Governor Josh Shapiro announced Pennsylvania’s first two “measles-associated” deaths in 35 years during a press conference in Lancaster County on August 25, 2026. Appearing alongside State Health Secretary Dr. Debra Bogen, Shapiro explicitly stated that both individuals who died were “unvaccinated.”

The following day, Dr. Bogen defended the state’s announcement, issuing a statement confirming that her department’s epidemiology team had verified two recent measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County. As a pediatrician with over 30 years of experience, she noted that she had thoroughly reviewed the case investigations before the data were reported to the CDC.

The media immediately amplified the message, dropping the “associated” qualifier to flatly declare that two people had died of the measles.

Measles fear-mongering is certainly not new and has lately been weaponized more than usual in an ongoing battle over federal vaccine rhetoric. But this dispute is striking for how quickly other local officials dismantled the governor’s narrative. Rather than routine public health updates, the governor’s announcement met unprecedented pushback from county authorities who openly challenged the state’s clinical conclusions and lack of transparency.

The reality behind the state’s “measles-associated” story became clear when details emerged about one of the victims—a newborn boy who passed away on August 14. Shortly after the governor’s briefing, Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni emphatically stated that his office did not attribute the death to measles. Instead, the infant tragically died from internal hemorrhaging caused by a lacerated spleen during birth. The coroner confirmed that measles could not have contributed to the tragedy, as the pathologist found no cellular swelling or organ enlargement whatsoever.

The measles diagnosis and subsequent death attribution relied entirely on post-mortem testing, raising significant questions about the validity of this method. Relying on PCR tests after death rather than visible clinical symptoms allows health officials to categorize a death as “measles-associated” even when a clear physical injury was the actual cause. This allows officials to inflate or wholly invent “case” numbers to validate preconceived public health agendas. This approach mirrors similar incidents throughout the covid era, such as the famous 2021 Alberta “COVID-19 child death” case, where a 14-year-old boy was publicly claimed to have died of COVID-19 to promote vaccines, only for it to be revealed that he had actually died of Stage 4 cancer.

Citing medical privacy, the state has completely stonewalled requests for information regarding the second alleged fatality. This complete lack of transparency has fueled skepticism, especially after Diamantoni publicly stated that his office had “no idea” who the second person even was.

Another prominent local official, Lancaster County Commissioner Vice-Chairman Josh Parsons, aggressively challenged the state’s narrative. In a detailed 10-point thread on X (formerly Twitter), Parsons broke down what he called a lack of transparency and the administration’s misrepresentation of medical facts. A summary of his key points is outlined below:

1. The press conference: Officials at the Governor’s press conference used the term “measles-associated” but clearly framed it as deaths FROM measles.

This appears to be a carefully crafted attempt to overstate the case while also maintaining some later wiggle room, i.e., “associated,” to muddy the issue if it became clear these were not, in fact, measles deaths. This indicates deception.

2. The desired media response: The media, in large part, dutifully took their cue and reported two deaths “from” measles in Lancaster County.

3. The lack of transparency: Officials provided virtually no background information about these “measles-associated” deaths.

4. The story unravels: I then conducted an investigation and learned from the Lancaster County Coroner that there were zero reported measles deaths in Lancaster County.

5. State officials then point to deceased infant: State officials, who previously refused to give any information on the two deceased individuals (other than that they were unvaccinated), then pointed to the infant as one of the cases.

6. County Coroner and Forensic Pathologist report contradicts state officials: The County Coroner and the Forensic Pathologist, both of whom have many years of experience, rule out the claim that the infant can be one of the cases.

7. The death investigation: Importantly, the County Coroner is THE person who has statutory authority to rule on cause and manner of death in Pennsylvania. The Coroner said, “state officials had not contacted him personally as of Wednesday about the two Lancaster County measles-associated deaths.”

8. Deception: Also important is the fact that officials emphasized in the press conference that the two individuals were “unvaccinated.” Now, technically that would be true for a baby who was born at home and immediately died. But there would be no possible way for the baby to be vaccinated. The framing of this, or underlying assertion in it, seemed to be to indicate that the deceased person was unvaccinated by choice. This shows intent on the part of officials to deceive.

9. Deception: Similarly deceptive is the following: after my investigation revealed that the County Coroner has zero deaths from measles, PA DOH said: “Not all deaths are referred to a coroner under Pennsylvania law.”

However, the law does require a death known or suspected to be due to contagious disease be reported to the coroner. Thus, the coroner should have a record of any measles death in Lancaster County.

Again, this is an apparent deliberate deception. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

10. The second case: We still know nothing about the second reported death. There has not even been an effort, to my knowledge, to explain this death or provide any details whatsoever – beyond “unvaccinated.”

Parsons concluded:

Given the other apparent deception here, it is fair to ask whether the facts of the second case have been materially manipulated similar to the first case, or whether the second case exists at all.

Parsons’ real-time dismantling of the state’s narrative exposed what many viewed as calculated scaremongering, sparking an immediate backlash across social media. The various manipulations by state officials unleashed an avalanche of deserved criticism and outrage throughout the social media sphere. Users widely condemned Shapiro for using deceptive tactics, pointing to the state’s lack of transparency and the political weaponization of manipulated public health data.

As to the probable motives fueling Shapiro’s spurious statements, there is certainly plenty of fodder for the speculative fire. Is the administration whipping the public into a fearful frenzy to combat dropping immunization compliance? It cannot be ignored that Pennsylvania’s MMR vaccination rate fell to 92.4 percent for the 2024–2025 school year, a 4.2 percentage-point decline from pre-pandemic levels.

Are Shapiro’s actions a partisan stunt meant to manufacture a crisis for electoral gain rather than a legitimate health emergency? Mobilizing suburban parents through the fear of childhood illness is a well-worn political strategy in Pennsylvania. The political context is hard to ignore as Shapiro joined 14 other Democratic attorneys general to file a major lawsuit contesting the Trump administration’s changes to the federal vaccine schedule.

Is this a broader move by State authorities to use a concocted measles outbreak as a pretext to force vaccinations onto insular, conservative-leaning groups like the Amish community in Lancaster County? And if they won’t capitulate to coercive health dictates that conflict with their religious beliefs, will they be forced to move from the State altogether, as is currently being contested in NY State?

Beyond ideological clashes, a deeper economic subtext emerges: the immense value of the land the Amish occupy. Not only does the community’s traditional lifestyle challenge mainstream pharmaceutical narratives, but they also hold vast tracts of Lancaster County’s most coveted real estate.

Driven by elite soil quality, massive agricultural productivity, and intense development pressure, this land is exceptionally valuable. The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service classifies over half of the county’s farmland as Class I and Class II “prime farmland.” With some of the richest, most productive, non-irrigated soils on earth. Lancaster County ranks #1 in Pennsylvania and consistently lands in the top 20 counties nationwide for total agricultural market value, generating roughly $1.5 billion in annual sales through traditional farming methods.

This success flatly contradicts the agribusiness claim that high yields require industrialization. The Amish offer living proof that small, decentralized farms can out-earn massive corporate operations per acre—all while completely bypassing the multi-million-dollar equipment loops, synthetic chemicals, and patent-protected seeds of modern agriculture.

This structural independence makes their land a prime target, sitting right in the path of suburban expansion just 70 miles from Philadelphia; Lancaster County farmland frequently commands $20,000 to tens of thousands of dollars per acre. This immense value triggers fierce bidding wars, pitting local traditional farmers striving to preserve their heritage against outside real estate and data developers.

So what are the driving forces behind Shapiro’s latest pronouncement? All of the above? Some of the above? Take your pick.

In reality, these motives do not exist in isolation; they are symbiotic. Public health fearmongering provides the moral cover, partisan mandates deliver the political will, and the immense value of Lancaster County’s soil offers the ultimate economic prize.

Originally posted on HealthFreedomDefense.org.

The controversy over mRNA COVID-19 injections and miscarriage is back in the news, as newly released communications show that Dr. Anthony Fauci and other officials were privately discussing the safety of mRNA injections in pregnant women. The communications not only included Dr. Fauci brushing aside concerns from Nobel-Prize-winning scientists in the area of reproductive health and the mRNA technology, but also text messages in which the former White House advisor and NIAID Director openly admitted theoretical concerns involving cytokine responses from the injections among pregnant women.

That makes it worth revisiting one of the most disputed pieces of early pregnancy-safety data that is still cited today: the CDC-authored study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), which became the basis for widespread assurances that the injections were safe during pregnancy. Thousands of media stories were generated on the basis of this single study, which used extremely poor, potentially fraudulent statistical methods.

We previously examined this controversy after Dr. Kirk Milhoan was attacked for citing the paper’s original iteration, which showed an 81.6% miscarriage rate among those who took the mRNA injection in the first two trimesters of pregnancy. Now, critics who supported lockdowns are joined by others within the health freedom movement, who argue the data is not as alarming as it seems.

However, the weakness of all population-level miscarriage data, and the clear political and statistical manipulation in the case of this NEJM paper, only point in the direction that more scrutiny was, and is, warranted.

We Still Don’t Have Good Data

The 81.6% figure isn’t perfect. In fact, none of the available numbers are. The problem is that it remains one of the most concerning signals in a single dataset, and the original publication itself was seriously flawed. When the data supported vaccination, NEJM and the CDC were fine with sharing a percentage—when it conflicted with the narrative of safety, it disappeared.

NEJM initially reported 104 spontaneous abortions among 827 completed pregnancies—a rate of 12.6%, which they declared to be normal. But that denominator included hundreds of women vaccinated during their third trimester, when they were already beyond the period in which the study classified a pregnancy loss as a spontaneous abortion. After criticism, the authors acknowledged that 827 was not an appropriate denominator for calculating miscarriage risk. NEJM corrected the paper. But it did not replace the 12.6% figure with a corrected miscarriage rate with an appropriate denominator. Instead, the denominator disappeared, and the comparison was changed to “N/A” because they said many women in that group had not yet reported their outcomes.

In other words, after months of headlines reassuring pregnant women about the injections, the journal effectively acknowledged that the original dataset could not support the miscarriage-risk calculation it had initially presented. The original Table 4 was subsequently changed, but we kept the original version in our earlier article.

That history cannot simply be ignored in order to dismiss the 81.6% figure so easily. Until sufficiently reliable data emerge to replace it, the original dataset remains an important—and deeply concerning—reference point. The more important factor is the lack of rigorous studies investigating this risk responsibly.

The Supposed Answer Raises Its Own Questions

Some critics now point to a subsequent paper looking at the same pregnancy and vaccination dataset studied in the paper over the following months, as evidence that the original miscarriage concerns have somehow been put to rest. But that isn’t nearly as clean as it sounds, and this second paper has been sitting in preprint without peer review for over 5 years despite its importance for the public. Additionally, this follow-up analysis has a substantially different set of authors from the original paper (16 authors from the first paper were dropped and 5 new authors added), including a different lead author who was not included in the original paper.

As critics have noted, the second paper’s statistical methods deviated from the original, as did the presentation of the data and risk levels, and it crucially included thousands of new enrollments from February through July (after the initial concerning data was published and pushback occurred). This kept the original cohort of women from being neatly analyzed without potential bias to “undo” the previous, inconvenient findings that were bringing so much scrutiny to the authors and the NEJM. The second paper also relies on data whose handling and preservation have since become the subject of public and congressional scrutiny.

Indeed, a Senate investigation has raised questions about potentially missing or destroyed CDC records associated with vaccine-safety monitoring as it pertains to the original NEJM paper, and therefore, to the second as well. This makes treating any information from these papers as a definitive answer to the controversy difficult, particularly when questions remain about the underlying, missing public data, its treatment, and its chain of custody. So why are we pretending the underlying question has been settled?

What About Fertility Rates?

Another argument is that if the injections substantially increased miscarriage risk, fertility should have completely collapsed. That assumes far more women received the injections during early pregnancy than likely did. The relevant population isn’t everyone who received a COVID injection. It isn’t even every pregnant woman who eventually received one at some time. The relevant population for the original miscarriage question is women vaccinated during the first two trimesters at the height of the campaign, which took place after an already-aberrant, historical dip in pregnancy rates in 2020.

Polling even at the height of the public fear campaign related to Covid-19 in March of 2021 suggested roughly half of pregnant women planned to receive the vaccine, specifically provided that the vaccine was guaranteed to be 90% effective at preventing disease. Therefore, the actual number vaccinated during the relevant gestational window may have been far smaller, as women learned that the vaccines did not successfully stop transmission as the media was assuring them, nor were they studied in that capacity. Polling often overestimates vaccination rates for a variety of reasons. In fact, major media outlets bemoaned in 2021 that only about a quarter of pregnant women seemed to have gotten the mRNA injection.

Meanwhile, the U.S. crude birth rate is in fact lower than it was in 2021—10.7 births per 1,000 population compared with roughly 11.0 in 2021 per CDC. That doesn’t prove the mRNA injections caused widespread pregnancy loss, but neither can national fertility statistics remotely disprove a safety signal involving a limited subset of pregnancies during a relatively short period of the initial rollout. We simply don’t have a reliable counterfactual showing how many births would otherwise have occurred during the unprecedented demographic disruption surrounding lockdowns and their aftermath.

The Questions That Still Demand Answers

The real issue now isn’t whether the CDC’s own flawed methodology was perfect in the NEJM article, when it showed an 81.6% risk of spontaneous abortion among women who were vaccinated in the first trimester, as of February of 2021. It was, and is, a flawed CDC study that should never have passed NEJM’s editorial process. The issue is why, five years later, we are still left trying to reconstruct what happened from deeply flawed data, questionably “corrected” publications, follow-up analyses with uncertain continuity, and federal records that Congress is now investigating for possible destruction or deletion. Some specific questions that remain:

• Why was the original NEJM data presented in a way that produced a reassuring 12.6% miscarriage rate, only for the denominator behind that rate to later be removed? Do percentages only count when they support the CDC’s prior assumptions? Why not follow up only the women in the first study to keep it legible and statistically clean?
  

• What happened to the underlying, publicly funded CDC database, and why has its management been so poor that serious questions about provenance and chain of custody remain? What did federal officials know at the time?
  

• Why should a later, unpublished analysis with different methods—produced with substantially different authorship and after the original data had already become controversial—be treated as definitive enough to dismiss the troubling signal in the original dataset?

We now know Dr. Fauci was receiving highly concerning communications about potential risks to pregnancy from prominent scientists, including Nobel laureates, while privately texting with senior health officials about the possibility of miscarriage associated with the inflammatory response following mRNA vaccination.

The federal agencies charged with monitoring safety should have produced public data capable of answering that question. Instead, years later, we are debating competing interpretations of inadequate datasets and dubious journal corrections, all while questions remain about missing records. Unfortunately, this is no longer only about the COVID-19 injections. Uptake of those shots has collapsed, but mRNA technology is now being approved for additional vaccines, including influenza.

The unresolved questions surrounding the use of mRNA injections during pregnancy warrant analysis using rigorous, publicly available datasets that can withstand scrutiny.

Originally posted on HealthFreedomDefense.org.

The legal and institutional framework that enabled unprecedented government control over medical decision-making did not begin with Dr. Fauci—and it did not end with his departure from public office. That framework remains largely intact.

Health Freedom Defense Fund founder and president Leslie Manookian explains why meaningful reform requires looking beyond personalities and confronting the laws, institutions, and congressional failures that made medical coercion possible in the first place.

For those old enough to remember, “the town doctor,” while highly respected, was just another unassuming neighbor. In those days, physicians were viewed much like teachers, postal workers, or any other working-class adults and thought of themselves as just that. They were not regarded as aloof deities wielding supernatural powers, nor did they present themselves as keepers of esoteric knowledge that bestowed upon them some divine status.

Most operated or partnered in small, independent private practices. They were neighbors we crossed paths with at the supermarket, area schools, and community events. Unlike today, these physicians were not celebrated for their elite institutional credentials; instead, they were valued as advocates working directly for families within their own town.

While it is dangerous to romanticize any bygone era, it is undeniable that today’s medical industry is radically different from even a few decades ago. Personal connections once created a deep trust in the patient-physician relationship, the kind that is rarely found today.

Romantic as this image of the “folksy” doctor from fifty years ago sounds, that traditional physician was already on the verge of extinction. The foundation for a new type of practitioner had long since been established. Institutional wheels were turning quickly to replace the family doctor of yore with today’s corporate clinicians—those who answer to massive hospital networks or insurance conglomerates where rigid guidelines dictate patient care.

This radical transformation has replaced the trusted bond of the family doctor with an institutional demand for total obedience to a “medical expert.” The primary allegiance of these modern practitioners belongs to a centralized corporate system rather than to the patients they serve.

How did this shift occur? How did the neighborhood doctor—once an approachable local pillar—become an imperial minister wielding unassailable expertise?

The Flexner Report and the Rise of the Allopathic Monopoly

Although the concept of the “doctor as deity” has metastasized wildly in recent years, a look back reveals a century-old evolution. This development was merely one component of a broader structural shift driven by deliberate financial and administrative engineering.

The doctor’s transformation from a neighborhood healer into an aloof authority figure stems from the rise of scientific medicine between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. This evolution required both the institutionalization of healthcare and a tightly regulated, systematic professionalization of the field.

Far from a natural progression toward superior science, the ascendancy of “modern medicine” resulted from a calculated restructuring orchestrated by corporate philanthropies—chiefly the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations.

As detailed in Rockefeller Medicine Men, the 1910 Flexner Report served as the blueprint for systematically dismantling decentralized health practices. Flexner argued that “nonscientific” approaches should be banished from the marketplace entirely. In his view, eclectic botanical doctors, naturopaths, homeopaths, chiropractors, and osteopaths were illegitimate rivals to the standardized, research-backed paradigm being aggressively imposed at elite North American universities.

Following the report’s publication, John D. Rockefeller’s General Education Board and the Carnegie Foundation poured millions of dollars into premier medical schools that embraced the new guidelines. This targeted philanthropy cemented their preferred healthcare model, effectively forging a permanent alliance between medical education and the nascent pharmaceutical industry.

The corporate philanthropists behind the Flexner Report held direct conflicts of interest. By consolidating medical practices into a singular, standardized model, they created a captured market that aligned perfectly with their industrial investments. The Rockefeller family’s extensive holdings in petrochemicals and early pharmaceuticals meant that a drug-dominated healthcare system directly secured and expanded their corporate empires.

Before this corporate transformation, the medical landscape was filled with scores of decentralized practitioners who were far from high earners. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, these family doctors and neighborhood healers operated in a highly competitive marketplace, often bartering services for modest local fees or trade goods. It was only after the post-Flexner restructuring artificially restricted the supply of physicians and criminalized their rivals that medicine was transformed into an exclusive, high-income profession—permanently tying doctor salaries to their newly manufactured social prestige.

The consequences of the Flexner Report cannot be overstated. It was the primary catalyst that enshrined the “cult of expertise” in modern healthcare. By imposing a rigid, pharmaceutical-reductionist framework, this overhaul fundamentally altered how doctors were trained, how health was conceptualized, and how power was concentrated within the medical establishment.

The Institutional Purge and the Drive for Cultural Uniformity

Flexner’s report and the ensuing fallout completely decimated the medical landscape, forcing the closure of hundreds of proprietary, alternative, and affordable medical schools—including most institutions training female and Black physicians. By systematically defunding these academies, it effectively eradicated the formal teaching of holistic, botanical, eclectic, and homeopathic medicine.

The statistical fallout was immediate. The nation’s twenty-two homeopathic medical colleges dwindled to a mere two by 1923, before vanishing altogether by 1950. This rapid erasure was not an organic evolution in consumer preference; these institutions were deliberately choked out through legal mandates and targeted defunding.

By mandating cost-prohibitive, university-based research criteria, the state drastically consolidated the number of medical schools, systematically pricing out lower-income students and fostering a homogenous class of elite practitioners. This restricted entry transformed the medical profession into an exclusive, highly prestigious fraternity—one unified not only by standardized indoctrination but also by a uniform.

Though premier surgeons adopted the white coat around the turn of the century, the post-WWII era transformed it into the definitive uniform for all healthcare tiers. By the 1950s, hospitals and medical colleges had strictly codified its use, utilizing the garment to project authority and establish a rigid institutional hierarchy symbolized by the length of the practitioner’s coat.

The adoption of the white lab coat fostered the illusion of a physician as the infallible savior, visually separating the clinician from the “unclean” layperson. Consequently, the cultural archetype of the doctor shifted toward an omniscient, emotionally detached expert whose examination room possessed the unmistakable “aura of a sanctuary.” Within this domain, patients were expected to blindly obey instructions, surrendering their personal agency in exchange for the promise of healing.

High-Tech Temples and the Frankenstein Paradigm

Flexner’s emphasis on laboratory-based research laid the groundwork for the post-WWII explosion of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Having already been concentrated into major university hubs by this design, medical colleges were uniquely positioned to absorb massive federal grants to construct advanced biomedical laboratories.

By decimating proprietary schools, the report established a rigid, mechanistic “one cause, one cure” biomedical model. This conceptual shift laid the infrastructure necessary to support the massive technological boom of the 1950s.

Flexner’s demand for centralized university hospitals materialized fully in the 1950s, as these hubs became the sole gatekeepers of a massive new medical landscape. Consequently, the hospital underwent a profound cultural mutation: once a charitable asylum where the impoverished went to die while the wealthy were treated at home, it was re-engineered into an elite, “high-tech” temple of healing.

The intersection of the Flexner Report and the mid-century technology boom catalyzed the rise of the medical specialist. This transition fractured the holistic healer into a highly segmented expert confined to specific organs, isolated pathology, or specialized machinery. Ultimately, the art of medicine was completely dismantled, replaced by a rigidly applied, industrial science.

As academic medical centers became the sole destinations for these new technologies, the era of the medical generalist vanished. Unable to master every new machine, physicians were divided into specialized clinical departments, reshaping the hospital into a factory-like assembly line of compartmentalized medicine.

The escalating complexity of this mid-century medical shift demanded an entirely new breed of authority. By reducing the human body to a collection of isolated, mechanical parts, the biomedical model birthed an army of hyper-specialized technicians. Like Victor Frankenstein, they viewed the human form not as an integrated, living whole, but as an assortment of disparate anatomical components to be reassembled, managed, and manipulated.

Technicians who mastered the most complex apparatuses to repair these isolated parts captured both the highest social prestige and the greatest financial rewards from emerging health insurance frameworks, permanently tilting the scales of medicine away from primary care.

Resistance to this cold, mechanistic model forced the medical establishment to aggressively market its new authority. An elite tier of “medical experts,” endowed with godlike prestige, was deployed to convince a skeptical public. Their mission was to prove that sacrificing the comforting, traditional country doctor was a fair price to pay for “scientific miracles.”

In this new ecosystem of healthcare delivery, the physician was re-positioned as the indisputable decision-maker, while the patient was reduced to a compliant receptacle. Within this rigid hierarchy, unquestioning obedience became the default consumer response.

Manufacturing Consent: The AMA, Mass Media, and the Engineering of Public Trust

In the late 1940s, the American Medical Association (AMA) launched a massive National Education Campaign, managed by Campaigns, Inc., that distributed over 55 million pieces of literature to shift public trust away from community models toward a privatized healthcare system. During the 1950s, this effort evolved into a sophisticated public relations strategy.

Media empires actively collaborated with the AMA to entrench this institutional indoctrination and curate public perception. The 1950s birthed medical public relations as a highly sophisticated industry. Major studios and PR firms were deployed to deliberately erase the archetype of the approachable general practitioner, replacing it with a heroic cultural icon.

The AMA deployed full-time public relations counselors to review, script, and censor early television dramas, ensuring physicians were framed as saintly social symbols rather than cold, clinical bureaucrats. In 1955, the American Medical Association (AMA) officially created the Physicians’ Advisory Committee for Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures. The explicit mandate of this Hollywood-based committee was to establish institutional influence and control over how doctors and medical issues were framed on television.

In exchange for reviewing scripts, ensuring the accurate look of operating rooms, and giving technical advice, the AMA allowed network shows—such as Medic, Ben Casey, and Dr. Kildare—to display the organization’s official seal of approval in the credits. This effectively commercialized public deference, projecting an aura of scientific infallibility and turning the televised physician into a flawless cultural icon.

This theatrical projection of authority was not confined to the television screen; it dominated the print landscape as well. Mass-market magazines like LIFE, TIME, and The Saturday Evening Post were heavily deployed in this propaganda effort. Print advertisements routinely featured actors posing as doctors, dentists, and laboratory scientists—peer into microscopes or clutching clipboards—to guarantee the safety of everything from new antibiotics to specific brands of cigarettes.

The Hidden Curriculum: Conditioning the Next Generation

The American education system played an equally vital role in institutionalizing this public reverence. While Hollywood and Madison Avenue targeted adults, K-12 public schools were leveraged to foster blind obedience to medical authority in youths. By the 1950s, health and hygiene curricula had been thoroughly restructured around the Flexnerian, tech-driven biomedical framework.

This educational apparatus quietly cemented a culture of deference through highly specific institutional mechanisms. Throughout the 1950s, primary school health lessons systematically phased out traditional home remedies and foundational sanitation. In their place, educators introduced standardized hygiene programs designed to anchor a child’s understanding of wellness strictly within the corporate medical establishment.

Mid-century textbooks frequently featured dedicated chapters on “community helpers,” consistently elevating the physician as the heroic leader of local society. Classroom lessons explicitly conditioned children to believe that the doctor possessed a specialized, infallible knowledge that bypassed parental authority. Students were taught that the hallmark of a responsible, healthy citizen was total compliance: unquestioningly executing a doctor’s orders, submitting to routine screenings, and deferring to the school nurse as the localized extension of the medical regime.

This indoctrination was visually reinforced by the post-WWII boom of 16mm instructional films in public classrooms. Sponsored by state health boards and corporate entities, features like Your Friend the Doctor were projected to millions of children. These reels carefully curated the image of the white-coated physician as an omniscient, patriarchal figure. By systematically replacing childhood anxiety with a manufactured sense of wonder, the classroom conditioned a new demographic to accept the cold, mechanical structure of medicine as an unmitigated force for good.

As this administrative grip solidified, public classrooms increasingly partnered with area medical boards to host mandatory in-school physicals, dental screenings, and widespread vaccination drives. Through these compulsory clinics, the school building itself was transformed into a site of medical surveillance, bureaucratic mapping, and state validation.

When a child fell ill, a parent’s testimony was no longer legally sufficient; the state mandated a signature from a licensed, vetted physician to validate the absence. This administrative hurdle deeply ingrained a subtle psychological lesson in both parents and children: an individual’s natural biology was invalid until verified and certified by an elite “expert” class.

Operated through this powerful ‘hidden curriculum,’ the classroom functioned as the ultimate long-term PR factory. Long before an American child ever stepped into an exam room, they had already been systematically conditioned by teachers, textbooks, and projected films to gaze up at the white coat with absolute theological reverence.

Defending the Monopoly: The War on Alternative Medicine

Simultaneously, the AMA systematically labeled competing traditions as “quackery” to protect its allopathic monopoly. This anti-competitive conspiracy was later exposed in federal court during a landmark antitrust lawsuit, Wilk v. AMA. Historical records archived on PubMed reveal that the AMA’s Committee on Quackery operated under a documented mandate for the “containment and ultimate elimination” of rival fields like chiropractic. To execute this, the committee weaponized public media, broadcast targeted propaganda, and strictly prohibited medical doctors from collaborating with independent practitioners.

This institutional hostility was baked into organized medicine from its inception. Following the deliberate formation of the AMA in 1846 to defend allopathic doctors and control the healthcare market, the organization strictly forbade its members from consulting with those practicing “exclusive dogmas,” such as homeopathy. As noted in the original text of the 1847 AMA Code of Ethics, this exclusionary policy viewed the widespread popularity of homeopathic medicine as an existential threat to allopathic dominance.

Doctors who dared to collaborate with these rival practitioners faced immediate professional ostracization and expulsion from the association. This early ethical ban was not a measure to protect public safety, but a calculated protectionist strategy designed to isolate competitors and choke out any healing tradition that challenged the AMA’s unfolding monopoly.

While federal courts eventually ruled that the AMA’s campaign violated antitrust laws, the structural damage to the American healthcare psyche was already complete. The Wilk trial exposed a stark truth: the “cult of expertise” was defended not by superior scientific outcomes, but by corporate boycotts and enforced cartels. Although alternative fields survived the legal onslaught, the broader machinery of medical education, insurance reimbursement, and hospital administration had hardened into a rigid, closed-loop network—setting the stage for the administrative takeover of the modern era. Consequently, healthcare entered the late 20th century completely captured by institutional structures, permanently displacing the autonomous general practitioner.

As this evolution demonstrates, the structural foundations of the “cult of medical expertise” were established over a century ago and aggressively accelerated during the post-war decades.

The presence of these clinical figures has expanded exponentially over the past forty years, propelled by major structural shifts in the industry. In the late 20th century, an encounter with medical authority was rare—confined to a private examination room or a brief segment on the evening news. Today, the “medical expert” is an inescapable cultural fixture, manufactured by corporate media, industry lobbying, and state-sanctioned health policies.

The Media Machine: From Pundit Doctors to Social Influencers

This visibility exploded with the birth of the 24-hour news cycle, as networks began relying on round-the-clock panel discussions to dissect daily events. Within this relentless broadcasting apparatus, medical expertise was systematically commodified into a media product, and the “celebrity doctor” became a permanent staple of television infotainment. Clinicians were no longer confined to treating individual patients; they were contracted to perform authoritative personas, delivering televised commentary on everything from macro health policy to seasonal flu trends.

Compounding this media saturation, the FDA’s relaxation of restrictions on direct-to-consumer broadcast commercials in 1997 allowed pharmaceutical firms to flood the airwaves with billions of dollars in marketing. These promotions crafted a powerful cultural narrative that framed the clinical “expert” as the indispensable gatekeeper to a better life. By constantly instructing citizens to consult medical authorities to solve everyday human problems, the industry drastically expanded its regulatory and financial footprint across daily life.

Capitalizing on this commercial wave, the 1990s and 2000s witnessed the emergence of ultra-popular daytime “celebrity doctors.” These figures systematically weaponized the “priestly” authority of the white coat, translating clinical reverence into lucrative multimedia networks.

With the dawn of the smartphone era, this archetype evolved yet again. Legally credentialed physicians migrated to decentralized social media platforms to curate highly lucrative personal brands. Within these digital spaces, they position themselves as algorithmic sentinels—leveraging their “expert” status to wage a virtue-driven crusade against online “misinformation” to enforce institutional conformity.

Forty years ago, the doctor figure was an individual clinician sought out during moments of illness. Today, the “medical expert” has been transformed into an institutional brand, a media archetype, and an algorithmic fixture in our digital feeds—actively shaping legislation, driving corporate policy, and dictating the parameters of daily life.

Disease Mongering and Health as a Wall Street Asset

Crucially, this entire trajectory proves that the transformation of the physician into an unyielding, omniscient authority was never an organic societal progression; it was a top-down corporate mandate. This systemic overhaul was entirely deliberate—the inevitable product of an institutional blueprint that prized administrative compliance over human healing.

The commercial motive behind this engineering was clear. As healthcare morphed from a local trade into a multi-billion-dollar corporate enterprise, pharmaceutical firms recognized a lucrative truth: the most efficient way to sell treatments was to employ this newly minted “expert class” as their ultimate, trusted sales force.

These credentialed figures are deployed to invent or artificially expand diagnostic categories, triggering a self-perpetuating loop of “disease mongering.” The clinician classifies a routine human experience as a sickness to be eliminated, the pharmaceutical cartel manufactures a lifelong chemical dependency for it, and a conditioned public learns to fear a fundamental part of existence.

A healthy person is a commercial dead end, and a cured individual is a lost consumer. Consequently, the ultimate financial asset is a patient who is perpetually anxious about wellness and managed by a lifelong prescription. By funding a medical consensus to expand diagnostic definitions—such as inventing “pre-conditions” or lowering treatment thresholds—corporations have successfully transformed hundreds of millions of perfectly functioning human beings into permanent, revenue-generating commodities.

Because modern medical authority is inextricably bound to private equity, the medicalization of daily life has become a highly lucrative enterprise. When healthcare was a localized relationship between a patient and a community clinician, it functioned as a vital human service. Once captured by Wall Street interests, insurance conglomerates, and multinational drug firms, health was fundamentally commodified—transformed from a state of well-being into a speculative financial asset.

The Colonization of the Human Condition

Ultimately, the cult of medical expertise does not merely treat illness; it invents the necessity of its own existence by framing human life as an inherent deficit requiring constant medical intervention. Within this corporate architecture, universal human experiences like birth, aging, sadness, diet, and death are stripped of cultural meaning. Instead, they are re-framed entirely as clinical deficits that demand lifelong institutional management.

Once interpreted through philosophical, spiritual, or communal lenses, complex human experiences are now monopolized by the medical industry and redefined strictly as biological phenomena. Under this paradigm, profound sadness is reduced to a “chemical imbalance,” while natural childhood exuberance or distractibility is labeled a “neurological deficit.

This transition completely obscures external realities. When an individual suffers from a soul-crushing career or a fractured community, the medical apparatus stigmatizes the person rather than questioning the systemic conditions driving the distress. The ultimate irony of this institutional design is that it actively impedes genuine scientific progress.

When medicine is treated as an infallible, omniscient ministry, it ceases to function as a rigorous science and instead becomes an instrument of social control, corporate greed, and human alienation. Genuine science requires continuous skepticism, open debate, and the rigorous testing of anomalies; conversely, a cult of expertise demands strict adherence to institutional consensus.

Consequently, this manufactured authority acts as the primary engine driving the total pathologization of human existence. It facilitates the deliberate transformation of normal, universal experiences, emotions, and bodily variations into clinical disorders that mandate professional intervention. Positioning itself as the absolute arbiter of biological and psychological truth, the medical establishment has systematically colonized everyday life. This insidious dynamic strips individuals of their autonomy, replacing natural resilience with permanent clinical and commercial dependency.

Ultimately, conceptualizing the human body as a fractured machine requiring constant corporate maintenance represents one of the most lucrative business models ever devised. The contemporary minister of “medical expertise” serves merely as a shield, insulating this enterprise from being exposed as a purely financial operation.

Originally posted on HealthFreedomDefense.org.

Subsequent to the “discovery” of Ebola in 1976, the din of hysteria over the outbreak of this “new” virus diminished considerably. But it did not altogether disappear. For the next forty years, the public was fed a steady stream of low-level warnings of a “microscopic terror” lurking in the jungles of Africa. No one was allowed to forget that this “invisible menace” was still close at hand.

To maintain that baseline of public anxiety, the media would regularly circulate reminders of smaller “outbreaks,” laboratory accidents, and “single-case spillovers.”

These minor events were broadcast throughout the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. Localized incidents were reported by various health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as in Sudan, Gabon, Ivory Coast, South Africa, and Uganda.

The “outbreaks” of this alleged highly infectious virus were essentially limited to clusters in these destitute African countries and had not yet made an appearance in first-world countries.

This tactic of repeatedly sending out memos of fear-inducing Ebola events, of framing the issue as an urgent and continuous crisis, kept worldwide audiences in a chronic state of heightened alert.

Soon enough, though, the faint hum of disquiet would be turned into a full-fledged roar of horror when Richard Preston’s steamy bestseller, The Hot Zone, was released in 1994.

Ebola Becomes A Bestseller: The Hot Zone

In 1992, The New Yorker magazine journalist Richard Preston wrote an article titled “Crisis in the Hot Zone,” which served as the foundation for his 1994 book, The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story. The book sold around 800,000 hardcover copies in its initial rollout, propelling it onto The New York Times bestseller list and exponentially magnifying Ebola’s scary reputation.

The Hot Zone was marketed just as its subtitle portrayed it: as a “terrifying true story.” The tale prompted “King of Horror” author Stephen King to call the opening chapter “one of the most horrifying things I’ve read in my whole life.”

But The Hot Zone’s description of Ebola proved to be a little “hotter” than was warranted. Preston outrageously amplified the alleged symptoms of Ebola by, for instance, depicting the disease as the cause of the “liquefaction” of internal organs, which he claimed resulted in victims literally “dissolving.” The entire hyped-up narrative left readers with the impression that Ebola produces massive, uncontrolled bleeding from every orifice of the body.

Even book reviewers who generally sided with the accepted view of Ebola denounced his wild distortions.

For example, acclaimed science journalist David Quammen criticized The Hot Zone‘s extremely graphic prose. “Ebola is not like how it’s portrayed in the book,” he groused. “People do not dissolve. Their internal organs do not liquefy. People do not shed bloody tears.” He went on to argue that Preston’s reliance on hyperbole fundamentally warped the public’s understanding of the disease. When Quammen interviewed Karl Johnson, the scientist who helped “discover” and name the Ebola virus, Johnson dismissed Preston’s exaggerated descriptions of symptoms as “bullshit” and noted that patients do not physically disintegrate.

The book’s second half focuses on an alleged 1989 outbreak of a mysterious “virus” that appeared to be infecting imported laboratory monkeys at a research facility in Reston, Virginia—just fifteen miles from Washington, D.C.

That supposedly lethal pathogen, later named Ebola Reston, was touted as the first strain of the Ebola “virus” to be detected in the Americas. Curiously, though, none of the health workers who were “exposed” to that “deadly” disease fell ill. Four lab workers did test “positive” for what were presumed Ebola Reston antibodies—but somehow they never got sick.

Yet, even though this new variant turned out to be non-lethal and asymptomatic in humans, Preston embellished the account of how a secret containment operation launched by scientists and soldiers from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases had “heroically” prevented a domestic pandemic.

As it turned out, the claimed lethality of this Ebola “variant” was restricted to the imported cynomolgus macaques who were held captive inside the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit (otherwise known as the “Monkey House”) on the grounds of the Hazleton Research Products facility. But this so-called Ebola variant, too, would fail to pass a credibility test when examined in detail.

What Preston had omitted from his cinematic terror tale, and what was missing from all news media reports, were the gruesome, all-too-real atrocities the macaques endured when they were captured then transported to the research facility. Also absent from his account were the barbaric conditions the monkeys faced once they were imprisoned inside the Reston facility.

The capture and transport conditions for the macaques involved in the Reston incident—and the broader laboratory monkey trade of the late 1980s—were notoriously severe and traumatic.

Local trappers in the coastal rainforests of the Philippines (primarily Mindanao Island) captured wild monkeys using nets, snares, or traps. They frequently targeted mother-infant pairs, usually killing the protective mothers in order to capture the highly sought-after infants or juveniles. These free-living, intensely social primates were suddenly ripped from their family units, bound, and thrown into either isolation pens or cramped holding pens packed with terrified, helpless young monkeys.

The captives were then funneled to large export facilities in coastal cities, where thousands of wild-caught monkeys from various regions of Southeast Asia were crammed into large, open-air communal cages. These export centers were so understaffed that employees couldn’t keep the cages clean, which resulted in the living quarters—if you can call them that—being heavily contaminated with vomit, feces, urine, and blood.

As if those conditions weren’t traumatizing and disease-inducing enough, the monkeys then had to endure a brutally long flight from Manila through Amsterdam to New York. They spent days confined inside small, dark, poorly ventilated wooden crates stacked on top of each other in the cargo holds of commercial airliners. Waste from sick monkeys in the upper crates leaked down onto monkeys in lower crates. The unbearable noise, dramatic temperature shifts, claustrophobic space, and their restricted access to clean food and water inevitably produced extreme physiological stress.

By the time the crates of monkeys were unloaded in New York and trucked to Reston, Virginia, the occupants were profoundly immunocompromised from weeks of terror, malnutrition, illness, and exhaustion.

The Hazleton Research Products facility was notorious for its structural deficiencies, poor sanitation, and all-around wretched environment. Investigative reports and historical accounts from epidemiologists documented major operational flaws at the “Monkey House.” Just as they had been on their harrowing journey from the jungle, hundreds of young macaques were sardined into small, stacked cages in the Reston lab. Sick and dying monkeys languished in cages on top of or next to their still-healthy counterparts. Once more, feces, urine, and blood flowed freely.

The parent company Hazleton Laboratories (which later became Covance and eventually Fortrea) had a long, documented history of health and safety violations. Decades of subsequent undercover investigations by animal rights groups exposed systemic cruelty across all the company’s regional labs. Workers were recorded physically abusing the primates, ignoring serious injuries, and failing basic compliance metrics under the federal Animal Welfare Act.

In 1990, the year following the disastrous 1989 “Ebola outbreak,” Hazleton abandoned the Reston building. Five years later, the structure was demolished. Today, the repurposed site features a commercial office block and a Kindercare daycare center.

The legacy of Preston’s popular book would mushroom, serving as the inspiration for the 1995 medical disaster film Outbreak and eventually being adapted into a dramatic National Geographic mini-series. Critics and epidemiologists alike asserted that Preston had sensationalized the plot, but their assurances didn’t prevent audiences from being terrified or quell public hysteria. Global delirium levels were off the charts. Not surprisingly, the fever pitch of the fear served as a catalyst for more funding of biosecurity and viral research—even if it did so at the expense of clinical accuracy.

The Reston story served as the first real-world domestic test of US biocontainment protocols and directly shaped modern-day US biodefense agencies. Acknowledging that the monkeys were being tortured in these experiments and that it was this suffering that caused their illnesses and deaths was off limits and shouted down by the “Ebolaganda” hysterics that broke out in the 1990s and that have been smoldering ever since.

We would be remiss if we were to write about the Ebola scare without asking the critical question, Qui bono?

Perhaps the answer could be put this way: Multibillion-dollar contracts that spanned decades of highly profitable research and development depended on the Ebola bogeyman’s continued existence. Those healthy profits—plus the prospect of even greater gains in the future—kept the burgeoning biosecurity industry humming along while they waited for “the big one” to arrive.

Sure enough, the apocalyptic firestorm they were waiting for did erupt. The year was 2014. That was when the wheels of Ebola fortune were finally put in motion.

The 2014 Ebola “Epidemic” in Africa

In 2014, the West African Ebola epidemic became world news. It was heralded as the largest and deadliest Ebola “outbreak” in history. Centered primarily in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the landmark event resulted in more than 28,600 reported “cases” and 11,325 deaths. The contagion was officially said to have originated in rural Guinea and then spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The standard version of events goes like this:

The “outbreak” began in December 2013 in the remote village of Meliandou, Guinea, where a toddler fell ill with a mysterious disease and succumbed to the illness a few days later. The two-year-old boy, Emile Ouamouno, was identified as “Patient Zero.” Retrospective investigations suggested that Emile contracted the Zaire strain of the virus from playing near a hollow tree that was home to “infected” fruit bats.

As the story goes, it was months before anyone suspected the existence of Ebola. The reason Emile’s condition wasn’t identified immediately is that the symptoms of this novel entity named “Ebola” perfectly matched other diseases endemic to the region. When he ran a sudden high fever, everyone assumed it was just a severe bout of malaria. In this remote part of the world, children regularly succumb to cholera, malaria, measles, typhoid, Lassa fever, and a host of other illnesses that have no name.

When Emile’s father took him to the village health post, he paid 20,000 Guinean francs (about 2.75 US dollars) for a bundle of basic medications. In a remote setting like rural Guinea, “pharmaceutical treatment” meant cheap, unmonitored generic medicines bought in bulk from general stores, open-air markets, or traveling vendors. Based on standard West African rural health practices for acute febrile and diarrheal illnesses, the specific low-resource pharmaceuticals used would include basic antimalarial drugs such as chloroquine or sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (Fansidar).

The initial 20,000-franc bundle of standard oral pills failed to help the youngster. So, the local medics escalated treatments.

When Emile began experiencing vomiting, diarrhea, and black stools, the nurse assumed he had a severe bacterial gastrointestinal infection and began treating him with commonly used broad spectrum beta-lactam antibiotics such as Ciprofloxacin, Amoxcillin, or Cotrimoxazole.

Then some of his family members became ill. They, too, received progressively intensive treatments. These higher tiers of local healthcare included repeated intravenous saline drips and heavy antibiotic/antimalarial injections.

But because all the medications that were tried proved ineffective, the family kept returning to the clinic for more expensive treatments.

Having determined, for example, that oral medications were useless against intense vomiting, the medical staff relied entirely on parenteral injections. The saline and glucose fluids were pushed directly into the patients’ veins, while the high-dose antibiotics and antimalarials were injected deep into the muscle tissue of their thigh or buttocks. Parenteral delivery requires strict sterility.

The clinic lacked both electricity and autoclaves (chambers that sterilize medical equipment). It also lacked chemical disinfectants that “clean” the needles between uses. Staff resorted to rinsing the needles in warm, stagnant well water or superficially wiping them down. Also, due to its persistent paucity of resources, the local village health post routinely reused needles and plastic syringes across multiple patients to conserve supplies. Medical workers frequently re-entered shared medicine vials or saline bags using a previously contaminated syringe.

When Emile’s pregnant mother began experiencing internal bleeding, local health workers assumed one of two causes: She was either suffering from an extreme complication of typhoid fever (which can cause intestinal perforation and bleeding) or she had advanced, pregnancy-related sepsis. They prescribed premium, higher-generation, broad-spectrum antibiotics, which are generally not recommended for pregnant women.

Tragically, Emile’s pregnant mom, sister, grandmother, and an aunt all passed away.

It is standard practice for doctors to omit the precise details of medical treatments and of what happens to individuals once they begin receiving those treatments. That unwritten rule of self-imposed silence appears to be in obeisance to what we might call “the pathogen uber alles” storyline. Odd to always pinpoint pathogens, isn’t it, especially considering these “outbreaks” are invariably centered around hospitals.

The unwritten rule meant no discussion was allowed about how the water supply was so inherently unsafe in Meliandou in 2011 that a catastrophic “cholera outbreak” devastated the village. Perhaps this explains why, when the health workers and the WHO officials arrived in Meliandou in 2014 to investigate the illnesses, they originally diagnosed the outbreak as a resurgence of cholera.

The unwritten rule also meant no discussion was allowed of how the illegal import, trade, and application of highly hazardous, banned pesticides in Guinea reached record highs in 2014, thanks to a perfect storm of (1) economic expansion, (2) breakdown of border enforcement, and (3) poor regulatory oversight. As a result, massive quantities of globally banned substances flooded local agricultural supply chains and found their way into water supplies throughout Guinea.

Specifically, when mislabeled, counterfeit pesticides manufactured abroad bypassed official Guinean regulatory frameworks, chemicals like Paraquat (banned or heavily restricted in many jurisdictions) and Carbofuran (highly toxic to humans and wildlife) routinely fell into the hands of Guinean farmers.

But such blatant offenses are only one aspect of the wide-ranging whitewashing of on-the-ground realities that contradict the false “Ebola” narrative. The culprits obviously want the world to blame “Ebola” instead of blaming the purposeful mass poisoning and medical mismanagement—not to mention the horrible living conditions in these rural African communities.

On March 23, 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared a “rapidly evolving” “outbreak” of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the forested regions of southeastern Guinea. Over the ensuing months, the “outbreak” “rapidly spread” to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. A sprinkling of “cases” were also reported in Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali—countries that are among the most impoverished in the world.

On August 8, 2014, the WHO officially declared the West African Ebola virus epidemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC, pronounced “fake”). That declaration marked a major turning point in global health security. From then on, the 2014 Ebola crisis completely changed the global biosecurity landscape. Public health was transformed from a technical, medical issue into an explicit hard national security priority.

Let’s pause for a moment to consider the grave implications and profound consequences of using Africa, decade after decade, as a dumping ground for banned pesticides and banned medicines and as a testing ground for Western pharmaceutical companies that regularly conduct experimental drug trials on African populations.

Let’s also acknowledge how Africa has been ruthlessly exploited for decades by colonial powers and by today’s multinational corporations.

And let’s reckon with the fact that the majority of Africans live in poverty and mass starvation despite the countries they reside in being tremendously rich in natural resources.

It has been well documented that these monstrous living conditions are responsible for bringing about every bodily affliction under the sun. Why the need to trump up a new disease?

For that answer we return to our investigation and the “Scramble for Africa.”

The Scramble for Africa

From the late 1800s to the 1930s, the “Scramble for Africa” was code language for the Western powers’ routine practice of invading, dividing, and colonizing the African continent for their own economic and political gain.

From November 15, 1884, to February 26, 1885, the European powers and the United States met at the Berlin Conference in Berlin, Germany, to establish “guidelines” for the partitioning of Africa.

Behind the polite, quaint, historical term “scramble” was a brutal process of forcibly eliminating existing indigenous states and societies in order to secure valuable raw materials like rubber, copper, gold, diamonds, and palm oil to fuel the expanding Second Industrial Revolution.

Western nations accompanied their colonization of Africa with the establishment of allopathic medical clinics, which were intended to replace traditional folk medicine. They deployed highly toxic arsenic-based drugs and often used coercive, deceptive, even psychologically and physically abusive methods to gain the locals’ trust and compliance. Everything they did was under the guise of providing humanitarian aid.

Doctors practicing in these clinics in numerous villages throughout Africa relied on harmful, even fatal, heavy-metal formulations such as Atoxyl, Tryparsamide, and Melarsoprol. These arsenic drugs and derivatives often caused permanent blindness and sometimes death. Melarsoprol, which patients called “fire in the veins” because of the excruciating pain of the injection, became the standard treatment for decades. Its toxicity killed roughly 1 in 20 patients.

These Western medical campaigns—“attacks” might be a more apt term—were not exactly sought after by the African populace. Often their true purpose was concealed. The famous German scientist Robert Koch set up an isolation camp on the islands of Lake Victoria, where he experimented with escalating doses of Atoxyl on Africans to see how much arsenic a human body could tolerate. In French Equatorial Africa, mobile military medical teams forced entire villages to line up at gunpoint. Anyone suspected of being ill was forcibly injected with toxic medications.

Along with their arsenic campaigns, Western nations deployed synthetic insecticides and chemical defoliants across Africa. They framed these operations as humanitarian efforts to eliminate pests and “modernize” the continent.

By the 1940s, European administrators had rapidly scaled up the usage of DDT across Africa with forced applications—much like the arsenic campaigns. Colonial health teams entered African villages and carried out mandatory Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) by forcing residents to empty their homes then coating the walls with heavy layers of DDT.

Under the guise of combating African “sleeping sickness,” colonial governments sprayed millions of liters of DDT and dieldrin over vast landscapes throughout Africa, decimating wildlife and contaminating water basins.

As the mid-1900s progressed and African nations began fighting for independence, Western powers dropped toxic defoliants on the rain forests and rural farmlands. This tactic was utilized as a means of stripping away the dense jungle canopy, which provided cover for independence fighters, and of systematically destroying crops that fed local populations, in order to force them into submission through starvation.

Those imperial ambitions and behaviors persist to this day. Similar to the “Scramble for Africa” of a bygone era, today the exploitation and mass poisoning continues unabated. Coincidentally, the same African nations that were at the “epicenter” of the alleged 2014 “Ebola outbreak” also happen to sit atop vast resource wealth that is now dominated by multinational corporations.

Guinea, the former French colony, has some of the largest mineral deposits on earth, including high-grade iron ore, diamonds, uranium, gold, and half of the world’s total reserves of bauxite, from which aluminum is derived.

Liberia is home to the world’s largest rubber plantation. Operated by Firestone (Bridgestone) since 1926, it has extensive iron ore deposits and vast palm tree plantations for palm oil cultivation. Liberia also possesses massive reserves of gold, diamonds, and timber as well as critical transition minerals and rare earth elements. Offshore blocks along the Atlantic coastline of Liberia hold estimated potential reserves exceeding 1 billion barrels of crude oil.

Sierra Leone possesses large stores of mineral wealth and iron ore, which supplies massive amounts of high-grade hematite to the global steel industry. The country is famous for producing gigantic, gem-quality rough diamonds and is one of the world’s top five producers of rutile, a mineral composed of the chemical compound titanium dioxide and an essential material in the production of high-performance aerospace alloys.

The extractive and agricultural industries have in a sense been a “curse” to the resource-rich Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The megacorporations coveting these metals, minerals, and agricultural products have histories of causing enormous environmental pollution, which has devastated local ecosystems and public health.

When, for example, Guinea’s hyper-aggressive bauxite boom took off in 2014, it was fueled by a flood of foreign investment and the creation of its largest bauxite consortium. Bauxite, by the way, is a sedimentary rock that is the world’s main source of aluminum and gallium.

As we said, the bauxite boom in Guinea began in 2014. The same year, the purported Ebola outbreak paralyzed Guinea’s state institutions. The Guinean Ministry of Environment was left with zero capacity to enforce regulations. This regulatory void triggered widespread unmonitored pollution—pollution of air, water, and soil across the Boké and Kamsar bauxite mining belts.

Below are blow-by-blow details of how this colossal environmental disaster swept through Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, respectively.

GUINEA

In 2014, multinational mining firms began clearing thousands of hectares of ancestral farmlands, orchards, and protective canopy forests to reach the bauxite ore in Guinea. Stripping the topsoil exposed the raw, iron-rich earth. Without the forest roots to hold the soil, the torrential rainy season that typically lasts from June to November washed thousands of tons of red mud and heavy sediment straight down the valleys.

Rivers and the streams supplying Guinea’s rural villages with fresh water were physically choked by mining runoff. The sediment turned fresh, clear water into a thick, opaque, rust-black sludge. Deep surface drilling and open blasting exposed sulfide-bearing minerals to the elements, prompting massive chemical reactions and creating what is called “acid mine drainage.” AMD is a pollutant that degrades surface water and groundwater, renders local wells toxic, destroys aquatic ecosystems, and can persist for decades or centuries after mining operations have ceased.

The same year, 2014, the infrastructure that enabled the Guinea bauxite to be transported consisted of hundreds of unsealed, heavy mining trucks that thundered down the mining belt’s dirt roads all day and night. Investigations later published by Human Rights Watch documented that, starting in 2014, Guinea villages, homes, and food crops were permanently blanketed in thick, red aluminum-oxide dust. This respiratory hazard triggered an immediate spike in violent coughing spells, asthma, and eye infections among local populations and also destroyed their agricultural yields—their food supply.

Because the government of Guinea was hamstrung by the Ebola dictates, environmental inspectors stopped visiting mining sites. The mining companies took advantage by operating with total impunity. They stopped monitoring air quality. They quit testing the public water. And, worse yet, they provided no compensation to the communities whose water and land they were ruining.

The 2014 Ebola crisis, so-called, caused a catastrophic collapse of health infrastructure in the mining towns of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The intersection of massive industrial pollution and a complete cessation of non-Ebola medical services resulted in devastating health metrics. Clinics in mining towns became isolation wards or closed down out of fear. Routine healthcare plummeted to near zero.

LIBERIA

In 2014, the long-standing environmental pollution crisis at the Firestone Liberia plantation in Harbel directly collided with the catastrophic West African Ebola outbreak. Because the nation was engulfed by a public health emergency, the environmental liabilities of the world’s largest rubber plantation took on a highly specific and dangerous form.

The Liberian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) redirected its entire staff and limited budget toward emergency health monitoring, quarantine enforcement, and Ebola response logistics. Consequently, routine audits and water-quality spot checks at Firestone’s processing facilities in Harbel ceased. Millions of gallons of untreated or under-treated factory effluents were allowed to drain unmonitored directly into local waterways.

Liberian communities reported that the Farmington River took on a dark, discolored appearance, which was accompanied by an intense, choking odor. Watchdog groups reported high levels of formic acid, ammonia, and chemical waste in the river. Local communities reported severe skin rashes, infections, nauseating chemical fumes, and the total depletion of local fish stocks—their main source of protein.

Villagers who relied on the local creeks for bathing, washing clothes, and drinking water developed skin rashes, chemical dermatitis, and lesions upon contact with the water. But anyone exhibiting acute skin rashes or abdominal pain from drinking contaminated well water was immediately diagnosed as having Ebola—a verdict that set off profound social panic.

The open-air, low-tech waste lagoons on the Firestone plantation that were used to process latex sludge continuously off-gassed toxic air pollutants. Air tracking in and around Harbel noted that concentrations of hydrogen sulfide (the “rotten egg” gas) and pure ammonia hovered at twice the globally accepted background safety limits. This chronic air pollution caused persistent eye inflammation and respiratory issues among plantation workers and nearby residents.

What do you make of these four “coincidences”:

[1] The gastrointestinal and systemic symptoms caused by drinking toxic chemical runoff from Firestone’s plantation overlapped with the Ebola diagnosis. When residents ingested or came into contact with water contaminated by the factory’s chemical effluents, they suffered acute physical reactions that perfectly matched the WHO’s early clinical assessments of Ebola.

[2] The abdominal pain and vomiting caused by the ingestion of ammonium nitrate and formic acid were the same symptoms that were used as the primary red flags by health teams to identify potential Ebola “cases.”

[3] The bloody diarrhea caused by ingesting high concentrations of rubber-processing chemicals was the very same symptom that would be classified as a definitive sign of “Ebola-induced hemorrhagic progression.”

[4] The nosebleeds and internal irritation and chronic headaches caused by inhaling the airborne ammonia and acid vapors that were hovering over waste lagoons were the same symptoms that “health workers” would misidentify as “Ebola-induced hemorrhaging.”

SIERRA LEONE

Sierra Leone is exceptionally rich in mineral resources such as gem-quality diamonds, rutile, bauxite, gold, and iron ore. But, despite this mineral wealth, the exploitation of resources failed to translate into a higher standard of living for everyday citizens in the country. In 2014, almost three-quarters of the population—72.5%—lived in poverty and the Gross National Income per capita was a mere $660.

The mining boom of 2014 in Sierra Leone triggered harsh human rights abuses and land dispute issues.

Hand in hand with the 2014 mining boom was drastic environmental pollution that ravaged local ecosystems and communities. Weak oversight by the regulatory authorities permitted major mining concessions to prioritize rapid extraction over environmental safeguards, leaving behind a toxic legacy.

Massive iron ore operations in Sierra Leone districts like Tonkolili and Port Loko generated millions of tons of waste. Tailings dams frequently leaked, discharging thick, iron-rich sludge and hazardous chemical waste directly into vital waterways like the Pampana River, the Rokel River, and the Tonkolili River.

Siltation choked local streams, wiping out fish populations that riverside villages relied on for protein. The bodies of water became unfit for drinking, washing, and agricultural irrigation. Multi-ton open-cast mining operations cleared large swaths of pristine rainforests and rich topsoil, destroying local biodiversity. The removal of topsoil coupled with chemical contamination permanently degraded the fertility of surrounding farmlands. The overall effect was to strip thousands of Sierra Leone’s indigenous farmers of their livelihood and to precipitate a localized food security crisis.

The water contamination caused by Sierra Leone’s 2014 mining boom generated long-term public health crises in the rural populations. Because local communities rely on major river systems—Pampana, Rokel, and Sewa—for drinking, cooking, and fishing, the discharge of toxic waste led to chemical poisoning of humans and non-humans.

Longitudinal tracking published via the US EPA Reference Database shows that riverine populations face dangerously high lifetime cancer risks from ingesting contaminated water and fish. The mean lifetime cancer risk for children living near mining zones along the Pampana River was found to be 9.42 × 10⁻³—a rate significantly higher than safe global thresholds.

The surge in gold extraction in Sierra Leone led to an unchecked rise in the use of mercury, which bioaccumulates in the local fish stock. The mercury in ingested water and in the fish “attacks” the central nervous system, leading to tremors, memory loss, vision impairment, and permanent kidney and liver damage.

The use of cyanide in industrial processing and the presence of acidic mine drainage compromised the community water sources in Sierra Leone. Lacking alternative water systems, villagers were forced to use the rivers for bathing and washing, which caused skin lesions, chemical burns, and non-healing rashes. Drinking the highly turbid water caused chronic diarrhea and gastrointestinal tract infections.

At this point, readers will know what we’re going to say next. Yes, patients arriving at clinics with diarrhea, vomiting, and skin lesions from drinking toxic, turbid river water were frequently misclassified as “suspected Ebola cases.” Because the physical symptoms of chemical runoff looked so similar to the early stages of what they were calling “Ebola,” panic ensued in mining villages, and thousands of villagers fled to neighboring regions.

Accompanying the ills caused by the mining industry in Sierra Leone were the maladies caused by the agrochemical industry in Sierra Leone. Over 60% of the pesticides utilized by local rice farmers were smuggled into the country illegally. Smallholder farmers purchased these unmonitored chemicals in tiny, inexpensive batches. By routinely over-spraying their rice swamps with these pesticides, they introduced synthetic residues directly into local aquatic food chains. This widespread use of agricultural pesticides collided calamitously with the heavy-metal runoff from the mining boom, turning rural waterways into a stew of chemical drainage streams.

As you can imagine, the double-pollution exacerbated the gastrointestinal and skin toxicity symptoms that so closely and conveniently mimicked what were said to be the early stages of Ebola.

We have a question. The answer is obvious, but we must ask anyway: How is it that when the locals got Ebola-like symptoms after drinking and bathing in Guinea’s and Liberia’s and Sierra Leone’s extremely toxic water, the global public health community wanted the world to scapegoat “Ebola” rather than the chemical poisoning and the horrific living conditions?

The catastrophic impacts of this modern-day Scramble for Africa have been endemic to the whole continent. And yet the human misery that was created by the multinational corporations and their accomplices is abstract, even to the most aware of Western observers.

To express concern for, much less acknowledge, the depth and breadth of this mortal suffering is anathema to those in power. Instead, callous oligarchs and their political minions look past the suffering and see an opportunity to further their imperial objectives. The Ebola narrative is their Trojan horse whose insides are inhabited by the foot soldiers of the global medical syndicates.

The events that were set in motion by this ostensible health crisis of 2014, which lasted at least through 2016, have had immense and lasting consequences that go well beyond the tragic circumstances we have identified up to this point.

The Geopolitics of Ebola and Modern Medical Imperialism

The events that encompassed the 2014–2016 West African crisis transformed how Western governments and corporations manage (and profit from) global health emergencies. The disease they appear to manufacture at auspiciously timely moments in history—the disease named after the Congo river, Ebola—has become over the past decade the catalyst for their own self-serving technological innovation, for their own fast-tracked clinical research, and for their own multibillion-dollar funding structures.

Prior to 2014, medical countermeasures for all “emerging diseases,” including “Ebola,” were hampered by commercial disinterest and funding constraints. The 2014 “Ebola outbreak” became a historical turning point. Governments, nonprofits, and the private sector used the opportunity of that “outbreak” to activate new systems that would fundamentally reshape the Brave New World of “pandemic preparedness.” Among the outcomes: Global clinical research has been revolutionized, vaccine timelines have been compressed, and the “plug-and-play” platform model has been pioneered.

Clinical research changed directions and accelerated as a direct result of the Ebola phenomenon. Pre-Ebola, vaccine development took an average of 10 to 15 years. Commercial vaccine manufacturers showed little urgency to respond to rare “outbreaks.” But now, with the adoption of standardized “plug-and-play” platforms, sunk costs have been greatly reduced, which has given manufacturers a way to sidestep many lengthy and costly regulatory hurdles.

The shift to platform-based vaccinology radically increased the return on investment (ROI) for both private pharmaceutical companies and public health funders. By decoupling the underlying delivery mechanism from the target disease, a single successful investment now pays dividends across multiple future vaccines. This innovation has transformed vaccine development from a financial gamble into a reliable asset.

Another seminal outcome of the Ebola crisis was the creation of the World Health Organization’s R&D Blueprint for Action, which established the emergency frameworks to test Ebola treatment candidates. Those frameworks, in turn, created the legal pathways for rapid Phase I/II/III clinical trials, which later allowed the novel mRNA technology to scale globally in record time.

To ensure these radical changes would become permanent features of the global “health” landscape, new institutional structures and financial mechanisms had to be implemented.

So, from late 2014 into early 2015, four independent expert panels published reports that called for an overhaul of the current systems in order to stimulate more vaccine research and funding. These panels were composed of individuals with backgrounds in high-level biosecurity, military defense, and multinational pharmaceuticals. This cascade of high-profile evaluations led to the concept of what would become the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2015, titled “Establishing a Global Vaccine-Development Fund,” outlined a concrete proposal to proactively finance vaccines against emerging epidemic threats before “outbreaks” occur. This seminal paper, co-authored by Jeremy Farrar (then-director of the Wellcome Trust), Stanley A. Plotkin (co-developer of the rubella vaccine), and Adel Mahmoud (former president of Merck Vaccines), officially established the framework for a “public-private” epidemic vaccine fund.

Before, when “emerging” epidemic threats were said to be endemic to lower-income countries, there was no commercial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines. But now, with seed money provided by the Gates Foundation (and by sovereign governments and other major charities), CEPI has become the vehicle to solve the dilemma. CEPI was officially launched in January 2017 at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.

The scheme to fix the earlier “market failure” was a pretty simple one: Have Western taxpayers foot the bill for vaccine programs through national foreign aid budgets, public health departments, and defense spending.

And that’s just what happened. Direct taxpayer funding channels were established by Western governments to allocate tax revenues directly to organizations like Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was a founding partner) and CEPI. Those tax revenues would be used to finance Advance Market Commitments (legally binding financial contracts) and research subsidies.

After being filtered through agencies like the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the European Health Emergency Response Authority (HERA), these public funds were used by their respective federal governments to buy and stockpile vaccines under the pretext of “protecting domestic populations from global outbreaks.”

The aforementioned sweeping changes in the scientific and financial sectors were not the only “creative disruptions” that were part and parcel of the declared Ebola emergency. The 2014 epidemic also served as catalyst and rallying cry for a seismic shift in what would become known as “public health imperialism.”

Under public health imperialism, “outbreaks” are no longer seen as local or regional public health crises that need to be alleviated for the benefit of the members of that community. Instead, they are now classified as urgent national security issues and major geopolitical problems.

The UN Security Council passed Resolution 2177 in September 2014, codifying infectious diseases as “non-traditional threats to international peace and security.” This landmark resolution moved Ebola beyond a humanitarian crisis to a security priority.

In the United States the “Ebola crisis” was characterized as a “top national security priority.” To contain “the devastating Ebola virus epidemic,” the White House authorized Operation United Assistance (OUA), which sent 3,000 troops to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal under the command of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Launched under President Barack Obama on September 16, 2014, OUA marked the first time the US military was deployed to support a disease-driven, foreign humanitarian assistance mission.

AFRICOM’s expanded footprint, strategic surveillance, and security measures—all peddled under the banner of “humanitarianism”—just so happened to closely align with long-term US geopolitical objectives near Africa’s most resource-rich regions—goals all set under the guise of “humanitarian intervention.”

Obama also played the “humanitarian” card in a special session of the United Nations Security Council, where he called for a broader effort “to stop a disease that could kill hundreds of thousands, inflict horrific suffering, destabilize economies, and move rapidly across borders.” In that September 25, 2014, Security Council special session, Obama demanded an unprecedented international emergency response to the West Africa Ebola epidemic that would include a coordinated, military-grade logistical intervention.

That UN address marked a critical turning point in global health history. For only the second time in its existence, the UN Security Council declared a public health crisis to be a threat to international peace and security (via Resolution 2177). At the same time, a framework was established for militarized collaborations between health NGOs and the Pentagon. That partnership was devised to supplant America’s national sovereignty.

Before 2014, AFRICOM faced heavy resistance from African nations wary of a permanent Western military presence. The Ebola crisis provided a politically unassailable entry point. By stationing troops in Liberia and Senegal under a humanitarian mandate, the US normalized the presence of American military assets, engineers, and intelligence personnel in West Africa, a region critical for its offshore oil reserves and mineral deposits.

The Ebola entry point enabled the US military to “set the theater” in a number of ways: it built infrastructure; it secured logistical supply lines; and it mapped out vital maritime and terrestrial transport corridors. Conveniently, these logistical routes happened to be the conduits through which West African iron ore, rubber, diamonds, and oil flowed to global markets.

By framing the Ebola response as an urgent US national security issue, Washington used “public health” to counter growing competition in Africa during a period of massive Chinese investment in West African mining and infrastructure.

The 2014 Ebola response in West Africa also birthed a historic link between US military operations and civilian Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the International Rescue Committee, creating a new form of “militarized humanitarianism.”

As part of this mission, the military set up a number of Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) in Liberia, which amounted to large tents containing rows of cheap plastic mattresses. The original plan to build 17 large-scale facilities was later scaled back, and only 11 centers were ultimately built. Nine of those centers sat completely empty and never received a single patient.

Only 28 “Ebola patients” were ever treated in any of the units built by the US military. And yet approximately $360 million was spent on Operation United Assistance, which amounted to an astronomical price tag of some $12.85 million per patient. [Emphasis added.]

Back in the US, a further $5.4 billion emergency supplemental appropriation was passed by Congress in December 2014 to combat the “raging” epidemic. That amount represented the largest (at the time) financial effort by a single donor nation to manage an “emerging infectious disease crisis.”

The emergency funding package bypassed statutory discretionary spending limits under the Budget Control Act and was divided across international, domestic, and research operations.

The vast majority of the emergency package ($3.7 billion, or 69%), was dedicated to the international mission in West Africa and to building global health security networks in hopes of preventing “future outbreaks.”

Administered primarily through the USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), this money funded the international NGOs operating the Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs), purchased personal protective equipment (PPE) for foreign health workers, provided humanitarian aid, and covered international logistics.

Another $1.1 billion (21%) went to “domestic response and preparedness.” Following a handful of highly publicized “cases” on American soil, Congress insisted on allocating this sum to ensure that the US healthcare infrastructure could safely handle a domestic “outbreak.”

From that windfall, 56 Ebola Treatment Centers (ETCs) were established at a cost of around $65 million. A total of 11 patients were treated for “Ebola” in the entire United States. All of those patients were cared for in pre-existing specialized biocontainment units rather than in any of the newly designated Ebola Treatment Centers (ETCs). In other words, not a single Ebola patient was treated in any of the 56 newly designated ETCs. The feared “surge” of infected travelers entering the United States never materialized.

The remaining $515 million (10%) of the emergency appropriation was set aside for two general purposes: (1) to scale up the manufacturing and clinical testing of experimental Ebola vaccines and synthetic therapeutic drugs and (2) to provide funding to federal laboratories so they can fast-track clinical trials and create rapid diagnostic testing kits.

The systemic importance of these multibillion-dollar emergency expenditures remains evident today. Now that global “health defense” has become a national priority, it’s important to remember that the trumpet call of “humanitarian intervention” that was sounded in 2014 has become the standard pretext for military intervention in Africa.

Let’s look at the evidence for this claim more closely.

We have seen public health imperialism develop into a strategic “soft-power” vehicle for multinational mining, oil, and agricultural corporations to establish a secure foothold in Africa’s resource-rich regions. By weaponizing health interventions, multinational corporations are managing labor forces, manufacturing local consent, and neutralizing regulatory oversight on the continent of Africa. They are, in short, replicating colonial-era resource-extraction patterns.

The 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic completely dismantled the old paradigm of global health, permanently shifting it from a model ostensibly aimed at humanitarian aid to one of overt militarized national security.

Before 2014, the world treated infectious disease outbreaks as localized medical tragedies managed by doctors and charities. Today, under the “neutral” banner of medical assistance, “declared pathogens” are treated as national security threats that trigger military-style containment. By simply framing a resource-dense region as a biological or epidemiological threat zone, powerful external actors can bypass standard peacetime diplomatic, regulatory, and corporate barriers to box out global adversaries.

Under this flawless humanitarian shield, the “securitization of health” not only activates multibillion-dollar financial systems that turn pandemic preparedness into a high-stakes arena for institutional investors and venture capitalists to play in but also justifies control over some of the most coveted resources on the planet.

For this monstrosity to be considered a serious threat to “the Homeland,” the American people needed to be convinced that Ebola could at any time land on US soil. And who better to convince them of that terrifying prospect than American missionary doctors who survived “The Hot Zone.”

This is Part Three of our Ebola Series. Read Part One | Part Two. Stay tuned for Part Four: "Patient Zero" and the Tale of Two Doctors: Ebola Comes to America.

Have you ever noticed that when people argue about any hot topic promoted by the news media, most of them tend to fall into the trap of accepting the fundamental false premise of the topic du jour and then get tricked into debating the minutiae?

Put another way: They completely ignore the root assumptions the media is presenting and instead allow themselves to be distracted by minor details—details that tend to validate the narrative’s false framing.

Accepting a false assumption and arguing the finer points within that framework is known as “conceding the premise.”

Once it is brought to light that the underlying premise itself is unverified or unstable, the entire structural integrity of the contention collapses.

In the case of Ebola, the entire story line depends on the acceptance of a few major assumptions—with the fundamental assumption being that the “discovery” of this pathogen was legitimate in the first place and that it was this pathogen that was responsible for the deaths attributed to Ebola.

Before we tell this story, it may be helpful to readers to give a timeline of the various names of the country that was one of two places in Africa where outbreaks of Ebola were said to have occurred in 1976.

• 1885–1908: Congo Free State (established and owned by King Leopold II of Belgium)

• 1908–1960: Belgian Congo (annexed by the Belgian state)

• 1960–1964: Republic of the Congo (now an independent state; also called Congo-Leopoldville to distinguish it from the neighboring Republic of the Congo aka Congo-Brazzaville)

• 1964–1971: Democratic Republic of the Congo (the name change followed the establishment of the Luluabough Constitution)

• 1971–1997: Republic of Zaire (under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, the country was renamed Zaire to shed colonial associations)

• 1997–Present: Democratic Republic of the Congo, sometimes shortened to DRC (this name was restored after the First Congo War and Mobutu’s removal from power)

The Discovery: Virus Hunters On Safari

In medical lore, virus hunters are Indiana Jones-like characters who track down, identify, and study “emerging pathogens” in remote and dangerous locations.

Some of the more legendary hunters of viruses are described as adventurous and eccentric daredevils who risk life and limb in “savage” lands just so they can bring home “viral trophies” in their vials.

In the case of the purported Ebola virus, its “discovery” was a collaborative effort credited to several scientists: Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, Dr. Peter Piot, Dr. Guido van der Groen, and Dr. Joel Breman.

• Muyembe, a Congolese field epidemiologist, was the first to investigate an alleged Ebola outbreak in 1976 in what was at the time the Republic of Zaire. After he collected blood samples from a sick patient, he claimed to have found a new, highly lethal disease.

• Piot was at the time a young Belgian microbiologist who worked at the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. He was credited as the first to use an electron microscope to visualize the ostensible new pathogen using Dr. Muyembe’s blood samples.

• Van der Groen and Breman, Belgian and American, respectively, were part of a team of researchers and scientists at the Institute for Tropical Medicine and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They were involved in the early lab identification and naming of the so-called virus.

Not to be omitted from this pantheon of scientific “stars” is American Dr. Karl M. Johnson, who, along with Van der Groen and Breman, is credited with naming the virus “Ebola.”

As the story goes, Ebola got its appellation when a few of the five aforementioned scientists were hanging out late one night drinking Karl’s Kentucky bourbon and discussing possible monikers for this new-to-them infection.

They presumed the virus had first surfaced in the village of Yambuku in Zaire. But, not wanting to stigmatize the villagers, Johnson suggested naming the putative pathogen after a river.

But which river? The one closest to Yambuku on the map was called “Ebola,” meaning “Black River” in the local language Lingala.

“It seemed suitably ominous,” Piot wrote. He chose the right word, “ominous”: It served as a “suitable” forewarning of what was to come, though perhaps not in the way Piot intended.

The outlandish details supplied by the scientists who said they made the momentous “discovery” of the Ebola virus in September 1976 should raise the eyebrows of any rational observer.

Their story goes something like this:

Blood was drawn from one of the dying Flemish nuns and then preserved in a Thermos flask and flown to Belgium. The sample belonged to Sister Myriam, a Belgian Catholic missionary sister stationed in Yambuku, Zaire.

A local doctor in Yambuku packaged the blood in two glass vials and placed them inside a standard glossy-blue Thermos(R) flask filled with ice cubes. The Thermos was handed to a commercial airline pilot, who flew it from Kinshasa, Zaire, directly to Antwerp, Belgium, on a passenger (not cargo) flight.

On September 29, 1976, the package was delivered to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (ITM), where Dr. Peter Piot and his colleagues opened it. Upon unscrewing the flask, the scientists discovered that one of the glass vials had shattered during transit. Dr. Piot et al. reached into the soupy mixture of melted ice and contaminated glass shards to fish out the single surviving, intact vial.

Unaware of the “extreme danger” and not clad in the high-containment biosafety suits used today, the Piot-led scientists team examined the specimens wearing only standard cotton lab coats and latex gloves.

Even though the ice had melted and the quality of the product had been compromised, they surprisingly claimed the “viral quality” was completely intact. Through their analysis of the remaining intact blood vial, they identified what they deemed to be spectacular, worm-like pathogens. The initial qualitative claim made by Dr. Piot on October 4, 1976—the day he first examined the sample under the electron microscope in Antwerp—was simply that the pathogen looked like a massive “worm-like” Marburg virus. But the exact numerical measurements (defining the precise differences in the length of the Marburg vs. the Ebola “worms”) were not established until more than a decade later. In 1986, the scientific community officially recognized Ebola and Marburg as distinct entities, at which point they created the Filoviridae virus family.

Despite the improper temperature and the contamination, the virus inside the blood, the Piot team said, remained “remarkably viable and deadly.” They asserted that the sample had succeeded due to its extreme viral load. Sister Myriam’s blood, they maintained, contained a staggeringly high concentration of the pathogen. They insisted this was possible because, according to them, Ebola replicates so rapidly that even a compromised, diluted sample still holds millions of “active viral particles.”

So, just to reiterate the scientists’ story, even though one glass tube shattered and created a “blood soup” at the bottom of the flask, the second glass vial miraculously remained intact. They fished this intact tube out of the slop and from this tube extracted the ostensible virus. The melted ice water inadvertently kept the sample cool enough, all the way through transport, thereby preventing the proteins from degrading completely before reaching the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp.

Strangely, it was claimed that the melted ice did not ruin “the science,” and yet it was also claimed that the biological hazard had dramatically increased when the blood mixed with the water and caused the entire inside of the Thermos flask to become a “bio-hazard splash zone.”

Please note that when Dr. Piot and his team used their hands to retrieve the intact vial from the flask, they were wearing basic latex gloves. This meant that, without realizing it, they were coating their hands with what was considered a highly concentrated, live strain of a Level 4 pathogen that would have easily soaked through the gloves and into the skin.

Miraculously, no one in the Belgian laboratory was infected or otherwise harmed by this pathogen, even though it was alleged to have a 50% mortality rate. Later, when asked about the terrifying absence of safety gear, Dr. Piot replied with a matter-of-fact “Nothing happened to any of us.” But then, later still, Piot and his teammates said they had escaped unscathed due to pure luck and to the specific transmission mechanics of “the Ebola virus.”

The Origin Story

The year was 1976. Yambuku was an isolated, impoverished village in the North Central forest of what was then the Republic of Zaire and what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Not only was there no running water or electricity, but the roads connecting Yambuku to the nearest trading hub, Bumba, were mere mud tracks—poorly maintained and frequently washed away by torrential equatorial rains.

A Yambuku Catholic Mission had been established by Belgian missionaries in 1935. It was founded as part of a highly structured triple alliance between the Belgian Congo colonial state, the Roman Catholic Church, and private corporate concessions in the Belgian Congo.

The Yambuku Catholic Mission was managed by the Fathers of Scheut, a Belgian missionary order. Its Mission School was managed primarily by the Scheut priests, who employed local Congolese staff, including headmaster Mabalo Lokela. Its Mission Hospital was managed by a team of Flemish Belgian nuns. There being no resident medical doctor stationed at Yambuku in 1976, the nuns acted as the primary clinicians. They supervised a staff of some seventeen Congolese medical assistants.

Because there was no sewage system, human and animal waste contaminated Yambuku’s water sources. Villagers and missionaries routinely fell ill and died from waterborne diseases. The same untreated water supply was used to rinse the medical equipment in the hospital. No wonder rampant waterborne pathogens that caused typhoid, dysentery, and yellow fever made Yambuku’s baseline water quality highly toxic to human health.

Ebola is said to have debuted in this village around the first of September 1976. Between September 1st and October 24th, there were 318 cases of acute viral haemorrhagic fever in northern Zaire. This “outbreak” was centered in the Bumba Zone of the Equator Region, with most of the cases recorded within a 70-kilometer radius of Yambuku.

Central to the mystique of this “exotic” disease’s purported emergence is a fascinating and otherworldly explanation for its “origin.”

The WHO and the CDC ultimately settled on the bat-bushmeat theory as the leading “scientific” explanation for Ebola. According to this script, the so-called virus “spills over” from the wild into human populations via a merging of fruit bats—said to be the natural reservoir of the virus—with bushmeat (wild animal meat). The combination is said to serve as the vehicle that then carries Ebola to humans.

Though this dubious theory remains hotly contested, it is thoroughly rejected by many who consider it to be the byproduct of Western cultural myths, stereotypes, and moral judgments.

But, given the imagination of Europeans and Americans, who were conditioned to accept the emergence of an invisible threat coming from “the bush” of “deepest darkest Africa,” where “primitive things” happen, “Ebola” was an easy sell.

“Patient Zero” and Chloroquine Injections

The first recognized “case” (index case) of Ebola in Yambuku was Mabalo Lokela. On August 22, 1976, the 42-year-old headmaster of the Yambuku Mission School, a resident of Yandongi Village, was returning from a two-week driving excursion to northern Zaire and along the route allegedly purchased antelope and smoked monkey meat.

On August 26th, Lokela presented with a fever to the Yambuku Mission Hospital (YMH), where staff suspected malaria and treated him with an injection of chloroquine at its outpatient clinic. Five days later, Lokela, by then at home, grew critically ill and died on September 8. Following his funeral, 21 of Lokela’s friends and relatives fell severely ill, and 18 of them died.

Other early patients were local villagers who were visiting the outpatient clinic for routine ailments. The hospital used only five glass syringes per day. The five syringes used at the Yambuku Mission Hospital were paired with reusable metal needles, since disposable plastic syringes were not available in this remote region.

These glass syringes were reused on thousands of patients without sterilizing them between uses. The Yambuku Mission Hospital had no access to sterile water, functioning autoclaves, or disposable medical supplies. Thus, the five glass syringes allocated to the entire outpatient facility were handled through a highly dangerous routine where, after each use, the nurses placed the needle into a basin filled with warm, unsterilized surface water drawn from local streams.

At Yambuku Mission Hospital, epidemiological reports indicated that nearly all outpatients received chloroquine injections. That was the hospital’s standard procedure for any patient or staff member exhibiting a fever.

Within one week, several other persons who had received the same injections at YMH suffered what was later diagnosed as Ebola haemorrhagic fever. Almost all subsequent cases had either received injections at the hospital or had had close contact with another case. Most of these cases occurred during the first four weeks of the epidemic, after which time the hospital was closed.

A reported 11 of the 17 YMH staff members died of the disease. The documented fatality rate of the patients who received treatment at YMH was equally high. Of the 318 reported “cases,” there were 280 deaths, which represented a devastating case-fatality rate of approximately 88%.

Chloroquine is an anti-malaria drug that is known for its serious side effects. These side effects share an overlapping set of symptoms and systemic complications with what would become known as Ebola.

The primary side effects of chloroquine that present similarly to Ebola symptoms are outlined below, starting with early-stage symptoms and progressing to advanced complications:

[1] Chloroquine injections can cause nausea, vomiting, fever, and chills as side effects, which can overlap with the initial presentation of Ebola.

[2] Severe headache is another shared early symptom of chloroquine and Ebola.

[3] Chloroquine-induced muscle weakness or muscle pain also acts similarly to the body aches caused by Ebola.

[4] As the chloroquine reaction intensifies, it impacts the skin and blood systems in ways that are eerily similar to Ebola. For instance, chloroquine frequently induces severe pruritus (itching), redness, or macular rashes. Ebola has similar symptoms.

[5] Additionally, adverse reactions to chloroquine can trigger hemolytic anemia or bone marrow suppression, which presents as bruising, pale skin, or bleeding. These three symptoms mimic the early coagulopathy and bleeding abnormalities seen in Ebola.

[6] High dosage or prolonged use of chloroquine causes severe fatigue, simulating the profound prostration and lethargy seen in advanced Ebola cases.

Altogether, the symptoms for Ebola coincide fully with the side effects from a chloroquine injection. As we have noted in Part One, and as we will see repeatedly in future segments, numerous (and various) chemical toxicities will be attributed to this “new disease.”

In Yambuku Mission Hospital, almost all medication—including chloroquine for suspected malaria—was administered via parenteral injection. Parenteral injection bypasses the body’s primary protective barriers—the skin and mucous membranes—to deliver medication directly into blood vessels, muscles, or tissues. Current recommendations state that parenteral chloroquine should no longer be used because of potential toxicity.

Because chloroquine penetrates the body internally, this type of drug administration carries significant risks. Potential complications include deadly systemic blood poisoning (sepsis), life-threatening allergic reactions, shock, embolisms, nerve injury, immediate organ toxicity, cardiac arrest, and hematomas (localized bleeding).

As noted above, the unsanitary, unsafe conditions at the Yambuku Mission Hospital meant that the nursing staff administered the injections under highly compromised conditions. The five glass syringes and metal needles used each day to treat hundreds of patients were not only unsterilized, they were so badly, so barely cleansed that they often held the last patient’s blood on the tip when given to the next patient.

The significance of what was happening at this mission hospital and others cannot be overstated. In fact, the majority of the aforementioned illnesses seemed to have originated inside the hospitals.

Granted, the official World Health Organization (WHO) International Commission report does not reveal the total number of hospitalized patients who died. But historical data shows that virtually every single one of the 280 deaths had a direct link to the hospital. Roughly 85 to 100 of the deceased can be directly tracked back to being injected or treated inside the Yambuku Hospital Mission facility itself.

Dumping Toxic Beta-Lactam Antibiotics in Africa

During the 1970s and 1980s, there was intense international controversy surrounding Western pharmaceutical companies dumping banned or substandard drugs in African, Asian, and Latin American countries—drugs that were unapproved, or at least heavily restricted, in their home countries.

A classic example was chloramphenicol, which is a non-beta-lactam antibiotic. Chloramphenicol was severely restricted or banned for routine use in Europe and the US throughout those two decades because it could cause fatal aplastic anemia. Yet it was aggressively marketed and widely distributed over the counter in many African nations.

Broad-spectrum beta-lactams like ampicillin and older cephalosporins were frequently sent to African nations as “humanitarian aid” or sold cheaply by brokers after these drugs had expired or failed quality control checks (often the result of contamination during formulation) in European facilities.

European regulatory bodies fiercely policed these products and prevented the rejects from being used domestically. But they allowed the same products to be manufactured for export if the receiving country’s laws did not explicitly forbid them. Rather than destroy the failed batches and take a financial hit, pharmaceutical companies sold these “off-spec” lots to corrupt international brokers at steep discounts. Then the brokers marketed them to under-regulated ministries of health or to private wholesalers in Africa.

A significant portion of failed or expiring European beta-lactams crossed national borders disguised as “humanitarian aid.” European pharma firms discovered they could claim substantial domestic tax deductions by donating excess inventory to developing nations. European warehouses would clear near-expired or poorly stored ampicillin and older cephalosporins and ship them to Africa in bulk barrels. The shipments often lacked proper storage instructions and labels translated into the right language and even labels with the correct product names on them. Being highly vulnerable to environmental factors, these broad-spectrum beta-lactams, which had already failed quality checks in a temperate European facility, would deteriorate further when shipped to sub-Saharan Africa.

A landmark 1982 study published in PubMed detailed how multinational pharma firms systematically targeted Zaire during this time frame. It pointed out that major European firms used Zaire as a market to dump highly problematic drugs that were restricted or rarely used in Western industrialized countries. And it noted that missionaries and local health workers routinely administered these volatile, fast-degrading broad-spectrum antibiotics to the public.

More specifically, Belgian Catholic missionary networks and humanitarian entities heavily utilized these substandard or expired pharmaceuticals in their hospitals across Zaire during the 1970s and 1980s. Belgian nuns and doctors routinely received massive crates of broad-spectrum antibiotics—primarily ampicillin, amoxicillin, and early cephalosporins—that were either near the expiration date, completely expired, or rejected from European clinical distribution due to production non-compliance.

All of these shenanigans were couched in the language of “humanitarian assistance.”

The administration of substandard and expired beta-lactams to Africans during this era had catastrophic health consequences. When beta-lactam antibiotics (especially penicillins) degrade due to heat, humidity, or poor manufacturing quality control, they break down into dangerous chemical sub-products. Thus:

• The degradation products of ampicillin triggered severe, sometimes fatal allergic reactions (anaphylaxis).

• Contaminated batches of these antibiotics could contain chemical impurities that would have caused acute kidney injury or severe bone marrow suppression.

• Patients who were given the injectable form of degraded beta-lactams with unsterile equipment regularly experienced painful bacterial abscesses at the injection site.

• In severe cases, patients suffered tissue necrosis (tissue death) and gangrene, requiring limb amputations in rural clinics that lacked proper surgical facilities.

Toxic accumulation, or “poisoning,” with beta-lactam antibiotics is known to lead to several specific medical conditions characterized by moderate-to-life-threatening hemorrhaging. Under the best of circumstances, known side effects include spontaneous internal or external hemorrhages, large hematomas, severe epistaxis (nosebleeds), life-threatening gastrointestinal or intracranial hemorrhages, massive amounts of bloody diarrhea, severe abdominal cramping accompanied by severe intestinal bleeding, and other bleeding disorders.

It is well known that these bleeding conditions can absolutely occur as a result of using banned, unregulated, or counterfeit beta-lactams—and, in many cases, the danger is often significantly higher. Banned or black-market antibiotics that were routinely smuggled across borders in hot, humid, and unrefrigerated shipping containers contained a high concentration of degraded toxins. Beta-lactam rings are chemically unstable and break down quickly if not stored with precise climate controls.

By the time the compromised drug reached patients in Zaire, it had degraded into a cocktail of highly reactive chemical sub-products. These foreign degradation compounds were apt to violently trigger drug-induced immune thrombocytopenia (DITP), leading to spontaneous hemorrhages.

These banned and highly degraded beta-lactams fostered bleeding conditions that occurred through several pathways. Counterfeit or poorly manufactured batches frequently suffered from “bad mixing” during production. One pill might contain almost no active ingredient, while the next pill or vial contained a massive, toxic overdose triggering rapid internal bleeding. A patient given a substandard beta-lactam contaminated with toxic solvents was likely to also experience sudden acute kidney injury.

These beta-lactam antibiotics, most notably injectable penicillin, were routinely used by the medical team at the Yambuku Mission Hospital in 1976. They were a staple of the remote hospital’s daily operations and were used for a wide variety of bacterial infections, wounds, and systemic febrile illnesses.

Importantly, all these symptoms mirror the tragic mass hemorrhages said to be a feature of “Ebola” in its advanced stages.

Given what we know about European nations dumping these dangerous beta-lactams in Africa, specifically targeting Zaire and known to be used regularly by Belgian missionaries in their remote mission hospitals in Zaire, is it not logical to conjecture that there had to have been some disastrous consequences for the locals who were subjected to these toxic injections?

And isn’t it also quite logical to theorize that, since manifestations of “Ebola” and symptoms of beta-lactam poisoning run parallel to one another, there might have been more at work than merely an invisible microbe in the disease named “Ebola” in Yambuku?

Toxic Burials and Deadly Fumigation

A 1978 WHO Bulletin chronicles how phenol and formaldehyde became twin pillars of the environmental decontamination strategy to eliminate “Ebola.”

Traditional burials in Yambuku were deeply spiritual, community-driven events that required hands-on handling of the deceased. Local customs dictated that a proper farewell required physical touch to honor the dead and ensure their spirit transitioned peacefully to the ancestral world.

As a consequence of the supposed outbreak of “Ebola,” international health teams completely banned traditional burials and replaced them with clinical, chemical-based interment protocols.

Under these untraditional protocols, the bodies of the victims were wrapped before burial in cotton sheets that were heavily impregnated with a phenolic disinfectant. Responders sealed the rooms of deceased patients and generated formaldehyde gas on-site (often by heating paraformaldehyde or mixing formalin with potassium permanganate). They repeated this intensive fumigation process over four consecutive days.

You can imagine that fumigating sealed rooms with formaldehyde gas for four consecutive days and wrapping deceased bodies in phenol-impregnated cotton sheets would be an extraordinary level of chemical exposure for medical workers, family members, and returning villagers. Both of these chemicals are highly toxic, corrosive agents.

Formaldehyde gas is a severe respiratory and tissue irritant. Heavy exposure inside unventilated homes causes severe respiratory distress, intense burning of the eyes, chemical burns to the lining of the nose, splitting headaches, and nausea from inhaling the fumes.

Phenolic disinfectants, for their part, were heavily formulated in the 1970s with aggressive, first-generation compounds like pure phenol (carbolic acid) and cresols (coal tar derivatives). Because these formulas of fifty years ago were far more crude and concentrated than modern versions, they carried severe health risks.

These 1970s phenols were highly fat-soluble and passed rapidly through intact skin directly into the bloodstream. Once absorbed, the chemical caused “carbol marasmus” and systemic poisoning. This led to central nervous system depression, sudden drop in blood pressure (cardiovascular collapse), severe kidney damage, and dark green or black urine. Moreover, inhaling heavy phenol vapors in poorly ventilated spaces caused acute neurological symptoms.

Such a massive deployment of chemicals added yet another layer of toxic exposures faced by Yambuku villagers and medical staff.

Families who followed instructions to disinfect and temporarily leave their homes returned to closed houses trapped with heavy, toxic vapors. Anyone who moved back into a heavily fumigated house or who handled a body soaked in phenol quickly developed severe respiratory distress, vomiting, skin lesions, and physical collapse. An immediate collapse from respiratory failure and vomiting reinforced the belief that the hospital’s medicine—and the containment process itself—was a death sentence. Naturally, this belief caused many residents to flee their village.

Of course the medical industry ignored—and continues to ignore—the obvious fact that the clinical manifestations of acute phenol exposure almost perfectly matched what would retroactively and questionably be categorized as the advanced stages of “Ebola haemorrhagic fever.” The many horrible symptoms were—and still are—explained away as the “inadvertent spreading of the virus.” But is it possible that these medical “experts” have been concealing or ignoring the devastating effects of their own medical interventions on innocent civilians? Such deceit, if deliberate, is unethical. Such harm, if intentional, is unconscionable.

Two Reports and More Questions

In 1977, a three-day colloquium between the WHO and a large international contingent of members of the medical and science community was held in Belgium. Together, they produced a 280-page report, “Ebola virus haemorrhagic fever: proceedings of an International Colloquium on Ebola Virus Infection and other Haemorrhagic Fevers.”

A careful reader of this report will find plenty of clues that will in turn elicit some hard questions about what actually happened in Zaire (and elsewhere in Africa) in 1976—particularly in the hospitals.

For example, the report noted on page 93 that in the village of Yamolembia, located five kilometers from Yambuku, between September 4 and October 18, 1976, “24 persons developed probable or confirmed cases of EbHF.” Of particular interest is that “[t]he first case was a 27 year old man who received an injection at YMH outpatient clinic on 29 August,” and that “[w]ithin six days, four more persons with a history of injection at the Yambuku Mission Hospital became ill.” [Emphasis added.]

On page 94, the report observed:

“People in the community had already associated the mission hospital with the epidemic and had stopped coming to the outpatient department.”

On page 95, the report speculated:

“The source of this epidemic, although not determined exactly, probably originated in Sudan,” and “The origin of the cases in Sudan is still obscure. This epidemic was also associated with a hospital.” [Emphasis added.]

An official bulletin released in 1978 by the WHO reported that in early September 1976, several dozen patients who had received injections at YMH developed a similar febrile hemorrhagic syndrome and died in about one week. As panic set in, patients fled the hospital to avoid the “mystery disease.”

Although official historical records do not track the exact number of patients who died while physically inside the hospital building, we know that the vast majority of the region’s “Ebola” deaths had a direct connection to that mission hospital. And, as observed on page 116 of the 1977 report from the international colloquium, the “transmission” of Ebola was “interrupted by the closure of Yambuku Hospital with cessation of giving injections.” [Emphasis added.] In other words, once the hospital was closed down, the “epidemic” disappeared with it.

The Other 1976 “Outbreak”

In the late summer of 1976, another mysterious “outbreak” of haemorrhagic fever (subsequently named “Ebola haemorrhagic fever”) occurred in southern Sudan. [NOTE: As of July 9, 2011, the southern region of Sudan became the independent Republic of South Sudan.] The outbreak in the Sudanese “source town” of Nzara was said to have originated with workers at a cotton factory. The disease supposedly spread to the Sudanese village of Maridi, some 95 miles away, where it reportedly was amplified in a large, active hospital.

Because the symptoms—including high fever, abdominal pain, and severe toxemia—closely mirrored those of a severe bacterial infection, health officials and medical teams initially diagnosed the epidemic as typhoid fever. This prompted local health authorities to enact several emergency measures to contain what they believed to be a massive typhoid outbreak. One such measure was the mass vaccination campaign against typhoid they initiated in September. [Emphasis added.]

During this gigantic emergency campaign, 13,914 doses of typhoid vaccine (as well as cholera vaccines) were administered as a countermeasure.

Coinciding with this mass vaccination campaign in southern Sudan, the mortality rate of hospitalized patients increased from 25% in August to 44.6% in September and to 70% in October. The October spike came after the massive vaccination campaign was launched in September.

On the same page, D.P. Francis also observed:

“There were people infected in the hospitals, admitted initially for various diseases, who were treated in the hospitals, including injections and who 5 to 7 days later came down with usually fatal disease.”

The report omitted the active ingredients of those routine hospital injections.

Again on page 115, another co-author, M. Isaäcson, commented:

“The Maridi Hospital was a large teaching hospital and it was noted that the main victims were the student nurses.”

On page 116, the authors wrote:

“A typhoid vaccination campaign was prescribed for all medical personnel [meaning nurses] and the population at risk.”

As it turned out, 33 of the 61 nurses at the Maridi Hospital died, which begs the question: Could a typhoid vaccination campaign also have been part and parcel of the deadly hospital protocols in Yambuku, Zaire?

Unlike in Maridi, where the hospital continued operating long enough to coordinate a late-September vaccine drive, the Yambuku Mission Hospital had completely collapsed before mid-September. By then, as you will remember, 11 of the Yambuku Mission Hospital’s 17 medical staff members had already died. There was no functioning medical infrastructure left at YMH to organize or administer a vaccine campaign.

Yet, it is highly likely that individuals in Yambuku did receive typhoid vaccines earlier in 1976 as part of routine, ongoing medical care, as observed in archival and epidemiological reports that show typhoid vaccination was actively happening in the area earlier that year.

The issues surrounding the deployment of typhoid vaccines are of particular concern. We say that because the specific type of typhoid vaccine administered to the villagers, missionaries, and health staff in Yambuku in 1976 was the inactivated whole-cell typhoid vaccine. It was often combined as the “TAB” vaccine for typhoid and paratyphoid A and B.

This vaccine was eventually discontinued and phased out globally due to its severe systemic side effects. The CDC acknowledged those side effects when it formally recommended the discontinuation and removal of this typhoid vaccine from the market in 1994.

Although this history has largely “disappeared” from the annals of the “acceptable versions” of the Ebola story, as told by the Western world, it has not been lost to the African locals, who have vowed to stay away from the deadly hospitals and the toxic injections during the current Ebola scare.

This is Part Two of our Ebola Series. Read Part One. Stay tuned for Part Three.

Since its founding late last year, the founding organizations of the Medical Freedom Act Coalition (MFAC) and its partners have been working tirelessly to inform and accelerate legislative action across the nation to protect and enshrine health freedom at the state level, inspired by the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, signed into law in April of 2025.

This fight is more important than ever. It is no secret that, when it comes to medical freedom, the news from the federal level has been a mixture of encouraging and discouraging, as advocates fight from inside and outside the halls of power against entrenched governmental and corporate interests. There have been many advances, but almost as many reversals.

But the MFAC is not waiting for directions from Washington DC. Rather, the grassroots energy behind the idea that no government has the right to mandate medical interventions on the population has served as wind in the sails of the MFAC and its partners on the state level. Given that new legislation often takes many years to proceed from introduction to law, the progress to date has been remarkable:

• Twelve new states have now introduced versions of the Medical Freedom Act, including across partisan lines. Since the launch of the MFAC many other states have not yet had the opportunity to introduce new legislation, so it is likely that during 2026 and 2027 we will see many more medical freedom bills introduced.

• In Arizona, which is a political bellwether state in many ways, their medical freedom legislation has passed successfully through the legislature. Now, in signing or vetoing the bill, the governor must go on the record as being supportive of medical freedom or opposed to this most basic natural right. [Arizona SHF Page]

• In Louisiana, the Medical Freedom Act continued to gain significant momentum during the 2026 legislative session. HB1041 advanced to the Senate Health & Welfare Committee, where it received a hearing and sparked important discussion before ultimately falling short of passage. Building on that foundation, HB 926 successfully passed the House of Representatives and carried the medical freedom conversation even further, although it was not granted a hearing in the Senate. While neither bill reached the Governor’s desk this year, the legislation generated substantial support from state leaders including Surgeon General Evelyn Griffin, demonstrating growing recognition that medical freedom is a serious policy issue in Louisiana.

• Meanwhile in New England, a promising groundswell of support for health freedom is forming. Already in New Hampshire, thanks to House bill 361 passing last year, public schools may not require students to wear masks, and now a school vaccine requirement repeal bill is moving in the right direction, with 155 votes in favor, nearing the threshold for introduction. If the House can garner another 46 votes, this would be a groundbreaking development in the region for parental rights and medical freedom. The MFAC will continue to watch closely and provide resources as possible to inform voters and legislators about the issue.

In these highlighted states, as well as many others, local advocates are working tirelessly to protect all of our rights and enshrine them in law. The MFAC has provided legislative tool-kits and advocacy resources throughout the country as this movement gains momentum. Health Freedom Defense Fund and Stand For Health Freedom, as well as all of the founding partners in this effort, continue to educate and inform the public about the value of bodily autonomy and medical freedom, the natural rights that underpin them – and to codify those rights in state law.

We encourage readers and supporters to continue to spread the word about this fight, to join the coalition members’ organizations, to engage with their elected representatives, and to continue to build grassroots support for those officials who have chosen the rocky but righteous path of securing medical freedom and health autonomy for American citizens. We look forward to sharing more successes in the coming weeks, months, and years!

View original post on HealthFreedomDefense.org.

Dear Friends,

Earlier this year, we announced that our homeopathy legislation had been introduced in the House of Representatives (H.R. 7050). But now, we have exciting news!

After seven years of relentless advocacy, sleepless nights, and thousands of grassroots voices speaking up...

Our bill to protect homeopathy has been introduced in the Senate, S. 4692.

This is TRULY the moment we’ve been fighting for--to have our legislation introduced in both chambers. But it’s also the moment when we could lose it all if we don’t move fast.

The FDA has already removed homeopathic eye drops and injectables from the market. Without this bill, more medicines will disappear -- for good.

That’s why I’m asking you to take a minute right now to tell all your members of Congress-especially your U.S. Senators to:

• Support the Homeopathic Drug Product Safety, Quality, and Transparency Act. (We’re calling it the Homeopathic Medicines Act for short).

We’ve written the message for you. All you have to do is click, review, and send. Our goal is to send 90K comments to the Senate by Monday, June 15th.

SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE SENATE

It just takes a minute. Please take action by Monday, June 15th!

Here’s what both pieces of legislation do:

• Create a legal pathway for human and animal homeopathic medicines to stay on the market.

• Protect the full range of homeopathic remedies -- current and future -- that meet safety and quality standards.

• Stop the FDA from removing entire categories of medicines ever again, while retaining the power to remove unsafe or adulterated products.

• Establish safety rules tailored to the unique nature of homeopathy -- just as Congress has done for supplements, compounded medicines, and medical devices.

This is our moment of truth. The clock is ticking. The Senate needs to hear from thousands of us in the next few days to know that Americans will not allow homeopathy to be erased.

Please click below to send your message now.

SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE SENATE

Please take action by Monday, June 15th!

With resolve for homeopathy,

Paola Brown, President
Americans for Homeopathy Choice Action

Hi Friends,

I am sure you’ve heard about CBDCs, Social Credit Systems, and Digital IDs by now, right?

These are some of the biggest threats to our freedom right now - and the people running our institutions are starting to roll out this nightmare system with or without your approval.

But here’s the thing…

This Orwellian dystopia depends on one thing you still have control over. It all depends on their ability to collect and see your online data.

Without that data, it crumbles into dust. And YOU have the ability to cut off their access to your personal data.

Our friend Glenn Meder is going to show you how to protect your privacy in an exclusive, live Online Privacy Master Class.

This is a free 1-hour educational class - LIVE today at 7pm CT (8pm ET / 6pm MT / 5pm PT)

Click here to join the FREE webinar now

It’s time for you to take back your privacy...

And it’s A LOT easier than you imagine.

Glenn is an expert on teaching everyday, NON-TECHY people how to get private and secure online. So, don’t worry if you’re not a tech geek.

You’re not going to be left scratching your head – because Glenn will carefully and slowly walk through the basic steps you need to take to make your data off-limits to the power-hungry psychopaths who want to use it against you.

Privacy is quickly becoming THE issue of our time.

So, ask yourself, what kind of world will your children inhabit if you don’t do your part to defend our freedom?

The good news is, in just a few steps, you can opt out of being spied on and reclaim your God-given right to privacy.

**NOTE: Glenn goes LIVE today at 7pm CT (8pm ET / 6pm MT / 5pm PT)

Join the FREE privacy webinar

INTRODUCTION

No sooner has the ink begun to dry on the Hantavirus House of Horrors story spun by Big Media in April and May than into the spotlight steps another “global health emergency.” The new scare has quickly turned yesterday’s trumped-up tale into a fast-forgotten memory.

Enter . . . Ebola.

Why the sudden switcheroo from one viral disease to another?

Perhaps polls were showing that the hanta hype hadn’t succeeded in stirring the collective imagination?

Or maybe fear fatigue had set in, and the public was sick and tired of Big Pharma schemers crying wolf?

What’s more likely, however, is that traders who bank on making money from human phobias rejected the notion that the hunt for hanta would offer them the necessary return on investment. They required another threat—one much more sensational and alarming than humdrum hanta—to stoke folks’ fear. Surely a bigger bogeyman would unlock the door to vast money flows.

So, an updated version of “Ebola” was rolled out to replace the unimpressive hanta fable. Accounts of the Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in Uganda hit the world media circuit in late April, ramped up in mid-May, and, as of early June, are going full steam ahead.

The “Ebola” yarn is far more involved and indispensable to the corridors of power than some of the lesser microbial manipulations and maneuvers that were performed, such as the hanta hoax. “Ebola,” unlike hanta, entails much more than ordinary disease-mongering, pharma racketeering, and the usual intrigues surrounding large-scale medical deceptions.

An accounting of the decades-old “Ebola” mythos isn’t complete without mentioning:

• The colonial Scramble for Africa;

• Public health imperialism;

• The questionable involvement of non-government organizations (NGOs);

• Toxic mining operations;

• Firestone rubber plantations;

• Banned pesticide dumping in Africa;

• The coating of West African homes with poisonous insecticides;

• Highly toxic beta-lactam antibiotics;

• Toxic vaccine campaigns;

• Numerous conditions that plague Africans every day—that so-called Ebola epidemics serve to camouflage—such as contaminated water, poor sanitation, severe malnutrition, and brutal working conditions.

The current Ebola chronicle, though framed in the narrative of the pandemic industrial complex, is in fact an immense and complex mission that is being used to disguise transgressions committed by multinational corporations so they can achieve other, more obscure objectives.

Our multi-part exposé will unmask those “other, more obscure objectives.”

It will also present a comprehensive picture of the entire Ebola saga. In so doing, it will uncover and detail the illusions, the subterfuges, and the smokescreens that the authorities have concocted to fool us and scare us and get us to submit to their control.

In sum, it will reveal the harsh, hidden realities of how we got here.

Everything we’ll be writing about began long before what has been named “Ebola” even existed.

Part One: The History of the South African Gold Mines

“You have to know the past to understand the present.” ― Carl Sagan

The Witwatersrand Basin in South Africa is famous for being the most productive goldfield in human history. It has produced an estimated one-third to one-half of all the gold ever mined in the world.

Inspired by the billions-of-years-old Archean rivers, deltas, and channels that created picturesque waterfalls flowing over the quartz rock escarpment, the name “Witwatersrand Basin” comes from the Dutch Afrikaans words that translate as “Ridge of White Waters” in English.

The discovery of gold in 1886 by itinerant prospector George Harrison near modern-day Johannesburg triggered the historic Witwatersrand Gold Rush. Johannesburg was transformed from a temporary tent camp into a bustling financial and industrial metropolis.

Not surprisingly, Johannesburg soon became known as “the City of Gold.” Also not surprisingly, the South African currency, the “rand,” would be named after Witwatersrand’s last syllable, which means “ridge.”

The Witwatersrand region in northeastern South Africa, and specifically its gold mining industry, has for decades formed the backbone of that country’s economy and has influenced financial systems worldwide. Today, Johannesburg remains South Africa’s wealthiest and largest city.

In the early days of the gold rush, the miners relied entirely on open-pit and surface methods of extraction. That’s because the gold was visible on the surface of the conglomerate rock. Early prospectors could literally walk up to exposed rock outcroppings, break off pieces of the rock, crush the pieces, and sift out the gold. The first miners dug shallow trenches and open pits and used basic hand tools to find the visible gold veins just beneath the soil.

But surface mining didn’t last long. Within just a few years, the easily accessible surface gold deposits were depleted and eventually exhausted. Mining companies had to shift from simple above-ground digging to deep-level underground shaft mining to access rich mineral veins.

The gold mines were constructed to follow the downward-dipping rock layers, ultimately creating some of the deepest, most extreme mining operations in the world.

By 1910, the average depth of South African gold mines was about 1,100 feet, and pioneering operations were pushing past 4,000 feet. Today, South African gold mines are the deepest mines in the world. The Mponeng Gold Mine holds the record at roughly 2.5 miles beneath the Earth’s surface.

As large-scale gold extraction accelerated in the late-19th and early-20th centuries in the ultra-deep gold mines of the Witwatersrand Basin, it gained a reputation for being one of the most dangerous mining regions anywhere, ever.

Between 1912 and 1994, more than 69,000 South African gold miners died in workplace accidents. But that “official” death toll from accidents vastly undercounts the total loss of life. Omitted are hundreds of thousands—likely more—deaths caused by occupational illnesses stemming from the inhumane conditions the miners faced every day.

Purposely providing substandard, barbaric living conditions was a deliberate economic and social strategy the Witwatersrand gold mine owners and the South African government employed to maximize profits. By treating Black workers as temporary units of cheap labor, the mining industry built a system of intense deprivation.

The Witwatersrand mining camps were overcrowded to the extreme. Up to fifty men were crammed into a single, small concrete room. They slept on stacked, narrow bunks—prison-style. There was little ventilation, no electricity, and such poor heating that the only way the miners survived the bitter-cold winters was to stuff the wall cracks with rags. The bathroom facilities were basic, unhygienic, and shared by hundreds of workers. Their floors were frequently washed down with cold water, leaving them perpetually damp.

Drinking water was generally scarce, frequently contaminated, and stratified by race. Surface camps could rely on potable water from the South African utility company Rand Water, whereas miners working deep underground in severe dust and heat were forced to drink contaminated, stagnant water. Pooling in the rock formations, this water was frequently polluted with runoff from mine shafts.

Food quality was notoriously terrible—often described by miners as “not fit for a dog.” The Chamber of Mines strictly regulated dietary rations across all Witwatersrand compounds. Workers were rationed about five pounds of mealie-meal (a coarsely ground maize flour cooked into a thick porridge, or pap) and two pounds of meat per week. The portions didn’t meet even the bare minimum caloric needs of men who had to perform ten to twelve hours a day of grueling, heavy physical labor in extreme underground heat.

Because mining companies bought food in massive quantities at the lowest possible bulk rates, what was served to the Black miners was usually rotting and contaminated. The grains, regularly “mouldy and musty” and riddled with live weevils, should’ve been labeled: “Not for human consumption.” The small meat ration was often composed of the cheapest, toughest offal and maybe parts of heads and other scraps that were on the verge of spoiling.

The utter absence of fresh fruit and green vegetables meant the miners’ diet lacked Vitamin C and essential nutrients. Indeed, thousands of Witwatersrand workers developed scurvy, which rotted their gums, created open sores on their bodies, and caused their joints to bleed and swell under the strain of laboring underground.

Such a surfeit of unhealthy conditions was surely misery-inducing to those poor miners.

But it gets worse. Extreme thermal shock brought on by sudden exposure to a dramatically different temperature was common—and dangerous.

For example, in the wintertime, after miners had sweated through a long shift in sweltering underground shafts deep under the Witwatersrand reef, they were brought to the surface. Clad only in light clothing, their bodies abruptly encountered freezing temperatures and whipping winds on the Highveld, South Africa’s high-altitude plateau.

But perhaps the most deadly of all of the conditions they faced was inside the mines. Daily inhaling the fine silica dust from blasting Witwatersrand quartz caused widespread silicosis (lung damage), which often proved fatal. Official autopsies have been found on the miners of that era who worked in the wider Transvaal region. Their autopsies showed the average age of death for high-risk workers was around 36 years old.

There were untold thousands of other ill mine workers who returned home to rural South Africa, Lesotho and Mozambique and whose deaths went unrecorded by official mine statistics. Their numbers and the manner and cause of their deaths were covered up in numerous ways.

One way to lower “on-site” mortality data was through the repatriation system. When a migrant worker became too sick with terminal silicosis to perform physical labor, mine management canceled his contract and sent him, via train, to either an impoverished rural reserve or a neighboring country to wither away and die. Of the miners who were repatriated, nearly half were dead within a year, and 60% died within two years.

By forcing the rural peripheries of their operations to absorb the medical and economic burden of terminal illnesses, the mining companies successfully kept their on-site mortality figures lower than the actual occupational toll.

Another of their insidious tactics involved weaponizing pseudoscientific racial theories. That is, they blamed the catastrophic impacts of the unsafe mine work and living conditions on the biology and genetics of Black miners.

Early medical researchers and industry scientists on the Witwatersrand were enlisted to promote the prevalent racist theories of the day, which today we call “dysgenics.” Black bodies were deemed to be inherently defective, fragile, or unevolved. This bias allowed mine owners to evade legal and financial liability for the toxic dust, rotten food, and disease-riddled “residences” they provided for the workers.

Prominent mine doctors asserted that Black people possess smaller lung capacity, a weaker respiratory structure, and a primitive lymphatic system that absorb dust and disease at higher rates. This propaganda allowed the Chamber of Mines to argue that miners’ deaths were an inevitable biological tragedy rather than the result of underground exploitation.

When dysgenics proved insufficient to ward off accusations of abuse of mine workers, the industry titans and the colonial-era authorities utilized the recent discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) bacteria to shift the responsibility for worker deaths away from the brutal working and living conditions in the mines. TB is alleged to be a slow-growing, aerobic bacillus (a genus of bacteria) that can cause lung scarring, respiratory failure, and death, if left untreated.

So, here we have thousands upon thousands of migrant laborers suffering unremittingly in poorly ventilated mines, breathing in silica dust and thus being subjected to silicosis (permanent lung damage), and now they’re being outright blamed for their own immiseration and for fueling a massive TB epidemic.

Here are a few of the era’s “arguments” against the Black race:

• Medical journals argued that Black miners “contracted” TB because of their “primitive hygiene,” their supposed lack of intellect regarding sanitation, and their brutish tribal customs.

• The same journals argued that because indigenous Black Africans had historically lived in rural isolation, their ancestral lineage had never been exposed to tuberculosis, leaving them without any “hereditary immunity” or genetic resistance to the tubercle bacillus.

• A 1932 landmark report titled Tuberculosis in South African Natives, published by the South African Institute for Medical Research—and heavily funded by the mining industry—argued that Black Africans possessed an innate, racially distinct biological reaction to TB. It also claimed that Europeans had evolved a genetic ability to cleanly localize the infection in their lungs.

In essence, the 1932 report pushed the pseudoscientific belief that the “inferior” Black body was biologically incapable of containing TB, and was thus subject to rapid, systemic organ collapse, while the “superior” European body could internally render the bacterium harmless.

By categorizing the disease as a “racial pathology,” the report explicitly eliminated the roles played by cramped slave quarters, poor nutrition, open latrines, poisoned water, and silica dust exposure.

It also ignored the fact that White miners were given supervisory roles in rooms that were well-ventilated and at normal altitudes, were served better rations, and had sanitary living quarters, whereas Black miners were forced to do the actual drilling in unventilated, high-density spaces amid toxic dust clouds and without respirators.

The most insidious aspect of the report, beyond inventing this bogus belief of racial inequality, was the sleight of hand that inserted a newly “named” disease and “the spread” of that disease into the narrative. The combination of the brutal underground and squalid above-ground conditions had created a perfect storm for a fatal illness (silicosis) to be conveniently “disappeared” and for another fatal illness (tuberculosis) to be conveniently incriminated by this magic act.

Gaslighting, mercilessness, and even malevolence were commonplace among the mercenary mine owners.

And to what end? All of these pseudomedical and social deceptions served a massive economic purpose: saving the giant mining houses billions in compensation costs.

After 1911, if a miner died of silicosis, the mine was legally required to pay a payout or a pension. In reality, whether or not this compensation was paid largely depended on the miner’s race. White miners received both pay and sanatorium care. Black African miners, by contrast, were more often than not deemed expendable, denied benefits, and repatriated to rural villages to die.

However, if a Black miner died of tuberculosis, the mining establishment argued that TB was a “natural, biological disease” stemming from the worker’s own genetic vulnerabilities.

Question: How did this hocus-pocus play out in the Witwatersrand gold mines in the early-20th century?

Answer: Mine operators and industry-backed medical panels aggressively blamed the staggering mortality rates among Black miners exclusively on tuberculosis (TB) and a supposed “racial susceptibility” to infectious respiratory pathogens. Thus, they evaded paying occupational disease compensation to tens of thousands of dying workers for nearly a century.

Through this historical lens, we can see the blueprint of institutional duplicity and denial. We can also see the beginnings of how the medical and scientific establishments have become intertwined with corporate interests.

In our above illustration, by framing the barbaric social crimes in the Witwatersrand as a biological outbreak, mining entities and their institutional backers effectively shifted legal and financial liability away from their own oppressive operations, away from their own industrial pollution, and onto false genetic factors or invented pathogens. This tactic has served as the template for several historical case studies and has expanded in scope in the 21st century.

It’s not just avoiding liability and disguising the conditions on the ground that matter in the aforementioned corridors of power. The people in power place even more importance on the way a “crisis” is defined—because that definition will dictate where the money flows. When they frame global health crises through the lens of their own choosing, the financial outcomes for major investors shift dramatically in their favor.

Once the systemic horrors of poverty, toxic pollution, and exploitation are swept under the rug by diverting the blame to pathogens, multiple additional lines of exploitation are created.

As we’ll see, the history of “Ebola,” including this latest “outbreak,” involves virtually all sectors of political and public life on both a national and an international stage.

This is Part One of our Ebola Series. Read Part Two.

You’re Invited! (Important Class)

Click Here to Register For This Week’s Class on Protecting Your Privacy and Liberty.

Hi Friends,

Right now, as you read this . . . people are conspiring.

There is a globally coordinated attack on liberty and privacy to a level that has never been seen before in humanity.

Most of the news articles you read are designed to be distractions for the real agenda . . . the rollout of Social Credit Systems in the West.

Over the last few decades, we have seen the world radicalize in ways that could ONLY previously described as science fiction. News articles threaten of WW3, energy lockdowns, and other timely issues.

But there is a key issue that is not being talked about. In fact, I’d argue that only a small portion of the world truly understands what is going on.

Most of what you see is “theater”, as opposed to common belief the power-seekers who hold power-positions are NOT stupid. They are very smart, and acting intentionally. They are creating problems, just so they can roll out “solutions” that are designed to take away your freedom.

The truth is, there is a globally coordinated attack on individual liberty. The same like what we saw during Covid. But Covid was just a dress rehearsal. Their end goal is much more insidious.

This week, we will uncover their agenda, and most importantly teach you how we can protect our liberty. The goal of this class is not to spread a message of “doom and gloom” or create fear.

Instead, you need to be aware to understand what is happening, and more importantly so you can take action and preserve your liberty (and privacy.)

That’s why we’ve asked Glenn, an online privacy expert, to show you the necessary steps in his webinar on Wednesday, June 10th at 7 pm CT (8 pm ET/ 6pm MT/ 5 pm PT)

In the class we will cover topics like why:

· Flock Surveillance cameras are popping up all over town at break neck speeds.

· AI Companies claim that the US Department of War is using their AI Models for Mass Surveillance, and Military Operations.

· Countries all over the world (and many states in the US) are adding ID verification checks before you can access the internet.

· Countless people are being arrested for what they POST on social media.

· Taking back your privacy is not only possible—it can be easy.

· Learn how to exit the surveillance state and protect your freedom.

· And much more!

Reclaiming your privacy is A LOT easier than you think – especially, if you know where to start and have a privacy expert to guide you.

Glenn’s class is titled: EXPOSING A COORDINATED ATTACK ON LIBERTY AND PRIVACY.

You do not have to be tech savvy to take back your privacy.

You don’t need any high-level technical skills.

All you need is the ability to use a browser and a desire to protect your freedom.

Glenn will even stay on to answer your questions live!

If you feel overwhelmed because you think there’s no way to protect your online privacy, you need the strategies Glenn is giving away for FREE!

It’s time to take back your privacy.

>>> Click here to join the free privacy webinar <<<

Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF) embraces the use of information technology, when used as an emancipatory tool to guide one’s own health choices—a person can use technology to collect and analyze their own health data or to garner insights on the best way forward for their health journey. However, HFDF is also acutely aware of the danger that centralized control of many new health information technologies, and consolidated control over health data, poses for health freedom, patient privacy, and individual rights.

HFDF has therefore watched with concern as thousands of data centers have been built or expanded in the last several years across the country to facilitate the biggest growth industry in the economy, the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. This growth is in no small part due to favorable subsidies and legislative gifts from all levels of government. It is difficult to fathom the sheer scale of the data center building spree, particularly when combined with the natural and financial resources being expended on its behalf.

At this moment, at least 700 data centers are under construction in the U.S., with another 900 in development about to break ground. Already, there are more than 4,500 data centers active, consuming a larger and larger share of electricity while delivering only dubious and vague benefits. For example in Virginia, which is still seeing a boom in data center construction, roughly 25% of the power consumption in the state comes from data centers, indicating the sheer scale of this trend.

A data center’s lifespan only lasts 10-15 years, which means these centers will be continually serviced, frequently expanded or even abandoned, and much of the expense will continue to fall on the public’s shoulders, and on our shared natural resources.

No other country has anything close to the number of data centers already running in the US, so fear-mongering about Chinese data dominance is wildly misplaced (they have less than 8% of our data center capacity). Nor are data centers a natural, self-sustaining economic development. Outside of the explicitly war-making and surveillance AI companies like Palantir (which themselves largely depend on government contracts) the sector is famously unable to turn a profit, is massively subsidized by circular financing schemes, and relies heavily on continued, out-of-control growth to survive. Making matters worse, the AIs themselves reportedly have developed a troublesome self-preservation instinct that may make shutting them down difficult, should humans choose to do so.

Why is HFDF Concerned?

In two important ways, Americans’ health and medical freedom are impacted by the unprecedented wave of data center construction. The first and most obvious category includes health harms to the population because of the construction and running of these massive data centers, as well as the economic pain imposed on Americans to subsidize them.

Secondly and more perniciously, these heavily taxpayer-subsidized data centers form the underlying computing architecture of unaccountable data control and management, which has critical implications for health autonomy, privacy, and the nature of government and corporate control over our lives and our medical choices. So taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for a tool that will likely be used to control the them.

Direct Harms to the Population

It should come as no surprise, that after years of being told that AI will be replacing or making redundant millions of Americans’ jobs, these same people are not particularly excited to undergo hardships to pave the way for that happening. They are not excited to have their local wilderness areas torn apart, water tables destroyed or plundered (with water sold to companies at lower rates than the locals receive), and to be surrounded by endless noise and bright light depriving them of sleep, all to speed up the destruction of their own livelihoods.

The economic displacement can be even more immediate than lost jobs and higher water bills. Thanks to AI-friendly legislative measures, the data centers can share the transmission costs with local residents, who in effect subsidize the mega-corporations’ energy costs. To boot, data center construction and their required expansive power grids, often involve the seizure of private homes, farms, and businesses in the name of “economic progress” via eminent domain. More and more cases of this have been gaining attention as the building boom gains momentum.

The required power infrastructure expansion in residential areas carries its own risks, particularly for childhood leukemia. Moreover, no matter how many scientists (mostly funded by the corporations themselves) reassure the population that there is low health effect from huge outputs of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, the public doesn’t seem to want to live next to such facilities. Discomfort with nearby data centers is felt by a strong majority of the population—71% of polled Americans in a recent Gallup Poll are opposed to a data center being built in their area (for context, far fewer of those polled, at 53%, opposed a nuclear power plant being built close by).

Architecture of Control, Erosion of Privacy

In effect, the American people are being asked to see their natural and financial resources depleted for AI companies’ shareholders’ enrichment, as they accumulate the processing power required to scale up a surveillance grid that the population never asked for.

Last year, the White House, in one of its more dubious health policy announcements, openly outlined how Americans’ health data will be consolidated for governmental and corporate use (a “public private partnership” approach that includes CMS data) in the “Make Health Technology Great Again” initiative. This raised the specter of combining and potentially monetizing previously confidential health information, including doctors notes including prescription or private discussions on sensitive health topics.

Before that, the events of the previous half-decade have shown that the government and corporations were very quick to use and abuse technology to “track and trace” the population with little regard for privacy or even effectiveness of these tools, always in the name of public health. Indeed, the declaration of a health emergency and the imposition of emergency health laws like the PREP Act, still in force for Covid-19) was clearly seen as an excuse to violate individual rights and move more care into the digital “telehealth” realm in the name of alleged safety, all in a liability-free environment for emergency “countermeasures”. Our medical information, location, contacts, proximity to others, and assembly in groups was tracked and traced by “innovative” apps installed on smart phones, and if not for key legal setbacks against mandates and forced measures, those apps likely would have been used to implement a digital vaccine passport as was rolled out in Europe and less successfully in some parts of the United States.

But the urge to treat the population like a herd of animals seems to transcend temporary emergencies—the impulse among the powerful to track, analyze, monetize, report, predict, manipulate, and ultimately control human behavior is here to stay, even when the public is not frightened into an emergency mindset by media hysterics. The technology to collect and analyze biometrics (facial recognition, iris patterns, gait recognition, etc.) in real time has been facilitated by the rise in computing power for surveillance, monitoring, and AI analysis, which can only continue to grow if data centers continue to be built, and cameras are continually installed in public places. As usual, the surveillance infrastructure is claimed to be built for public safety, but leaks reveal that the companies that run these camera networks plan to sell the data to commercial brokers for individualized, for-profit tracking of citizens. Furthermore, there have already been numerous incidents of unlawful use of the data by law enforcement itself.

Collection and combination of health data has also transformed in recent years in a more general sense. The American health care system in its current beleaguered state is shifting toward “big data” approach, with population-scale health databases being constructed from the consolidating hospital groups and reference networks. This will logically be paired with digital identity systems based on the national REAL ID framework, contact-tracing platforms, location analytics, and even mental health behavioral prediction models being used in unison, driving the need for more and more processing power to allow these tools to mesh together and share personal-level data.

Thankfully, some legislation, regulation, and local control is emerging in each state, but this must be accelerated one town, county, and state at a time. Unless the public can reassert its will on the government and private economic elites on this issue, and slows down the runaway consolidation of information and absurd processing power, the coming years will be a critical turning point. These resource-draining data centers will provide the backbone for a high-tech fusion of digital ID, digital programmable currencies, electronic health records, insurance information, financial and social credit scores, as well as real-time personal behavior and tracking services affording government unimaginable power over individuals and their lives. No doubt the information will also likely be for sale to the highest bidder.

In the future, we can be sure that those in governmental or corporate positions of power would have far easier access to this data about the average American, than the other way around. But if we educate our fellow citizens about the issue, we can win back control of our destiny, one conversation at a time.

Much to the chagrin of many activists who were involved at some level in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement during the 2024 presidential election, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently signed a targeted PREP Act declaration that enables the federal government to support the development and deployment of medical countermeasures.

Some prominent voices in the health freedom sphere (see here and here) view RFK Jr.’s move as a betrayal and a dangerous precedent. They point out that HHS should rescind the Covid-19 PREP Act declaration rather than insert an offspring into the picture.

Other MAHA activists see Kennedy’s decision as less of a cause for alarm. They explain that the new PREP Act declaration is narrow and targeted in that it names only one drug—favipiravir—for only one disease—the alleged Andes strain of the hantavirus.

As if in damage-control mode, RFK quickly released a follow-up message, which stirred up another round of questions, comments, concerns, and rebuttals.

A key question: Why is a liability shield needed if favipiravir is safe?

A key concern: Is this decision on his part a slippery slope that can lead to future countermeasures?

Back in 2024, RFK was singing a different tune. In a post on X, he took exception to then-HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra issuing a major new amendment to the PREP Act. That amendment, which ensured that manufacturers, distributors, and administrators of bird flu countermeasures were granted immunity from legal liability, allowed for Emergency Use Authorizations to be issued for bird flu vaccines—with no liability assumed by those same entities. The US government ordered 4.8 million doses of bird flu vaccine, valued at $22 million, from CSL Seqirus, one of the world’s largest influenza vaccine providers.

When viewed narrowly, neither the 2024 PREP Act amendment nor the 2026 PREP Act declaration make much sense. But, when each is placed in a broader context, where there’s a vastly ramped-up schedule of new mRNA-based therapeutics and vaccines in the works, both declarations have an obvious goal—one that portends all kinds of rewards for insiders and harms for us outsiders.

One fact to note is that the mRNA vaccine pipeline is being accelerated regardless of which political party is in power at any given moment.

The mRNA Vaccine Pipeline

It’s not possible to overstate the degree of financial and institutional investment that has been poured into the mRNA-based biomedical revolution. Talk has been circulating for years about this coming wave of mRNA products. In established industry circles, the talk is that this “medical miracle” of biomedicine has finally and fully arrived.

Recent studies indicate there are a total of 557 registered clinical trials focusing on mRNA therapeutics, with 507 (91%) of those trials involving mRNA “vaccines.” The vast majority (roughly 93%) of these candidates are currently in Phase 0 to Phase II clinical development and are pushing towards late-stage approval.

Of this 93%, Moderna and the Pfizer/BioNTech partnership have a combined control of more than 90% of all clinical-stage mRNA vaccine development.

The mRNA cheerleaders and investors profess that their products will be a panacea not only for infectious disease but also for chronic, non-communicable diseases. They claim that soon there will be combination influenza vaccines, bird flu vaccines, RSV vaccines, not to mention melanoma treatments, gastrointestinal treatments, lung and breast cancer treatments, glioblastoma treatments, and much, much more—all under the mRNA umbrella.

And that’s not all. There will be next-gen platforms, viral vector vaccines, protein sub-unit vaccines, personalized mRNA cancer vaccines, and mRNA vaccines for low-income countries, for high-income countries, for middle-income countries. You name it, mRNA to be tailored for any and every treatment, made for any and every illness under the sun.

According to the true believers and their financial collaborators, the Utopian mRNA Brave New World has arrived. But we, the presumed targets of all those mRNA needles and, if things go as planned, inhalers, had best not expect a free ticket on what is sure to be a rollercoaster ride in this genetic fantasyland. After all, these pie-in-the-sky plans require massive investments—buckets and buckets of money. And with those investments comes the inevitable demand for robust returns.

Make no mistake. Investors in the mRNA Leviathan will entwine their projects through public-private partnerships, comprised of global corporations (including central banks), foundations (tax havens for multibillionaire “philanthropists”), policy think tanks, governments (and their agencies), non-governmental organizations, selected academic and scientific institutions, global charities, and other chosen “thought leaders.”

And we can be sure they will continue to demand astronomical amounts of money.

Knowing that, it’s always wise to ask, “Exactly who bears the brunt of these costs and who reaps the rewards?”

The Business of the mRNA Empire

Creating any empire is an elaborate process that costs an immense fortune. The current global vaccine market valuation is estimated to be between $73 billion and $95 billion.

Depending on which financial analyst you believe, the overall market is projected to hit between $115 billion and $211 billion by the early 2030s. This includes research and development (R&D), public sector grants, and clinical trial costs.

All scenarios are counting on advancements in next-generation platforms like mRNA and are primarily sustained by expected increases in public health funding. The upper estimates are betting on “high value” personalized cancer vaccines (currently being developed by Moderna and Merck) getting regulatory approval and being commercialized by 2030.

The scale of this multibillion-dollar pipeline investment requires untold amounts of capital. Where will all the funds come from?

For one, the internal budgets of global pharmaceutical firms.

For another, government agencies.

For another, “non-profit” coalitions such as the Gates-funded Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

The reason the public and non-profit sectors are injecting billions into early-stage vaccine pipelines is to minimize corporate risk.

Additionally, massive financial institutions (think Fidelity, the Vanguard Group, BlackRock, State Street, and T. Rowe Price) provide long-term capital. They hold the largest public equity stakes in the companies that design the pharma products. All of these players are fueling this mRNA pipeline—not because it benefits the public but because, naturally, they expect hefty returns on their investment.

In large part because their investments are creating the market, the financial returns are “scaling rapidly,” which simply means the returns are growing very fast and making a lot more money without spending a lot more to produce those returns.

From a commercial standpoint, the pharmaceutical industry’s global vaccine market is projected to grow from the current $50.4 billion to over $63.6 billion by 2030, assuming the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is somewhere between 4.8% and 7.3%. But, when broader therapeutic applications are included in the forecast, the total combined vaccine market is projected to reach between $118.85 billion and $145.77 billion by 2030.*

This figure is hardly to be scoffed at. Nonetheless, the true hypergrowth segment driving investor interest in vaccines is the high-margin next-gen mRNA market, which is forecast to have a 17% CAGR and a market size of around $31.3 billion by 2030.

Driving that next-gen mRNA segment is “the oncology jackpot”—the dream of all cancer researchers and their investors, who envision personalized cancer vaccines being crafted for each individual malady.

Such a fantastical mRNA bonanza would be the highest-yield segment in the vaccine pipeline. Indeed, analysts project the global personalized cancer vaccine market will skyrocket from $302 million today to a staggering $12.3 billion by 2035. This extraordinary 44.8% CAGR is expected to be realized when personalized mRNA therapeutics transition from the clinical testing phase to the production phase of these high-priced elixirs.

Underpinning all of this investment is the reality that, in the pharmaceutical world, money doesn’t chase demand; it proactively creates demand. In other words, the projected explosion of the personalized cancer vaccine market relies on a financial loop where the massive investments, the pricing structures, and the insurance reimbursement incentivize healthcare systems to adopt and promote these expensive therapies.

Keep in mind that the demand created by money is actually an artificial demand. It’s a demand on the part of industry players that “cutting-edge” pharma products and treatments be invented. The mRNA cancer vaccine is a perfect example of a specific “cutting-edge” treatment. The billions upon billions of dollars spent by Big Pharma, governments, financial institutions, non-profits, and foundations not only determine the medical consensus but also directly influence which treatments the doctors will endorse. It goes without saying that financial models designed to reimburse physicians create built-in financial incentives for them to favor high-cost “innovative” medications and treatments.

Every Good Racket Needs Protection

We started our story with the latest political dust-up in the health freedom movement specifically and in the medical industry overall. Our focus is wholly appropriate given that the mRNA vaccine juggernaut is more than just a debate about medications and treatments. This is also a monumental political battle over how public resources are allocated (or wasted) and over which recipients of that bounty are allowed to use those public resources for their private benefit.

What’s essential to understand is that public subsidies—whether through direct grants, clinical trial funds, or bulk government purchase contracts—provide the funding for a huge portion of these programs.

Usually the public has no idea that their income taxes are being funneled to private companies for the purpose of removing those companies’ biggest risks—namely, the chance that the millions spent on R&D, on marketing, and on manufacturing could result in a product that never makes it to market . . . or is a dud once on the market . . . or is defective when used by customers, thus creating significant liabilities.

Perhaps there is no instance of this government largess being so grotesquely exploited as when vaccine manufacturers and governments arrange prepurchase agreements. These contracts eliminate standard commercial risks and allow today’s vaccine makers to make some of the highest profit margins ever recorded in the history of the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition, the contracts serve as binding legal agreements under which governments commit to buying a specific quantity of a vaccine before the product has been finalized, fully manufactured, or approved by regulators. These negotiations and contracts are usually cloaked in secrecy.

And not only is there no escape clause for the governments, but they’re bound, by liability waivers, to indemnify the vaccine companies. Thus, any and all legal claims arising from vaccine injuries are picked up by taxpayers—not by manufacturers of the product. Yes, the liability shield is yet another form of subsidy, permitting these private companies to assume none of the risks but to reap the entire reward.

It’s a Political Problem

This brings us full circle back to where we began. Protection is being afforded the world’s most powerful corporations. Their profits are being guaranteed. The investor class that finances and fuels the mRNA gravy train assumes no risk. Clearly, such “baby” PREP Act declarations signed by Becerra and Kennedy are designed to protect the investors who currently puppeteer the US government.

We’ve established that the installation of the latest targeted PREP Act declaration is an abomination in and of itself.

We’ve also substantiated that what RFK signed could certainly be the initial move of a longer-term strategy, in which these “micro-acts” are rolled out every time a new mRNA product is on the cusp of being rolled out.

Furthermore, we’ve determined that RFK’s micro-act and succeeding micro-acts should be placed in the larger context of the mRNA “biomedical revolution” that has garnered billions if not trillions of investors dollars over the past few decades.

The vaccine gravy train will continue to chug along, provided the never-ending tax dollars get delivered to the pharma investors in the form of substantial grants, subsidies, and research allotments. Once that pipeline spigot gets turned off, though, all of this gravy goes away.

In the meantime, forewarned is forearmed.

*Post updated with correction on June 3, 2026 at 3:47pm MT after initial publication at 2:02pm.

You’re Invited! (Important Class)

Click Here to Register For This Week’s Class on Protecting Your Privacy and Liberty.

Hi Friends,

Right now, as you read this . . . people are conspiring.

There is a globally coordinated attack on liberty and privacy to a level that has never been seen before in humanity.

Most of the news articles you read are designed to be distractions for the real agenda . . . the rollout of Social Credit Systems in the West.

Over the last few decades, we have seen the world radicalize in ways that could ONLY previously described as science fiction. News articles threaten of WW3, energy lockdowns, and other timely issues.

But there is a key issue that is not being talked about. In fact, I’d argue that only a small portion of the world truly understands what is going on.

Most of what you see is “theater”, as opposed to common belief the power-seekers who hold power-positions are NOT stupid. They are very smart, and acting intentionally. They are creating problems, just so they can roll out “solutions” that are designed to take away your freedom.

The truth is, there is a globally coordinated attack on individual liberty. The same like what we saw during Covid. But Covid was just a dress rehearsal. Their end goal is much more insidious.

This week, we will uncover their agenda, and most importantly teach you how we can protect our liberty. The goal of this class is not to spread a message of “doom and gloom” or create fear.

Instead, you need to be aware to understand what is happening, and more importantly so you can take action and preserve your liberty (and privacy.)

That’s why we’ve asked Glenn, an online privacy expert, to show you the necessary steps in his webinar on Wednesday, June 10th at 7 pm CT (8 pm ET/ 6pm MT/ 5 pm PT)

In the class we will cover topics like why:

· Flock Surveillance cameras are popping up all over town at break neck speeds.

· AI Companies claim that the US Department of War is using their AI Models for Mass Surveillance, and Military Operations.

· Countries all over the world (and many states in the US) are adding ID verification checks before you can access the internet.

· Countless people are being arrested for what they POST on social media.

· Taking back your privacy is not only possible—it can be easy.

· Learn how to exit the surveillance state and protect your freedom.

· And much more!

Reclaiming your privacy is A LOT easier than you think – especially, if you know where to start and have a privacy expert to guide you.

Glenn’s class is titled: EXPOSING A COORDINATED ATTACK ON LIBERTY AND PRIVACY.

You do not have to be tech savvy to take back your privacy.

You don’t need any high-level technical skills.

All you need is the ability to use a browser and a desire to protect your freedom.

Glenn will even stay on to answer your questions live!

If you feel overwhelmed because you think there’s no way to protect your online privacy, you need the strategies Glenn is giving away for FREE!

It’s time to take back your privacy.

>>> Click here to join the free privacy webinar <<<

On Monday, May 18, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to consider the case of Health Freedom Defense Fund et al. v. Alberto Carvalho. By refusing to consider the plight of those whose livelihoods were lost due to unscientific and coercive vaccine mandates, the Court has shown its true colors. Rather than weigh in on thorny but essential questions of the day, it abdicated its duty to ensure that government adheres to the limits placed upon it by the Constitution. And by declining to review the case, SCOTUS has, by default, endorsed medical mandates by the state.

For almost five years since the peak of authoritarian overreach during the Covid-19 era, HFDF and our co-plaintiffs have fought for justice for the hundreds of Los Angeles United School District (LAUSD) workers who were fired for not taking a rushed injectable product in 2021.

The 9th Circuit Court went back and forth, siding at one point with the plaintiffs on common-sense grounds of bodily autonomy and the ineffectiveness of the injection. Finally, though, it sided with the defendants in its en banc ruling of all the District’s judges in 2025—essentially ruling that even if a “vaccine” like the Covid-19 injection is well-known to fail to stop transmission or infection, it can still be mandated if an administrator has a reason to think it might work to help protect public health or the vague promise of “safety.”

In so doing, it removed all meaningful limits on governmental medical mandates by including such dubious and ineffective products under the existing legal umbrella of the Jacobson vs Massachusetts ruling from 1905. This eugenics-era ruling stated that if the government has a “rational” public health interest to mandate vaccination, it can enact a fine to facilitate its implementation, overriding personal liberty. At least until now this objectionable ruling from over 120 years ago was applied when mandating vaccination only—with this recent ruling by the 9th Circuit Court, which the Supreme Court failed to correct or consider, it opens the door to abuse on a far wider scale.

By rejecting the Writ of Certiorari submitted by HFDF in this case, the Supreme Court has not only effectively kept the largest federal district in the country mired in eugenics-era policy and law, but also extended that shameful paradigm to include almost any category of medical treatment, including potentially forced sterilization, psychiatric intervention, or other horrors.

This will be looked upon as one of the darkest chapters for the high court, like Buck vs. Bell, the 1927 forced sterilization ruling that has still, amazingly, not been fully overturned. But the parallels go even further back in history—at least in 1857, with the Dred Scott vs. Sanford decision, which perpetuated slavery for another decade, the Justices had the modicum of dignity to rule publicly on the issue.

While the indifference from this Supreme Court is a devastating blow to health freedom and bodily autonomy in the short term, it is a strategic error of tremendous proportions in the long term for the coercive biomedical system. In that way, the similarities to Dred Scott are more hopeful; a failure to faithfully interpret the Constitution and consider our inalienable rights led inexorably to public outrage and a seismic change in public policy and law within a generation.

The Supreme Court’s reluctance to act in this case will only strengthen state-based and local push-back against federal excess and arrogance, and the incoherence and contradictions of the 9th Circuit Court’s most recent ruling will only shine a spotlight on the fact that “vaccine” as a functional term no longer has a cogent definition—if it is not even claimed to stop transmission or infection, how is it a unique product at all compared to other medicines?

The Supreme Court’s collective cowardice and its institutional weakness will not make this issue go away. Rather, it will accelerate the campaign for medical freedom and bodily autonomy. While this decision is heart-breaking, HFDF is more committed than ever to helping inform state-based legislative action to protect constitutional rights, and representing those Americans whose rights are violated by the unconstitutional overreach of government when it comes to their health.

Originally posted on HealthFreedomDefense.org.

Here we go again with another story about an alleged deadly pathogen that “could” or “might” or . . . well, you get the drift . . . wipe out the entirety of the human race . . . or at least make some pharma stocks rise in the short-term while priming the pump for even greater gains in the long-term.

This time it’s the deadlier-than-ever hantavirus that’s the culprit. But not just any version of hantavirus, mind you. We’re talking the Andes strain, which supposedly has the uncanny ability to leap from human to human and cause all sorts of nasty problems if left unchecked—or so we’re told.

Dutifully serving their masters, the maniacal mainstream presstitutes have opened the spigot of fear full blast to make sure every person on the planet gets fully saturated with their daily dose.

As expected—you might even say “as required”—most pertinent details have been purposely omitted by the corporate media. In fact, it appears that they—and most of the “alternative” media—are completely forbidden from doing a proper forensic analysis. Pity that, considering this tale has enough plot twists and intrigue to launch another contagion-themed Netflix series.

The short version of the narrative goes like this:

In April, an outbreak of a rare and deadly hantavirus is linked to the cruise ship MV Hondius in the Atlantic Ocean. At least eight cases and three deaths are confirmed. The main characters in the story are a Dutch husband and wife who were on a birdwatching expedition in South America, where they apparently caught the Andes strain of the hantavirus and subsequently died from the infection.

The longer version goes like this:

Leo Schilperoord, a 70-year-old Dutch ornithologist from Haulerwijk, and his 69-year-old wife, Mirjam Schilperoord, arrived in Argentina on November 27, 2025. The couple traveled by van for several months before eventually parking the vehicle in Montevideo and flying to Ushuaia, Argentina, to join the cruise. On March 27—just days before boarding the MV Hondius—they went on a birdwatching excursion to a landfill about four miles outside of Ushuaia.

On April 1, they boarded the ship. On April 6, Leo is said to have developed viral symptoms, and on April 11 he died while still on board the ship in the South Atlantic. Mirjam accompanied his body for repatriation but then fell ill herself and died in a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 26.

Of significant import is the Ushuaia municipal landfill that Leo and Mirjam visited on March 27, 2026. It’s a heavily contaminated site that happens to be a popular destination for birdwatchers who hope to spot the elusive White-bellied Seedsnipe and the rare White-Throated Caracara (also called Darwin’s Caracara).

Indeed, toxic exposures from the Ushuaia landfill are so well-known among residents that they avoid the landfill like the plague despite it being a pilgrimage point for birdwatchers from all over the world. The smoke from the burning rubbish is reportedly so intense that it “burns the throat.”

When the dump is sweltering under an especially hot sun and being whipped by especially strong Patagonian winds, the environmental hazards are amplified. On those days, a yellow weather alert warns the locals to stay inside their homes. The deserted streets are proof that they’re heeding the message. They know, from experience, that the high-knot winds will leave in their wake a greater risk of illnesses, including respiratory and skin issues, gastrointestinal infections, congenital disabilities, and cancer risks.

Historically, winds in Ushuaia during the month of March average 14 to 20 miles per hour. On the afternoon of March 27, the breeze was within that normal range. The presence of wind at the municipal landfill is a critical detail because, at 14–20 mph, the wind would have kicked up contaminated dust and toxic smoke as the couple moved around the site to photograph birds.

Burning copper cables to extract the valuable copper wire is particularly dangerous to human health, especially when the cables have PVC (polyvinyl chloride) insulation. The primary toxic chemicals in PVC include:

• dioxins and furans (byproducts that can contaminate soil, water, the food chain, and the human body);

• heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium VI, which leach into the environment and pose risks to human health). The lead from burned copper wire ash, for example, can cause neurological damage, organ damage, headaches, and high blood pressure;

• brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which include chemicals like PBDE and PBB (used in cable insulation) and which release additional toxic compounds when burned;

• hydrogen chloride gas, which transforms into hydrochloric acid (HCl) upon contact with moisture and can cause severe respiratory irritation.

Hydrochloric acid, when inhaled, causes severe burns to the respiratory tract and can lead to pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs). Delayed pulmonary edema can “drown” someone several hours—or even several days—after they leave the area where they have inhaled the toxic smoke.

In addition, the burning of electronic waste at this barely regulated Ushuaia municipal landfill is an informal but persistent practice. Burning e-waste releases dangerous toxins, including mercury vapor, lead, and cadmium. Inhaling these vapors can cause “metal-fume fever,” which has symptoms similar to what is being called “hantavirus.” Scavengers and “urban miners” frequently use open-air burning to strip insulation from wiring and extract valuable metals like copper and gold.

Other scavenging activities at the Ushuaia landfill stir up dust and smoke that aerosolizes all manner of additional toxins. Local community groups, like “Let’s Clean Ushuaia,” have highlighted hazardous waste disposal and environmental neglect in the region.

As for “patient zero” Leo Schilperoord, symptoms reportedly appeared on April 6, just five days after he boarded the MV Hondius. Those symptoms included fever and chills; gastrointestinal distress (specifically, diarrhea); stomach pain and nausea; intense headaches and muscle aches, particularly in large muscle groups like the thighs, hips, and back; and severe respiratory distress, in which the lungs fill with fluid (earlier referred to as pulmonary edema).

All of these conditions match the symptoms one would experience if poisoned by furans, by dioxin exposures, and by copper fumes (black particulate created when copper is heated to high temperatures and dispersed into the air, causing it to vaporize and then condense into microscopic solid particles).

Leo Schilperoord’s condition deteriorated rapidly after April 6. He developed acute respiratory distress, which led to his death on April 11.

The third confirmed death on the MV Hondius was of an 80-year-old German woman on May 2, 2026. Her full name and further details have not been released as of this writing.

The likelihood that the Dutch couple was exposed to highly toxic fumes from the landfill in Ushuaia is a huge point of interest that is completely omitted from the mainstream narrative.

But it’s not the only strange element of intrigue coming from the corporate-controlled media.

Another oddity pounced upon by lapdog journalists is the re-emergence of social media travel influencer Jake Rosmarin. He produced an emotional social media update in which he claimed to be trapped on board the MV Hondius during the reported hantavirus outbreak.

You may remember that Jake was last seen back in 2020, when he put out an impassioned appeal for “gorgeous, gorgeous girls” to get their covid vaccines and boosters. And now we’re supposed to believe that he serendipitously showed up on this cruise ship in a remote location as part of an international story? Really?

Of note, Jake’s sister, Rachel Rosmarin, holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Global Health and specializes in disaster recovery and global health crises at Hagerty Consulting. Curiously, she joined Hagerty in August 2020, just as the alleged SARS-Cov-2 roared onto the global scene. Rachel currently serves as a managing associate in the firm’s Recovery Division.

Also of note is that Jake’s husband, Alex Cestari, specializes in science and technology law at Ropes & Gray LLP, a Boston-based multinational law firm. Alex represented Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., a neuroscience-focused biopharmaceutical company, and numerous underwriters in bond offerings for Blackstone Private Credit Fund (BCRED). BCRED and its parent, Blackstone, have deep strategic ties to Big Pharma through multibillion-dollar R&D financing agreements and large-scale private credit facilities.

Blackstone frequently collaborates with leading pharmaceutical companies to co-fund the development of late-stage drugs in exchange for future royalties. Blackstone Life Sciences provided up to $750 million in March 2024 to fund Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine program. While Blackstone does not currently have a publicly announced direct investment specifically in a hantavirus vaccine, it is heavily linked to the primary players in the space.

Another bizarre story line involves the cruise ship itself and its “godmother.” MV Hondius is an advanced polar expedition vessel owned by Oceanwide Expeditions and is considered the world’s first registered Polar Class 6 vessel.

The ship is named after famous Dutch cartographer Jodocus Hondius. It was christened for its maiden voyage on June 2, 2019, in the Netherlands port city of Vlissingen by Elizabeth Hondius (purportedly no relation). By officially naming the ship in the christening ceremony, she became its honorary “godmother.”

And who is Elizabeth Hondius?

Well, let’s just say that when we used a search engine to find her, the snippet that appeared on one webpage described her as “a seasoned legal professional with extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry.” But when we clicked on the hyperlink to that site, the only word on an otherwise-blank page was “Whoops.”

Further searches for Elizabeth Hondius’ CV turned up some scant facts:

* She served as a legal manager for multinational pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc.’s international arm, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. (MSD).

* In that role, she was involved with the Gardasil vaccine, an MSD flagship product designed to prevent cancers purportedly caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). According to Merck’s 2025 10-K Annual Report, 13 percent of its revenue, or $8.6 billion, came from sales of Gardasil.

* While based in the Netherlands, she was part of MSD’s legal department, which frequently manages high-profile product liability cases. Her association with that company involved management and legal oversight, particularly in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Isn’t it fascinating that a Dutch cruise ship “godmother” is so closely connected to Big Pharma? We find it significant that the Netherlands has a large and growing presence in the worldwide pharmaceutical market. The country is ranked ninth globally in pharma production and is a leading center for pharma R&D.

Now let’s return to Argentina, where “godmother” Elizabeth Hondius’ “goddaughter” ship was docked. The Argentine Health Ministry and several international health bodies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), claim that the Schilperoords were infected at the municipal landfill near Ushuaia.

Yet officials in Tierra del Fuego, the province where Ushuaia is the capital city, beg to differ. They vehemently deny that their landfill was the source of the sickness. Tierra del Fuego’s director of epidemiology, Juan Facundo Petrina, insists that the province has no history of hantavirus cases and doesn’t even have the specific subspecies of rodent that is said to carry the virus.

If the dispute among authorities were made into a public pronouncement by Petrina, it might read something like: “OK, the disease might come from rats, but they aren’t our rats.”

Why all the international fuss about an alleged virus that is known to be of little consequence, even within the narrative of the pharmaceutical industry?

There’s no one answer to that question. But here are three possible scenarios:

[1] Some have suggested that the timing of this latest health scare is tied to the fact that, as of March 2026, both the United States and Argentina have officially withdrawn from the WHO, citing concerns over sovereignty, mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic, and political influence. Fomenting the “hanta scare,” then, is seen as a tactic to get both countries to reconsider their decision to exit the WHO. At the same time, it bolsters the image of the International Health Regulations (IHR), a legally binding instrument that facilitates global cooperation during health emergencies.

[2] Others have hinted at the possibility that the recent health scare is a device being used to test the waters before possibly reintroducing the control measures of the covid era (2020–2023) during this time of heightened economic crises and social uncertainty.

[3] Recent reports point to thirteen active hantavirus vaccine and gene therapy programs in the pipeline. Among them:

• The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) is developing six DNA-based “vaccines” or gene therapies that utilize needle-free jet injection technology;

• The Moderna (USA) mRNA Program is in early-stage research in collaboration with USAMRIID;

• Moderna/Korea University mRNA has a joint development project with the Vaccine Innovation Center at Korea University;

• The VIDO (Canada) mRNA Program is developing an mRNA injection for New World hantaviruses at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO);

• The Chinese Academy mRNA Program has Chinese scientists doing independent mRNA research;

• The University of Bath (UK) Antigen project is currently in the preclinical stages of creating a new antigen-based vaccine for Hantaan disease;

• SAB Biotherapeutics (SAB-163) is a broad hantavirus antibody therapy;

• Traws Pharma Small-Molecule Antiviral is at the clinical stage in finding small-molecule candidates for treatment and prevention.

These programs are at various stages of development and are hardly “market-ready.” Their very existence creates the false perception that there is a need for such superfluous items and that they’re an essential component of the pharma business model.

In reality, not only are they designed to stoke fear in the public, but they appear to justify the need for more government spending in research and development under the guise of pandemic preparedness.

There are numerous other speculations about this latest scare campaign—too many to cover here. Some are intertwined.

How many questions have been left unanswered:

What are the details of Leo and Mirjam’s four-to-five month-long journey through Uruguay and Chile before landing in Argentina? What were their experiences in the landfill? What was the condition of their health shortly after their visit to the landfill? Who else was on board the ship—and how many of them visited the landfill? Did the ship do public tourist cruises or private cruise tours? What company owns the ship?

Although the passenger manifest has yet to be fully released, reports state that “many” of that voyage’s 114 passengers were, like the Schilperoords, avid birdwatchers and scientists. Is it possibly that some of those “avid birdwatchers” visited the same toxic dump in the quest for that once-in-a-lifetime photograph?

As for passengers who became ill but were not subject to toxic exposures at a landfill, there are many logical explanations—all of them common to the cruise ship experience—that don’t require making up a fantastic tale.

Cruise ships are usually loaded with extensive high-powered electronic systems that emit electromagnetic fields (EMF), radio frequencies (RF), and microwave radiation. For example, marine radar, routers, and boosters—not to mention cellphones, laptops, wireless TVs, and iPads—can be found everywhere on a cruise ship.

Add to the mix:

• exposure to chemical inhalation in close quarters via disinfectants, sanitizers, cleaning products, and air-freshening agents—a veritable chemical potpourri;

• readily available cocktails and alcoholic beverages, which are always priced in a way that favors alcohol drinkers;

• interrupted or intermittent sleep, given the constant motion of the ocean in the open Atlantic (keep in mind that the “Good Ship” Hondius spent the entire month of April sailing through the South Atlantic Ocean);

• the likelihood that some passengers were extra-frightened after having endured the extreme and intentional weaponization of fear during covid;

• the morbid fact that for two weeks the ship was carrying a cadaver.

If one thing can be said with certainty, it is this: Given the players and institutions involved, none of the pharma products being developed are designed to benefit the public.

If another thing can be said with certainty, it is this: Rather than conducting the due diligence to investigate the possibility that a few people who wandered into an ultra-toxic waste site in search of some rare birds were fatally poisoned by chemicals, it’s more convenient and profitable to place the blame for their disease and demise squarely on the officially approved deadly pathogen.

All that’s needed to create the international crisis theater, now that the eyes of the world are on this story, is for the global health apparatchiks and their media minions to kick their virus-hunting apparatus into high gear.

First, they will perform genomic tests, on a global scale, that can “find” sequences in anyone once the labs are told what to “find.”

Then they will follow that with the predictable “asymptomatic” testing that generates “positives” using the tried and true PCR trick where tiny bits of supposed DNA are amplified to the point where, as specified by its inventor Kary Mullis, “You can find almost anything in anybody.” Alarm bells have already been sounded as to how the hantavirus PCR tests mistake human DNA for the putative virus.

From there, the process snowballs and becomes a self-fulfilling, self-sustaining prophecy.

The rest, as they say, is history. It’s a long, winding road we’ve been down before. And, as we’ve seen, it leads to nowhere we want to go.

Originally posted on HealthFreedomDefense.org.

The Geoengineering Elephant in the Room

A Coalition of Researchers and Legal Advocates Announces a Major Public Webinar on What Is Happening in America’s Skies

Special Public Webinar

Monday, May 4, 2026
5:00 PM Pacific
Free & Open to the Public

WATCH THE WEBINAR LIVE (MAY 4, 5PM PT)

Millions of Americans have been looking up and asking the same question for years:

What do we really know about those streaks in the sky—and are they dangerous?

On Monday, May 4th, a coalition of researchers, legal advocates, and environmental investigators will convene a special public webinar to share what a two year-long effort has uncovered—and what it means for the future of clean skies in America.

The findings are significant. The implications are far-reaching. And the path forward is one that the broader geoengineering and environmental community has not yet seen.

What we found changes the conversation entirely.
We ask only that people come with an open mind.

This effort began with the same question driving concerned citizens and legislators across 37 states:

What is happening in our atmosphere, who is responsible, and what can be done about it?

After hundreds of hours of research, legal analysis, and scientific review, the team behind this webinar has arrived at answers that are more provable, more alarming, and more actionable than the conversation has reflected so far.

The webinar will lay out the full picture for the first time—in plain language, with the evidence to back it up.

This is not a rehearsal of familiar arguments. This is new ground.

What Attendees Will Learn

• Why the fight for clean skies has not been working—and what has been missing

• What peer-reviewed science and government data reveal about what is actually in our atmosphere

• The federal legal action that forces accountability—and the 180-day countdown it triggers

• What this means for state-level efforts across the country

• The concrete, actionable path to clean and healthy skies

Webinar Details

What Is Really Happening in America’s Skies
Monday, May 4, 2026 | 5:00 PM Pacific
Free & Open to the Public

Watch Live:
https://www.youtube.com/@climateviewer
https://rumble.com/climateviewer
https://x.com/climateviewer

Those who have been following geoengineering debates, state-level atmospheric protection efforts, or the broader fight for environmental accountability are especially encouraged to attend.

About the Petitioners

The webinar will feature two lead petitioners and three co-petitioners representing a coalition of researchers, legal advocates, and public health organizations united around a single demand:

Accountability for America’s skies.

Reinette Senum — President and Founder of GenSeven and SaveOurSkies.org; researcher, investigator, and former mayor of Nevada City, CA.

James Franklin Lee Jr. — ClimateViewer News, LLC; researcher and data analyst with a decade-long record investigating atmospheric emissions and public health impacts.

Leslie Manookian — President and Founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund; national legal advocate for public health rights and informed consent.

Michael Hogan — Missouri Clean Skies; grassroots advocate for atmospheric transparency and environmental accountability.

Valerie Ferrell, Esq. — Stand for Health Freedom; Policy Director advancing fundamental rights including clean air, clean water, and regulatory transparency.

Media Contacts

Reinette Senum
reinette@tutamail.com | saveourskies.org
530.264.6048

James Franklin Lee Jr.
jim@climateviewer.com | climateviewer.com
803.450.4305

WATCH THE WEBINAR LIVE

Join the conversation. Understand the evidence. Be part of the path forward.

How has it come to pass that a childhood illness once seen as an unremarkable “rite of passage” has become a dreaded, dangerous disease that now requires national vigilance and emergency health measures?

Is this really a story of a normal illness that has morphed into a nationwide disaster, or is it an example of how public relations and marketing tactics are employed to shape public perception and justify ever more centralized, top-down health policies?

When the first measles vaccines were licensed in 1963, and in the years immediately following licensure, Americans showed little interest in measles inoculations. Instead, they considered the disease simply an uncomfortable aspect of early childhood.

A trip back in time offers a glimpse into how measles was perceived before the mass vaccination campaign and PR program were unleashed. Here are a few memorable television shows in which measles played a part:

• In The Donna Reed Show, there was a 1959 episode titled “April Fool” in which catching the measles was seen as a temporary inconvenience and was even used as a lighthearted plot device.

• In The Rifleman’s 1962 episode titled “The Princess,” Lucas and Mark discovered a young woman, Jennifer, and her younger brother, Charles, hiding in their barn. Charles was feverish and obviously unwell, so Doc Burrage was called in. To everyone’s relief, the good doctor confirmed the boy’s symptoms with these unworried words, “It’s just a case of the measles . . . he’ll be fine.”

• In the ever-sublime The Flintstones 1961 episode titled “In the Dough,” the measles was comically depicted as a “get out of the contest” card for Wilma and Betty and led to the classic sitcom trope of Fred and Barney dressing in drag to win a baking competition.

• And who can forget The Brady Bunch classic episode, “Is There a Doctor in the House?” In that 1969 portrayal of the measles, marked by silly sitcom humor, the red-spotted Brady kids stayed home and played games, in the middle of which Marcia declared, “If you have to get sick, you sure can’t beat the measles!”

Countless other examples (here, here, and here) from previous generations stressed that measles was a non-threatening condition that always ran its course in children. The main message conveyed to parents was that measles, like mumps and chickenpox—all of which were a nuisance—were something everyone just “got” and quickly moved on from.

The TV message, it turned out, was true. Those of us who lived through the measles in the 1950s and 1960s had the identical experience of Wilma and Betty and the Bradys: a bout with measles but no lasting consequences.

As conveyed in the final scene of The Brady Bunch, measles was seen not only as a nonissue for children but also for adults. The episode ends when Alice the housekeeper walks into the kitchen and the Brady dad, Mike, who had earlier had the measles, notices she appears to be “blushing.” Accompanied by the signature laugh track, Alice reveals that she isn’t blushing; she’s coming down with the measles herself.

But it wasn’t just pop culture that portrayed measles as a normal part of childhood, as nothing to fear.

Indeed, prior to the 1963 introduction of the measles vaccine, even pharmaceutical companies and public health entities in the United States described measles as a routine, mild, and unavoidable childhood illness. Educational materials during the 1950s and early 1960s focused on managing the disease—by recovering at home—rather than preventing it.

Educational pamphlets back in the day promoted the idea that children with measles could safely “enjoy” their time at home by taking a “bed rest and entertainment” approach. The illness was viewed as a standard part of childhood that could be endured with the help of a stack of children’s books, a floor full of toys, and a few days of patience. In fact, these brochures described measles as no more than a temporary “nuisance” and, if anything, a break from school rather than a medical emergency. Far from causing panic, the pamphlets had a calm, instructional tone.

So, we must ask: What changed from the days when measles were considered an occasion for a children’s house party to today’s portrayal of measles as a bioterrorism event? Were parents of the ’50s and ’60s (and before those decades) brutish, neglectful rubes who mindlessly watched their children waste away and ultimately perish with measles lesions all over their bodies? Did our young ones drop like flies from complications caused by this killer disease?

Hardly. Well-documented research on historical disease trends highlights that measles mortality in the US had already plummeted by more than 98% long before the 1963 vaccine made its appearance. The same research observes that this trend was driven by big improvements in the basic building blocks of life: better nutrition, better sanitation, and better overall standards of living.

Thus, something else must have driven the radical shift in perception: from seeing measles as a “routine” and short-lived childhood illness to regarding the by-then-uneventful ailment as a serious health threat.

Sure enough, the “something else” that shifted the public’s impression about measles was jump-started by a 1964 mini-documentary sponsored by vaccine manufacturer Merck. Its title: “Mission: Measles — The Story of a Vaccine.”

The widely distributed short film was billed as a public service announcement when in fact it was little more than corporate propaganda intended not to inform but to mold public opinion.

The announcer of this pharma docudrama conditions his audience to completely overhaul their view of measles. He tells them, “Many parents think of measles as just a common nuisance which makes their children feel miserable and keeps them out of school for a while. But physicians today know that measles is more than a nuisance.” Then he stokes parents’ fears by warning of potential complications, such as bacterial infections, fatal pneumonia, and brain inflammation.

It is clear, in retrospect, that “Mission: Measles” kicked off a deliberate communications strategy planned and executed by vaccine manufacturers and public health officials. Initiated in the early 1960s, the strategy continues to this day, more than sixty years later.

What could have been the primary motivation for this huge PR campaign?

All signs point to Merck’s desire to build support for mandated school vaccinations, thus ensuring a captured market for its product—a product Merck knew did not appeal to parents at that time. Obviously, the pharma company had watched in dismay when its measles vaccine languished after the 1963 licensure. Then, following a failed attempt in the latter half of that decade to induce massive uptake, pharma and public health officials must have realized that the only way they could succeed in their quest for mass measles inoculation was to reconfigure in their marketing literature the legitimately called “mild” disease into a “serious and frightening” disease.

When their campaign for voluntary uptake failed, public health officials switched to “legal solutions” in the form of school mandates. States began passing laws requiring proof of vaccination for school enrollment. Doing so guaranteed coverage of what were dubbed “hard to reach” populations.

By 1969, seventeen states had school laws mandating “prevention” of measles. By 1980, all fifty states had implemented mandates requiring proof of immunization (or history of disease) before a child could be enrolled in a public school.

Meanwhile, the 1977 Childhood Immunization Initiative set the goal of raising vaccination rates to 90% within two years. The initiative involved reviewing approximately 28 million school records to identify children who were missing doses and refer them to health clinics and pediatricians’ offices for vaccination. All the states strictly enforced these laws, even when it meant excluding from school the students whose parents didn’t comply.

Along with creating a captured market for Merck’s unpopular vaccines, the 1977 initiative triggered a major surge in federal subsidies for private vaccine manufacturers. The significant increase in subsidies and grants during this period allowed state and local health departments to purchase vaccines at scale from private manufacturers like Merck.

Beyond creating a captured market financed by public monies for private gain, the 1977 Childhood Immunization Initiative also included a media strategy that explicitly used fear-based rhetoric as a tool to scare parents into submission. As if all this government support were not enough, Congress would later pass The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA), which provided a massive liability shield to Big Pharma and eliminated the possibility of market forces improving vaccine safety. Instead, the NCVIA incentivized the vaccine industry to manufacture still more shots—all liability-free.

This media strategy would consist of an overt campaign of “cripple and kill” messaging and vivid visuals of children who were supposedly blinded or brain-damaged by measles. The campaign was manufactured to drive home the point: “These are the wretched conditions we shall return to if we don’t improve our immunization rates.” Journalists and broadcasters were encouraged to use provocative language to pierce through what they perceived as public indifference. Their “reporting,” full of flagrant bias, was designed by the powers that be to intimidate parents. In shilling for pharma, the news media went so far as to insist that their message was meant to be scary-sounding as a strategy “to save lives.”

Gone were the days when TV sitcoms offered up a house party chuckle fest of board games and “off” days from school. Those days were replaced by today’s full-blown public health crisis—with apocalyptic consequences for anyone who dares challenge Big Pharma’s contrived measles-mania narrative.

A legitimate question: Why the imperative to re-brand this disease, depict it as dangerous, and thus incite mortal fear of it?

The easy answer: Fear sells. Fear sells the product. Fear sells the mandates. And fear is what politicians and their corporate controllers rely on when they outright lie in an attempt to control the populace.

In sum, the decades-long, massive, methodical, manipulative, and malicious campaign to turn measles into a monster was never about public health. It was always only about manufacturing consent for a narrative. But the public appears to finally be waking up to the fact that they’ve been duped. Duped not just about measles but about the entire vaccine campaign. Yes, we can expect more of the same from the pharma fear factory. Now, however, we’re much better prepared to not fall for it.

Originally posted on HealthFreedomDefense.org.

John Henry Tilden was born on January 21, 1851, in the Illinois hamlet of Van Burensberg. His parents, Joseph and Ann, presumably didn’t have to pay doctors’ bills to have good health care for John and their eight other children: Joseph G. Tilden, MD, you see, was an allopathic physician. The family likely avoided veterinarian bills, too, since, from childhood, John had a predilection for practicing medicine, as best he knew how, on animals. His patients included household pets (dogs and cats) and farm animals (calves, pigs, and birds).

Not surprisingly, the “boy doctor,” as he was called, aspired to follow in his father’s footsteps and, indeed, began studying medicine as a young teen under his father’s supervision. Then, at the age of seventeen, he began a two-year apprenticeship in the office of Dr. J. Fellows in nearby Nokomis, Illinois.

During these early years, John was not fully convinced of his father’s medical methods, for there was little evidence of patients regaining their health. The discrepancy between what they were paying for and what they were receiving in the way of help piqued John’s interest in alternative medical methods and motivated him to enter the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio. The institute had been founded in 1845 as a protest against the allopathic schools of medicine of that time. (Its name was changed to the Eclectic Medical College in 1910.)

Eclectic medicine was a 19th-and-early-20th-century American movement that sought to provide healing remedies in harmony with the body’s natural curative properties while avoiding harsh methods like bloodletting and the use of mercury.

Allopaths of the day—including, presumably, Tilden’s father—prescribed frequent and large dosages of calomel, a white, tasteless mineral compound of mercurous chloride that was one of the most popular and controversial medicines of the 18th and 19th centuries. They also used, with equal frequency, the so-called “heroic” bleeding technique. By contrast, the Eclectic movement, founded by Dr. Wooster Beach, relied largely upon plant-based, natural treatments and emphasized patient-centered, holistic care—although they did not wholly reject what was already deemed “conventional medicine.”

The natural treatment concepts adopted by the Ecletics were antithetical to the well-funded allopathic industry, which widely viewed high doses of calomel as a “cure-all,” when it was actually a toxic form of mercury. This standard practice of high dosages of calomel led to severe mercury poisoning. It caused patients to lose teeth, to vomit, to undergo extreme cramping, and to have bloody diarrhea. In fact, for some unfortunate patients, the “modern” mercury treatment resulted in permanent facial deformities and even death. However, allopathic doctors took these symptoms as a sign that the calomel was “working”—was purging the system of the disease.

The Eclectics not only rebelled against invasive medical modalities but also sought to reflect certain democratic principles of a young nation. In other words, they were determined to develop a distinct American materia medica. Their people-centered philosophy stood in stark contrast to the mushrooming allopathic medical system that evolved into today’s colossal for-profit leviathan.

Upon graduating from the Eclectic Medical Institute in 1872, Tilden returned to his Illinois roots and began practicing medicine in Nokomis, where he would work for eight years. He then moved to St. Louis for post-graduate work at the American Medical College, where for two years he lectured on anatomy and physiology.

In 1881, he partnered with Dr. R. F. Bennett in neighboring Litchfield. There, he built an extensive practice, while periodically returning to the college in St. Louis to teach anatomy. During this time, Dr. Tilden traveled between two places more than just geographically. In his professional life, too, he seemed to be ideologically suspended between the two places: allopathic “heroic” medicine on the one hand and naturopathic medicine on the other.

In 1886, Tilden moved westward, to Wichita, Kansas, where he built a lucrative practice and a considerable reputation for his “thorough knowledge of medicine, and skill in surgery.” Increasingly disillusioned with drug-based treatments, Dr. Tilden would eventually abandon them altogether in favor of approaches that emphasized the body’s self-healing capacity.

“From time immemorial, man has looked for a savior; when not looking for a savior, he is looking for a cure. He believes in paternalism. He is looking to get something for nothing, not knowing that the highest price we ever pay for anything is to have it given to us. Instead of accepting salvation, it is better to deserve it. Instead of buying, begging, or stealing a cure, it is better to stop building disease. Disease is of man’s own building, and one worse thing than the stupidity of buying a cure is to remain so ignorant as to believe in cures.”

— John H. Tilden, MD, Toxemia Explained: The True Interpretation of the Cause of Disease (1926)

In 1890, Dr. Tilden left Wichita and moved even further West—this time to Denver, Colorado, where he finally fully committed himself to promoting a more natural approach towards health and healing. At the same time, he explored and synthesized different ideas about enervation and toxemia as root causes of impaired health.

In Denver, Dr. Tilden was influenced by natural hygiene pioneer Dr. Isaac Jennings and hydrotherapy and nutritionist pioneer Dr. Russell T. Trall—so much so that he became a leading critic of the “drugging” medical system. He argued that health could only be restored by removing the causes of “toxemia” rather than treating symptoms with pharmaceuticals. The pioneering practices of Jennings and Trall, along with Tilden’s extensive reading of medical studies from European medical schools, his voluminous personal experiences in the medical field, and his own critical thinking led him to once and for all reject the conventional characterizations of disease and the use of medicines to cure illness.

He came to understand that every so-called disease is a crisis of toxemia—the retention of excessive amounts of waste products (toxins) in the blood, resulting in enervation.

“The study of disease per se leads to chaos. Only knowledge of health — the study of health — can give true knowledge of disease, for disease is handicapped health.”

— Health Epigrams by John H. Tilden, MD

From the start of his Denver practice, Tilden used no medicine, instead focusing on clearing the body of toxic waste and teaching patients how to live in harmony with natural laws to maintain a healthy body. Integral to his philosophy was teaching patients how to live so as not to produce toxic conditions—and to instead create a healthy body free of disease.

In 1896, Dr. Tilden began publishing a monthly magazine called The Stuffed Club as a means of spreading his ideas on health and healing. In 1915, he changed the magazine’s name to The Philosophy of Health and then changed it again in 1926 to Health Review and Critique. The magazine would attain wide circulation in the United States and abroad. But, because Dr. Tilden refused all advertising, it never produced revenue.

During the pneumonia epidemic of the early 1900s, it was noted that Dr. Tilden had the highest success rate in healing pneumonia of any other medical man of the era. While hundreds of patients of other physicians were succumbing to the deadly disease, Dr. Tilden was said to have never lost a patient, despite having more pneumonia cases than any other doctor in the country. His treatments, distinctly different from his allopathic peers, were in accordance with his belief that the body’s natural healing mechanisms would remedy the illness once the proper conditions for healing were created.

Among Tilden’s practices in curing pneumonia:

• He used no drugs.

• He cleansed the colon of each patient.

• He used water therapy.

• He administered natural live foods.

His success was considered miraculous because most other doctors relied on drugs and consistently failed to heal their patients.

Dr. Tilden would establish his first formal sanitarium, the Tilden School for Teaching Health, in Denver in 1916. He operated the school at its peak for eight years, housing up to eighty-five patients and employing a staff of thirty. After selling his interest in the original school, he left the institution and opened a second operation, the Tilden Health Institute, in East Denver. He oversaw that school from 1926 until his death in 1940.

Best known for his seminal work, Toxemia Explained: The True Interpretation of the Cause of Disease, Dr. John H. Tilden was a prolific author, an astute observer, and a profound intellectual. He wrote at least fifteen major books and specialized medical texts in addition to editing several long-running health journals. His vast literary output can be found here.

His influence on alternative health movements is recognizable, even to this day. His ideas have empowered individuals to reject the drug dependency of what’s called “conventional medicine” in favor of self-care strategies focused on diet and detoxification, holistic prevention, and toxin-free living strategies that focus on the body’s innate healing capacity.

Health advocate Henry G. Bieler, a fellow physician, credits Tilden’s writings on toxicity for shaping his own nutritional and endocrinological approaches in Food Is Your Best Medicine (1965).

“There is but one tonic, and that is food — a rightly adjusted diet — encouraged in its assimilation by sunshine, fresh air and exercise.”

— Health Epigrams by John H. Tilden, MD

Similarly, the toxemia concept was adapted by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond in their 1985 bestseller Fit for Life, which re-framed Tilden’s notions of bodily toxicity from dietary indiscretions such as “metabolic imbalance.”

In the 21st century, Tilden’s works have experienced a digital revival through platforms like Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, making texts such as Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygienic and Dietetic Treatment (1917) freely accessible and sustaining interest in his anti-pharmaceutical stance within online wellness communities. His biography can be found here: https://www.healthscience.org/dr-john-h-tilden-biography.

Beyond being a hidden historical figure whose work is now coming to light, Dr. John H. Tilden should be recognized as a much-needed “antidote to fear, frenzy and the popular mad chasing after so-called cures.”

Originally posted on HealthFreedomDefense.org.