyzed how that excess mortality related to the COVID-19 vaccine doses, graphing how all-cause mortality related to the vaccine and booster rollouts and the cumulative excess mortality over time with increased vaccine doses in hundreds of graphs.

For example, the graph below shows excess mortality in Australia. The graph shows all-cause mortality in blue and the vaccine rollouts in green and orange (from two different data sources). The excess mortality begins to climb just after the start of the booster rollout in fall 2021.

“We really found an elegant way to do this that we think is eventually going to be adopted by virtually all epidemiologists because it’s just so robust and straightforward and easy to interpret and understand and it minimizes the chance of any errors in the extrapolation or the methodology itself,” Rancourt said.

Campbell cited a recent interview with Bill Gates and a 2022 “TED Talk,” where Gates laid out his vision for global health in the next five years. Campbell played clips from the talks and offered a point-by-point critique.

In one clip, Gates promoted mRNA as easy, cheap, self-assembling and scalable.

“We just need to mess around” with it in the next five years, he said to make it so. Soon there will be “factories worldwide that can make $2 vaccines with even less lead time than we’ve had to here during this pandemic.”

And those factories will be making those vaccines for every disease, Gates said.

Campbell, a former nurse and healthcare educator, said this all sounded “quite incredible” and doubted any of it could be realized.

What qualifications, Campbell asked, does Gates have to be making such ambitious predictions?

“He’s not a doctor. He’s not a nurse. He’s not a pharmacist. He’s not a biomedical scientist. He’s not a dentist. He’s not a physiotherapist. He’s none of these things … He has no qualifications in these matters.”

“Let me know how comfortable you are with people self-appointing themselves to lead global research on these topics,” he told his viewers.

Campbell’s main concern is that the proposed new mRNA vaccines will put lipid nanoparticles into the blood. The particles don’t stay in the arm, as the public was originally told, Campbell said. They systematically move throughout the body. Because they are fatty, just like the cells in the body, they fuse with them.

“The membranes will combine and they will become one and they will absorb into any fatty surface throughout the body,” he said. “That will mean they will discharge their contents into that cell.”

In the “TED Talk” clip, Gates said the COVID-19 vaccines “saved millions of lives,” but they can still be even better. “We need to invent easier-to-deliver vaccines that are just a patch you put on your arm or something that you inhale. We need vaccines that actually block infections.”

Gates has invested heavily in vaccine patches and is funding research on inhalable vaccines.

Gates also said there would be “innovative new vaccines” that can “eradicate entire families of viruses” like the coronavirus family or the flu families.

He promised such vaccines would “make people healthier” and “shrink the health equity gap” between rich and poor countries.

Campbell disagreed with most of the points Gates made.

For example, he wondered where the data were to prove that the COVID-19 vaccines “saved millions of lives.”

He said that instead of developing mRNA vaccines for every disease, there should be a “complete moratorium” on using mRNA lipid nanoparticle technology “until we know what the heck is going on.”

And the idea that one could eradicate a class of viruses “just sounds, well, like complete nonsense to be quite honest,” he said, because viruses are part of the planetary ecosystem and they serve a purpose.

Heralding the future of vaccines, Gates said more and better mRNA vaccines would make COVID-19 “the last pandemic.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think Mr. Gates has the totality of the answer to that,” Campbell said.

Watch here:

The research, which will be presented at the end of April at the Conference of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, found that ChatGPT’s responses to questions about vaccination were similar to those given by professional medical organizations and official guidelines.

According to a press release about the research, “vaccine hesitancy, directly linked to misinformation — false, inaccurate information promoted as factual — is on the rise.”

People who mistrust public health institutions may turn to ChatGPT for answers, as the popularity of the AI tool grows, it said. And if they do, the research shows they will get the responses the public health agencies would provide anyway.

Given those findings, the researchers hope ChatGPT can be “an effective tool to help reduce vaccine hesitancy among the general public.”

They also found similar results for advice about STIs. For the study, researchers from the National University Health System in Singapore tested how ChatGPT would respond to common questions about vaccination.

The researchers, who run infectious disease clinics, asked ChatGPT “15 commonly asked questions on vaccine hesitancy” including questions about efficacy, adverse effects and “cultural concerns.”

They also asked 17 questions about risk factors, access to care and prophylaxis for STIs. Two independent infectious disease experts compared ChatGPT’s answers about vaccines to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

They assessed ChatGPT’s answers on STIs against the 2021 CDC STI Treatment Guidelines. According to the press release, ChatGPT provided “factual responses and reassurance to vaccine hesitancy concerns” — using the public health agencies’ statements as the basis for determining fact.

For example, the chatbot highlighted recommendations for measles vaccination in low-income settings and discussed the benefits of HPV vaccination, but failed to discuss age limits for vaccination. ChatGPT also “addressed misconceptions around mRNA vaccination and permanent alterations in DNA with high accuracy.”

“Overall, ChatGPT’s responses to vaccine hesitancy were accurate and may help individuals who have vaccine-related misconceptions,” said lead author Dr. Matthew Koh, an infectious diseases physician at National University Health System Singapore.

“Our results demonstrate the potential power of AI models to assist in public health campaigns and aid health professionals in reducing vaccine hesitancy.”

Biases and errors in AI

ChatGPT, a type of generative AI software that creates text and content, is increasingly gaining traction in science and healthcare. Research has found that in some cases it is beginning to displace typical search engines or Wikipedia as a go-to source for information.

As AI begins to be used in medicine, many researchers and AI designers have celebrated its potential as an administrative tool for writing research and generating patient information. Politico said 2024 may be the year “artificial intelligence transforms medicine.” Forbes and BMC Medical Education both claimed AI is “revolutionizing healthcare.”

However, generative AI tools have proven extremely unreliable in diagnosing health conditions. A study published in January in JAMA Pediatrics found ChatGPT misdiagnosed 83% of children’s health conditions.

The researchers in that study explained that chatbots “are typically non-specifically trained on a massive amount of internet data, which can often be inaccurate.” They “do not discriminate between reliable and unreliable information but simply regurgitate text from the training data to generate a response.”

This is significant, according to The New York Times, because people tend to adopt ideas they are repeatedly exposed to. The Times reported last month on a new preprint study that found AI language models like ChatGPT had clear political biases based on its “moral judgments, the way they frame their answers, which information they choose to share or omit and which questions they will or won’t answer.”

The Times also noted that the responses given by language AI models like ChatGPT are determined by the inputs that train them — the data they draw from and especially the “fine-tuning” done by system designers. The “misinformation” that the researchers in the study from the National University Health System Singapore are concerned about is the same misinformation the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deems problematic.

Since FDA Commissioner Robert Califf began his second tenure as the agency’s head in February 2022, he made combating “misinformation” one of his top priorities, arguing it is “a leading cause of preventable death in America now” — though “this cannot be proved,” he said.

The FDA uses a tactic known as “prebunking,” by which the agency defines something as “misinformation” before readers encounter it elsewhere as possibly true. The agency can do this because Google “prioritizes credible websites” like the FDA’s in its searches.

Earlier studies tout ChatGPT’s ability to fight ‘COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs’

At least two previous studies also tested ChatGPT’s ability to “combat misinformation,” although both focused only on the COVID-19 vaccine. Research published last year in the journal Cureus reported ChatGPT could successfully be used to combat “COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs” and that it responded with “clear, concise and non-biased content.”

ChatGPT’s success, it said, could be seen in responses where the software was “dismissive” about “conspiratorial ideas” regarding COVID-19 origins, labeling it as non-credible and lacking scientific evidence — meaning the software dismissed the “lab-leak theory” and instead repeated the World Health Organization’s talking point that the virus had a “natural animal origin.”

No evidence has been found for the zoonotic origins of COVID-19 with a bat as the article claims. Substantive evidence from internal government documents released through Freedom of Information Act requests has suggested a lab leak is the more likely of the COVID-19 origin theories.

The software responses in that study also confirmed that the vaccines had undergone rigorous safety testing, there was no evidence that pharmaceutical companies obscured any data about adverse effects, and “the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks.”

However, those responses contradict what is known about how the vaccines were rushed through the regulatory process and how vaccine makers overstated the efficacy and understated risks of the vaccines.

A second study published in September 2023 in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics made similar findings. The researchers asked the software the 50 questions most posed to World Health Organization collaborators about the COVID-19 vaccines and had public health professionals evaluate the responses.

It concluded that ChatGPT offers information consistent with existing scientific evidence, effectively debunking many myths circulating on social media, which could potentially promote a higher vaccine uptake. After those studies, mainstream scientific publications celebrated ChatGPT’s ability to debunk vaccine myths and increase vaccine uptake.

The Defender chats with ChatGPT

The Defender also “chatted” with ChatGPT to test its answers on some of the claims that public health officials often identify as vaccine “misinformation.”

The Defender: What are the origins of COVID-19?

Chat GPT: The origins of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, are believed to be zoonotic, meaning the virus likely originated in animals before spreading to humans. The exact origins are still under investigation, but it’s widely thought that the virus originated in bats and might have been transmitted to humans through an intermediate animal host, possibly in a wet market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were sold for food.

The Defender: Have pharmaceutical companies misrepresented the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines?

ChatGPT: There’s no evidence to suggest that pharmaceutical companies have intentionally misrepresented the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. The development and testing of vaccines are highly regulated processes, overseen by regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and others worldwide.

… extensive clinical trials were conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines …

However, it’s essential to recognize that no vaccine is 100% effective or without risks. Like all medical interventions, COVID-19 vaccines have potential side effects, but these are typically mild and temporary. 

The Defender: Do masks work to reduce the spread of COVID-19?

ChatGPT: Yes, masks are an essential tool in reducing the spread of COVID-19 …

The Defender: According to Cochrane systematic review on masks, they are not effective at reducing the spread of respiratory viruses.

ChatGPT: … In July 2020, Cochrane published a systematic review on the effectiveness of physical interventions, including masks, in reducing the transmission of respiratory viruses such as COVID-19. This review analyzed data from studies conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic and found limited evidence to support the effectiveness of wearing masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses in the community.

However, it’s important to note that the findings of this review were based on evidence primarily from studies conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and did not specifically focus on the effectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Since the review’s publication, numerous studies have provided evidence supporting the effectiveness of masks, especially in reducing the transmission of COVID-19.

The Defender: How many people have suffered serious adverse events from the COVID-19 shots?

ChatGPT: As of my last update, COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to billions of people worldwide, and adverse events following vaccination have been reported … Serious adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination are rare. Most adverse events reported are mild and temporary, such as soreness at the injection site, fatigue, headache, or mild fever. Serious adverse events, while rare, can include severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis) and other uncommon side effects …

Overall, the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination in preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19 far outweigh the risks of potential adverse events. Vaccination remains a crucial tool in controlling the spread of the virus and protecting public health, particularly in the face of ongoing variants and the persistence of the pandemic …

The Defender: Is the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine linked to autoimmune disorders?

ChatGPT: The HPV vaccine has been extensively studied for its safety and efficacy, and there is currently no conclusive evidence linking the HPV vaccine to autoimmune disorders. Numerous large-scale studies and systematic reviews have found no significant association between HPV vaccination and autoimmune disorders …

While isolated reports of adverse events following HPV vaccination, including autoimmune disorders, may occur, extensive monitoring systems continue to evaluate vaccine safety. These systems, such as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States and similar systems in other countries, investigate and monitor reports of adverse events to identify potential safety concerns.

Overall, the benefits of HPV vaccination in preventing HPV-related cancers, including cervical cancer, far outweigh the potential risks of adverse events.

ChatGPT didn’t mention that extensive research linking the Gardasil HPV vaccine to serious side effects, including postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and premature ovarian failure and other autoimmune issues.

There are nearly 170 lawsuits in federal court from people who suffered a range of serious injuries after taking Gardasil, including autoimmune disorders, premature ovarian failure and cancer. There are also over 200 Gardasil injury claims pending in the ”vaccine court.”

The Defender also experimented with several questions with premises that clearly diverged from the regulatory agencies’ official positions on vaccination, such as “Can increased cancer rates be linked to the COVID-19 vaccines? Is there a link between vaccines and some autism? Has there been DNA contamination caused by mRNA vaccines?”

To those questions, ChatGPT’s response always included this statement, or something similar, at the end:

“Misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines can circulate, but it’s crucial to rely on credible sources of information, such as public health agencies and reputable scientific organizations, when evaluating the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website.

Agribusiness watchdog OrganicEye today demanded the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) hold a public hearing — or face litigation — on the use of mRNA and other genetically engineered vaccines in organic livestock production. The use of such genetically modified products violates the legal definition of “organic,” the group said.

The request comes after reports that the USDA and some organic certifiers have “quietly looked the other way” as commercial livestock producers have begun using genetically engineered vaccines in animals producing organic-certified meat, eggs and dairy products, according to OrganicEye.

One of the most important differences — perhaps the key difference — between conventional and organic food is the organic label’s strict prohibition on genetically modified farm inputs and ingredients, as laid out in the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.

OrganicEye said that rather than enforcing this rule, the USDA has sanctioned a “don’t ask, don’t tell” protocol — pushed by Big Ag — that allows producers to administer genetically engineered vaccines to animals and still label them “organic.”

The issue is urgent, according to Mark Kastel, executive director of Wisconsin-based OrganicEye, because of the imminent use of mRNA vaccines for livestock, which are currently being developed with massive funding from government and industry.

“The impetus for us to act now is the impending introduction of vaccines for livestock produced using mRNA technology similar to that used by Pfizer and Moderna to produce their respective versions of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine,” Kastel stated.

“There is a continuing controversy in the country concerning this new technology and we should work to preserve organics as the last safe haven for eaters who want to secure a truly ‘natural’ diet,” he added.

It is “unacceptable,” the nonprofit stated, for the USDA to “kick the can down the road” on this highly controversial issue.

OrganicEye is calling on the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to convene a meeting of all stakeholders, not only with industry interests who want these vaccines, Kastel told The Defender, but also with “people who have a concern — whether they’re farmers that don’t need them and feel they’re being competitively injured by competing against these livestock factories, or whether they’re consumers who have a general concern about genetic engineering and the food supply.”

“They have a right to be heard,” he said.

A corrupted oversight process

Synthetic materials are by default banned in organics, unless they have been explicitly permitted because they are deemed “essential” to production and have been evaluated and determined to be safe for human health and the environment.

Congress created the NOSB in the 1990s to recommend industry standards for regulating such materials. It is a powerful advisory board — the USDA cannot allow any synthetic substances in organic production unless the NOSB has explicitly approved and recommended them.

The board was designed to represent stakeholders from across the organics industry, including small farmers and consumers, but it has increasingly become dominated by powerful agribusiness lobbyists — and as a result, increasingly subordinate to agribusiness’ dictates.

The first question that must be investigated, Kastel said, is whether vaccines are “essential” for livestock at all. They are generally not required in livestock production “other than some state regulations pertaining to interstate transportation of livestock,” he said.

But many producers, particularly in industrial agriculture, vaccinate their animals anyway to “mitigate risks.” Kastel said a hearing would allow the public to investigate whether “there’s any good justification coming from anybody other than people involved in conventional livestock production for the use of vaccines.”

Or, maybe animals “maintained in a healthy environment with plenty of outdoor access and pasture for ruminants like beef and dairy cows on family-scale farms,” don’t need any vaccines at all — let alone genetically modified ones, he said.

Many vaccines previously approved for organic production have been phased out and replaced with vaccines produced through genetic modification.

At recent NOSB meetings, accredited organic certifiers admitted that they do not check to see whether vaccines used violate the prohibition against genetic engineering — despite the fact that federal regulations mandate their review.

In response, the NOSB recommended the USDA approve a regulatory amendment allowing for the use of these genetically modified vaccines in organic production in cases where the traditionally produced vaccine was no longer available.

In a policy brief also released today, OrganicEye called this move “likely illegal” because “in all cases, vaccines produced using methods of genetic engineering/modification are clearly forbidden by the national organic standards and are currently excluded from use.”

The USDA did not enact that recommendation and has stated it won’t act in this regulatory area. In other words, Kastel said, the USDA is saying they “have no intention to do new rulemaking,” and are instead letting things stand — taking a “don’t ask, don’t tell,” approach to regulating GMO vaccines.

Dr. Hubert Karreman, doctor of veterinary medicine, North Carolina dairy farmer, charter fellow of the American College of Veterinary Botanical Medicine and former NOSB member, said that instead, the USDA could and should “create a very clear, easily understandable categorization system such that organic farmers don’t use a genetically engineered vaccine by mistake.”

OrganicEye charges the USDA’s reluctance to create that system is due to the influence of “powerful lobbyists and industry interests, mostly with expertise in conventional livestock production as in the case of vaccines,” who have an interest in producers continuing to rely on vaccines, rather than “providing more healthful and secure living environments for domesticated animals.”

In its policy brief, OrganicEye proposed the USDA create a clear categorization for vaccines, review all vaccines for safety prior to approval — including for the persistence of “foreign” DNA, RNA and antibodies in meat — and develop a way to deal with concerns that arise from that review, including removing such vaccines from the market if need be.

OrganicEye is also promoting a campaign to put pressure on the Biden administration to reduce its dependence on political appointees from corporate agribusiness in organic regulatory oversight — a practice that has resulted in the legally questionable conduct the group is protesting.

Veterinarians: ‘Not enough known’ about long-term effects of mRNA vaccines for livestock

“The successful application of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 has further validated the platform and opened the floodgates to mRNA vaccine’s potential in infectious disease prevention, especially in the veterinary field,” according to a study published last year in the journal Viruses.

But, Kastel said another reason for holding a public hearing is that there are many open questions about the safety of mRNA vaccines for animals and humans.

Dr. Max Thornsberry, R-CALF USA animal health committee chair, said in an April briefing for R-CALF USA, a nonprofit representing the interests of independent U.S. cattle producers, that research has shown mRNA likely passes to humans who have consumed products from an mRNA-injected animal.

Research published in JAMA also shows the persistence of COVID-19 antibodies in the human breast milk of vaccinated mothers. And recent research showed that Moderna recommended against vaccination of nursing mothers.

This raises questions, Kastel said, about how animals injected with GMO vaccines, particularly for diseases that don’t even affect humans, might introduce new antibodies into the human food supply. The associated risks need to be studied and evaluated, he said.

Thornsberry added that mRNA research is “still in its infancy, no one really knows the full impact it has on either humans or animals, particularly its long-term impact,” and that it, therefore, warrants greater research on safety and greater transparency.

Holistic veterinarian Dr. W. Jean Dodds told The Defender in January that, “Not enough is known at this time if mRNA vaccines can generate any long-term effects on reproduction or lifespan of domestic farm stock.”

“As livestock become part of the human and animal food chain, we need to be sure that no abnormal cellular or molecular changes to the animal could be induced by this type of vaccine,” Dodds added.

GMO vaccines already in use, but ‘no way for consumers to know’

Concerns that mRNA injections could end up in animal products meant for human consumption prompted warnings from cattle producers and calls for mandatory country of origin labeling so consumers can choose meat from countries that don’t allow mRNA shots in meat animals.

Backlash quickly ensued, with legacy media painting the concerns as “conspiracy theories,” “fearmongering” and “misinformation,” and issuing a series of misleading “fact checks.”

But several new government- and industry-funded studies are, in fact, already underway to develop mRNA vaccines for livestock, part of the massive expansion of the animal vaccine industry projected to be worth at least $26.12 billion by 2030.

Researchers at Iowa State University are undertaking a project funded by the USDA to develop mRNA vaccine technology to prevent bovine respiratory syncytial virus.

Pharmaceutical company Zoetis developed an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for animals that was administered to animals at zoos throughout the country.

And researchers in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service experimented with vaccinating captive-bred black-footed ferrets against COVID-19. They also experimented with social distancing and quarantine of ferrets.

“Third-generation vaccines,” including DNA, RNA and recombinant viral vector vaccines, are not only currently administered to livestock — they also are being developed for companion animals and wild animals.

Merck Animal Health has for several years marketed a “customizable vaccine” made with “RNA particle technology” to make swine flu and other virus vaccines customized to specific animal herd needs. And the USDA allows two “DNA” novel vaccines and avian influenza vaccine for poultry and a swine influenza vaccine.

Citing the need for biosecurity, in September 2022, the New South Wales government fast-tracked the world’s first mRNA vaccines for foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy-skin disease, in a five-year multimillion-dollar deal with U.S. biotech company Tiba Biotech.

There is no way for consumers to know whether genetically engineered vaccines are being used in livestock to produce USDA-certified organic meat, eggs or milk. People have a right to this information, Kastel insisted. They also need to know, he said:

“Is there any deleterious impact? Is it essential? Is it safe? And right now, because GMO vaccines are not legal [in organics], is there really no alternative to them?

“Or is that just the spin from the livestock and biotech industry that wants to change over to GMO vaccines?”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

The U.S. government approved its first three payments to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines — amounting to a total of $4,634.89.

The Health and Resources Service Administration (HRSA) vaccine injury claims report, updated monthly, shows one $2,019.55 payment for anaphylaxis and two payments — $1,582.65 and $1032.69 — for myocarditis. The payments were made through HRSA’s Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

The CICP was established under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which protects pharmaceutical companies from liability for injuries sustained from “countermeasures,” such as vaccines and medications, administered during a public health emergency. Since 2010, when it approved its first claim, the program has compensated a total of 33 claims for vaccine injuries — but these are the first awards for COVID-19 vaccines.

“These long-awaited awards were overdue, highly anticipated and speculated upon,” said Kim Mack Rosenberg, acting general counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD). “What is remarkable is that less than $5,000 was paid — total. This is a tragedy that highlights the severe limitations of the program.”

CHD Acting President Laura Bono called the payouts for myocarditis “insulting,” given that mortality rates increase to 50% within five years of diagnosis. Bono said:

“The CICP is a pathetic, government-run program that gives complete liability protection to the very industries profiting from the COVID vaccine or product. While victims linger with their injuries, paying out-of-pocket for expenses, or at worst die, the industries run to the bank.”

Since the start of the pandemic, people claiming injuries related to COVID-19 vaccines and other countermeasures submitted 11,425 requests for compensation. Of those, only 19 have been declared eligible for compensation and are undergoing a “medical benefits review” to determine payment.

The anaphylaxis case had been pending medical benefits review since the fall of 2021, and the two myocarditis cases had been pending review since January.

During the medical benefits review, HRSA determines any costs remaining after insurance, workers’ comp, disability or other reimbursements or payments.

Wayne Rohde, an expert in vaccine injury compensation, wrote on his Substack that given the “18+ months to review previous medical benefits that may have been awarded to the injured party [the anaphylaxis case], this process tells me it was a major injury that resulted in very large medical bills.”

Myocarditis is a serious condition that also requires a lot of medical attention, Rohde said. To date, there have been 1,541,275 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

How does vaccine injury compensation work? the VICP and CICP

HRSA, which operates under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), administers two vaccine injury compensation programs: the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

The VICP is a special, no-fault tribunal housed within the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that handles injury claims for 16 common vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule. To date, it has awarded more than $4 billion for medical bills, lost wages, lawyer fees, and pain and suffering to thousands of people for vaccine injuries.

The program does not currently cover COVID-19 vaccine injuries. Should COVID-19 vaccines be moved into the program, any injuries would be handled by the already overwhelmed VICP.

The CICP, the only program that covers COVID-19 vaccine injuries at this time, is even less equipped to deal with them, Rohde told The Defender.

“For COVID-19 vaccine-injured people, the CICP is the worst place, it’s the worst option,” Rohde said, “because it is not really a compensation program, it’s a reimbursement program for medical costs.”

The CICP allows individuals to claim compensation only for unreimbursed medical expenses — meaning those not fully reimbursed by insurance or government programs, such as Medicaid — for death and for lost wages up to $50,000.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under the CICP:

“Eligible individuals may be compensated for certain reasonable and necessary medical expenses and for lost employment income at the time of the injury. Death benefits may be paid to certain survivors of covered countermeasures recipients who have died as a direct result of the covered countermeasure injury.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the payer of last resort. Therefore, payments are reduced by those of other third-party payers.”

“There’s no pain and suffering here, there’s nothing,” Rohde said.

Because the CICP reviews and resolves claims through an administrative rather than a judicial process, no details other than the amount of the payments have to be shared with the public.

“It’s designed to be very convoluted, very non-transparent,” Rohde said.

The CICP was known for its cumbersome claims process and low likelihood of success for claimants even before the pandemic. Since then, it has seen unsustainable growth.

According to HRSA’s numbers, of the 11,941 claims filed with the CICP since 2010, nearly 11,000 of them are still under review. The HRSA budget for COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation will increase in fiscal year 2023 — from approximately $1 million to $5 million — and its budget for staffing and contractors will jump from $5 million to $9.5 million.

How would COVID vaccine injury compensation change under the VICP?

For vaccine injury claims to be covered under the VICP rather than the CICP, three requirements must be met:

1. The vaccine needs to be recommended for routine administration for children and/or pregnant women.
2. It needs to have an excise tax imposed upon it through the legislature.
3. There needs to be a notice of coverage published in the federal record.

The COVID-19 vaccine was added to the childhood immunization schedule earlier this year — but the next two steps in the process have yet to be completed and public health officials have not indicated when this might happen.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine met for three days last month — behind closed doors, except for a two-hour public comment period — to review the epidemiological, clinical and biological evidence on adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines.

The committee will generate a report that will be used to add injuries to the federal Vaccine Injury Table, which lists known adverse events associated with existing vaccines. This list helps the VICP and the CICP decide whether to compensate vaccine injury claims.

At the National Academies meeting, Professor Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at The George Washington University Law School, told the committee the stakeholders that created the VICP — vaccine manufacturers, lawyers and parents — set it up to be petitioner-friendly, informal, generous and non-adversarial.

But instead, she said, HHS has been “unrelenting” in its opposition to recognizing vaccine injuries.

“I believe the VICP as it exists today would be unrecognizable to those original stakeholders,” she said.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.