Confronting the Threat of Ethnic Bioweapons

November 30, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The United States Air Force's 59th Medical Wing's molecular biology branch recently was revealed to have been collecting specifically Russian RNA and synovial (connective) tissue samples, prompting fears in Russia of a possible US directed ethnic-specific bioweapons program. 

TeleSUR's article, "'Ethnic Bomb' Feared as US Air Force Confirms Collection of Russian DNA," would report:

Russia has raised its concerns over attempts by the U.S. military to collect DNA samples from Russian nationals, noting the potential use of such biological samples for the purpose of creating new genetic warfare weaponry.

The U.S. Air Force has sought to calm the Kremlin's concerns, noting that the samples would only be used for so-called “research” purposes rather than for bioterrorism.

Addressing Russian reports, U.S. Air Education and Training Command spokesperson Captain Beau Downey said that his center randomly selected the Russian people as a source of genetic material in its ongoing research of the musculoskeletal system.

The report would also state that:

However, the usage of Russian tissue samples in the USAF study fed the long-brewing suspicion that the Pentagon is continuing in its hopes to develop an alleged “biological weapon” targeting specifically Russians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin would be quoted as stating:

Do you know that biological material is being collected all over the country, from different ethnic groups and people living in different geographical regions of the Russian Federation? The question is – why is it being done? It’s being done purposefully and professionally. 

And while the US military attempted to brush off the notion that any sort of ethnic-specific bioweapon was being researched, the notion of such a weapon is not far fetched at all.

US policy papers have included them in America's overall long-term geopolitical and military planning for nearly two decades, and the US Air Force itself has produced papers regarding the various combinations such weapons could manifest themselves as.

There is also the disturbing history of Western-aligned nations having pursued ethnic-specific bioweapons in the past, including the Apartheid regime in South Africa which sought to use its national vaccination program as cover to covertly sterilize its black population.

US Policy Papers Have Discussed Ethnic-Specific Bioweapons  

In the Neo-Conservative Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 report titled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (.pdf) it states (emphasis added):

The proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will make it much easier to project military power around the globe. Munitions themselves will become increasingly accurate, while new methods of attack – electronic, “non-lethal,” biological – will be more widely available. (p.71 of .pdf) 

Big-Pharma Novartis to Charge $475,000 for $20,000 Cancer Cure Funded by Taxpayers and Charity

August 31, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) While Americans squabble over irrelevant political diversions, a revolutionary breakthrough in human healthcare has yielded its first FDA approval - a therapy that literally cures otherwise incurable leukemia.

It is the first of many therapies that re-engineer human cells in living patients to reprogram more resilient immune systems and even repair damaged or aging organs.

Image: A virtual cure for leukemia - paid for by taxpayers and charity, hijacked and sold for nearly half a million dollars by pharmaceutical giant, Novartis. 

What would seem like headline news has instead squeaked through as a whimper - not because it is insignificant - but because of how this monumental breakthrough has been hijacked by special interests and how these interests plan on making Americans pay twice for its development behind a smokescreen of public ignorance.

Thanks to a media focused more on dividing and distracting Americans regarding irrelevant political charades, due diligence in researching the story was either sidestepped intentionally, or a result of unprofessional and incompetent journalism.

Taxpayers and Charity Paid First

For the past 20 years, American taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) helped fund a revolutionary cancer treatment that sidesteps devastating and ineffective chemotherapy and instead, re-engineers a patient's own immune system to find and destroy tumors.

Image: LLS supporters organize events all over the country to raise tens of millions of dollars for cancer research including the development of therapies and the funding of clinical trials. LLS money was key to what Novartis alleges is its own "breakthrough."  

In clinical trials, patients suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who were not responding to traditional therapies and would otherwise die, were not only cured, but would enjoy permanent remission.

The most stunning success story was that of Emily Whitehead, a young girl who is approaching her sixth year in remission. At the time of her experimental treatment in 2012, she was estimated to only have days left to live.

Image: Literally on her deathbed in 2012, Emily Whitehead has been cancer free after receiving treatment in clinical trials funded by charity. The media is now rewriting history, attributing the breakthrough and thriving patients like Emily Whitehead to Novartis.  

The revolutionary procedure has paved the way for similar "gene therapies" augmenting the human immune system to fight off and eradicate some of the most confounding diseases of our time.

Defending Against the Next Generation of Bioweapons

August 30, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - Chemical and biological weapons conjure in the mind terror and have been repeatedly cited as a pretext for both acts of military aggression and even entire wars. Scenes of soldiers and civilians choking on toxic chemicals or covered in boils after exposure have been the stuff of nightmares both geopolitically and in fiction.

While current chemical and biological weapons are far more limited than movies and politically-motivated narratives suggest, emerging biotechnology is making possible a new generation of biological weapons that may actually live up to the terror current weapons inspire.

A US policy think tank as early as 2000 in a publication titled, "Rebuilding America's Defense" (PDF), a virtual blueprint of the plans and means the US sought to utilize toward achieving global hegemony, would make particular note of bioweapons and the use of genotype-specific weapons, stating:

Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes... 

...advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

In 2004, the Guardian in an article titled, "Could you make a genetically targeted weapon?," would warn:

The prospect that rogue scientists could develop bioweapons designed to target certain ethnic groups based on their genetic differences was raised this week in a report by the British Medical Association (BMA).

The report, Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity II, warns that construction of genetic weapons "is now approaching reality". Such "genetic bombs" could contain anthrax or bubonic plague tailored to activate only when genes indicated the infected person was from a particular group.

The topic of genotype-specific bioweapons has held interest across the West for  decades.  The Apartheid regime in South Africa attempted to produce biological weapons to induce infertility among the nation's black population.

PBS Frontline's article, "What Happened in South Africa?" would recount:

In 1998 South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission held hearings investigating activities of the apartheid-era government. Toward the end of the hearings, the Commission looked into the apartheid regime's Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program and allegations that it developed a sterility vaccine to use on black South Africans, employed toxic and chemical poison weapons for political asssassination, and in the late 1970s provided anthrax and cholera to Rhodesian troops for use against guerrilla rebels in their war to overthrow Rhodesia's white minority rule.

While South Africa's entire CBW program was abhorrent, what is particularly frightening is the use of South Africa's national vaccination program as a vector for infecting black women with viruses meant to sterilize them. Now that vaccination programs are being pushed globally, there lies the danger that such weapons could be used against entire regions of the planet.

PBS would elaborate further on the CBW program, stating that the South African government:

Developed lethal chemical and biological weapons that targeted ANC [African National Congress] political leaders and their supporters as well as populations living in the black townships. These weapons included an infertility toxin to secretly sterilize the black population; skin-absorbing poisons that could be applied to the clothing of targets; and poison concealed in products such as chocolates and cigarettes.   

PNAC's dream of genotype specific bioweapons then, is not some far-off science fiction future, it is something that has been pursued in earnest for decades and apparently by interests aligned to the West, not enemies of it.

No Matter How Bad You Thought Big-Phama Was, This is Worse

A literal cure for cancer has been funded by charity, stolen by big-pharma, to be dangled over the head of the dying for profit. 

August 2, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Impropriety among big-pharmaceutical corporations has ranged from multi-billion dollar bribery rackets, to marketing drugs to patients for uses they were never approved for by regulators, to covering up known dangerous side-effects of medications they produce and sell.

More recently, big-pharma has been embroiled in a series of price-gouging controversies over equipment and treatments. This includes the hijacking of and profiteering from a revolutionary new treatment called gene therapy.

Gene therapy, the process of re-engineering human cells to either include missing DNA to cure genetic conditions or to arm the immune system to seek and destroy disease, has been the latest hopeful technology scooped up and plundered by big-pharma.

Gene therapy promises a single shot cure to many of the diseases that have confounded humanity the most - everything from diabetes to cancer, to blindness, deafness, and even various effects of aging.

At least two treatments using gene therapy have been approved for European markets.

A third that has proven in clinical trials to provide permanent remission for leukemia patients who were unresponsive to chemotherapy, appears to be close to FDA approval.

The Literal Cure for Cancer, Dangled Over the Dying 

While the treatment - even under experimental conditions - costs approximately $20,000 to produce, pharmaceutical giant Novartis has swooped in and industry experts anticipate a markup leaving the price tag between $300,000-600,000.

The New York Times in a 2012 article titled, "In Girl’s Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia," reported that (emphasis added):

Dr. June said that producing engineered T-cells costs about $20,000 per patient — far less than the cost of a bone-marrow transplant. Scaling up the procedure should make it even less expensive, he said, but he added, “Our costs do not include any profit margin, facility depreciation costs or other clinical care costs, and other research costs.”

More recently, in a July 2017 Washington Post article titled, "First gene therapy — ‘a true living drug’ — on the cusp of FDA approval," its reported that:

Novartis has not disclosed the price for its therapy, but analysts are predicting $300,000 to $600,000 for a one-time infusion. Brad Loncar, whose investment fund focuses on companies that develop immunotherapy treatments, hopes the cost does not prompt a backlash. “CAR-T is not the EpiPen,” he said. “This is truly pushing the envelope and at the cutting edge of science.”

But it isn't Novartis that's "pushing the envelop," or at "the cutting edge of science." Charity-funded university researchers are.

The Cure for Everything and Why Things Are Different This Time

January 11, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - The years between 2010 and 2020 may likely be remembered as the decade of gene therapy, and perhaps, the end of cancer, heart disease, blindness, deafness, and even aging - if this revolutionary technology is properly implemented and integrated into our healthcare infrastructure. But it will not happen without effort, or even without a fight - for gene therapy threatens to undermine and overturn some of the largest and most influential corporate monopolies on Earth.

Gene Therapy is Already a Working "Miracle Cure"  

In 2012, at the age of six years old, Emily Whitehead was enrolled in a phase I clinical trial at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to treat her acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). She had failed to respond to all other treatments.

The clinical trial involved removing and genetically regineering her immune system's T-cells. Using viruses as a vector to insert new DNA into her T-cells, they were now able to recognize and destroy the cancer that was killing her. The cells were reintroduced to Emily's body intravenously, where they both fought the cancer, and replicated themselves just as all human cells do - with the difference being that the corrected DNA was replicated along with them.

Over time, the probability of ending up in the hospital nears 100%. When you finally get there, do you want to be greeted with a single injection cure and a new lease on life? Or an over-priced regiment of poison that will strip you of every dollar you have, your human dignity, and eventually your life?

Years later, Emily Whitehead is still cancer free. She went from literally lying on what would have been her death bed, to going into durable remission for years. The production of Emily's specialized T-cells cost 15,000 USD - or a fraction of what pharmaceutical corporations charge per year for medications that don't even cure cancer.

The 15,000 USD price tag was for what at the time was a highly experimental, customized clinical trial. With effort, the price can be reduced further. The research and trial was funded not by pharmaceutical corporations or even the US government, but by charity - the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. 

Emily Whitehead isn't the only patient to survive otherwise incurable cancer thanks to gene therapy. By 2014, over 60 other patients were successfully given the same treatment. And while other cancers involve tumors of a different nature, scientists, including those involved in Emily Whitehead's survival, believe that similar techniques could be used to eradicate them just as effectively.

Research into everything from lung cancer to brain cancer is ongoing.

AI & Biotech: Striking a Technological Balance of Power

November 26, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - During World War 2, nations desperately raced to harness the atom. The United State ultimately won that race, and during their victory lap - being the sole nation to possess nuclear weapons - used them against their enemy Japan - twice.

Tens of thousands of lives were extinguished in the blink of an eye and Japan, already a defeated nation, submitted absolutely to US hegemony which would prevail both over Japan and most of Asia for nearly a century onward.

Images: The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is what uncontested military superiority - or an imbalance of technological and military power - looks like. What will similar disparity in artificial intelligence or biotechnology lead to? 

Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US has used its immense economic disparity over the last seven decades to build a conventional army and employ various methods of overtly and covertly attacking, undermining, and even overthrowing the political and socioeconomic orders of targeted nations worldwide in its bid to take, hold, and expand global hegemony.

It has used its domination of the media to sell wars, manipulate public perception, and project its socioeconomic, cultural, and military will to the far reaches of the planet.

With the advent of the Internet and social media, its domination over both allowed it to plunge the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) into chaos and eventually war in 2011 during the so-called "Arab Spring," a fact the New York Times in an article titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," would later admit.

Balancing Power 

With each form of tactical and technological disparity manifesting itself in military aggression, subjugation, exploitation, and immeasurable injustice, attempts to diminish that disparity have helped strike a balance of power.

Image: Russian mobile nuclear missiles and the reason why the United States never used nuclear weapons again.

The development of nuclear weapons by the Soviets, then later China, India, and Pakistan as well as several European powers, helped strike a balance of power within which no nation dared strike another with such weapons again.

Asymmetrical warfare and increasingly sophisticated and prolific anti-tank and anti-air weaponry have allowed nations to raise the cost of US military adventures abroad to the point where direct military intervention has become all but impossible for the US (and other nations as well).

The alternative media has brought to an end what was almost total domination by the Western media over global public perception - and it has done so not only with the emergence of effective state-run media beyond the West, but also through the efforts of thousands of individuals and independent networks worldwide.

Who Runs Washington? The Long Reach of Big-Pharma

June 3, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Like a mythical sea monster, the true nature of a Wall Street-London centered global corporatocracy is often talked about but rarely seen. However, on rare occasions, a tentacle breaks the surface and affords the public an opportunity to examine and assess its true, gargantuan dimensions.

Just such a moment occurred when leaked diplomatic letters from the Colombian Embassy in Washington D.C. revealed just how far the United States government is willing to go on behalf of the corporate-financier interests that clearly shape the entirety of its foreign policy.

The Intercept would report in its article, "Leaks Show Senate Aide Threatened Colombia Over Cheap Cancer Drug," that:

Leaked diplomatic letters sent from Colombia’s Embassy in Washington describe how a staffer with the Senate Finance Committee, which is led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned of repercussions if Colombia moves forward on approving the cheaper, generic form of a cancer drug. 

The drug is called imatinib [Gleevec]. Its manufacturer, Novartis, markets the drug in Colombia as Glivec. The World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines last year suggested it as treatment not only for chronic myeloid leukemia, but also gastrointestinal tumors. Currently, the cost of an annual supply is over $15,000, or about two times the average Colombian’s income.

The repercussions included threats to derail the $450 million "Peace Colombia" initiative aimed at ending decades of fighting in the South American nation that has claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives.

Leveraging peace and stability in Colombia to force Bogotá to capitulate to pharmaceutical giants like Novartis seems extreme, but upon closer examination of other episodes in recent history - including the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the subversion of Libya and Syria, and admitted US ambitions to encircle and contain China, such coercion is a common feature of the Wall Street-London centric "international order" Washington eagerly promotes.

Image: NIH-funded researcher Dr. Brian Druker.

What is perhaps most appalling about this most recent episode is that Novartis' "patent" is for a drug developed using public funding over several decades through the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Indeed, in 1990, NIH-funded researcher Dr. Brian Druker began developing model systems integral to bringing "Glivec" to market. He would eventually partner directly with Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) before clinical trials began.

The NIH's own report, "Fighting Cancer: Ushering in a New Era of Molecular Medicine (.pdf)," would proudly admit:

The NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI), along with many other public and private organizations, played a vital role in developing Gleevec®. 

The nature of pharmaceutical giants building fortunes upon publicly funded research, with Gleevec serving as a primary example, was in even the subject of an entire paper published by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the title, "Public R&D Investments and Private-sector Patenting: Evidence from NIH Funding Rules (.pdf)."

Standing Up To Multinational Big-Ag: Nepal, Monsanto, & USAID

May 24, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Throughout history, controlling India was the key to controlling Nepal. British control over the landlocked nation was an extension of its control over India itself. Today, imperialism is far from a distant memory. It did not go "extinct," rather, it merely "evolved." Today, imperialism looks like national and international "aid programs" which are used as fronts and vectors for corporate special interests.

USAID, the World Food Programme, and others, for instance, serve as fronts and vectors for corporations like Monsanto. In turn, Monsanto seeks a monopoly over world food production and the immense wealth and influence associated with such control. Just like the British East Indies Company did for centuries (1600's-1800's) the West is using a combination of corporations and foundations to project geopolitical power. And few other sectors engender such sought-after geopolitical power like control over a nation's agriculture.

The story of corporate-financier interests attempting to conquer Nepal through this method is not new. In 2011, when "Maoist" rebels finally took control of the country and Western-style "democracy" foisted upon the Nepali people, Western corporations were already positioned to overrun the levers of power by controlling the nation's infrastructure.

In the immediate aftermath of years of fighting, USAID along with Monsanto and a corrupt, weak, and vulnerable Nepal government began a "pilot program" indoctrinating some 20,000 farmers in the use of patented, poisoned, economy-wrecking GMO crops, and in particular Monsanto's infamous hybrid maize breeds. The program had also received backing from members of neighboring India's government who had already helped introduce Monsanto's GMO crops throughout their country -beginning the wholesale destruction of India's food security and domestic farming industry.

America's Love Affair With Nuclear & Radioactive Weapons

February 13, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The United States would have the world believe that it is in mortal danger should nations like Iran or North Korea obtain operationally effective nuclear weapons. We are told that there is a grave risk of these weapons being used against another nation and that the US (with the support of the "international community") must confront these governments, and if possible undermine and overthrow them. Why?

Since a nation has already used nuclear weapons against another state, ironically enough that nation being the United States itself, we already know the devastating effects of nuclear weapons. Besides the immense, indiscriminate initial blast, nuclear weapons also produce a persistent radioactive threat amid the fallout afterwards.

The fallout and the catastrophic effects it has on human health for years afterward make nuclear weapons particularly horrifying and abhorrent. The United States didn't drop only one nuclear bomb on another nation, Japan, it dropped two. The data collected in the aftermath of these attacks have helped form our collective fear of these weapons.

Ironically the US is using the fear its own nuclear warfare has created as leverage to wage still more war.

Depleted Uranium - All the Fallout, None of the Bang 

But what if the catastrophic human health effects of fallout could be achieved without the immense, city-flattening initial explosion? What if you could use a weapon to induce long-term spikes in cancer and birth defects without the political ramifications of dropping a nuclear bomb on a population? Some readers may be tempted to cite "dirty bombs," and they would be partially correct. But there is another correct answer. Depleted uranium or DU ammunition.

Depleted uranium is one of the densest materials munitions can be made out of. Because of their density, they are able to penetrate armor other rounds cannot. DU was initially conceived as an additional deterrence, a weapon of last resort in the event of a full-scale Soviet invasion of Western Europe during the Cold War.

Zika: Why Biotech is Imperative to National Security

February 7, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - When we think of national security, we think of tanks, jets, missile defense systems and more recently, information space. But what about the realm of the microscopic, the biological or the genetic?

Whether you think biotechnology, genetics and microbes constitute another plane upon the modern battlefield or not is irrelevant. Someone else already does, and they have a head start on the rest of the world.

Genotype Specific Bioweapons

The Project for a New American Century or PNAC for short, penned a particularly unhinged policy paper in 2000 titled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century."

In it, among many other things, it specifically writes:

Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes. 

...advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

 Advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes sound like the stuff of science fiction, and even if it were developed, it would be by the "bad guys," right?

Wrong. As a matter of fact, the Western-backed apartheid government in South Africa in the 1980's under Project Coast, attempted to create genotype specific bioweapons aimed at sterilizing the nation's black women. PBS Frontline's article, "What Happened in South Africa?" would recount:

In 1998 South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission held hearings investigating activities of the apartheid-era government. Toward the end of the hearings, the Commission looked into the apartheid regime's Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program and allegations that it developed a sterility vaccine to use on black South Africans, employed toxic and chemical poison weapons for political asssassination, and in the late 1970s provided anthrax and cholera to Rhodesian troops for use against guerrilla rebels in their war to overthrow Rhodesia's white minority rule.

While South Africa's entire CBW program was abhorrent, what is particularly frightening is the use of South Africa's national vaccination program as a vector for infecting black women with viruses meant to sterilize them. Now that vaccination programs are being pushed globally, there lies the danger that such weapons could be used against entire regions of the planet.

PBS would elaborate further on the CBW program, stating that the South African government:

Developed lethal chemical and biological weapons that targeted ANC [African National Congress] political leaders and their supporters as well as populations living in the black townships. These weapons included an infertility toxin to secretly sterilize the black population; skin-absorbing poisons that could be applied to the clothing of targets; and poison concealed in products such as chocolates and cigarettes.   

PNAC's dream of genotype specific bioweapons then, is not some far-off science fiction future, it is something that has been pursued in earnest for decades, and apparently by interests aligned to the West, not enemies of it.

Big-Pharma's Latest, Most Sickening Crime Against Humanity

By dangling life-changing cures over people's heads for cartoonish figures of "1 million dollars," pharmaceutical corporations prove when they see sick, desperate, dying people, all they see is dollar signs... 

November 12, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Gene therapy is a game changer. It is not a treatment for diseases. It is a cure.

Image: Gene therapy works by reprogramming an ordinary virus to delivery modified genes to human cells. Once introduced, the modified genes are replicated by natural cell division. Missing or defective genes, over time, can be replaced by repaired genes, reprogramming the immune system to eradicate otherwise incurable diseases, or creating function in defective systems, curing blindness, deafness, diabetes, and even effects owed to aging. 

It is a cure for cancer, genetic defects, blindness, deafness, diabetes, even potentially aging.

It has already proven effective in clinical trials, curing people of leukemia who were otherwise certain to die, giving people their sight back, and already, there is one therapy approved for use in the European Union with several others approved in China.

The most remarkable aspect of gene therapy is that it overwrites your DNA once, then your cells replicate that new DNA each time they divide. In essence, the cure becomes a permanent part of you. One shot, one cure, for life, or close to it.

Why Haven't We Heard More About This? 

As remarkable and as promising as gene therapy is, it poses an immense threat to the established healthcare industry. A shot in clinical trials using experimental equipment that costs only 20,000 USD to produce that cures leukemia, if brought into mainstream medicine would be cheaper still, and undercut existing and ineffective"treatments" that can reach costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gene therapy, then, is essentially a disruptive technology that brings various healthcare rackets to an abrupt halt along with all the vast wealth and unwarranted power and influence big-pharma has enjoyed over the decades.

Image: Dr. Carl June (center) led a team that developed a breakthrough gene therapy that effectively reprograms the immune system to hunt and kill leukemia cancer cells. Most of the patients, otherwise sure to die from their cancer, have gone into permanent remission. 

How can big-pharma continue on with its monopolies, wealth, and influence by curing everyone with one shot that costs almost nothing to make?

Their strategy is two-fold. First, they have intentionally dragged their feet for as long as possible until they can figure this problem out, letting people die of now curable diseases simply because they want to protect their existing business models and bottom lines.

Second, they have begun to mold public opinion through intense lobbying across the media and medical journals, ignoring the actual costs involved in producing the therapies, and instead cashing in on what they think it is worth to people, or in other words, dangling cures for crippling, deadly diseases over dying and/or desperate people's heads, and seeing how much they are willing to pay for them.

The Dangers of Human Gene Editing

June 5, 2015 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - It is often said that if it can be imagined, it will inevitably be done. And such a sentiment could not be any truer in terms of applying genetic engineering and synthetic biology to the genomes of our planet's organisms including humans themselves.

While the process of synthesizing and arranging genetic code has many processes, perhaps none has been as promising as the CRISPR-Cas system. From laboratory experiments to emerging software used to create code genetically almost as easily as code for a computer, gene editing has never been easier, opening the door to never-before-possible applications.

Perhaps no technology yet has been poised to change the world so profoundly. All life on Earth, every living organism, now stands the possibility of potentially being "edited" on the most basic genetic level, enhancing or degrading it, but forever changing it.

Gene editing or "gene therapy" performed on children or adults changes the genetic makeup of targeted cells after which and upon dividing, impart this new genetic material on each subsequent new cell. This is why treatments for diseases using gene therapy often are successful with only a single shot. The "treatment" self-replicates perpetually within the patient's body. Everything from leukemia to congenial genetic defects have been overcome in clinical trials using this method.

As far as science knows, these changes cannot be passed onto the offspring of patients. However, changing the genetic makeup of a human at their earliest stages of development can be passed on, spreading genetic changes made in labs onto the greater population.

The Biggest Threats: The Jab and Slow Kill

Talk of gene editing usually revolves around its use to treat diseases and produce super-crops and livestock to "save the world." But as history has shown us, any technology is but a double edged sword. Whatever good it is capable of, it is proportionally capable of just as much bad.

The first and foremost danger of human gene editing in particular is its use in weaponized vaccines. Such fears are founded upon what was revealed by the United Nations during the apartheid government in South Africa where a government program named "Project Coast" actually endeavored to produce vaccines that were race-specific in hopes of sterilizing or killing off its black population.

Vaccines and National Security

Why you should think twice before getting your next jab. 

May 5, 2015 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - One can easily see in the emerging information and cyber war that a nation having its own IT infrastructure, its own hardware, and its own versions of social media platforms is quickly becoming a matter of national security. Without control over these assets, a nation must depend on foreign suppliers for their computers, peripheries and software. Already, this dependence has opened nations up to now evident threats including malware embedded into hardware and software that is otherwise impossible to detect until the damage is already done.

Likewise, a nation's food supply can and has throughout history, been a source of vulnerability in times of conflict. The inability to grow one's own food invites blockades and their modern equivalent, sanctions, undermining a nation's strength and stability and eventually setting the stage for its ultimate demise. Iraq is an example of this.

In the long-term, a nation's food supply controlled by foreign corporations, particularly in the realm of genetically engineered organisms, can have disastrous effects.  As a nation's wealth is slowly drained from their shores and into the coffers of corporations like Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta, inferior, expensive and environmentally devastating crops wreak havoc on the very socioeconomic fabric of a nation. India is increasingly becoming an example of this.

And what of healthcare? Surely the same applies. But even as nations and communities are just now understanding the importance of protecting their food supplies from predatory multinational corporations and the hegemonic ambitions they represent, there seems to be some latency in understanding this likewise in regards to healthcare and in particular pharmaceuticals and vaccines.

The Danger of Big-Pharma's Vaccines 

Imagine a gang member knocking at your door with a syringe in one hand, demanding you roll up your sleeve and allow him to inject its contents into your bloodstream. Likely there would be no hesitation to call the police and barricade the door until they arrived. Allowing a criminal to inject a substance known or unknown into your body would be an unimaginable risk no sane person would accept.

Now imagine that gang member is wearing a suit, has a multi-million dollar marketing budget, doctors and researchers working for him (paid via an expansive bribery network) and instead of knocking at your door, he invited you to one of his doctors' offices to receive the injection. What we've just done here is describe big-pharma.

Ukraine a Vector for GMO Poison's Spread Through EU

April 17, 2015 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - When the Washington Post chooses to pen an insulting, condescending editorial targeting entire nations speaking up against Western impropriety, one can just as well assume the precise opposite of whatever narrative the Post is trying to push forward is true.

Regarding American biotech companies and their attempts to infest the planet with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and in particular their attempts to corrupt the whole of Europe with their unwanted poison through a backdoor (Ukraine), has prompted Russia to speak up for their Eastern European neighbor. Up until the armed coup in 2013-2014, also known as the "Euromaidan," Ukraine had adamantly rejected GMOs.

With an obedient client regime now installed in Kiev, a series of political, economic and military decisions have been made that have more or less extinguished Ukraine as a sovereign nation state. Along with its extinguished sovereignty comes a complete lack of desire for self-preservation, and so, sowing one's fields with genetically tainted, unsafe, literal poison goes from being adamantly avoided, to being openly embraced.

This brings us back to the Washington Post and a recent editorial it has published. Titled, "Russia says Western investment in Ukraine’s farms is a plot to take over the world," it first attempts to make Russia's accusations that Monsanto is now moving in on Ukraine with plans to institute GMOs nationwide sound unfounded. That is until the Post itself admits that is precisely what Monsanto is doing. The pieces claims:

Ukraine has long tried to sell itself to Europe as the once-and-future breadbasket of the continent, promising that Western investment is the key to making its under-exploited black earth bloom. 

But official Russia would like you to know that all this agricultural development talk is really just a secret plot to help companies like Monsanto take over the world.

Then the Post openly admits:

Genetically-modified cultivation was long banned in Ukraine – as was the sale of farmland.

Then admits:

But the association agreement signed between the European Union and Ukraine last year may have created new space for the potential introduction of genetically-modified crops in Ukraine. 

Finally, the Post mentions Monsanto:

Monsanto – perhaps the most recognizable corporate name in genetically modified products – did express interest in investing in Ukraine last year. (It’s worth noting that the company operates in Russia as well, though not with GMOs, just as it has operated in Ukraine.)

Since Monsanto already operates in Ukraine, what else would it be investing in additionally that it hasn't had the opportunity to before besides GMOs? Ukraine would serve as the perfect victim to host Monsanto and other biotech corporations' GMO-infected products in the heart of Europe.

Unscrupulous Special Interests and Their Vaccine Crusade

Polio or Something More Sinister?

April 7, 2015 (F. William Engdahl - NEO) - Polio is something I have more than a passing acquaintance with. Two days before my fifth birthday a medical doctor in Minneapolis diagnosed me with polio. I only learned decades later that it was not polio, poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis as it was also called. It was shortly after World War II. Then a few years later we were presented Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine, and the world believed that because of that vaccine and the Sabin variant, polio had been stamped out. The reality was that polio was not and is not a “virus,” nor did the vaccines of Salk or Sabin eradicate.

The symptoms that were given the name “polio” had dramatically declined several years before the first vaccine and Salk claimed the credit for his vaccine which was released in 1955. The symptoms that got the name polio came from a team at the Rockefeller University in 1910. Those symptoms were listed as fever, severe headache, stiff neck and back, deep muscle pain. Pretty vague.

Many, many things can cause fever and such symptoms in a small child, for example being raped by someone they thought loved them or experiencing other trauma. It has been suggested that there was a major wave of in-family child rapes as soldiers returned from the traumas of their own war experiences in World War II. It was convenient for some to label the upsurge in such symptoms as polio and create a national media scare that was to most Americans in the early 1950’s more terrifying than Joe Stalin and communism. The drug industry got a huge boost and today, even newborns are jabbed multiple times in the first weeks of their fragile lives with concoctions that have been documented not to prevent viral infection but to make weak, sick and in some tragic cases autistic or even dead children.

The Rockefeller University in New York had begun literally playing around with children with the symptoms later formalized as polio as far back as 1910. Simon Flexner, first director of the predecessor to the Rockefeller University, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, had produced the symptoms later named polio. He did that in a rhesus monkey which then transmitted the disease from one animal to another. Flexner was a close friend and advisor of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., son of the founder of the Standard Oil trust.

Science as the New Religion

Irrational faith in corporate R&D is not science, it is a modern day cult built on old, shameless tricks. 

February 26, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - When money and power are involved, those standing to gain the most will say and do anything to push their agenda forward. Five centuries ago, saying and doing anything involved exploiting people's superstitions and their faith in religion. Today, saying and doing anything means also exploiting science.

Science, engineering, and design are amongst our most practical and effective tools to make real and meaningful change. But because they are so powerful and appealing, the potential for their abuse in the wrong hands is immense. Compounding this is the naivety of those who are fascinated by science's promise but blind to its potential abuse.

It wasn't long ago when big-tobacco had armies of "scientists" citing the latest "studies" confirming the health benefits and safety of smoking. Of course these were paid liars, not scientists, even if many of them had PhDs. And it was lies they were telling, even if mixed with shades of science. Today, special interests have refined this practice of filtering lies and exploitation through the lens of science regarding everything from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to the false debate on climate change, to the questionable interests behind global vaccination programs.

The latest example of this comes via National Geographic which recently published an article titled, "Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?," which claims:

We live in an age when all manner of scientific knowledge—from the safety of fluoride and vaccines to the reality of climate change—faces organized and often furious opposition. Empowered by their own sources of information and their own interpretations of research, doubters have declared war on the consensus of experts.

Indeed, just as religions claimed a monopoly on morality and spirituality, National Geographic condemns those "empowered by their own sources of information" and "their own interpretations of research," maintaining that the only truth to be found is amongst the "consensus of experts."

The Consensus of "Experts" 

The article goes on to claim:

The idea that hundreds of scientists from all over the world would collaborate on such a vast hoax is laughable—scientists love to debunk one another. It’s very clear, however, that organizations funded in part by the fossil fuel industry have deliberately tried to undermine the public’s understanding of the scientific consensus by promoting a few skeptics.

National Geographic never explains why "organizations funded in part by the fossil fuel industry" are conspiring to lie, but the notion that "scientists" would conspire to lie is "laughable." After all, scientists work under various organizations funded by special interests as well, including immense corporate-financier interests - many of which overlap with big-oil, ironically. If the billions to be made by big-oil is motivation enough to lie and say the Earth isn't getting warmer, aren't the billions to be made in a "carbon credit" pyramid scheme also motivation enough to lie that it is?

Images: The "science" of smoking. Images collected by the New York Times for their article, "When Doctors, and Even Santa, Endorsed Tobacco" depict "scientific studies" assuring consumers of the safety, even benefits of smoking cigarettes commonsense told everyone else were literally killing people.  Those today who think they are ahead of everyone else by parroting "scientific studies" regarding big-ag's GMOs, big-pharma's vaccines, and big-oil and bankers' climate change racket are ahead of nothing. They are being duped by an old trick practiced shamelessly for at least 100 years. 

Big Pharma Dangles Life and Death Over Patients' Heads

Breakthroughs in gene therapy mean a single shot could cure you ... permanently ... but for a price. 

February 19, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Gene therapy involves identifying and replacing faulty or missing genes, or engineering augmentations for existing genes to permanently cure a wide number of conditions and illnesses ranging from cancer and diabetes, to regenerative processes like rebuilding hearts or storing sight and hearing.

A breakthrough clinical trial in 2012 saw several patients stricken with incurable leukemia put into permanent remission using gene therapy. The actual process of creating re-engineered cells taken from a patient and reintroducing them costs approximately $15,000, and such procedures are still in the experimental phase. While this cost does not include the required intensive care required to bring a patient from the brink of death back into full health, it is likely the costs in the near future will be drastically lower than current and far less effective cancer treatments are today.

The transformative power of this new technology spells the end of big pharmaceutical monopolies who wallow in billions in profits year to year, enabling them to continue dominating modern medical practice through the skewing of regulatory bodies, the stacking of academic studies, and even the expansive, global bribery of doctors and other medical practitioners to push big pharma's products.

As gene therapy enters into mainstream medicine, big pharma has attempted to control it. In order to continue reaping the unwarranted profits, influence, and power big pharma has accumulated over the decades, they plan to compensate for the drastic drop in prices and the fact that many conditions will now be permanently curable, cutting patients off from a lifetime of dependency on big pharma's cocktails.

The Coming Biological Infowar: US Proposes DNA Database

January 31, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - The US is proposing a government-backed DNA database composed of over a million volunteers' genetic material. RT would report in their article, "Got genes: Obama proposes genetic biobank of 1mn Americans’ DNA to fight disease," that:

A new $215 million US government proposal would seek more than 1 million American volunteers for analysis of their genetic information in an initiative to fight disease, while developing targeted health care based on one’s DNA.

Officials hope the biobank project, announced Friday by President Barack Obama, can merge existing genetic studies with a diverse range of new volunteers to hit 1 million participants.

While this initial database is composed of volunteers, involuntary blood samples are already collected by US law enforcement agencies around the country and amassed in an existing, and ever-expanding network. Additionally, the new proposal seeks to establish "precision medicine" as a standard in medical care, implying that everyone's DNA will eventually be required by medical practitioners to administer increasingly state-run healthcare.

Such information will undoubtedly end up in an expanded, nationwide iteration of this new proposed network. 

Serial Abusers and Their New Toy 

While precision medicine is indeed a powerful tool in fighting disease and repairing injury - in fact, truly the future of medicine - those appointing themselves as its arbiter in the US have already demonstrated they cannot be trusted with such a responsibility.

RT would also note in their report that:

How the US government will ensure that individual genetic information is kept private will certainly become a point of concern for many. A government-led database system amassing genetic coding will likely face resistance in this age of a global spying regime run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and a genetic patent system used by the likes of Monsanto to consolidate legal ownership of the natural world.

Indeed, a DNA database would be to our bodies, what the Internet was to our computers - with an NSA-like entity invading, abusing, exploiting, and manipulating not just our personal data, but the very genetic code that makes us who we are. The dangers are immense, and the abuse of genetic information has already been eagerly explored by the very special interests driving this new initiative.

Vaccines: Penalizing the Unvaccinated?

October 15, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Slate has enthusiastically supported vaccinations and in particular, establishment talking points and narratives regarding them, as well as a particular focus on dismembering mainstream anti-vaccine views. In a recent article titled, "Endangering the Herd," Slate argues that those refusing to receive vaccines should be penalized, and the act of refusing to be vaccinated be criminalized.

The article would claim:

 Parents who don’t vaccinate their kids may have the most heartfelt reason in the world: fear for their own children’s safety. But the basis for that fear is simply unfounded, and their decisions are putting other kids directly at risk. The bottom line is that the government’s interest in protecting children from getting the measles should trump parents’ interest in making medical decisions for their kids

In an attempt to lend credibility to the article's premise - particularly that fears of vaccinations are unfounded - it cites a fictional television show and repeated assurances from governments that there is no link between vaccines and otherwise unexplained conditions like autism.

Indeed, fictional television shows and statements peddled by verified liars among the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom who brought us decade spanning wars based on now verified lies, form the basis of Slate's notion that those who fail to receive vaccines produced and distributed by big-pharmaceutical corporations like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), should be penalized. GSK alone, has been convicted multiple times in courtrooms around the world of multibillion dollar bribery scandals and found guilty of and otherwise engaged in other immense improprieties.

Image: GSK, one of several producers of the MMR vaccine, has been caught
once again amid a massive, multibillion dollar bribery scandal, this time in
China. Literally convicted criminals, why would any rational human being
inject into their bodies anything produced by this corporation? 

In one instance, when Chinese authorities began investing a nationwide multibillion dollar bribery racket run by GSK top executives, GSK formed teams to disrupt, bribe, and otherwise confront law enforcement authorities in an attempt to obstruct their investigation.

Criminality, upon criminality.

GSK has been accused and convicted of doing likewise in both Europe and the United States, yet they are still in business - a business that includes producing the very vaccines Slate believes people should be penalized for refusing to take.

Why would any rational human being allow themselves to be injected by something produced by such a corporation - a corporation literally convicted of criminality, fraud, and bribery? If GSK can bribe hundreds if not thousands of doctors and healthcare workers around the world to endorse their products, how difficult would it be to bribe writers at Slate who literally write for money?

Big-Pharma, not Activists, are Responsible for the Growing Mistrust of Vaccines

The debate isn't ultimately about the science of vaccines, but rather a lack of trust of those charged with producing, monitoring the safety of, and distributing vaccines. The false narrative of science versus conspiracy theorists is peddled by the media, the government, and the corporations that hold influence over both because a narrative focusing on the wisdom of entrusting criminals and mass murderers with our health is an open and shut case.

Such a conclusion would result in the ditching of big-pharma's vaccines and seeking alternative solutions to immunization, vaccine production and distribution, and overall accountability for healthcare. This would in turn result in the decentralization of healthcare and pharmaceutical production, breaking up the unwarranted wealth and influence of big-pharma and those throughout the government and media that have enriched themselves protecting this monopoly. Clearly this is an outcome many in the media, government, and across the board rooms of big-pharmaceutical corporations across the Western World will fight fanatically to prevent. 

For the anti-vaccine movement - it may be wiser to focus on these aspects of the debate rather than be drawn into the false paradigm the media is trying to superimpose upon the issue. It may even be wise to not use the term "anti-vaccine movement," and instead make it an anti-big-pharma movement.

Slate - were it anything other than pages for rent - would focus more on who is responsible for the vast mistrust the public has for big-pharmaceutical corporations and the governments they have verifiably bribed, lobbied, and in some cases, directly control - rather than focus on rational people who do not trust this vast concentration of wealth, influence, and control over human health.

Ebola and the Danger of Globalization

Whatever the cause - conspiracy or incompetence - the recent Ebola outbreak illustrates the dangers of centralized globalization, and opens the door to possible solutions. 

October 13, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) has surfaced in West Africa in an unprecedented outbreak infecting and killing thousands according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The epicenter appears to be centered between Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia - the former being where the first case was reported, the latter being hit the hardest.  Other nations including Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali have had cases reported but were contained and the spread of the disease there appears to have stopped. Nations like Uganda who have grappled with Ebola and similar diseases have yet to be affected and are believed to have suitable measures in place to zero in and contain the virus.

Beyond countries in West Africa, Spain, the United States, Brazil, and now Germany have reported travel-associated cases of Ebola as well as infections of health workers who apparently breached protocols while handling infected patients.

Characteristics of Ebola and Current Countermeasures 

The Ebola virus itself has an incubation period of between 2-21 days. It is not believed to be infectious until symptoms begin to form, however, it can cause infections for up to seven weeks after a patient recovers. Because of its varying incubation period, those infected have between 2-21 days to travel before any form of "screening" currently being done at airports would detect a fever and therefore be able to identify, contain, and treat possible Ebola cases. This means that the infected could be traveling into foreign countries, well past ports of entry and screening points before their symptoms and ability to infect others begin to manifest themselves.

Upon contracting Ebola, patients may begin to exhibit a fever and complain of abdominal pain but otherwise exhibit few other symptoms. It is only until later stages of the infection that Ebola may cause rashes and bleeding - and some patients never develop these symptoms at all. A complete list of symptoms is available at the CDC's website.

Because of Ebola's incubation period, screening at airports is perhaps the least effective measure a state could put in place. Instead, and has been done throughout all of human history to contain contagious disease, nations with widespread infections should be quarantined - and travel bans placed on these nations by governments interested in preventing the spread of Ebola within their borders. Within an infected country, quarantines must be placed on areas where infections are present.

Image: For years US and other Western NGOs have meddled in Liberia's
internal affairs, claiming to be building up education and the nation's
healthcare system. The US in particular has participated in military
intervention in Liberia and has poured billions in cash in alleged "aid."
Ironic then that Liberia is one of the worst hit and least prepared nations
suffering from Ebola. Above is a billboard sponsored by Open Society in
Liberia's capital of Monrovia. 

Despite the success quarantine has exhibited in the past, many Western policymakers have lobbied heavily against placing travel bans on infected countries or the notion of using quarantine procedures within infected countries. Open Society, a corporate-funded foundation that sponsors subversive political programs and so-called "civil society" within targeted countries, has been among the most vocal opponents of quarantining infected communities and countries.

In an Open Society post titled, "Looking Past Quarantine to Community Health," Open Society President Chris Stone claims:

The current focus on quarantine presents a danger not only in the short run, but in the long run as well. Quarantine forces farmers to leave their fields, freezes air travel in African cities, and slows the flow of food and labor. These interruptions can touch off longer, more complex health crises in the countries where Ebola is already weakening systems. 

Instead, the coalition that includes Partners In Health is training and equipping community-based health workers, with local partners such as Last Mile Health taking the lead. Community health workers are trusted neighbors who provide care while connected to a formal health system. This kind of community-based health response not only challenges the spread of Ebola and its fatality but also enables a new economic base and public health infrastructure.

In essence, economic progress within the context of "globalization" and the continued work of Western NGOs like Open Society in building their own administrative networks and infrastructure to control all sociopolitical and economic aspects within nations like Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, takes precedence over actually stopping the spread of Ebola. While the notion of building better and more prepared healthcare infrastructure in such nations should be a priority, it is a long-term goal that will have no affect on stemming the spread of Ebola currently.