As most of my subscribers are aware, I’ve not been publishing much in recent months. The truth is, I’ve been quite demoralized by what has been going on both in the U.S. and around the globe. That typically would have inspired me to action but instead, I’ve been turning inward a bit. Recent events in the middle east have inspired me to voice some of my concerns, however. In full transparency, I’m a non-practicing Jew, but ethnically Jewish nonetheless. My religious affiliation is unrelated to this issue as you will surely see.
As we’re all aware, Hamas launched a brutal attack against Israel over two weeks ago. Much has been said about a statement that was made by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Group, who holds Israel responsible for this war.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
In New York City, the president of the NYU Student Bar Association said that Israel “bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
I was in the car when I heard the President of Harvard, Claudine Gay, comment on this situation.
“As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas. Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of long standing conflicts in the region. Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”
Ultimately she upholds the right of free speech. I find that very interesting indeed. She respects the right of her students to defame Israel but she won’t permit scientific debate at her University. Now that’s an interesting reality. I’m wondering how does that work? Let’s allow our students to say whatever’s on their mind but when our research funding may be threatened, then we cannot afford to allow free speech on our campus. Talk about hypocrisy!
What I’m alluding to is the efforts by Steve Kirsch to find a prominent university who would allow a scientific debate on vaccines to be held on their campus. He offered 1M dollars to any university or reputable, highly published scientists to debate on the safety and efficacy of Covid “vaccines”. He even offered to raise the price on his offer. I believe it provides a stunning example of corruption. Most of the tier one universities have strong academic research facilities that are funded by our public health agencies, NIH, CDC and/or Big Pharma. If it was believed that such a scientific debate would finally debunk the “anti-vax” movement, then I suspect they would welcome the $1M donation. If, however, they understood that it would be impossible to win such a scientific debate, they must do everything in their power to squash such an opportunity, the hell with free speech. I simply don’t understand how any credible university can disallow scientific debate on their campus.
I googled the definition of Science and here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary had to say:
“the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”
I would think this very definition would be the essence of any academic institution but apparently not.
Again, google identified a definition of scientific debate:
Remember, one of the foundations of scientific inquiry is the assumption that scientific ideas must be confirmed and are subject to revision. Although the back-and-forth debates among scientists may sometimes be confusing to the public, these challenges and counter-challenges serve a very useful and necessary purpose in advancing scientific knowledge.
By using empirical methods, scientists make it possible for other scientists to reexamine evidence and data, repeat experiments, replicate research results and confirm (or reject) explanations. Scientists want other scientists (or peers) in the same field of study to review their methods and challenge their results. Why? Because the public and the scientific community will have confidence in their explanations only after other qualified scientists have judged their work to be valid.
So where does this leave us? Although the U.S. spends more money on healthcare than any other country in the world, we have an extremely unhealthy population and the situation is only getting worse. Today’s children are the first generation, in over a hundred years, not to be expected to live as long as their parents.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, the U.S. ranks last among 11 countries in health outcomes.
I was unable to cut and paste the charts but you can easily find them. Here’s the results in a nutshell:
“How the 11 Countries Rank on Performance
The top-performing countries overall are Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia (Exhibit 1). The next three countries in the ranking — the U.K., Germany, and New Zealand — perform very similarly to one another (Exhibit 2). The U.S. ranks #11 — last. Exhibit 2 shows the extent to which the U.S. is an outlier: its performance falls well below the average of the other countries and far below the two countries ranked directly above it, Switzerland and Canada. In fact, the U.S. is such an outlier that we have calculated the average performance based on the other 10 countries, excluding the U.S. (see How We Measured Performance). The U.S. is last on all domains of performance except care process, on which it ranks #2. Exhibit 3 shows that while spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) has increased in all countries, spending growth in the U.S. — by far the worst performer overall — has greatly exceeded growth in the other 10 nations. In 1980, high-income countries spent between 5 percent and 8 percent of GDP on health care. But as U.S. spending accelerated over the decades, the U.S. was spending a substantially larger share of its GDP on health care by 2019 than every other high-income country.”
A typical argument I hear from people, when I mention the need for universal health care, which is available in many other first world countries, is that in the U.S., people have superior access to care. That apparently couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Access to Care: Universal, Affordable Coverage Is Paramount
Access to care includes measures of health care’s affordability and timeliness. The Netherlands performs best on this performance domain among the 11 countries, ranking at or near the top in both subdomains. Norway and Germany also performed well on access to care (Exhibit 1), but all three are outranked on affordability by the U.K. (Exhibit 5).
Overall, the U.S. is #11 — last — on access to care (Exhibit 1). The U.S. has the poorest performance on the affordability subdomain, scoring much lower than even the next-lowest country, Switzerland (Exhibit 5). Compared to residents of the U.S., residents of the Netherlands, the U.K., Norway, and Germany are much less likely to report that their insurance denied payment of a claim or paid less than expected. Residents of these countries are also less likely to report difficulty in paying medical bills (Appendix 4).
People in the countries performing the best on the timeliness subdomain are more likely to be able to get same-day care and after-hours care. The U.S. ranked #9 on timeliness.”
So what’s the bottom line dear readers? As long as the status quo is allowed to remain, we’re essentially screwed. There is a ray of hope, however. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a champion of the environment for 40 years. He has successfully litigated over 500 corrupt corporations, as well as our public health agencies, and has won. He understands the corruption that has crippled our health care system and he has the experience and will to finally put an end to it. He created the Children’s Health Defense which is working to educate the public and fund litigation against the harm that is being done to our children and the public. I urge everyone reading this to get a book which his organization had translated into English called Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth. It is available here. Be careful where you order it from as fake books are often sent out. Some actually have the original cover while others have the same name but a different cover and are actual novels written by different authors.
I’ve never seen anything like it before. A concerted effort by Amazon to make it challenging, on their site, for someone to order this book, is nothing short of extremely disturbing. I first googled amazon books and then I typed in the Turtles book and none of the books were about “vaccine science and myth”, rather were novels with that title. I mentioned it to my husband and he was able to locate the amazon page, below the banner on top which shows the books by that title, which I included in the link above.
My first attempt to order this book, about a year ago, was to go to Powell’s Bookstore in Portland Oregon, the largest independent bookseller in a brick and mortar retail store in the U.S. They didn’t have the book in stock but agreed to order it for me. Three weeks later, a fake book arrived. It had the same cover but inside was a novel, about 1/3 the size of the actual book in thickness*.
*I hope you can see the difference in the thickness of the two books, which share the same cover.
I called Powell’s and said, “I know this is going to sound strange, but I ordered this book and I got a fake book. It’s got the right cover but it’s actually a novel. Silence…..we’d be happy to refund your money” They did refund my purchase. I was quite surprised however that they didn’t ask me to bring the book back to them, as I wouldn’t necessarily believe some stranger making this call. I then contacted the editor of the book, Zoey O’Toole, as I felt it was important that she was aware of this disturbing situation. I have to admit to being shocked by her reply. She clearly stated that this is the book that is being delivered from every independent bookseller in the U.S. That’s how much the powers that be don’t want anyone to get their hands on this book. I then went to my local bookseller in my community and asked them to order the book, so that it would be in stock. I had planned to tell all my friends about the book and rather than order it from Amazon, I thought it would be nice to support my local bookstore. They immediately went on their computer, in front of me, and realized that they were unable to order it from their supplier. Isn’t that odd? I then went to my public library and requested that they keep a copy of this book on their shelves. I actually met with the head of the library and then the head of the board of the library. THEY REFUSED TO ORDER THE BOOK. I even brought the fake copy, along with the real book, to show them what was happening with this book, That made no difference. I asked the woman to please borrow my book and read Chapter 1. If after reading that first chapter, she still felt she couldn’t provide the book to our community, I would accept her decision. She wouldn’t even literally touch the book as I attempted to hand it to her. So this is what’s been happening around the world, around the country and around Oregon.
I found a wonderful link posted by Jenna McCarthy this morning, who was posting under Dr. Pierre Kory’s informative substack. I think it says it all about what we’ve been living through over the last 3+ years. I believe that the censorship/misinformation coming through our mainstream media is ultimately responsible for providing false information to the public during the pandemic. I believe their allegiance must be to the truth. I believe they have an ethical obligation to report accurate scientific information to the public. I do not believe they have an obligation to the government or their sponsors to mislead, lie or avoid reporting on the truth just because it would prove to be inconvenient to those powerful sources.
“I found this little gem in a 1995 Harvard Business Review article:
“The U.S. press, like the U.S. government, is a corrupt and troubled institution. It fails to do what it claims to do, what it should do, and what society expects it to do. The news media and the government are entwined in a vicious circle of mutual manipulation, mythmaking, and self-interest. Journalists need crises to dramatize news, and government officials need to appear to be responding to crises. Too often, the crises are not really crises but joint fabrications. The two institutions have become so ensnared in a symbiotic web of lies that the news media are unable to tell the public what is true, and the government is unable to govern effectively.”
I wish I had a happier way to end this post but these issues are having a dramatic impact on the lives of every American. Until we demand the truth, we will continue to be pawns in this deadly battle for influence and control.
As always Michelle, your posts bring light to important issues. In this case, once again highlighting the amazing hypocrisy that the pandemic made so much clearer to so many more of us.
Michelle, I don’t know what you mean by Amazon making it challenging to order the book. I just ordered a copy. It popped right up on the search screen, and I received the correct book the next day.