Amtgericht Weimar, Urteil vom 11. Januar 2021, Aktenzeichen 6 OWi – 523 Js 202518/20 Urteil
Die Schreckenszenarien, die im Frühjahr die Entscheidung über den Lockdown maßgeblich beeinflussten,… beruhten auch auf falschen Annahmen zur Letalität des Virus (sog. infection fatality rate = IFR) und zur Frage einer bereits vorhandenen bzw. fehlenden Grundimmunität gegen das Virus in der Bevölkerung.. .. Die Letalität beträgt nach einer Metastudie des Medizinwissenschaftlers und Statistikers John Ioannidis, eines der meistzitierten Wissenschaftler weltweit, die im Oktober in einem Bulletin der WHO veröffentlicht wurde, im Median 0,27%, korrigiert 0,23 % und liegt damit nicht höher als bei mittelschweren Influenzaepidemien (www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf).
Die korrekte Schlussfolgerung des Richters: Es gab keine „unvertretbaren Schutzlücken“, die zum Rückgriff auf Generalklauseln berechtigt hätten. Aber dabei bleibt er nicht stehen. Mit diesen Maßnahmen wären die in Artikel 1, Absatz 1 des Grundgesetzes als „unantastbar garantierte Menschenwürde verletzt“. …
External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results.
Pieter Borger(1), Bobby Rajesh Malhotra(2) , Michael Yeadon(3) , Clare Craig(4), Kevin McKernan(5) , Klaus Steger(6) , Paul McSheehy(7) , Lidiya Angelova(8), Fabio Franchi(9), Thomas Binder(10), Henrik Ullrich(11) , Makoto Ohashi(12), Stefano Scoglio(13), Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens(14), Dorothea Gilbert(15), Rainer Klement(16), Ruth Schruefer(17), Berber W. Pieksma(18), Jan Bonte(19), Bruno H. Dalle Carbonare(20), Kevin P. Corbett(21), Ulrike Kämmerer(22)
ABSTRACT
In the publication entitled “Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR” (Eurosurveillance 25(8) 2020) the authors present a diagnostic workflow and RT-qPCR protocol for detection and diagnostics of 2019-nCoV (now known as SARS-CoV-2), which they claim to be validated, as well as being a robust diagnostic methodology for use in public-health laboratory settings.
In light of all the consequences resulting from this very publication for societies worldwide, a group of independent researchers performed a point-by-point review of the aforesaid publication in which 1) all components of the presented test design were cross checked, 2) the RT-qPCR protocol-recommendations were assessed w.r.t. good laboratory practice, and 3) parameters examined against relevant scientific literature covering the field.
The published RT-qPCR protocol for detection and diagnostics of 2019-nCoV and the manuscript suffer from numerous technical and scientific errors, including insufficient primer design, a problematic and insufficient RT-qPCR protocol, and the absence of an accurate test validation. Neither the presented test nor the manuscript itself fulfils the requirements for an acceptable scientific publication. Further, serious conflicts of interest of the authors are not mentioned. Finally, the very short timescale between submission and acceptance of the publication (24 hours) signifies that a systematic peer review process was either not performed here, or of problematic poor quality. We provide compelling evidence of several scientific inadequacies, errors and flaws.
Considering the scientific and methodological blemishes presented here, we are confident that the editorial board of Eurosurveillance has no other choice but to retract the publication.
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Kämmerer & Team survey [XLSX Table],
Powerpoint Presentation on Corman-Drosten RT-qPCR-protocol survey [PPTX],
Kevin McKernan Thermofischer Online Primer Dimer Web Tool Results [PDF/DOCX/PNG],
Email Communication Dr. Pieter Borger with Co-Authors of the Corman-Drosten paper [PDF] and Eurosurveillance Editorial Board in regards to paper-review editorial protocol [PDF],
Researchers have identified a cluster of neurons in mouse brains that encourage fear response to perceived threats. When an adjacent cluster of neurons is activated, boldness and courage behaviors are exhibited.
Salay, L. D., Ishiko, N., & Huberman, A. D. (2018). A midline thalamic circuit determines reactions to visual threat. Nature. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0078-2
Scientists and doctors call for a moratorium on the roll-out of 5G. 5G will substantially increase exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields RF-EMF, that has been proven to be harmful for humans and the environment.
This 96 minute documentary will expose the truth behind the global “Race to 5G”, the health, privacy, and local power concerns, and the corruption between the Big Wireless industry and the U.S. government.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Electromagnetic Spectrum and 5g
Chapter 2: The Concerns Around EMF’s and 5g
Chapter 3: The Big Wireless-5g Takeover
Chapter 4: Solutions
Transcript and Sources:
My name is Derrick Broze. For the past 8 years I have worked as an independent freelance investigative journalist in Houston, Texas. Since 2012 I have covered a wide range of topics, from indigenous resistance at Standing Rock, exposing government and corporate surveillance, and reporting from important trials like Chelsea Manning’s sentencing, and the Silk Road trial. Throughout this time, I have noticed that choosing to investigate certain topics, often results in being labeled a conspiracy theorist, or, at the very least, a proponent of less-than-credible journalism. One of these “forbidden” topics relates to potential harms caused by the use of cell phones and related digital technology.
Over the years I have seen articles discussing research on the dangers of radio frequency radiation and electromagnetic fields. Again, I noticed these studies never made mainstream newspapers, or headlines on the 24 hour cable news cycle. Even if the news had reported on this information, would it have made a difference?
I – like millions of people around the world – never gave a second thought to the possibility that cell phones or laptops could be causing harm to human health. We assume that the government agencies responsible for these fields have tested everything for safety. I started to wonder Has this blind faith in authority been a huge mistake?
My ignorance of these topics came to an end in September 2018 when I learned that the City of Houston had recently partnered with companies like Microsoft and Verizon to turn Houston into a “Smart City”. This Smart City would use emerging 5g technology to power the so-called “Internet of Things”, which In turn will allow for autonomous vehicles, robot assistant’s, artificial intelligence, sensors in the street to moderate street lights and environmental warning systems, and many other futuristic technologies we have been promised.
At this time, I had little understanding of what exactly 5g was, but my preliminary research had shown me that there was an increasing amount of people raising questions about the potential health and privacy concerns. I also learned that there were lawsuits taking place across Texas and around the world, as the opposition pushed back against the federal government and the wireless industry seizing power from towns, cities, and states.
On October 1st, 2018 Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner held a press event with officials from Verizon wireless. The Mayor and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg were on location at a Houston couples home as they installed 5G equipment and helped the young couple become “the world’s first 5g customer”.
DB:Mayor Turner, as far as moving forward with innovation and wanting to be the first, has anybody stopped to look at any studies related to potential health effects of increasing the amount of small cells in the city, as well as privacy concerns that the American Civil Liberties Union and others have put out concerns regarding the push towards smart cities?
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner:you know, I haven’t seen any recent studies on it. I mean the reality is that, umm, if you want to move things quicker, if you want to innovate, you’ve got an installation that, I mean, the infrastructure is critically important”
DB: is there any concern about the health effects of the increase in small cells?
Hans Vestberg, CEO Verizon Wireless:The studies that have been done over years, has not shown any effects or health effects on the radio signals and there’s no difference. There are safety rules on all of it that is regulated by the regulators, how much power you can use.
I was not satisfied with their answers. I did more research and the following week I attended Houston City Council to share what I had found with the Mayor and Council. (video) This visit to council was followed by another, and another, and another. These videos gained more than 900,000 thousand views via Youtube alone, leading dozens of activists from around the world to reach out and encourage me to keep going.
I was also featured on local news discussing the concerns around the 5g roll out. I confronted the Mayor of Houston for his close ties to the Wireless Industry and ignoring the concerns about 5g. The Mayor ran away from my questions at City Council and on 3 different occasions in public (1,2, and 3). In fact, due to the response from the Mayor and the City, I ran a campaign for Mayor of Houston, calling for a moratorium on the installation of 5g towers until further studies.
Over the last year my research has involved interviewing health and privacy experts, and uncovering the truth about the Race to 5g. What I have learned is that the industry known as Big Wireless is colluding with the Federal Communications Commission to create a false demand for 5g technology, in total disregard to health and privacy concerns, all the while using the 5g rollout to strip away local power. I offer the conclusions of my research, in the hopes that it will encourage the public to question and oppose the promises of …. The 5g Trojan Horse.
Chapter 1: Understanding the Electromagnetic Spectrum
To have a discussion on 5g we first have to talk about Electromagnetic frequencies or EMFs. An emf is a measure of how many times the peak of a wave passes a particular point per second. It is measured in Hertz. This range of potential frequencies makes up what we call the electromagnetic spectrum.
The electromagnetic spectrum is divided into separate bands, and the electromagnetic waves within each frequency band are called by different names, including radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays at the high-frequency (short wavelength) end.
Within those bands, gamma rays, X-rays, and high ultraviolet are classified as ionizing radiation, meaning they have sufficient energy to ionize atoms, causing chemical reactions. Exposure to these rays can be a health hazard, causing radiation sickness, DNA damage and cancer. Radiation from visible light and lower wavelength are called nonionizing radiation because they apparently cannot cause these effects. We will revisit the science around ionizing and non-ionizing radiation in a moment.
What is 5g?
Devices like Cellphones, Wifi, and Bluetooth all operate on the microwaves band of the spectrum. When it comes to cellphones, a new generation of cellular standards has appeared approximately every ten years since 1G systems were introduced in 1979 and the early to mid-1980s. Each generation is characterized by new frequency bands, higher data rates and non–backward compatible transmission technology.
The 2nd Generation, or 2g, featured cell phones with texting and pictures. The 3rd generation came about around 2000, with the introduction of phones with some internet, video, and images. The 4th Generation came around 2009 with the introduction of smart phones with instant streaming of video, as well as the use of apps.
As we move into 2020, the shift to the 5th generation, or 5g, has begun. In addition to being promoted as the solution to 4k movie downloads, the new technology is expected to herald the beginning of Smart Cities, where driverless cars, traffic lights, pollution sensors, smart phones and countless other smart devices interact in what is known as “The Internet of Things.” The IoT is a fancy way to say that we will be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of interconnected devices and sensors which are gathering mass amounts of data that will be used to show you advertising and monitor your habits, and other uses that we can’t even predict yet.
The switch from 4g to 5g is a change unlike those of previous generations. One notable difference is that 5G technology uses much higher frequencies, ranging from 10-300 GHZ. 5g is using millimeter waves which do not travel far and are easily blocked by trees, buildings, and walls. The 5 G rollout means the installation of hundreds of thousands of new cell sites, towers, and additions to existing infrastructure. Cities like Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, San Diego, New York City, and Washington D.C. are already deploying 5g for residential and commercial uses.
Let’s examine some of the concerns surrounding 5g and electromagnetic fields in general.
Chapter 2: The Concerns Around EMF’s and 5g
As I mentioned earlier, over the years I have come across articles claiming that cell phones were giving people cancer or making people sick. I did not pay too much attention at first, but when I finally decided to investigate the topic I realized there was ample evidence that the technology we are so hurriedly surrounding ourselves with might be putting our lives at risk in more ways than one.
I started by trying to understand the concerns around EMFs in general. I went through hundreds of studies, including those from official government sources and others funded independently. I found studies like “International and National Expert Group Evaluations: Biological/Health Effects of Radiofrequency Fields“, which examined six decades worth of research into the effects of in vitro and in vivo exposures of animals and humans or their cells to RF fields.
“Data reported in peer-reviewed scientific publications were contradictory: some indicated effects while others did not,” the researchers write. Still, in the end, the expert groups suggested a “reduction in exposure levels, precautionary approach, and further research.” So I continued digging.
I came across studies discussing extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields and their effect on DNA. The researchers concluded that cells exposed to ELFs “presented an increase of the number of cells with high damaged DNA as compared with non-exposed cells.” I found studies examining a potential association between nocturnal mobile phone use and mental health, suicidal feelings, and self-injury in adolescents. I also found an interesting one discussing the excitability of the brain being induced by radiofrequencies. The study stated that “These results suggest that low-intensity RF fields can modulate the excitability of hippocampal tissue in vitro in the absence of gross thermal effects. The changes in excitability may be consistent with reported behavioural effects of RF fields.”
A 2004 study found “an increased risk of acoustic neuroma [tumors] associated with mobile phone use of at least 10 years’ duration.”
I also found studies that were inconclusive, which found “No conclusive evidence of an association between use of mobile and cordless phones and a meningioma brain tumor”. The study discovered “An indication of increased risk” but was not “supported by statistically significant increasing risk“, ultimately calling for further studies.
A study by Kaiser Permanente examined rates of miscarriages for women near cell towers. The study of hundreds of pregnant women in the San Francisco Area found that those who were more exposed to the type of radiation produced by cell phones, wireless networks and power lines — radiation that grows more common everyday — were nearly three times as likely to miscarry. The Kaiser Permanente study did not show definitively what was causing the higher rate of pregnancy loss, nor did it isolate the potential impact of cell phones or other producers of EMFs. However, the authors said the results underscore the need for more research into the potential dangers.
During my investigation I came across the name of Dr. Martin Pall, a Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University. Pall is a published and widely cited scientist on the biological effects of electromagnetic fields, an expert in how wireless radiation impacts the electrical systems in our bodies.
He has published 7 studies showing sensitivity to electromagnetic fields exists in what is known as the voltage sensor, in each cell of the body. A study by Pall published in the journal of Environmental Health found this sensitivity in human cells in response to wi-fi exposure. He calls this effect an important threat to human health. According to Dr. Pall, there are at least 15 different ways EMFs harm humans, including :
1. changes in brain structure and function, changes in various types of psychological responses and changes in behavior.
2) At least eight different endocrine (hormonal) effects.
3) Cardiac effects influencing the electrical control of the heart
4) Chromosome breaks and other changes in chromosome structure.
5) Histological changes in the testes.
6) Cell death
7) Lowered male fertility including lowered sperm quality and function and also lowered female fertility (less studied).
810) Cellular DNA damage including single strand breaks and double strand breaks in cellular DNA
9) Cancer which is likely to involve these DNA changes but also increased rates of tumor promotion-like events.
10) Cataract formation
11) Breakdown of the blood-brain barrier.
12) Melatonin depletion and sleep disruption.
“18 more recent epidemiological studies, provide substantial evidence that microwave EMFs from cell/mobile phone base stations, excessive cell/mobile phone usage and from wireless smart meters can each produce similar patterns of neuropsychiatric effects. Lesser evidence from 6 additional studies suggests that short wave, radio station, occupational and digital TV antenna exposures may produce similar neuropsychiatric effects. Among the more commonly reported changes are sleep disturbance/insomnia, headache, depression/depressive symptoms, fatigue/tiredness, dysesthesia, concentration/attention dysfunction, memory changes, dizziness, irritability, loss of appetite/body weight, restlessness/anxiety, nausea, skin burning/tingling/dermographism and EEG changes.”
He concludes that “extensive epidemiological studies performed over the past 50 years” “all collectively show that various non-thermal microwave EMF exposures produce diverse neuropsychiatric effects”. Pall also notes that the effects of EMF’s were documented 49 years ago in the U.S. Office of Naval Medical Research report, published in 1971.
Despite the breadth of his work, Dr. Pall has largely been pushed to the fringes of society. To be fair, his work has been criticized by other scientists who have accused him of bias and cherry picking studies to support his claims. In 2018, I asked Dr. Martin Pall why his research has been ignored or pushed out of the mainstream conversation.
Dr. Martin Pall: We quit funding, we quit funding the studies of this sort back between 1986 and 1999. We’ve done almost nothing since then. So basically the US government’s been pushing these technologies, at the same time doing absolutely nothing, well almost absolutely nothing, to protect us.
The debate around the safety of cellphones and other devices that emit EMFs grew a little more heated in early November 2018 when the National Toxicology Program released data concluding there is clear evidence radio-frequency radiation (RFR) can cause brain and heart tumors in male lab rats. The $30 million study took more than ten years to complete as researchers examined the effects of prolonged exposure to high levels of RFR, specifically the type of radiation emitted via 2G and 3G cellular networks.
The researchers write:
“There was also some evidence of tumors in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats. For female rats, and male and female mice, the evidence was equivocal as to whether cancers observed were associated with exposure to RFR.”
The NTP caution that the results should not be applied to humans and the FDA and other government agencies also said that they do not support the conclusions and they do not apply to 5g. [John Bucher, Ph.D.,] A senior scientist with the NTP said, “The exposures used in the studies cannot be compared directly to the exposure that humans experience when using a cell phone. In our studies, rats and mice received radio frequency radiation across their whole bodies.” The NTP stated that, “The lowest exposure level used in the studies was equal to the maximum local tissue exposure currently allowed for cell phone users.”
The NTP seems to suggest the only way to avoid the health concerns is to avoid using a cell phone. In a health advisory, the NTP recommends those concerned about the potential health risks from RFR should, “Use speaker mode or a headset to place more distance between your head and the cell phone,” or “reduce the amount of time spent using your cell phone.”
Ronald Melnick PhD, a researcher and scientist [Former senior toxicologist, US Environmental Toxicology Program] who designed the exposure systems used in the study, disagrees with the FDA and the FCC.
Melnick notes that, “Dr. Shuren neglects to note that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a part of the World Health Organization, classified radio-frequency radiation from wireless devices as a “possible human carcinogen” based largely on findings of increased risks of gliomas and Schwann cell tumors in the brain near the ear in humans after long term use of cellphones.” The IARC designation of cell phones as a possible carcinogen has been highly controversial since it was first issued in 2011.
[In an opinion piece published by The Hill,] Melnick also stated that, “Simply claiming that conclusions about human risk cannot be drawn from animal studies runs counter to standard practices of evaluating human cancer risks by public health agencies including the U.S. EPA, NTP, IARC and even the FDA. Every chemical known to cause cancer in humans is also carcinogenic in animals when adequately tested.”
In an interview with Josh Del Sol of Take Back Your Power, Melnick elaborated on the problems he sees with the U.S. regulatory agencies.
Josh Del Sol, Take Back Your Power:Approximately 30 million dollars was invested to see if cell phones cause cancer at levels at or below the allowable levels right and in rats and the answer is that there was a significant increase in schwannomas of the heart and gliomas in the brain and then they dropped it, they just dropped it. So I guess I want to ask the question, like why do you think, now we’re getting into speculation here, and we know that Harvard Ethics Department has written about the FCC’s being controlled by industry but the FDA? We’ve heard in other conversations various things about them but like what’s actually going on and how significant of a thing is this. The study was done, it showed cancer, and then they just dropped it. Help us to frame this here.
Dr. Ronald Melnick:Well, I can’t tell you why they decided as such all I can say is that they decided at this point, or as far as I know, not to do anything about this. This information was actually available in 2016 when the NTP released some of the partial findings because of the potential impact of these findings on the general population. The tumors in the heart and tumors in the brain were known in 2016. If you know, it could be that, they don’t want people to think that their cell phones pose a cancer hazard, maybe they have other reasons and I can’t say whether or not the industry is having an influence that is certainly a possibility but seems to me that from a public health perspective what you want to do is understand the risk, quantify it, and do something about it, promote precautionary principles.
Even more recently, an August 2019 investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that currently available models of cell phones are already exceeding the safety limits set by the FCC. This means that the cell phones being used by millions of Americans are exposing them to dangerous levels of radiation.
There is clearly sufficient evidence to warrant a mass warning to consumer of electronic devices, yet we are met with silence from health professionals and mainstream corporate media. Regarding the dangers of 5g, Dr. Melnick suggests caution.
“5G is an emerging technology that hasn’t really been defined yet. From what we currently understand, it likely differs dramatically from what we studied. Consequently, I believe that new wireless technologies, including 5G, should be adequately tested before their implementation leads to unacceptable levels of human exposures and increased health risks.”
Additionally, hundreds of scientists from around the world have signed the “5g Appeal”, a statement calling on a moratorium on 5g.
“We the undersigned, scientists and doctors, recommend a moratorium on the roll-out of the fifth generation, 5G, for telecommunication until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry. 5G will substantially increase exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) on top of the 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, etc. for telecommunications already in place. RF-EMF has been proven to be harmful for humans and the environment.“
At a May 2018 United Nations hearing, Claire Edwards, [a United Nations Editor and Trainer in Intercultural Writing from 1999 to 2017,] warns the UN Secretary-General António Guterres about the dangers of 5G. Edwards is a co-organizer of a second appeal to Stop 5G, called the International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space (www.5gspaceappeal.org), which as of December 2019, had 186,352 signatories from 208 nations and territories. At the hearing she told Guterres that recently installed wifi equipment could cause harm to UN employees.
Claire Edwards: “Since December 2015, the staff here at the Vienna International Centre have been exposed to off-the-scale electromagnetic radiation from WiFi and mobile phone boosters installed on very low ceilings throughout the buildings. Current public exposure levels are at least one quintillion times (that’s 18 zeros) above natural background radiation according to Professor Olle Johansson of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
The highly dangerous biological effects of EMFs have been documented by thousands of studies since 1932 indicating that we may be facing a global health catastrophe orders of magnitude worse than those caused by tobacco and asbestos.
Mr. Secretary-General, on the basis of the Precautionary Principle, I urge you to have these EMF-emitting devices removed immediately and to call a halt to any rollout of 5G at UN duty stations, because 5g is designed to deliver concentrated and focused electromagnetic radiation in excess of 100 times current levels, in the same way as do directed energy weapons”.
Guterres claimed he was ignorant to the dangers of the technology.
Groups like Physicians for Safe Technology have also called for caution and common sense on 5g. Doctors have begun speaking out about the concerns of surrounding ourselves with hundreds of thousands of new cell towers and small cells in the interest of 5g. [In October 2018, Sharon Goldberg, a medical practitioner for 21 years, testified in front of the Michigan House Energy Policy Committee (:13 to 1:58, )]
In April 2019, New York Congressman Thomas Suozzi sent a letter to the FCC seeking answers about the technology.
“Small cell towers are being installed in residential neighborhoods in close proximity to houses throughout my district. I have heard instances of these antennas being installed on light poles directly outside the window of a young child’s bedroom. Rightly so, my constituents are worried that should this technology be proven hazardous in the future, the health of their families and value of their properties would be at serious risk.”
New Jersey Congressman Andy Kim also sent a letter, noting that:
“Current regulations governing radiofrequency (RF) safety were put in place in 1996 and have not yet been reassessed for newer generation technologies. Despite the close proximity to sensitive areas where these high-band cells will be installed, little research has been conducted to examine 5G safety.”
Most damning of all, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut exposed that Big Wireless and the FCC have failed to do adequate independent studies into the effects of emerging 5g technology. At a Senate Commerce committee hearing, Blumenthal questioned industry reps about the absence of this research. (2:38-3:44, 4:35-4:44)
Richard Blumenthal: “If you go to the FDA website, there basically is a cursory and superficial citation to existing scientific data saying ‘’he FDA has urged the cell phone industry to take a number of steps, including support additional research on possible biological effects of radio frequency fields for the type of signals emitted by cell phones.’
So my question for you: How much money has the industry committed to supporting additional independent research—I stress independent—research? Is that independent research ongoing? Has any been completed? Where can consumers look for it? And we’re talking about research on the biological effects of this new technology.”
Brad Gillen, Executive Director of the CTIA: “There are no industry backed studies to my knowledge right now.”
At the end of the exchange, Blumenthal concluded, “So there really is no research ongoing. We’re kind of flying blind here, as far as health and safety is concerned.”
As more health professionals, politicians, and scientists speak out against the dangers of 5g and EMFs, the cellular industry and some in the mainstream media have begun pushing back. In March 2019, William Broad of the New York Times wrote a piece promoting the idea that those who are concerned about the health effects of 5g are simply falling prey to Russian propaganda designed to make America lose the “race to 5g”. His article, “Your 5G Phone Won’t Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise.”, sought to place the blame for concern around 5g on the shoulders of America’s favorite boogeyman – The Russians.
Dr. Devra Davis, PhD, President of the Environmental Health Trust, responded to Broad’s claim by noting that “by relegating concerns about 5G to a Russian ploy, he misses altogether the fact that the purportedly independent international authorities on which he relies that declare 5G to be safe are an exclusive club of industry-loyal scientists.China,Russia, Poland, Italy and several other European countries allow up to hundreds of times less wireless radiation into the environment from microwave antennas than does the U.S..”
Davis went even further, comparing the treatment of those who raise awareness about the public impact of radio frequency microwave radiation to that of those scientists in the 1950s and 60s who attempted to ring alarm bells about the dangers of tobacco.
“Scientists who showed the harmful impacts of tobacco found themselves struggling for serious attention and financial support,” [Davis wrote].
Dr. Devra Davis: “For health impacts from wireless radiation, a similar pattern is emerging. Each time a U.S. government agency produced positive findings, research on health impacts was defunded. The Office of Naval Research, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the Environmental Protection Agency all once had vibrant research programs documenting dangers of wireless radiation. All found their programs scrapped, reflecting pressure from those who sought to suppress this work.”
Ironically, one of the sources for an extensive amount of research on the health effects of EMFs comes from Russia and Ukraine. In fact, a review paper of Russian and Ukrainian science discusses research on the effect of EMFs in the former Soviet Union during the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s.
[ The report states that,] “In epidemiological studies of the population of Ukraine, a connection was established between leukemia in children and cancer in adults, and exposure to EMF at industrial frequencies. Specific injuries under radiowave exposure are development of cataracts, instability in leukocyte make-up of peripheral blood, and vegeto-vascular disorder.”
Additionally, on March 3, 2011 the Russia radiation watchdog committee [members of the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (RNCNIRP)] approved a resolution on the effects of non-ionizing radiation emitted by cell phones. According to U.S. government agencies, cell phones and EMFs are non-ionizing, meaning they do not have the power to alter atoms in the human body. Because of this, and the assumption that heat alone cannot cause health problems, the public is told that non-ionizing means safe. The resolution by the committee says otherwise.
[The committee states that] “urgent measures must be taken because of the inability of children to recognize the harm from the mobile phone use and that a mobile phone itself can be considered as an uncontrolled source of harmful exposure.”
The Russian committee called for requiring health information regarding exposure to EMFs on the phone itself, as well as setting limits for children and teens using cell phones and laptops. As of 2019, no U.S. regulatory body has adopted similar measures.
Regarding this debate around ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, I asked Dr. Martin Pall why some researchers claim non-ionizing radiation is safe, and others warn of harm.
Dr. Martin Pall (18:25-19:54): When thinking about radiation you’re talking about the individual photons that make it up and the fact is that the individual photons that make up non-ionizing radiation, particularly you know in the microwave and lower frequency ranges, don’t have enough energy to influence the chemistry of our bodies. That’s true. They don’t, but we’re not talking about the individual photons. It’s the fields as a whole and those fields as a whole put forces on a structure called the voltage sensor that controls these voltage-gated calcium channels and that structure is extraordinarily sensitive to these fields and that’s why you get activation of the voltage-gated calcium channels, and why you get excessive calcium in the cell. So, we know why the system works and we know why it’s so extraordinarily sensitive. And the industry has been claiming that these fields are not strong enough to do anything but the reason the industry is wrong is because this structure is extraordinarily sensitive to the forces of the EMF’s. So this comes straight out of the physics and this is where this is where the physics background that I have has been very valuable, in addition an understanding of biology.
By studying the evidence, it becomes abundantly clear that – despite the attacks from mainstream news and promises from Big Wireless – there are a great deal of reasons to be concerned about health issues related to cell phones, laptops, smart devices, and 5g. To be fair, there are, of course, scientists and researchers who say that the claims of health problems associated with EMFs are exaggerated and unfounded.
The proponents of EMFs claim the opposition is cherry-picking evidence to make their case. However, even if one takes only a cursory look at the information we have just presented to you, it should be easy enough to see that rolling out a new untested technology is not smart science. At the very least, we must encourage public officials to exercise the precautionary principle and do further testing before rolling out 5g.
Smart City or Surveillance City?
Cancer and other health issues are not the only concerns being raised by critics of 5g and The Internet of Things. There are a growing number of professionals, government agencies, civil rights attorneys, and activists asking important questions about the digital future.
In April 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union released a guide detailing important questions that should be asked by city officials seeking to join the “Smart City evolution. [The guide, “How to Prevent Smart Cities from Turning to Surveillance Cities”, was written by Matt Cagle, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.] In the course of my research I spoke with the author about his biggest concerns associated with 5g.
Matt Cagle, ACLU: (1:50-3:12): When we talk about smart city technology or the Internet of Things in thegovernment context, that what we’rereally talking about is you knowelectronics that are maybe small andcheap that can be placed around the city and that essentially can be designed to collect information, whether it’s visual information or audio information or information about say whether a parking space is occupied. But before any smart city technology is acquired or deployed, it’s really important that a city working with its community determine whether that technology is actually smart for the city to do.
Why do we ask why do we say that? Well, that’s because you know smart city technology can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It can be another way for the government to amass information that it may not have wanted to collect for law enforcement purposes but that might be vulnerable to that sort of use later or that they may not have wanted to collect for immigration purposes but that could potentially be vulnerable to that later. And again, this technology is often going to be collected by companies that have developed it. So it’s really important for the city and the community to be on the same page about who’s going to own this data as we go forward with this project, who’s going to be able to sell this data, and at the end of the day are communities in control of these technologies.
There already exist a few examples of what a Smart City will resemble. In places like San Diego, activists are already fighting against privacy invasions via environmentally friendly smart streetlights that are always listening. In South Korea the Smart City vision is advancing quite quickly. (Video 1:27-2:18)
Let’s look at another example of a smart city.
Quayside is a planned smart city that has been in the works since 2016. Located on 12 acres of waterfront property southeast of downtown Toronto, Canada, Quayside represents a joint effort by the Canadian government agency, Waterfront Toronto, and Sidewalk Labs, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. Sidewalk Labs claims Quayside will solve traffic congestion, rising home prices and environmental pollution. There are even plans for housing developments and a school within the smart city.
Unfortunately, residents of Quayside will be using a centralized identity management system through which they access public services such as library cards and health care. This means their data will be highly centralized, leaving it open to access by hackers and law enforcement. In fact, Quayside has consistently faced pushback due to a failure to build-in the necessary privacy protections.
At least two officials involved in the project have resigned. Saadia Muzaffar resigned from Waterfront Toronto in protest after the board showed “apathy and a lack of leadership regarding shaky public trust.”
In October 2018, Ann Cavoukian, one of Canada’s leading privacy experts and Ontario’s former privacy commissioner, became the latest person to resign from the project. Cavoukian was brought on by Sidewalk Toronto as a consultant to help install a “privacy by design” framework. She was initially told that all data collected from residents would be deleted and rendered unidentifiable. She later learned that third parties would have access to identifiable information gathered at Quayside.
“I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance,” she wrote in her resignation letter. “I have to resign because you committed to embedding privacy by design into every aspect of your operation.”
The fears around Quayside grew in late October 2019, when The Globe and Mail reported that previously unseen documents from Sidewalk Labs detailed how people living in a Sidewalk community would interact with and have access to the space around them. This experience in the proposed smart cities largely depends on how much data you’re willing to share, which could be used to reward or punish people for their behavior.
Although the document, known internally as the “yellow book,” was designed as a pitch book for the company, and predates Sidewalk’s formal agreements with the City of Toronto, it does provide a vision of what the Google sister company would like to do.
Specifically, the document details how Sidewalk will require tax and financing authority to finance and provide services, including the ability to impose, capture and reinvest property taxes.” The company would also create and control its public services, including charter schools, special transit systems and a private road infrastructure.
The document also describes reputation-based tools that sound disturbingly similar to the social credit system we have seen in tv shows like Black Mirror and those unfolding in modern China. These tools would lead to a “new currency for community co-operation,” effectively establishing a social credit system. Sidewalk could use these tools to “hold people or businesses accountable” while rewarding good behavior with easier access to loans and public services.
In response to the document leaks, Sidewalk spokesperson Keerthana Rang said, “The ideas contained in this 2016 internal paper represent the result of a wide-ranging brainstorming process very early in the company’s history.”
Perhaps due in part to the push back against privacy invasions, in November 2019 Sidewalk Labs released a 482-page Digital Innovation Appendix stating that none of Quayside’s systems will incorporate facial recognition, and that Sidewalk Labs won’t sell personal information or use it for advertising. Sidewalk Labs says it will require explicit consent to share personal information with third parties.
For the moment, future residents of Quayside will have their data protected, but these types of systems are already being put into place in China. Under the expansion of China’s Sesame Credit System, more than a million people were denied the right to fly. Chinese citizens already live under constant surveillance with CCTV’s and facial recognition a part of daily life.
The U.S. is not far behind China. The U.S. government is also expanding their facial recognition capabilities, with the FBI maintaining a massive secret database of “face prints”. The 5g roll out, the growth of Artificial Intelligence, and the push towards a Smart City future will only increase the potential for abuses of privacy. As we move ever closer to the Smart City future, privacy – and the liberty that comes with privacy – are under extreme threat.
A Threat to Local Control
In September 2018, the FCC passed a new rule putting the federal government in complete control of the 5G rollout. Although the original 1996 Telecommunications Act was the first power grab by the federal government, the September 2018 rule made it so that cities and towns had little ability to regulate or avoid the installation of so-called “Small Cells”.. Under the new rule, phone companies can be charged no more than $270 to install each small-cell antenna. Additionally, local authorities would have 60 days to review the proposed wireless infrastructure.
Localities are already limited in deciding where the equipment can be located. The new rule also continued the tradition of forbidding localities from opposing the equipment on health grounds. The only acceptable claim is based on aesthetics. Basically, if you think the tower looks ugly, they will turn into a palm tree for you.
The Republicans on the FCC stated that limiting the fees that cities can charge localities will free up capital for them to invest in local infrastructure. Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel was the lone dissenter, calling the rule “extraordinary federal overreach”.
“I do not believe the law permits Washington to run roughshod over state and local authority like this and I worry the litigation that follows will only slow our 5G future,” Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC Commissioner stated.
Rosenworcel was correct about litigation to follow. In fact, in the weeks after the October 2018 rule, two dozen cities and counties filed lawsuits against the Federal Communications Commission. The governments argued that the rule hinders their ability to manage how phone companies use public property.
The mayors of Los Angeles and Philadelphia opposed the rule and accused the FCC of overriding local authority to regulate the new technology. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti sent a letter to the FCC stating that the rules would override previous agreements established by local authorities and Verizon and AT&T.
Sascha Meinrath, the Palmer Chair in Telecommunications for Pennsylvania State University, stated that he believed preventing local government from collecting fees is “Anti-competitive” and simply a part of Telecom history “that happens again and again and again.”
The matter was only made worse when, in April 2019, President Trump issued an executive order stating that local and state bodies must now approve new 5G infrastructure within 90 days. The Trump administration also initiated a cap on the fees local governments can charge telecom companies wanting to install 5G technology. (video 4:17-5:12)
The push back against the usurpation of local power by the federal government and the telecom lobby can be seen clearly in the town of Danville, California. Back in March 2019, the Danville Town Council voted four to one to block a permit for a 5g small cell wireless installation by Verizon. During the meeting, Danville Mayor Robert Storer stated that the vote was an effort to stand up to the federal government and telecom companies, like Verizon. The Danville Town Council’s decision to deny the land use-permit for the small cell opens the town to possible lawsuits from Verizon.
“We’ve lost local control, and this says: ‘You know what? We are sick of this and we’re not going to just sit here and be bulled over.’ We say no; we play our cards out. We’ve been in lawsuits before,” Mayor Robert Storer said during the council meeting.
Danville city attorney Robert Ewing reiterated that cities cannot fight the small cells or 5g rollout based on health concerns, stating that, “While potential health concerns are a huge concern, if that was the basis on which you were making a decision I would be fairly confident to tell you that you would lose, because that’s about as clear as the law can get.”
Similar resolutions are passing in towns across the world, either outright banning 5g or requiring more testing before implementation. Between the FCC rules, and the Presidential Executive Order, the U.S. federal government is working with the Big Wireless Lobby to force 5g down the throats of cities and states around the country. Together, in an incestuous corporate-state relationship, they are slowly taking away choice and consent from local bodies. Most worrisome is the thought that the 5g rollout and the subsequent theft of local power, might be setting a precedent for a future where cities and towns have no say in what happens in their own communities, and instead are forced to go along with the agenda of the federal government and their corporate buddies.
A Danger to the Environment
As we examine the impact of 5g, EMFs, and radio frequency radiation on human health, we must also take a moment to consider the impacts on the environment. One of the more recent concerns is how the rolling out of 5g might negatively impact our ability to forecast the weather and accurately predict storms.
In the spring of 2019, NASA and the NOAA said 5G antennas using similar frequencies used by satellites to gather critical water vapor data, could compromise forecasts and science. The FCC and Big Telecom companies are seeking to expand cellular service into frequency bands such as 24 GHz, which falls near the frequency used for weather forecasting, at about 23.8 GHz. The Federal Communications Commission, which licenses the wireless spectrum for 5G in the United States, says the fears are exaggerated.
In March 2019, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who oversees NOAA, and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine sent a letter asking the FCC to postpone the auction of the 5g frequency bands. Instead, the FCC went ahead with the auction, selling frequency to both T-Mobile and AT&T. In May 2019, Neil Jacobs, NOAA’s acting administrator, testified to Congress that an internal study had found 5G-related interference could cost NOAA 77% of the water vapor data it collects at 23.8 GHz, and could degrade weather forecasts by up to 30%, essentially back to 1980 levels. Due to these concerns, NASA and NOAA were seeking a sizable buffer zone between the frequency bands used for weather and those used for 5g. This buffer is measured in units of decibel watts.
Unfortunately, in late November 2019, at a meeting of the International Telecommunication Union, international regulators agreed to a buffer of 33 decibel watts until 1 September 2027, and a 39 decibel watts limit after that. The goal was to allow 5G companies to start building networks now, and to add more protection for weather forecasting once the companies have established their networks. Eric Allaix, a meteorologist and head of World Meteorological Organization (WMO), called the idea of having eight years of lax regulation “of grave concern” to weather forecasters.
Once again, regulators chose policies that benefit Big Wireless and fail to protect the planet and the people.
The 5g expansion not only poses a threat to human health, privacy, and weather forecasting, but an increasing amount of research indicates that surrounding ourselves with an unprecedented amount of digital devices is creating a new form of pollution, known as a digital or “electrosmog”.
n the report, Bees, Birds, and Mankind, German researchers discuss the effects of this electric smog. “The consequences of this development have also been predicted by the critics for many decades and can now no longer be ignored. Bees and other insects disappear, birds avoid certain areas and are disoriented in other locations,” the researchers write.
In September 2008, a co-author of the report [Dr. Ulrich Warnke, one of the authors of that report, also presented his findings to the Radiation Research Trust at the Royal Society in London. He] stated that, “an unprecedented dense mesh of artificial magnetic, electrical and electromagnetic fields are disrupting nature on a massive scale, causing birds and bees to lose their bearings, fail to reproduce and die.”
A review of studies from around the world show that concerns around the electrosmog are rising. One study Electromagnetic pollution from phone masts. Effects on wildlife reviewed the impact of radiofrequency radiation from wireless telecommunications on wildlife. The researchers note that phone towers located in the living areas of some species are continuously irradiatiating wildlife, causing a reduction of their natural defenses, deterioration of their health, and problems in reproduction. The researchers conclude that “microwave and radiofrequency pollution constitutes a potential cause for the decline of animal populations and deterioration of health of plants living near phone masts. To measure these effects urgent specific studies are necessary.”
attempted to verify whether there is a connection between unusual tree damage and radiofrequency exposure. The researchers conducted a long-term field monitoring study in two German cities. They observed and took photos of unusual or inexplicable tree damage, along with measurements of electromagnetic radiation. A statistical analysis showed that electromagnetic radiation from cell phone towers is harmful for trees. The researchers note that, “These results are consistent with the fact that damage afflicted on trees by mobile phone towers usually start on one side, extending to the whole tree over time.”
A 2010 study looked at the decline in Aspen trees in Colorado since 2004. This study suggested that the RF exposure may have strong adverse effects on growth rate, and may be an underlying factor in aspen decline. Additionally, there are concerns that thousands of trees will be cut down or trimmed to ensure the 5g frequencies operate efficiently.
Another area of growing concern relates to the fear that the massive increase in exposure to RFR could be one of the causes for bee colony collapse disorder, which has wreaked havoc on the global honeybee population.
In a 2017 study,[ Disturbing Honeybees’ Behavior with Electromagnetic Waves: a Methodology,] researcher Daniel Favre of Switzerland claims that his article describes an experiment on bees, which clearly shows the adverse effects of electromagnetic fields on their behavior. [Favre states that,] “The experiment should be reproduced by other researchers so that the danger of manmade electromagnetism (for bees, nature and thus humans) ultimately appears evident to anyone.”
In a study on tadpoles [Mobile Phone Mast Effects on Common Frog Tadpoles,] researchers exposed eggs and tadpoles to electromagnetic radiation from cell phone antennas for two months, from the egg phase until an advanced phase of tadpole and found low coordination of movements, an inconsistent growth pattern, and a high mortality rate. The authors conclude, “these results indicate that radiation emitted by phone masts in a real situation may affect the development and may cause an increase in mortality of exposed tadpoles. This research may have huge implications for the natural world, which is now exposed to high microwave radiation levels from a multitude of phone masts.”
These concerns are not being promoted on the corporate media nightly news or 24 hour news cycles, but to those willing to do the homework, it becomes clear. There is ample evidence of negative impacts as a result of RFR associated with cell phones wifi, and likely, 5g. In fact, in 2018 the European Commission[‘s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks] released a statement on emerging health and environmental issues which clearly outlined the need for more independent research.
Under section 4.4 Potential effects on wildlife of increases in electromagnetic radiation, the report states that “How exposure to electromagnetic fields could affect humans remains a controversial area, and studies have not yielded clear evidence of the impact on mammals, birds or insects. The lack of clear evidence to inform the development of exposure guidelines to 5G technology leaves open the possibility of unintended biological consequences. “
These unintended consequences have the potential to affect human life, as well as insects, birds, plants, and trees.
Chapter 3 : The Big Wireless-5g Takeover
As I continued my research and began presenting it to the Houston City Council and fellow Houstonians, I noticed there was often a reluctance to believe what I was claiming. Several times I was asked something along the lines of, “How could something so dangerous be allowed on the market? Doesn’t the government regulate this technology?”
Once again, the trust of the authorities made people feel like they were safe from harm. Unfortunately, the research shows otherwise. But how could this happen? How can the U.S. government allow potentially hazardous products to be sold and used by millions of people?
To understand this, we need to go back to 1996. That year the Telecommunications Act was passed as an effort to update the law around communications technology as the internet was beginning to come into mass public use. The Act was also seen as a way to limit the growing AT&T monopoly. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of further consolidation of telecommunications companies and a huge step towards eroding local power.
The 1996 act prohibits local jurisdictions from considering perceived health effects when taking an action on a proposed facility, such as towers or small cells. Instead, cities and towns could only regulate cell sites based on the aesthetics and location of the devices. [Section 332(c)(7)(B)(iv) of] The Telecommunications Act of 1996 states:
“No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions.”
Essentially, as long as the facilities comply with the standards set by the FCC, they cannot be subjected to environmental or health regulations. But what happens if those federal standards set by the FCC in 1996 are not adequate? As we will get into shortly, there are studies which show health effects even at the levels allowed by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, not to mention the fact that the standards are over two decades old and based on outdated technology.
Not only was the Telecom Act designed to protect the profits of the Big Wireless companies, but somewhere along the way the FCC and the Telecoms developed an incestuous relationship that has overtaken the voices and concerns of the American people.
A 2015 expose [, the Harvard Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics published an expose ] by investigative journalist Norm Alster shows the financial ties between the US Federal communications Commission (FCC) and the telecoms industry and how, as a result, the wireless industry bought unfettered access to—and power over—a major US regulatory agency.
The report [ “Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission is Dominated by the Industries it Presumably Regulates”, ] details how the FCC, an independent government agency created in 1934 to regulate interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable, has become a captured agency with Big Wireless leaders filling the government seats in a revolving door fashion similar to other federal agencies.
Regarding the passing of the 1996 Telecom Act, Alster writes that “late lobbying won the wireless industry enormous concessions from lawmakers, many of them major recipients of industry hard and soft dollar contributions. Congressional staffers who helped lobbyists write the new law did not go unrewarded. Thirteen of fifteen staffers later became lobbyists themselves.”
Alster states that direct lobbying by industry is “just one of many worms in a rotting apple”. The report says the FCC is involved in a network of powerful moneyed interests with limitless access and a variety of ways to shape policy. Alster believes the worst part is that the wireless industry has been allowed to grow unchecked and virtually unregulated, with fundamental questions on public health routinely ignored.
Unfortunately, the situation goes beyond corrupted government agencies and into defaming those who speak out against potential harms caused by wireless technology.
During the 1990’s, Biochemist Jerry Phillips was hired by cellphone giant Motorola to study the effects of the RF Radiation emitted by cell phones. Phillips and his colleagues looked at the effects of different RF signals on rats, and on cells in a dish. Phillips say the relationship between him, and his employer was initially cordial, but soured once he submitted research data to Motorola which found harmful effects to the DNA structure as a result of exposure to radio-frequency radiation. The negative results were not to Motorola’s liking, and they began putting pressure on him.
In another example of industry attempting to influence research, we have Dr. Henry Lai, the University of Washington, and fellow researcher, Narendra Singh. The researchers were looking at the effects of nonionizing radiation—the same type of radiation emitted by cell phones—on the DNA of rats. They used a level of radiation considered safe by FCC standards and found that the DNA in the brain cells of the rats was damaged—or broken—by exposure to radiation.
After publishing the research in 1995, Dr. Lai would later learn of a full-scale effort to discredit the experiments. Lai and Singh caused controversy when they publicly complained about restrictions placed on their research by their funders, the Wireless Technology Research (WTR) program. In response to this public action, the head of the Wireless Technology Research sent a memo asking then-university president Richard McCormick to fire Lai and Singh. McCormick refused, but the message was clear. Get rid of anyone who makes our products look bad. In a leaked internal Motorola memo executives claimed to have succeed in “War-Gaming ” the Lai-Singh experiments.
“This shocked me,” [Lai says, ] “the letter trying to discredit me, the ‘war games’ memo. As a scientist doing research, I was not expecting to be involved in a political situation. It opened my eyes on how games are played in the world of business. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. The pressure is very impressive.”
Think about that. An international corporation trying to exert pressure on scientists who are drawing conclusions which prove their product could cause harm to public health. Even further, Dr. Lai’s experiments showed negative health consequences at levels considered “safe” by the FCC.
The Captured Agency report makes it clear that this type of corruption takes place because of “the free flow of executive leadership between the FCC and the industries it presumably oversees”. For example, at the time of the report’s release, the Chairman of the FCC was Tom Wheeler, a man with deep ties to the Big Wireless industry. In 2013, Wheeler was nominated as FCC chairman by former President Obama after raising more than $700,000 for his presidential campaigns. Wheeler lead the two most powerful industry lobbying groups: The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, or, the CTIA.
The current chairman of the FCC could also be seen as another example of a “captured agency” in action. Ajit Pai, a lawyer and current chairman of the FCC, served as Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications Inc. between 2001 and 2003, where he handled competition and regulatory matters. Pai was appointed to the FCC by Barack Obama in 2012 and then made FCC Chairman by Donald Trump in January 2017.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is another example of a government official working closely with industry and maintaining relationships which clearly present conflicts of interest. Carr is credited with accelerating the 5G build out. Prior to joining the FCC, Carr worked as an attorney at Wiley Rein where his clients were Verizon, AT&T, Centurylink, CTIA, the wireless association and the USTA, the telecom lobby. The Wiley Rein law firm is a hot bed of activity for former government officials and industry regulars. One of the founders of the law firm is Richard Wiley, himself a Former FCC Chairman.
On September 30, 2019, Commissioner Carr and other officials were in Houston to discuss the future of 5g. I asked Commissioner Carr about the concerns regarding his connections with the wireless industry. I also asked him about the Captured Agency report released by Harvard’s School of Ethics. Unfortunately, Mr Carr had no interest in addressing these questions. (video 1:49-3:08)
The following day I was able to question Commissioner Carr for a second time and once again he avoided my questions. (video :38-2:07)
Much of this revolving door relationship between industry and government can be traced to the CTIA, the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
Established in 1984, the CTIA claims to represent the U.S. wireless communications industry, from carriers and equipment manufacturers. The CTIA “advocates for legislative and regulatory policies at federal, state, and local levels that foster the continued innovation, investment and increasing economic impact of America’s wireless industry. CTIA is active on a wide range of issues including spectrum policy, wireless infrastructure, and the Internet of Things, among others.” They also host events on topics ranging from cybersecurity to 5G.
The CTIA’s Board of Directors includes the presidents, CEOs and other senior officials of Verizon, Sprint, T Mobile, Nokia, Erricson, Intel, General Motors, Tracfone, EZ Texting and others.
Brad Gillen, the current Executive Vice President of the CTIA, was formerly a Legal Advisor to a former FCC Commissioner and served in other senior policy roles at the FCC and with DISH Network. Mr. Gillen was also a partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP, a law firm stacked with former employees of the FCC, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other state government positions
The CTIA’s current President and CEO is Meredith Attwell Baker. Baker has spent the last two decades bouncing between lobbying for Big Wireless and working for the government. From 1998 to 2000, Baker worked as Director of Congressional Affairs at the CTIA. Afterwards, she worked for the U.S. government as an FCC Commissionner between July 2009 to June 2011. She then went back to the CTIA where she is now President and CEO, in charge of promoting the so-called Race to 5g.
So, what exactly is the race to 5g?
If you have paid attention to any media or visited a cell phone store recently, you have likely heard the buzz about 5g, and more specifically, the Race to 5g.
Geopolitically speaking, the Race to 5g describes the ongoing rift between the U.S. and China, a kind of digital Cold War where the two superpowers race to implement the next generation of cellular technology because of its potential for massive profit and massive data collection. The American media and President Trump have stated that Chinese company Huawei could use their 5g infrastructure to spy on Americans. Trump has called on federal officials and American companies to abandon Huawei equipment. This fear of Chinese spying using 5g equipment completely ignores the reality that the U.S. government has the same exact opportunity to pressure American companies to spy on the private data of Americans.
The Race to 5g could also be described as a clever marketing concept designed to sell consumers an upgrade they did not know they wanted or needed. (Not to mention, an upgrade that has sparked lawsuits, and has many health and privacy concerns.) As part of the ongoing Race to 5G, telecom companies are promoting 5g as the solution for faster downloads and high-definition movie streaming. It’s not immediately clear if the public is demanding faster downloads, but the Telecoms, global governments, and the tech industry are pushing the shift towards 5g. While it is true that 5g has the potential to spur on innovation in the fields of medicine, manufacturing, entertainment, and other industries – there has not been a truly organic call for this emerging technology.
It seems much of the hype around the 5g roll out is coming from the CTIA itself. Yes, the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, the organization created to lobby explicitly for the Wireless Industry. The CTIA is Big Wireless.
(video “April 19, 2018 The CTIA Race to 5G Summit”)
One of the ways the CTIA has spread enthusiasm for the Race to 5g is by working with city officials. The CTIA has been honoring City Mayors who have worked to erode local authority regarding the 5g roll out. The 5G Wireless Champion Awards “honor the state and local officials” who “bring next-generation 5G networks” into communities and “remove barriers to the deployment of next-generation wireless infrastructure”. In 2018, the CTIA gave out 3 “5g Wireless Champion Awards” to mayors across the United States, including Houston’s Mayor Sylvester Turner.
As I mentioned earlier, it was the Mayors response to my questions about 5g which encouraged me to look deeper. I found out that in July 2018, Mayor Turner stood side by side with Verizon Wireless officials to announce plans to roll out 5g technology in Houston. The Mayor said 5G will turn Houston into a “smart city”, with better control of traffic flow, money-saving smart street lights, and driverless cars. By September 2018 , Turner was awarded the “5g Wireless Champion Award” by the CTIA. The CTIA stated that, “Under Mayor Turner’s leadership, Houston has streamlined the permitting process by not requiring a license or attachment agreement for new poles or small cells, and completes review ahead of deadlines. “
Despite my efforts at emailing the Mayor and City Council about the concerns, and visiting city council many times, I continued to be met with silence. When I decided to run for Mayor, making 5g a central part of my campaign, I finally had the opportunity to call out the Mayor to his face, in front of the people of Houston.
Sylvester Turner and Mayor’s like him are a problem, but they are a symptom of a bigger battle. The CTIA uses the 5g Wireless Champion Awards and other local programs to convince Mayors and local officials to support the 5g agenda. This allows the agenda adopted by the federal government and Big Wireless to be filtered down to the state and local level.
Despite a number of lawsuits from cities and states; objections from scientists and health professionals; concerns from citizens, politicians, and journalists – the CTIA, the FCC, and Donald Trump continue to push the 5g agenda forward. As I discovered in my research, there are health and privacy concerns around cell phones, bluetooth, WiFi, laptops, and other digital devices. The research shows we should limit our exposure to these devices and find ways to protect our privacy.
We should also recognize that the major difference between the 5g Smart Grid and the current technology, is that once 5g rolls out you will not be able to avoid it. You can choose not to use a cell phone, or not install wifi in your home, but once the 5g network is complete, you will be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of sensors, small cells, and other infrastructure. Once I understood this, I realized I had to know what I can do to protect myself, my family, and friends.
Chapter 4: Solutions
The reality is that we are already living in the electro, digital smog. The public has excitedly purchased the latest upgrades to their digital technology of choice. From smart phones, to laptops, doorbell cameras, public wi-fi networks, home assistants, smart houses, and the early stages of 5g – we are inundated with digital technology which emit various levels of radiofrequency radiation. Bit by bit, device by device, we are being exposed to an increasing level of radiation, and this cumulative effect has the potential to cause a great amount of harm to the public.
Collectively, each of these devices form a digital panopticon where private companies, law enforcement, governments, and hackers can literally trace your movements from the moment you wake up and interact with your phone, throughout your entire day as you move through public spaces and visit your work, family, and friends. If the public doesn’t wake up to these dangers and quickly organize a massive, global effort to push back against 5g, the Smart City future seems inevitable.
So, what would this push back look like and what can we do as individuals?
First, the opposition would need to involve ending the relationship between Big Wireless execs and government officials, as well as an honest discussion about the established dangers posed by our digital world. Organizing political opposition should take place at all levels, but I highly encourage everyone to start getting involved in their local communities and asking about the dangers presented in this documentary. You can join a group that might be talking about 5g, privacy, health or the environment, and let them know about these concerns. If there isn’t a group already, you can start one. Pass out flyers at community festivals, farmers markets, concerts, and political events. You can host educational events at community centers and show this documentary. If your neighborhood has a Homeowners Association or similar group you can attempt to fight against the installation of new small cells in your neighborhood. Some activists and concerned homeowners have even filed lawsuits in an attempt to stop the 5g rollout.
When it comes to solutions for protecting yourself in the meantime, remember that the National Toxicology Program’s ten-year study recommends those concerned about the potential health risks from RFR should, “Use speaker mode or a headset to place more distance between your head and the cell phone,” or “reduce the amount of time spent using your cell phone.”
Simply put, limiting your use of and exposure to these devices is the best solution available. I would recommend turning your phone on airplane mode when not using it, or simply turn it off when not in use. I know, it is a scary thought, but we will survive. I would also stop using bluetooth headphones and stop using bluetooth while driving in your vehicle. There are also companies producing products which are supposed to be able to block or absorb the EMF’s emitted by our devices. Do your research and see what works for you.
Probably one of the most important steps to take is to stop falling asleep with your phone or next to your laptop. I also started unplugging my wi-fi at night to protect myself from unnecessary exposure while I am sleeping. The exposure to these devices and the RFR they emit has the potential to disturb your sleep and create stress. This can cause an overall decline in the body’s ability to heal and repair at night.
When it comes to your home or office I recommend rewiring as much as possible using ethernet cables for your desktop or laptop. This will allow you to remove wi-fi if you choose and drastically decrease your exposure. There are even options available to use ethernet connections on your cellphone. When I interviewed Dr. Martin Pall he mentioned the possibility of using graphite paint in your home as an option to block or absorb EMFs. There are also similar concerns regarding the smart meters which have been rolled out around the U.S. Do some research and find out if you can opt out of a smart meter in favor of an analog meter.
Remember what I said about the difference between 5g and previous technologies?
Once it’s rolled out, you will not be able to avoid it while in public. No matter what you do in your house, your car, or with your own phone, if 5g is everywhere there will be no way to opt-out. I have seen researchers working on devices that could protect you in public by either repelling or absorbing the EMFs, and others have suggested clothing that can defend you, but for the moment none of these seem adequate to protect you from the coming 5g Smart Grid.
As we have shown, there are numerous valid reasons to oppose the 5g roll out. Whether it’s concerns about health, privacy, local power, or the environment, the government and the wireless industry need to answer our questions. Another thing, where has the media been during all of this? If I could dig up this information and gather these sources with my limited skills and time, why didn’t the corporate media identify and report on the concerns about 5g? Why did The New York Times and other compliant media outlets insinuate that opponents of 5g are simply victims of Russian disinformation? Instead of listening to the researchers speaking up and the people pushing back, the media stood silent.
So all this begs the question: would consumers be so quick to embrace cell phones, Wi-Fi, and 5g, if the wireless industry and their partners in government hadn’t silenced critics and corrupted the science? If the public knew this information, would that change their minds? Does it change yours?
The cold hard truth is that we have willingly accepted this technology. Yes, we have been lied to by people we believed we could trust, but at the end of the day, the power lies in our hands. We decide if we still choose to surround ourselves with devices that threaten our privacy and health. We must take responsibility for our actions and remember to be skeptical of promises of convenience and utopia. As the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Who is Bill Gates? A software developer? A businessman? A philanthropist? A global health expert?
This question, once merely academic, is becoming a very real question for those who are beginning to realize that Gates’ unimaginable wealth has been used to gain control over every corner of the fields of public health, medical research and vaccine development. And now that we are presented with the very problem that Gates has been talking about for years, we will soon find that this software developer with no medical training is going to leverage that wealth into control over the fates of billions of people.
GATES: [. . .] because until we get almost everybody vaccinated globally, we still won’t be fully back to normal.
Bill Gates is no public health expert. He is not a doctor, an epidemiologist or an infectious disease researcher. Yet somehow he has become a central figure in the lives of billions of people, presuming to dictate the medical actions that will be required for the world to go “back to normal.” The transformation of Bill Gates from computer kingpin to global health czar is as remarkable as it is instructive, and it tells us a great deal about where we are heading as the world plunges into a crisis the likes of which we have not seen before.
This is the story of How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health.
Until his reinvention as a philanthropist in the past decade, this is what many people thought of when they thought of Bill Gates:
NARRATOR: In the case of the United States vs Microsoft, the US Justice Department contended that the software giant had breached antitrust laws by competing unfairly against Netscape Communications in the internet browser market, effectively creating a monopoly. Bill’s first concern was that the prosecution could potentially block the release of his company’s latest operating system, Windows 98.
STEVE JOBS: We’re going to be working together on Microsoft Office, on Internet Explorer, on Java, and I think that it’s going to lead to a very healthy relationship. So it’s a package announcement today. We’re very, very happy about it, we’re very, very excited about it. And I happen to have a special guest with me today via satellite downlink, and if we could get him up on the stage right now.
DAN RATHER: Police and security guards in Belgium were caught flat-footed today by a cowardly sneak attack on one of the world’s wealthiest men. The target was Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, arriving for a meeting with community leaders. Watch what happens when a team of hit men meet him first with a pie in the face.
[GATES HIT IN THE FACE WITH PIE]
RATHER: Gates was momentarily and understandably shaken, but he was not injured. The hit squad piled on with two more pies before one of them was wrestled to the ground and arrested; the others—at least for the moment—got away. Gates went inside, wiped his face clean, and made no comment. He then went ahead with his scheduled meeting. No word on the motive for this attack.
But, once reviled for the massive wealth and the monopolistic power that his virus-laden software afforded him, Gates is now hailed as a visionary who is leveraging that wealth and power for the greater good of humanity.
KLAUS SCHWAB: If in the 22nd century a book will be written about the entrepreneur of the 21st century [. . .] I’m sure that the person who will foremost come to the mind of those historians is certainly Bill Gates. [applause]
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that Bill Gates is singularly—I would argue—the most consequential individual of our generation. I mean that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: At a time when everyone is looking to understand the scope of the pandemic and how to minimize the threat, one of the best informed voices is that of businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates.
The process by which this reinvention of Gates’ public image took place is not mysterious. It’s the same process by which every billionaire has revived their public image since John D. Rockefeller hired Ivy Ledbetter Lee to transform him from the head of the Standard Oil hydra into the kind old man handing out dimes to strangers.
MAN OFF CAMERA: Don’t you give dimes, Mr. Rockefeller? Please, go ahead.
More to the point, John D. Rockefeller knew that to gain the adoration of the public, he had to appear to give them what they want: money. He devoted hundreds of millions of dollars of his vast oil monopoly fortune to establishing institutions that, he claimed, were for the public good. The General Education Board. The Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. The Rockefeller Foundation.
Similarly, Bill Gates has spent much of the past two decades transforming himself from software magnate into a benefactor of humanity through his own Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In fact, Gates has surpassed Rockefeller’s legacy with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation long having eclipsed The Rockefeller Foundation as the largest private foundation in the world, with $46.8 billion of assets on its books that it wields in its stated program areas of global health and development, global growth, and global policy advocacy.
And, like Rockefeller, Gates’ transformation has been helped along by a well-funded public relations campaign. Gone are the theatrical tricks of the PR pioneers—the ubiquitous ice cream cones of Gates’ mentor Warren Buffett are the last remaining holdout of the old Rockefeller-handing-out-dimes gimmick. No, Gates has guided his public image into that of a modern-day saint through an even simpler tactic: buying good publicity.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spends tens of millions of dollars per year on media partnerships, sponsoring coverage of its program areas across the board. Gates funds The Guardian‘s Global Development website. Gates funds NPR’s global health coverage. Gates funds the Our World in Data website that is tracking the latest statistics and research on the coronavirus pandemic. Gates funds BBC coverage of global health and development issues, both through its BBC Media Action organization and the BBC itself. Gates funds world health coverage on ABC News.
When the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer was given a $3.5 million Gates foundation grant to set up a special unit to report on global health issues, NewsHour communications chief Rob Flynn was asked about the potential conflict of interest that such a unit would have in reporting on issues that the Gates Foundation is itself involved in. “In some regards I guess you might say that there are not a heck of a lot of things you could touch in global health these days that would not have some kind of Gates tentacle,” Flynn responded.
Indeed, it would be almost impossible to find any area of global health that has been left untouched by the tentacles of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
It was Gates who sponsored the meeting that led to the creation of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a global public-private partnership bringing together state sponsors and big pharmaceutical companies, whose specific goals include the creation of “healthy markets for vaccines and other immunisation products.” As a founding partner of the alliance, the Gates Foundation provided $750 million in seed funding and has gone on to make over $4.1 billion in commitments to the group.
Gates provided the seed money that created the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a public-private partnership that acts as a finance vehicle for governmental AIDS, TB, and malaria programs.
When a public-private partnership of governments, world health bodies and 13 leading pharmaceutical companies came together in 2012 “to accelerate progress toward eliminating or controlling 10 neglected tropical diseases,” there was the Gates Foundation with $363 million of support.
When the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents was launched in 2015 to leverage billions of dollars in public and private financing for global health and development programs, there was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a founding partner with a $275 million contribution.
When the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2017 to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, there was the Gates Foundation with an initial injection of $100 million.
The examples go on and on. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s fingerprints can be seen on every major global health initiative of the past two decades. And beyond the flashy, billion-dollar global partnerships, the Foundation is behind hundreds of smaller country and region-specific grants—$10 million to combat a locust infestation in East Africa, or $300 million to support agricultural research in Africa and Asia—that add up to billions of dollars in commitments.
It comes as no surprise, then, that—far beyond the $250 million that the Gates Foundation has pledged to the “fight” against coronavirus—every aspect of the current coronavirus pandemic involves organizations, groups and individuals with direct ties to Gates funding.
From the start, the World Health Organization has directed the global response to the current pandemic. From its initial monitoring of the outbreak in Wuhan and its declaration in January that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission to its live media briefings and its technical guidance on country-level planning and other matters, the WHO has been the body setting the guidelines and recommendations shaping the global response to this outbreak.
But even the World Health Organization itself is largely reliant on funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The WHO’s most recent donor report shows that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the organization’s second-largest donor behind the United States government. The Gates Foundation single-handedly contributes more to the world health body than Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Russia and the UK combined.
What’s more, current World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is, in fact, like Bill Gates himself, not a medical doctor at all, but the controversial ex-Minister of Health of Ethiopia, who was accused of covering up three cholera outbreaks in the country during his tenure. Before joining the WHO, he served as chair of the Gates-founded Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and sat on the board of the Gates-founded Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Gates-funded Stop TB Partnership.
The current round of lockdowns and restrictive stay-home orders in western countries was enacted on the back of alarming models predicting millions of deaths in the United States and hundreds of thousands in the UK.
HAYLEY MINOGUE: Imperial College in London released a COVID-19 report and that’s where most of our US leaders are getting the information they’re basing their decision making on. That 2.2 million deaths also doesn’t account for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed.
[. . .]
The report runs us through a few different ways this could turn out depending on what our responses are. If we don’t do anything to control this virus, over 80% of people in the US would be infected over the course of the epidemic, with 2.2 million deaths from COVID-19.
The work of two research groups was crucial in shaping the decision of the UK and US governments to implement wide-ranging lockdowns, and, in turn, governments around the world. The first group, the Imperial College COVID-19 Research Team, issued a report on March 16th that predicted up to 500,000 deaths in the UK and 2.2 million deaths in the US unless strict government measures were put in place.
The second group, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Bill Gates’ home state of Washington, helped provide data that corroborated the White House’s initial estimates of the virus’ effects, estimates that have been repeatedly downgraded as the situation has progressed.
Unsurprisingly, the Gates Foundation has injected substantial sums of money into both groups. This year alone, the Gates Foundation has already given $79 million to Imperial College, and in 2017 the Foundation announced a $279 million investment into the IHME to expand its work collecting health data and creating models.
Anthony Fauci, meanwhile, has become the face of the US government’s coronavirus response, echoing Bill Gates’ assertion that the country will not “get back to normal” until “a good vaccine” can be found to insure the public’s safety.
ANTHONY FAUCI: If you want to get to pre-coronavirus . . . You know, that might not ever happen, in the sense of the fact that the threat is there. But I believe with the therapies that will be coming online and with the fact that I feel confident that over a period of time we will get a good vaccine, that we will never have to get back to where we are right back now.
Beyond just their frequent collaborations and cooperation in the past, Fauci has direct ties to Gates’ projects and funding. In 2010, he was appointed to the Leadership Council of the Gates-founded “Decade of Vaccines” project to implement a Global Vaccine Action Plan—a project to which Gates committed $10 billion of funding. And in October of last year, just as the current pandemic was beginning, the Gates Foundation announced a $100 million contribution to the National Institute of Health to help, among other programs, Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ research into HIV.
Also in October of last year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation partnered with the World Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security to stage Event 201, a tabletop exercise gauging the economic and societal impact of a globally-spreading coronavirus pandemic.
NARRATOR: It began in healthy-looking pigs months, perhaps years, ago: a new coronavirus.
ANITA CICERO: The mission of the pandemic emergency board is to provide recommendations to deal with the major global challenges arising in response to an unfolding pandemic. The board is comprised of highly experienced leaders from business public health and civil society.
TOM INGLESBY: We’re at the start of what’s looking like it will be a severe pandemic and there are problems emerging that can only be solved by global business and governments working together.
STEPHEN REDD: Governments need to be willing to do things that are out of their historical perspective, or . . . for the most part. It’s really a war footing that we need to be on.
Given the incredible reach that the tentacles of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have into every corner of the global health markets, it should not be surprising that the foundation has been intimately involved with every stage of the current pandemic crisis, either. In effect, Gates has merely used the wealth from his domination of the software market to leverage himself into a similar position in the world of global health.
The whole process has been cloaked in the mantle of selfless philanthropy, but the foundation is not structured as a charitable endeavour. Instead, it maintains a dual structure: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation distributes money to grantees, but a separate entity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, manages the endowment assets. These two entities often have overlapping interests, and, as has been noted many times in the past, grants given by the foundation often directly benefit the value of the trust’s assets:
MELINDA GATES: One of my favorite parts of my job at the Gates Foundation is that I get to travel to the developing world, and I do that quite regularly.
[. . .]
My first trip in India, I was in a person’s home where they had dirt floors, no running water, no electricity, and that’s really what I see all over the world. So in short, I’m startled by all the things that they don’t have. But I am surprised by one thing that they do have: Coca-Cola. Coke is everywhere. In fact, when I travel to the developing world, Coke feels ubiquitous.
And so when I come back from these trips, and I’m thinking about development, and I’m flying home and I’m thinking, we’re trying to deliver condoms to people, or vaccinations, you know? Coke’s success kind of stops and makes you wonder: How is it that they can get Coke to these far-flung places? If they can do that, why can’t governments and NGOs do the same thing?
AMY GOODMAN: And the charity of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda is under criticism following the disclosure it’s substantially increased its holdings in the agribusiness giant Monsanto to over $23 million. Critics say the investment in Monsanto contradicts the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s stated commitment to helping farmers and sustainable development in Africa.
LAURENCE LEE: The study from the pressure group Global Justice now paints a picture of the Gates Foundation partly as an expression of corporate America’s desire to profit from Africa and partly a damning critique of its effects.
POLLY JONES: You could have a case where the initial research is done by a Gates-funded institution. And the media reporting on how well that research is conducted is done, the media outlet is a Gates-funded outlet, or maybe a Gates-funded journalist from a media program. And then the program is implemented more widely by a Gates-funded NGO. I mean . . . There are some very insular circles here.
LEE: Among the many criticisms: the idea that private finance can solve the problems of the developing world. Should poor farmers be trapped into debt by having to use chemicals or fertilizers underwritten by offshoot of the foundation?
This is no mere theoretical conflict of interest. Gates is held up as a hero for donating $35.8 billion worth of his Microsoft stock to the foundation, but during the course of his “Decade of Vaccines,” Gates’ net worth has actually doubled, from $54 billion to $103.1 billion.
The Rockefeller story provides an instructive template for this vision of tycoon-turned-philanthropist. When Rockefeller faced a public backlash, he helped spearhead the creation of a system of private foundations that connected in with his business interests. Leveraging his unprecedented oil monopoly fortune into unprecedented control over wide swaths of public life, Rockefeller was able to kill two birds with one stone: molding society in his family’s own interests, even as he became a beloved figure in the public imagination.
Similarly, Bill Gates has leveraged his software empire into a global health, development and education empire, steering the course of investment and research and ensuring healthy markets for vaccines and other immunization products. And, like Rockefeller, Gates has been transformed from the feared and reviled head of a formidable hydra into a kindly old man generously giving his wealth back to the public.
But not everyone has been taken in by this PR trick. Even The Lancet observed this worrying transformation from software monopolist to health monopolist back in 2009, when the extent of this Gates-led monopoly was becoming apparent to all:
The first guiding principle of the [Bill & Melinda Gates] Foundation is that it is “driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family.” An annual letter from Bill Gates summarises those passions, referring to newspaper articles, books, and chance events that have shaped the Foundation’s strategy. For such a large and influential investor in global health, is such a whimsical governance principle good enough?
This brings us back to the question: Who is Bill Gates? What are his driving interests? What motivates his decisions?
These are not academic questions. Gates’ decisions have controlled the flows of billions of dollars, formed international partnerships pursuing wide-ranging agendas, ensured the creation of “healthy markets” for Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers. And now, as we are seeing, his decisions are shaping the entire global response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Next week, we will further explore Gates’ vaccination initiatives, the business interests behind them, and the larger agenda that is beginning to take shape as we enter the “new normal” of the COVID-19 crisis.
POPPY HARLOW: Ten billion dollars. I mean, just speak about the magnitude of that. That is by far the biggest commitment of the foundation, isn’t it, Bill? I mean, this is by far the largest.
BILL GATES: That’s right, we’ve been spending a lot on vaccines. With this commitment, over eight million additional lives will be saved. So it’s one of the most effective ways that health in the poorest countries can be dramatically improved.
In January of 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates used the World Economic Forum at Davos to announce a staggering $10 billion commitment to research and develop vaccines for the world’s poorest countries, kicking off what he called a “Decade of Vaccines.”
GATES: Today we’re announcing a commitment over this next decade, which we think of as a decade of vaccines having incredible impact. We’re announcing that we’ll spend over $10 billion on vaccines.
. . . and applauded by the pharmaceutical companies who stood to reap the benefits of that largesse, the record-setting commitment made waves in the international community, helping to underwrite a Global Vaccine Action Plan coordinated by the Gates-funded World Health Organization.
But contrary to the Gates’ own PR spin that this $10 billion pledge was an unalloyed good and would save eight million lives, the truth is that this attempt to reorient the global health economy was part of a much bigger agenda. An agenda that would ultimately lead to greater profits for Big Pharma companies, greater control for the Gates Foundation over the field of global health, and greater power for Bill Gates to shape the course of the future for billions of people around the planet.
Given Gates’ pledge to make this a “Decade of Vaccines,” it should come as no surprise that, since the dawn of this coronavirus crisis, he has been adamant that the world will not go back to normal until a vaccine has been developed.
GATES: We’re gonna have this intermediate period of opening up, and it won’t be normal until we get an amazing vaccine to the entire world.
GATES: The vaccine is critical, because, until you have that, things aren’t really going to be normal. They can open up to some degree, but the risk of a rebound will be there until we have very broad vaccination.
GATES: They won’t be back to normal until we either have that phenomenal vaccine or a therapeutic that’s, like, over 95% effective. And so we have to assume that’s going to be almost 18 months from now.
More interestingly, since Gates began delivering this same talking point in every one of his many media appearances of late, it has been picked up and repeated by heads of state, health officials, doctors and media talking heads, right down to the scientifically arbitrary but very specific 18-month time frame.
ZEKE EMANUEL: Realistically, COVID-19 will be here for the next 18 months or more. We will not be able to return to normalcy until we find a vaccine or effective medications.
DONALD TRUMP: Obviously, we continue to work on the vaccines, but the vaccines have to be down the road by probably 14, 15, 16 months. We’re doing great on the vaccines.
The fact that so many heads of state, health ministers and media commentators are dutifully echoing Gates’ pronouncement about the need for a vaccine will not be surprising to those who saw last week’s exploration of How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health. As we have seen, the Gates Foundation’s tentacles have penetrated into every corner of the field of public health. Billions of dollars in funding and entire public policy agendas are under the control of this man, an unelected, unaccountable software developer with no medical research experience or training.
And nowhere is Gates’ control of public health more apparent than in the realm of vaccines.
One of the Gates Foundation’s core funding areas is “vaccine development and surveillance,” which has resulted in the channeling of billions of dollars into vaccine development, a seat at the table to develop vaccination campaigns in countries around the globe, and the opportunity to shape public thinking around Bill Gates’ pet project of the past five years: preparing rapid development and deployment of vaccines in the event of a globally spreading pandemic.
GATES: If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus.
GATES: Whether it occurs by a quirk of nature or at the hand of a terrorist, epidemiologists show through their models that a respiratory-spread pathogen would kill more than 30 million people in less than a year. And there is a reasonable probability of that taking place in the years ahead.
BABITA SHARMA: Many high-profile personalities have been gathering at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, which aims to discuss the globe’s most pressing issues. Amongst them is the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose foundation is investing millions in the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to help combat infectious diseases. Here’s some of what he had to say about his push to develop new vaccines.
GATES: Unfortunately, it takes many years to do a completely new vaccine. The design, the safety review, the manufacturing; all of those things mean that an epidemic can be very widespread before that tool would come along. And so after Ebola the global health community talked a lot about this, including a new type of vaccine platform called DNA/RNA that should speed things along.
And so this Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiative [sic], CEPI, is three countries—Japan, Norway, Germany—and two foundations—Wellcome Trust, [who] we work with on a lot of things, and our foundation, the Gates Foundation—coming together to fund . . . actually trying to use that platform and make some vaccines. And so that would help us in the future.
NARRATORS: We know vaccines can protect us. We just need to be better prepared. So, “Let’s come together. Let’s research and invest. Let’s save lives. Let’s outsmart epidemics.”
What should be surprising is that this strangely specific and continuously repeated message—that we will not go “back to normal” until we get a vaccine in 18 months—has no scientific basis whatsoever. Medical researchers have already conceded that a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 may not even be possible, pointing to the inability of researchers to develop any kind of immunization against previous coronavirus outbreaks, like SARS or MERS.
But even if such a vaccine were possible, serious concerns remain about the safety of developing, testing and delivering such an “amazing vaccine” to “the entire world” in this remarkably short timeframe. Even proponents of vaccine development openly worry that the rush to vaccinate billions of people with a largely untested, experimental coronavirus vaccine will itself present grave risks to the public.
One of these risks involves “disease enhancement.” It has been known for over a decade that vaccination for some viral infections—including coronaviruses—actually enhances susceptibility to viral infection or even causes infections in healthy vaccine recipients.
ANTHONY FAUCI: Now, the issue of safety. Something that I want to make sure the American public understand: It’s not only safety when you inject somebody and they get maybe an idiosyncratic reaction, they get a little allergic reaction, they get pain. There’s safety associated. “Does the vaccine make you worse?” And there are diseases in which you vaccinate someone, they get infected with what you’re trying to protect them with, and you actually enhance the infection.
This is no mere theoretical risk. As researchers who were trying to develop a vaccine for the original SARS outbreak discovered, the vaccine actually made the lab animals subjected to it more susceptible to the disease.
PETER HOTEZ: One of the things that we are not hearing a lot about is the unique potential safety problems of coronavirus vaccines. This was first found in the 1960s with the Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccines, and it was done in Washington with the NIH and Children’s National Medical Center. Some of those kids who got the vaccine actually did worse, and I believe there were two deaths in the consequence of that study. Because what happens with certain types of respiratory virus vaccines, you get immunized, and then when you get actually exposed to the virus, you get this kind of paradoxical immune enhancement phenomenon, and what—and we don’t entirely understand the basis of it. But we recognize that it’s a real problem for certain respiratory virus vaccines. That killed the RSV program for decades. Now the Gates Foundation is taking it up again. But when we started developing coronavirus vaccines—and our colleagues—we noticed in laboratory animals that they started to show some of the same immune pathology that resembled what had happened 50 years earlier.
This specific issue regarding coronavirus vaccines is exacerbated by the arbitrary and unscientific 18-month timeframe that Gates is insisting on for the vaccine’s development. In order to meet that deadline, vaccine developers are being urged to use new and largely unproven methods for creating their experimental immunizations, including DNA and mRNA vaccines.
KELLY O’DONNELL: For a self-described wartime president, victory over COVID-19 equals a vaccine.
TRUMP: I hope we can have a vaccine, and we’re going to fast-track it like you’ve never seen before.
O’DONNELL: Adding Trump-style branding, the administration launched “Operation Warp Speed,” a multi-billion-dollar research and manufacturing effort to shorten the typical year-plus vaccine development timeline.
ANTHONY FAUCI: We’re gonna start ramping up production with the companies involved, and you do that at risk. In other words, you don’t wait until you get an answer before you start manufacturing. You at risk proactively start making it, assuming it’s gonna work.
BECKY QUICK: You’re thinking 18 months even with all the work that you’ve already done to this point and the planning that you are taking with lots of different potential vaccinations and building up for that now
GATES: Yeah, so there’s an approach called RNA vaccine that people like Moderna, CureVac and others are using that in 2015 we’d identified that as very promising for pandemics and for other applications as well. And so, if everything goes perfectly with the RNA approach, we could actually beat the 18 months. We don’t want to create unrealistic expectations.
RHIJU DAS: So the concept of an RNA vaccine is: Let’s inject the RNA molecule that encodes for the spike protein.
ANGELA RASMUSSEN: It’s making your cell do the work of creating this viral protein that is going to be recognized by your immune system and trigger the development of these antibodies.
DAS: Our bodies won’t make a full-fledged infectious virus. They’ll just make a little piece and then learn to recognize it and then get ready to destroy the virus if it then later comes and invades us.
[. . .]
DAS: It’s a relatively new, unproven technology. And there’s still no example of an RNA vaccine that’s been deployed worldwide in the way that we need for the coronavirus.
RASMUSSEN: There is the possibility for unforeseen, adverse effects.
AKIKO IWASAKI: So this is all new territory. Whether it would elicit protective immune response against this virus is just unknown right now.
Rushing at “Warp Speed” to develop a new vaccine using experimental technology and then mass-producing and delivering billions of doses to be injected into “basically the entire world” before adequate testing is even done amounts to one of the most dangerous experiments in the history of the world, one that could alter the lives of untold numbers of people.
That an experimental vaccine—developed in a brand new way and rushed through with a special, shortened testing regime—should be given to adults, children, pregnant women, newborn babies, and the elderly alike, would be, in any other situation, unthinkable. To suggest that such a vaccine should be given to the entire planet would have been called lunacy mere months ago. But now the public is being asked to accept this premise without question.
Even Gates himself acknowledges the inherent risks of such a project. But his concern is not for the lives that will be irrevocably altered in the event that the vaccines cause damage to the population. Instead, he is more concerned that the pharmaceutical companies and the researchers are given legal immunity for any such damage.
GATES: You know, if we have, you know, one in 10,000 side effects, that’s, you know, way more— 700,000—you know, people who will suffer from that. So really understanding the safety at gigantic scale across all age ranges—you know, pregnant, male, female, undernourished, existing comorbidities—it’s very, very hard. And that actual decision of, “OK, let’s go and give this vaccine to the entire world,” ah, governments will have to be involved because there will be some risk and indemnification needed before that can be decided on.
As we have already seen, in the arena of global health, what Bill Gates wants is what the world gets. So it should be no surprise that immunity for the Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers and the vaccination program planners is already being worked on.
In the US, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a declaration that retroactively provides “liability immunity for activities related to medical countermeasures against COVID-19,” including manufacturers, distributors and program planners of “any vaccine, used to treat, diagnose, cure, prevent, or mitigate COVID-19.” The declaration was issued on March 17th but retroactively covers any activity back to February 4th, 2020, the day before the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced an emergency $100 million to fund treatment efforts and to develop new vaccines for COVID-19.
The plan to inject everyone on the planet with an experimental vaccine is no aberration in Bill Gates’ envisioned “Decade of Vaccines.” It is its culmination.
The “Decade of Vaccines” kicked off with a Gates-funded $3.6 million observational study of HPV vaccines in India that, according to a government investigation, violated the human rights of the study participants with “gross violations” of consent and failed to properly report adverse events experienced by the vaccine recipients. After the deaths of seven girls involved in the trial were reported, a parliamentary investigation concluded that the Gates-funded Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), which ran the study, had been engaged in a scheme to help ensure “healthy markets” for GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, the manufacturers of the Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines that had been so generously donated for use in the trial:
“Had PATH been successful in getting the HPV vaccine included in the universal immunization program of the concerned countries, this would have generated windfall profit for the manufacturer(s) by way of automatic sale, year after year, without any promotional or marketing expenses. It is well known that once introduced into the immunization program it becomes politically impossible to stop any vaccination.”
Chandra M. Gulhati, editor of the influential Monthly Index of Medical Specialities, remarked that “[i]t is shocking to see how an American organization used surreptitious methods to establish itself in India,” and Samiran Nundy, editor emeritus of the National Medical Journal of Indialamented that “[t]his is an obvious case where Indians were being used as guinea pigs.”
Throughout the decade, India’s concerns about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and its corporate partners’ influence on the country’s national immunization programs grew. In 2016, the steering group of the country’s National Health Mission blasted the government for allowing the country’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation—the primary body advising the government on all vaccination-related matters—to be effectively purchased by the Gates Foundation.
As one steering group member noted: “The NTAGI secretariat has been moved out of the [government’s health] ministry to the office of Public Health Foundation of India and the 32 staff members in that secretariat draw their salaries from the BMGF. There is a clear conflict of interest—on one hand, the BMGF funds the secretariat that is the highest decision making body in vaccines and, on the other, it partners the pharma industry in GAVI. This is unacceptable.”
In 2017, the government responded by cutting all financial ties between the advisory group and the Gates Foundation.
Similar stories play out across the Gates Foundation’s “Decade of Vaccines.”
There’s the Gates-founded and funded Meningitis Vaccine Project, which led to the creation and testing of MenAfriVac, a $0.50-per-dose immunization against meningococcal meningitis. The tests led to reports of between 40 and 500 children suffering seizures and convulsions and eventually becoming paralyzed.
There’s the 2017 confirmation that the Gates-supported oral polio vaccine was actually responsible for the majority of new polio cases and the 2018 follow up showing that 80% of polio cases are now vaccine-derived.
There’s the 2018 paper in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health concluding that over 490,000 people in India developed paralysis as a result of the oral polio vaccine between 2000 and 2017.
There’s even the WHO’s own malaria chief, Dr. Arata Kochi, who complained in an internal memo that Gates’ influence meant that the world’s leading malaria scientists are now “locked up in a ‘cartel’ with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group” and that the foundation “was stifling debate on the best ways to treat and combat malaria, prioritizing only those methods that relied on new technology or developing new drugs.”
Kochi’s complaint, written in 2008, highlights the most common criticism of the global health web that Gates has spun in the past two decades: that the public health industry has become a racket run by and for Big Pharma and its partners for the benefit of big business.
At the time that Kochi was writing his memo, the executive director of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health program was Tachi Yamada. Yamada left his position as Chairman of Research and Development at GlaxoSmithKline to take up the position at the Gates Foundation in 2006 and left the foundation five years later to become Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Yamada’s replacement as head of Gates’ Global health program, Trevor Mundel, was himself a clinical researcher at Pfizer and Parke-Davis and spent time as Head of Development with Novartis before joining the foundation.
This use of foundation funds to set public policy to drive up corporate profits is not a secret conspiracy. It is a perfectly open one.
When the Center for Global Development formed a working group to “develop a practical approach to the vaccine challenge,” they concluded that the best way to incentivize pharmaceutical companies to produce more vaccines for the third world was for governments to promise to buy vaccines before they were even developed. They titled their report “Making Markets for Vaccines.”
ALICE ALBRIGHT: The project “Making Markets for Vaccines” was really designed to address a problem that’s existed for a long time, which is insufficient research and development budgets as well as investment capacity in vaccine development and production for the third world. How do you create better incentives to get the pharma community—the vaccine community—to produce products that are specifically dedicated for the developing world.
RUTH LEVINE: Michael Kramer, a professor at Harvard, had been thinking about this problem for many years.
OWEN BARDER: He realized that if the rich countries of the world were to make a promise that they would buy a malaria vaccine if somebody produced it, that that would give an incentive to the pharmaceutical industry to go and do the research and development needed to make one. But this idea was unfamiliar. No government had made a commitment to buy a product that didn’t already exist.
When the first such “Advanced Market Commitment” was made in 2007—a $1.5 billion promise to buy yet-to-be-produced vaccines from Big Pharma manufacturers—there was the Gates Foundation as the only non-nation sponsor.
If “introducing new vaccines” and ensuring healthy markets for them was the aim of Gates’ “Decade of Vaccines,” there can be no doubt that COVID-19 has seen that goal realized in spectacular fashion.
URSULA VON DER LEYEN: Let’s start the pledging.
KATIE STEPHENS: The EU kicked off its fundraising drive with 1 billion euros. In the hours that followed, pledges were beamed in from across the globe.
TAWFIG ALRABIAH: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has pledged 500 million dollars.
STEPHENS: Even pop icon Madonna made a last-minute donation of a million euros.
MELINDA GATES: By combining the world’s expertise and brainpower and resources, we can attack this disease in the way it’s attacking us: globally. Our foundation is proud to partner with you and I’m pleased to announce today that we will pledge a hundred million dollars towards this effort.
KATIE STEPHENS: Germany was one of the leading donors, pledging over five hundred million euros. The money is earmarked for international health organizations and research networks in a bid to speed up the development of a vaccine.
And there, at the center of this web, is the Gates Foundation, connected to every major organization, research institution, international alliance and vaccine manufacturer involved in the current crisis.
Certainly, the Gates—like the Rockefellers—have profited from their years as “the most generous people on the planet.” As curious as it might seem to those who don’t understand the true nature of this monopoly cartel, despite all of these grants and pledges—commitments of tens of billions of dollars—Bill Gates’ personal net worth has actually doubled during this “Decade of Vaccines,” from $50 billion to over $100 billion.
But once again we come back to the question: Who is Bill Gates? Is he motivated simply by money? Is this incessant drive to vaccinate the entire population of the planet merely the result of greed? Or is there something else driving this agenda?
As we shall see next time, money is not the end goal of Gates’ “philanthropic” activities. Money is just the tool that he is using to purchase what he really wants: control. Control not just of the health industry, but control of the human population itself.
Part Three: Bill Gates and the Population Control Grid
It’s a strange fact that Bill Gates’ hagiographers—PR hacks employed, more often than not, by large corporations that receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—consistently depict this drab software developer as a cartoon superhero, using his “superpower” of being very rich to help “save the planet.”
JOHN BERMAN: Behind closed doors on this New York campus, a secret gathering of some of the world’s most powerful people: Gates, Buffett, Bloomberg, Winfrey. It was like . . . well, it was like the “Super Friends.”
[Super Friends cartoon introduction plays]
ANNOUNCER: In the great hall of the Justice League, there are assembled the world’s four greatest heroes.
SOURCE: Elite Billionaires Meet in Secret (video no longer online)
But these cartoon-fueled puff pieces reveal more than they know about Gates and the other mega-rich philanthropists they are attempting to idolize: they reveal that the idea of the selfless, billionaire do-gooder is a work of fiction so unbelievable it is only fit for Saturday morning cartoon fare.
As we have seen in our first two explorations of Bill Gates’ role as global health kingpin, the seemingly selfless generosity of the Gates family through their eponymous foundation has in fact greatly increased their own wealth, with Bill Gates’ personal net worth having doubled in the past decade alone.
But the takeover of public health that we have documented in How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health and the remarkably brazen push to vaccinate everyone on the planet that we have documented in Bill Gates’ Plan to Vaccinate the World was not, at base, about money. The unimaginable wealth that Gates has accrued is now being used to purchase something much more useful: control. Control not just of the global health bodies that can coordinate a worldwide vaccination program or the governments that will mandate such an unprecedented campaign, but control over the global population itself.
This is an exploration of Bill Gates and the Population Control Grid.
You’re tuned in to The Corbett Report.
From a journalistic standpoint, Good Morning America’s inane report on the secretive billionaire meeting that took place in New York in 2009 was a failure. It listed some of the meetings’ attendees and their combined net worth:
BERMAN: Gates, Buffett, Bloomberg, Winfrey [. . .] Together with others in the meeting, including George Soros, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, they’re worth more than $125 billion.
It turned to the senior editor of Forbes for a sound bite about what it would be like to witness such an assembly of wealth:
MATTHEW MILLER: To have been in the room and see this meeting of the minds really would have been a fascinating thing.
And it dutifully reported the participants’ own stated reason for holding the meeting. . . .
BERMAN: That much money. That much power around one table. It begs the question, what were they doing? What were they scheming? Total world domination? This group, together for six hours, was talking about charity, education, emergency relief, global health.
. . . Before wrapping up with another juvenile appeal to comic book superhero lore.
[Video onscreen of various billionaires superimposed as Superheroes, such as Batman, Superman. Etc.]
BERMAN: The new supermen and wonder woman. The superrich friends. Not fighting bad guys, but fighting for good, nonetheless. For Good Morning America, John Berman, ABC News.
Yes, from a journalistic standpoint, Berman’s report was an utter failure. There was no attempt to question the participants about the meeting, no space for any criticism of these billionaires or questions about their motives, no adversarial journalism of any kind.
But as a PR piece, it was brilliant. It leaves the viewer with a vague sense that some kind of gathering took place somewhere in New York in which rich people—who, let’s not forget, are superheroes—talked about charity.
One would have to turn to print sources to discover that the meeting was held at the personal residence of Sir Paul Nurse, then-president of Rockefeller University; that the invitation to the gathering was co-written by Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and David Rockefeller; or that the aim of the meeting was “to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population.”
Given that these extraordinarily rich and powerful men—including Warren Buffett, David Rockefeller, and Ted Turner—have all expressed their belief that the growing human population is the greatest threat faced by humanity, it should not be surprising that they would convene a conference to discuss how best to channel their vast wealth into the project of reducing the number of people on the planet. Particularly unsurprising is that attendees of the meeting later dubbed Bill Gates—a man for whom population control is particularly close to his heart—as the “most impressive” speaker at the event.
GATES: Here we can see a chart that looks at the total world population over the last several hundred years, and at first glance this is a bit scary. We go from less than a billion in 1800, and then 3, 4, 5, 6—and 7.4 billion, where we are today, is happening even faster. So, Melinda and I wondered whether providing new medicines and keeping children alive, would that create more of a population problem?
SCOTT PELLEY: . . . and what the developing world does not need is more children.
MELINDA GATES: And I think that was the biggest “ah-ha” to Bill and me when we got into this work. Because we asked ourselves, of course, the same hard-nosed question you’d ask, which is: “If you get into this work and you start to save these children, will women just keep overpopulating the world?” And thank goodness, the converse is absolutely true.
GATES: This is a very important question to get right, because it was absolutely key for me. When our foundation first started up, it was focused on reproductive health. That was the main thing we did, because I thought, you know, population growth in poor countries is the biggest problem they face. You’ve got to help mothers, who want to limit family size, have the tools and education to do that. And I thought, that’s the only thing that really counts.
In recent years, critics have pointed to Bill Gates’ own words linking vaccination programs with his goal of reducing population growth.
GATES: The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.
SANJAY GUPTA: Ten billion dollars over the next 10 years to make it the year of the vaccines. What does that mean, exactly?
GATES: Well, over this decade, we believe unbelievable progress can be made both inventing new vaccines and making sure they get out to all the children who need them. We could cut the number of children who die every year from about nine million to half of that, if we have success on it. And the benefits there in terms of reducing sickness, reducing the population growth, it really allows society a chance to take care of itself once you’ve made that intervention.
But as any number of “fact-checking websites”—not to mention Bill Gates himself—are quick to point out, this doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means.
GATES: What we found out is that as health improves, families choose to have less children.
MELINDA GATES: The truth is that when people’s lives improve—when children survive, for instance, or when girls go to school—people start making decisions based on the expectation that their children will live and thrive. The result is smaller families and slower population growth.
GATES: I came across articles that showed that the key thing you can do to reduce population growth is actually improve health. And that sounds paradoxical. You think, “OK, better health means more kids, not less kids.” Well, in fact, what parents are doing is they’re trying to have two kids survive to adulthood to take care of them. And so the more disease burden that there is, the more kids they have to have to have that high probability. So there’s a perfect correlation that, as you improve health, within a half generation the population growth rate goes down.
Yes, the Gates’ stated plan is to reduce population growth by improving health. But the idea of using vaccines as sterilization agents—even without the public’s knowledge or consent—is not conspiracy lore, but documentable fact.
It its 1968 annual report, the Rockefeller Foundation addressed the “Problems of Population,” lamenting that “[v]ery little work is in progress on immunological methods, such as vaccines, to reduce fertility, and much more research is required if a solution is to be found here.” The Foundation vowed to correct this problem by funding “established and beginning investigators to turn their attention to aspects of research in reproductive biology that have implications for human fertility and its control.”
This was no empty promise. By the time of its 1988 Annual Report, the Rockefeller Foundation was able to report progress on its funding into contraceptive research, including NORPLANT, a contraceptive implanted under the skin of a woman’s upper arm and effective for five years. In its 1988 report, the Rockefeller Foundation was pleased to announce that NORPLANT—which was developed by the Rockefeller-founded Population Council—was “now approved for marketing in 12 countries.”
The Rockefellers’ Population Council and other research organizations joined with the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1972 to create a Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation. By 1995, they were able to report progress in “developing a prototype of an anti-hCG-vaccine,” which works by combining an immunogen formed from a synthetic peptide of human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG)—a hormone secreted by the surface of the early embryo to remain implanted in the womb—with a toxoid carrier molecule. The vaccine stimulates an immune reaction, causing women to develop antibodies against the hormone, thus preventing them from carrying babies to term.
But beginning in the 1990s, a series of scandals over WHO-led vaccination programs in the third world led to allegations that tetanus vaccines in places like the Philippines and Kenya were being laced with hCG in order to implement population control by stealth. The controversy generated by these stories led global institutions to step back from the campaign to champion population control by vaccine.
But, as usual, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was there to renew interest, working with the UK government to host a “London Summit on Family Planning” in 2012 at which the foundation announced their support for funding the research, development and deployment of injectable contraceptives to the developing world.
MELINDA GATES: You heard me talk earlier about Sadi, who I met in Niger. She was traveling fifteen kilometers to get an injection. But let’s ask ourselves, what if she didn’t have to travel to that clinic? If we put it in her perspective, how can we keep her in her village to get the contraceptives she wants? Well, Pfizer is testing a new form of Depo, the injection that she gets fifteen kilometers to get. They’re now putting it in a new form, a new device that can be given—it’s very, very small, it’s called Uniject. I think it’s going to be pictured here.
It’s a high-quality product. It’s effective. It’s safe. It’s tiny, as you can see. And it can be put in a healthcare worker’s kit to give to the woman at the village level. So Sadi won’t have to go fifteen kilometers any longer to get that injection.
But the Gates were not content to stop there. In 2014 it was announced that Microchips Biotech, Inc., a company in Lexington, Massachusetts, had developed a new form of birth control: “a wireless implant that can be turned on and off with a remote control and that is designed to last up to 16 years.” According to MIT Technology Review, the idea originated when Bill Gates visited Robert Langer’s MIT lab in 2012 and asked him if it would be possible to create an implantable birth control device that could be turned on or off remotely. Langer referred Gates to the controlled release microchip technology he had invented and licensed to MicroCHIPS Biotechnology, and the Gates Foundation granted $20 million to the firm to develop the implants.
Reducing population growth has, by Gates’ own admission, been a core mission of the Gates Foundation since its inception. But in order to really understand what Gates means by “population control,” we have to look beyond the concept of controlling population size. At its most fundamental level, the “population control” that Gates speaks of is not birth control, but control of the population itself.
In order to understand the broader population control agenda and how it ties in to the Gates Foundation’s plans, we have to look at a puzzling development that took place in 2017. In that year, Gavi—the Gates founded and funded alliance that partners the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization and the World Bank with vaccine manufacturers to help ensure “healthy markets” for vaccines—took a strange pivot away from its core mission of vaccinating every child on the planet to providing every child with a digital biometric identity.
The idea was first floated by Gavi CEO Seth Berkley in a Nature article that year, “Immunization needs a technology boost,” where he states that the goal of 100% immunization will not be reached without “secure digital identification systems that can store a child’s medical history.” He then gives a specific example:
“We are working with a company in India called Khushi Baby, which creates off-grid digital health records. A necklace worn by infants contains a unique identification number on a short-range communication chip. Community health workers can scan the chip using a mobile phone, enabling them to update a child’s digital record even in remote areas with little phone coverage.”
This sudden interest in digital identity was no mere passing fancy for the vaccine alliance. Gavi doubled down by becoming a founding member of the ID2020 Alliance, a public-private partnership dedicated to spearheading a global digital biometric identity standard. Other founding members of the alliance include Gates’ first company, Microsoft, and The Rockefeller Foundation.
In 2018, Gavi issued a call for innovation in digital technologies “for finding, identifying and registering the most vulnerable children.” The call specifically requested technologies for capturing, storing and enrolling the biometric details of infants on “rugged biometric devices.”
Berkley continued to follow up on this idea in public engagements as one of the new core missions of Gavi.
SETH BERKLEY: What’s interesting is that people tend to think of, you know, birth certificates as kind of a major document. But, you know, the most common—as I mentioned before—is not a birth certificate, is not a death certificate, is not a marriage certificate. The most common connection—vital registration for the population—is actually a child health card, because we reach more than 90 percent of children with at least one dose of vaccine as part of a routine, so they’re in the system. The challenge is that contact is not connected into the system. So, if you could connect it, then you have the ability to give them their basic identity papers. You have the ability, then, later on, if they want to own land or they want to have their rights, you’re able to help them with that. But, you know, we’re not currently taking advantage of that. And so the children get seen, they get enrolled in the health centers, but that information is not used for anything else.
Although vaccines and identity may seem unrelated, Bill Gates has spent the last few years funding research that can bring the two ideas together.
Late last year, Gates once again turned to Robert Langer and his MIT colleagues to investigate new ways to permanently store and record the vaccination information of each individual. The result of their research was a new vaccine delivery method. They found that by using “dissolvable microneedles that deliver patterns of near-infrared light-emitting microparticles to the skin,” they could create “particle patterns” in the skin of vaccine recipients which are “invisible to the eye but can be imaged using modified smartphones.”
Rice University describes the quantum dot tags left behind by the microneedles as “something like a bar-code tattoo.”
So who was behind this development? As lead researcher Kevin McHugh explains:
“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation came to us and said, ‘Hey, we have a real problem—knowing who’s vaccinated [. . .] So our idea was to put the record on the person. This way, later on, people can scan over the area to see what vaccines have been administered and give only the ones still needed.”
The microparticles that form the fluorescent quantum-dot tags are delivered along with the vaccine, but they cannot be delivered by a traditional syringe. Instead, they must be delivered by a patch of microneedles made from a mixture of dissolvable sugar and a polymer, called PVA, as well as the quantum-dot dye and the vaccine.
It should be no surprise, then, that Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers—in their scramble to produce the coronavirus vaccine that, Gates assures us, is necessary to “go back to normal”—have turned to a novel vaccine delivery method: a dissolvable microneedle array patch.
NICK HARPER: The University of Pittsburgh is where the polio vaccine was first discovered. At the medical center, researchers are now developing a vaccine that is delivered using a dissolvable patch called a microneedle array.
LOUIS FALO: Think about them as almost like a band-aid. And so the microneedle array is simply applied to the skin topically, pressed into place very shortly, and then taken off and thrown away and then the antigen is already delivered.
As is becoming evident, this new vaccine-delivered bar- code-like tattoo is about much more than simply ensuring that children get all their Gavi-recommended immunizations.
On a recent “Ask Me Anything” thread on reddit, when asked “What changes are we going to have to make to how businesses operate to maintain our economy while providing social distancing?” Bill Gates answered: “Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.”
In his answer, Gates fails to mention that he has himself been instrumental in kickstarting and funding the research into the very type of digital certificates for vaccination that he is speaking about, or that these “digital certificates”—likely, at first, to be a digital marker linked to a biometric ID—could very well one day take the form of vaccine-implanted quantum-dot tattoos.
But, as in so many other aspects of the unfolding crisis, Gates’ unscientific pronouncement that we will need digital certificates to prove our immunity in the “new normal” of the post-coronavirus world . . .
GATES: Eventually, what we’ll have to have is certificates of who is a recovered person, who is a vaccinated person.
. . .is now being implemented by a number of governments. It is now being reported that Onfido, a tech startup specializing in AI-based biometric ID verification, is in talks with the British government to provide the type of “digital certification” Gates mentioned, dubbed an “immunity passport.” The proposed system would require would-be workers to use the Onfido-provided app to scan their face or other biometric data, link that information to a SARS-CoV-2 antibody test (or, eventually proof of coronavirus vaccination), and then have their picture taken and immunity verified every time they wish to access a restricted space or work environment.
Last month, Onfido announced that it had raised $50 million in a round of investments led by Bill Gates’ old company, Microsoft.
But this is not Gates’ first experience with the field of biometric identity.
A decade ago, the government of India began what has been called “The Largest Social Experiment on Earth“: enrolling over one billion people in the largest biometric identification database ever constructed. The project—involving iris scanning and fingerprinting the entirety of the Indian population, recording their biometric details in a centralized database, and issuing them a 12-digit identity number that could be used to prove residence and access government services, all within the span of a few years—presented an incredible societal, legal and technological challenge.
It’s no surprise, then, that the person who was brought in as the chief architect of the Aadhaar project when it was launched—Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Indian multi-national Infosys—is also a long-time friend of Bill Gates and a partner with Bill and Melinda Gates on a “philanthropic” venture called Co-Impact, which supports “initiatives to address major social challenges at scale.”
Nilekani’s involvement in Aadhaar has even made him one of Gates’s “heroes,” featured in slick video promotions produced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
GATES: My friend, Nandan Nilekani, is one of India’s best-known entrepreneurs. He led the creation of the world’s largest biometric ID system. Now he’s working to promote his platform to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people.
NANDAR NILEKANI: There are more than a billion people around the world who don’t have any kind of ID. You can’t do anything in life without an ID because people are mobile, they are migrant. And wherever they go, whether they want a job, or whether they want to board a train, or whether they want to get a bank account or get a mobile connection, if the person has no way of proving who they are, then they just won’t get access to those services. So the challenge we had was, how do we give a billion people, many of whom don’t have birth certificates, how do we give them an ID?
Aadhaar is the world’s largest digital ID system, and entirely based using biometrics to ensure uniqueness. Our enrollment was very simple: name, address, date of birth, sex, email ID and phone number if you wish, and the biometrics. The ten fingerprints of both the hands, the iris of both the eyes, and a photograph. And in a few days, he will get his Aadhaar number in the mail. And that’s how a billion people got their IDs.
And Gates has personally praised the Aadhar scheme as “a huge asset for India.”
GATES: Well, Aadhaar is a huge asset for India. It was designed very well. The fact that you can make digital payments so easily, you can open a bank account . . . India’s a leader in that. Our Foundation, you know, worked with the Reserve Bank. You know, Nandar Nilekani and a group of people that he pulled together did a great job.
But Gates is not merely an arms-length admirer of the Aadhaar experiment. He is not only personally connected to its chief architect. He is also connected to one of the key companies that spearheaded the technology that underlies the project’s biometric database.
And now, Gates is funding a scheme to retool Aadhaar for a global rollout.
In 2014, the World Bank created a multi-sector working group to launch the “Identification for Development Initative,” or ID4D, which aims to “support progress toward identification systems using 21st century solutions.” The World Bank cites goal 16.9 of the UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals—vowing to “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” in the next 10 years—as the basis for its initiative.
But ID4D was little more than a pipe dream until 2016, when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided “catalytic contributions” to launch the ID4D Multi-Donor Trust Fund, which enticed the UK, French and Australian governments, along with the Omidyar Network, into a partnership aiming to “shape global approaches and a shared vision on identification.”
Unsurprisingly, this World Bank ID4D initiative includes Nandar Nilekani—Gates’ partner and the chief architect of Aadhaar—on its advisory council and Gates has said that he is funding the World Bank “to take this Aadhaar approach to other countries.”
This headlong rush to capture the biometric details and assign digital identification to every person on earth is sold to the public under the guise of “financial inclusion.” The poorest people on the planet have trouble accessing financial services and receiving government aid because they don’t have official government identification papers. In this formulation, being issued a government ID—having one’s biometric details registered, tracked and databased by the government—is a “human right” that must be “secured.”
It should be no surprise by this point that this “human right” also has direct benefits for big business and for the entities that are looking to exert greater control over the human population.
Gates provided insight into the real purpose of this identification control grid in a speech at the Financial Inclusion Forum hosted by the US Treasury in 2015.
GATES: Every country really needs to look through these KYC—know your customer—rules to make sure that customers are able to prove who they are. But of course in many countries you don’t have any type of ID system. And the lack of an ID system is a problem, not just for the payment system, but also for voting and health and education and taxation. And so it’s a wonderful thing to go in and create a broad identification system.
Again, India is a very interesting example of this, where the Aadhaar system, which is a 12-digit identifier that’s correlated to biometric measures, is becoming pervasive throughout the country and will be the foundation for how we bring this low-cost switch to every mobile phone user in India. The same type of thing is happening now in in Pakistan and there’s early beginnings of creating these ID programs in Africa as well.
We expect to be able to use the IDs so that when you show up for any government service—say, you walk into a primary health clinic—we’ll be able to take that bio ID very quickly and bring up your electronic health record. Even if you’ve moved from one part of the country to the other, you will be well tracked and well served without nearly as much paperwork or waiting. And so the ID system is foundational.
The ID control grid is an essential part of the digitization of the economy. And although this is being sold as an opportunity for “financial inclusion” of the world’s poorest in the banking system provided by the likes of Gates and his banking and business associates, it is in fact a system for financial exclusion. Exclusion of any person or transaction that does not have the approval of the government or the payment providers.
GATES: Once financial flows go underground—where you have lots of legitimate transactions mixed in with the ones you want to track—and once they’re going over a digital system that the US has no connection to, it’s far more difficult to find the transactions that you want to be aware of or that you want to block.
And, once again, this is no mere theoretical talk from Gates. He has been intimately involved in this process of switching the world over to a digital payment grid tied to biometric identity.
In 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation helped found the “Better Than Cash Alliance,” which brings together governments, international organizations and the private sector “to accelerate the transition from cash to digital payments globally.”
And, when the Indian government made a bold move to demonetize large amounts of its circulating currency in order to draw off-the-books funds back under the purview of the Indian tax office, there was Gates to praise the move as an important step toward the creation of a brave new digital economy, tied, of course, to the Aadhaar ID grid.
GATES: The bold move to demonetize high value denominations and replace them with new notes with higher security features is an important step to move away from a shadow economy to an even more transparent economy. And digital transactions really I think will rise dramatically here. In fact, I think in the next several years India will become the most digitized economy. Not just by size but by percentage as well. All of the pieces are now coming together.
One piece of this that we enjoyed consulting with the government on, making sure it comes together in the right way, is the pending roll out of payment banks. This for the first time really will mean that you have full currency capability on those digital phones. Once you have that digital infrastructure, the whole way you think about government benefits can be done differently. [. . .] Over time, all of these transactions will create a footprint and so when you go in for credit the ability to access the history that you’ve paid your utility bills on time, that you’ve saved up money for your children’s education, all of those things in your digital trail, accessed in an appropriate way will allow the credit market to properly score the risk and therefore loosen up more money for investments, not only in the agricultural sector but for all the entrepreneurs in the country.
The different parts of this population control grid fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The vaccination drive ties into the biometric identity drive which ties into the cashless society drive.
In Gates’ vision, everyone will receive the government-mandated vaccinations, and everyone will have their biometric details recorded in nationally administered, globally integrated digital IDs. These digital identities will be tied to all of our actions and transactions, and, if and when they are deemed illegal, they will simply be shut off by the government—or even the payment providers themselves.
The Indian experiment in pioneering this biometric digital economy—an experiment with which Gates has been so intimately involved—also provides a perfect example of just how such a system will be abused.
In January 2018, a report in The Tribunerevealed that all of the details, including the name, address, postal code, photo, phone number and email, of all billion-plus Aadhaar-registered Indians, was available for purchase on WhatsApp for 500 rupees, or about USD$7. The Unique Identification Authority of India that administers the Aadhaar scheme was then forced to admit that approximately 210 websites, including websites of the central government and state government departments, were displaying the list of government beneficiaries, along with their name, address, other details and Aadhaar numbers.
Even more worryingly, newly obtained documents show that the Indian government is integrating Aadhaar-collected data to create a “360-degree database” that will “automatically track when a citizen moves between cities, changes jobs, or buys new property” and integrate that data into a real-time geo-spatial database built by the country’s space agency, ISRO.
Only the most willfully obtuse could claim to be unable to see the nightmarish implications for this type of all-seeing, all-pervasive society, where every transaction and every movement of every citizen is monitored, analyzed, and databased in real-time by the government. And Bill Gates is one of those willfully obtuse people.
SHEREEN BAHN: A current debate that’s on in India and globally as well [is] around data. Now, you’ve been an advocate of Aadhaar, you’ve supported it, you’ve defended it. And I think that the questions arise not on on whether it’s a good idea or not, but whether it should be made mandatory for every citizen for every service possible. Because it was envisaged as people accessing government subsidy, using the Aadhaar card to avoid duplication and leakages. The question, then, is that India today is still grappling with putting in place a privacy framework, a privacy regulation, a data protection regulation. In that context, then, does it make sense, even though the matter is in court today, to link Aadhaar to every possible service?
GATES: Well, Aadhar is just something that avoids you pretending to be somebody else. That, you know, you can have, you know, fake people on the government payroll. Aadhaar, you know, prevents you being on that payroll as as a ghost worker. It prevents you from collecting things that you shouldn’t collect or accessing a health record you shouldn’t have access to.
So the basic Aadhaar mechanism is an identity mechanism. And so it’s too bad if somebody thinks that because Aadhaar is there that in and of itself creates a privacy problem.
Gates’ response is, of course, disingenuous. The very purpose of a globally integrated ID grid and cashless payment architecture is to remove privacy from our lives.
It should be no surprise, then, that this man who is not concerned about the privacy implications of a global, real-time electronic ID and digital payments grid, is also a prime investor in EarthNow LLC, a company promising to “deploy a large constellation of advanced imaging satellites that will deliver real-time, continuous video of almost anywhere on Earth.”
No, this Gates-driven agenda is not about money. It is about control. Control over every aspect of our daily lives, from where we go, to who we meet, to what we buy and what we do.
The irony is that this billionaire “philanthropist,” so often depicted as a cartoon superhero for his dazzling generosity, actually resembles nothing so much as a comic book supervillain, right down to the use of his vast wealth to sponsor Harvard University research into dimming the sun by spraying particles into the stratosphere.
But once again, we are driven back to the question. Who is this person? What ideology is driving this quest for control? And what is the end goal of this quest?
Computer whiz kid. Talented software developer. Shrewd businessman. Benevolent philanthropist. Global health expert.
There can be no doubt that Bill Gates has worn many hats on his remarkable journey from his early life as the privileged son of a Seattle-area power couple to his current status as one of the richest and most influential people on the planet. But, as we have seen in our exploration of Gates’ rise as unelected global health czar and population control advocate, the question of who Bill Gates really is is no mere philosophical pursuit.
Given that we are currently living through a crisis that has been “predicted” by Bill Gates, which is triggering a response from the global health organizations that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has bankrolled, and driving us toward a vaccination and biometric ID “solution” which Bill Gates has been working on for years, the answer to the question “Who Is Bill Gates?” is quickly becoming one of the most important questions of our lives. That answer will not only tell us about the world that we are living in, but about the one that we are being thrust into . . . and how we can avoid it.
Today we will attempt to answer that question as we examine the motives, the ideology, and the connections of this man who has been so instrumental in shaping the post-coronavirus world.
Meet Bill Gates.
You’re tuned into The Corbett Report.
So who is Bill Gates?
Some argue that he’s a genius who leveraged his natural computer savvy into a billion-dollar fortune.
JANE PAULEY: You’re called a genius and I will—well, no, I don’t think that embarrassed you at all. They call you a genius. Part of your genius is that you are a computer whiz, and the other is that you did have the business acumen to turn it into a working company. Are you a business genius, too?
Others insist that he is a visionary who changed our lives with his foresight and bold imagination.
ALAN GARBER: Bill had a vision—and I understand it went back even then—that computing would be ubiquitous. It would be part of all of our lives. And, indeed, as you all know, he executed on that vision. And the world today has changed so dramatically in large part due to the work that Bill has done throughout the years.
He has been hailed as a shrewd executive who built the Microsoft empire with his remarkable talent for business.
JAMES WALLACE: When the biographers and historians write the history of the 20th century, Bill Gates is going to go down as the best businessman of our century, and Microsoft as one of the greatest companies of the 20th century.
And he has been praised as a philanthropist who is selflessly devoting his wealth to improving the lives of people around the world.
JESSE KORNBLUTH: Bill, even your harshest critic would have to admit that your philanthropy work is, you know, planet-shaking incredible and could be, if you make it, a second act so amazing that it would dwarf what you’ve actually done at Microsoft. [APPLAUSE]
But, like anyone of his status, he has his detractors. In the 1990s he was often portrayed as the greedy head of the evil Microsoft monopoly.
BENJAMIN WOOLEY: Bill Gates isn’t content with his Windows system running just a few PCs. He wants it to run the world, spreading like a computer virus into our faxes, our phones, our TV sets, and, yes, even our toasters.
But in the age of the coronavirus crisis, he is most often treated like some sort of epidemiologist or leading health researcher.
ANDERSON COOPER: Back here with us once again to talk about this, as well as testing, treatments and more: Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill, thanks so much for being back with us. It’s been a little over a month since you were here and at that time you said the US had not hit its peak. So at this point do you think we have peaked and where do you think we are right now in kind of the arc of the pandemic?
But in truth, none of these perspectives are accurate.
Microsoft’s big break famously came from a deal to provide software for IBM as they moved into the personal computer market. But the deal was not the result of Gates’ technical genius or amazing business acumen. As has been quietly admitted by IBM executives in the years since, Microsoft was given their shot at the chance to work with “Big Blue” as a result of Gates’ mother’s relationship with IBM CEO John Opel.
GORAN MILIC: You remember your partnership of IBM and Bill Gates? How did it break up?
EDWARD ANDRUS: I do remember very well, actually. Bill Gates at the time at the beginning of our relationship with them was living on pizza and Pepsi Cola in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And his mother happened to be on the United Way board with our chairman and asked our chairman to help him. And you know, when the chairman comes in and tells you to go help this kid, nine hundred people get on the plane Monday morning and they all go down to try to help Bill Gates.
[. . .]
So I don’t see Bill Gates as this great, creative person. I see him as an opportunist. And, in fact, in those days there was a lot of sharing of software code. People gave it away in Silicon Valley; they would share everything. He came in and he tried to control everything and put a price on it.
Computer historians have long known how the basis for what became MS-DOS was not Bill Gates’ brilliant imagination, but QDOS, a “Quick and Dirty Operating System” that had been thrown together by Tim Patterson, a worker at Seattle Computer Products, as a placeholder until he could sell a proper operating system to his customers. And as even Gates himself admitted, the breakthrough Graphical User Interface that became the basis for Windows was ripped off from the researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
As Bill would say after Apple unsuccessfully sued Microsoft for copyright infringement over Windows’ GUI: “Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox’s house before I did and took the TV doesn’t mean I can’t go in later and take the stereo.”
And, as Gates also admits, it is not a spirit of selfless generosity that motivates his interest in vaccines and other lucrative health interventions.
BECKY QUICK: I’d like to talk to you about your approach to vaccinations. You wrote something recently, and, like you always do, you kind of looked at the problem from a scientific and business perspective on things. You’ve invested 10 billion dollars in vaccinations over the last two decades, and you figured out the return on investment for that. It kind of stunned me. Can you walk us through the math?
[. . .]
BILL GATES: You know, we see a phenomenal track record. It’s been a hundred billion overall that the world’s put in—our foundation is a bit more than 10 billion—but we feel there’s been over a 20-to-one return. So if you just look at the economic benefits, that’s a pretty strong number compared to anything else.
As we have seen, Gates’ “philanthropic” investment scheme has paid off well, with his $50 billion net worth having ballooned to over $100 billion after his decade of “altruism” in the vaccine market. As critics of his foundation have repeatedly pointed out, the 9,000,000 people who die every year of hunger would be best served by securing food supplies, running water and other basic necessities, not costly medical interventions for rare diseases. But there is no return on investment to be made from that kind of charity.
No, this is not about charity. It is about control. The population control grid that Gates has been quietly funding into existence for the past decade—a biometric identification system tied to a digital payments infrastructure that will be used to track, catalogue and control every movement, every transaction and every interaction of every citizen—is just now coming into view.
But the real question is: Why is he doing this? What drives a man like Bill Gates, a man rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, to spend his time and invest his fortune in schemes to control the population? To find the answer to that question, we have to examine Gates’ family background.
Bill Gates, it should not be surprising to learn, was born into money. His great-grandfather, J. W. Maxwell, was the president of National City Bank in Seattle. His grandfather, Willard, was also a banker, and his grandmother, Adele, a prominent Seattle civic leader.
Bill Gates’ mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, was a scion of the Maxwell banking family and, by all accounts, as hard-driving as her forebears. She served as a director of several companies, including First Interstate Bancorp and KIRO-TV of Seattle. She served as a regent at the University of Washington. And she was appointed to the board of the United Way of America, where, as we have seen, she persuaded IBM CEO John Opel to help her son in his fledgling software development career.
Bill’s father, William H. Gates, Sr., was a prominent Seattle-area lawyer. He co-founded a powerful law and lobbying firm, helped Howard Schultz in his bid to buy Starbucks, served on the boards of numerous companies and organizations, and, along the way, had a profound influence on his son’s life and career.
GATES: My dad was a large presence, both physically and in terms of his wisdom. He worked very hard, so he’d leave in the mornings, often before we had breakfast, and get home in time for dinner. I always looked up to my dad in terms of how hard he worked.
At the dinner table my dad would go through various lawsuits and expect us to follow along. He had high expectations.
The young Bill Gates—technically “William H. Gates III,” although his card-playing family dubbed him “Trey”—learned much from his parents. From his mother’s banking family he inherited a “nose for the dollar,” as one childhood friend’s father called it. From his hard-driving legal-minded father, he learned the value of legalizing business arrangements. As a child, he even had a legal contract drawn up to grant him the use of his older sisters’ baseball mitt.
These traits would not earn him many friends, but they served him well as he began to bring order to the anarchic software development community of the 1970s. At that time, software for the brand new personal computer market was the realm of computer hobbyists—people whose excitement about the microcomputer revolution and love of engineering and problem-solving led them to develop and share code freely with each other.
But this was no good for the young Bill Gates, who, even before Microsoft was off the ground, was already dreaming of commoditizing this hobby and turning it into the basis of a business empire. In 1976, with the ink still wet on Microsoft’s first contract with Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the then-21-year-old Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists excoriating the early computer enthusiasts, who represented his main market, for sharing Microsoft’s code for Altair BASIC.
As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair? [. . .] The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man [sic] years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
The letter was awkward and tone-deaf, as many people have described the young Bill Gates in his social interactions. It heaped vitriol on the very people who would be the customers of any future business and tried to change an established culture of sharing software code merely by decree. Even Apple Computers, which would go on to be one of the prime purveyors of “walled garden” systems that restrict users’ ability to control their own computers, scored an easy marketing victory by responding to Gates’ angry letter with a reminder that “Yes, Folks, Apple BASIC is Free!”
But the gauntlet was thrown down, and Gates would have his way. Although freeware and other forms of open source software development still exist, the establishment of software code as legally protected intellectual property has led to the rise of billionaires like Gates.
A “nose for the dollar” and a knowledge of how to use the legal system to get what you want were not the only things to emerge from Bill Gates’ childhood, however. His parents also encouraged discussion about the family’s charity work and the causes they held close to their heart.
As Gates revealed to Bill Moyers in 2003, those causes included “the population issue” which sparked a lifelong interest in “reproductive health.”
GATES: One issue that really grabbed me as urgent were issues related to population . . . reproductive health.
MOYERS: But did you come to reproductive issues as an intellectual?
GATES: When I was growing up, my parents were always involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.
Gates tips his hand when he equates “issues related to population” with “reproductive health.” The topic is particularly controversial, because “population control” and “reproductive health” have been used for half a century as a euphemism for eugenics, the discredited pseudoscience that holds that certain families are fit to be leaders of society by virtue of their superior genes.
As we saw in “Why Big Oil Conquered the World,” eugenics was a field named and codified by Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin. Ostensibly concerned with heredity and what would later be known as genetics, the eugenicists believed that the rich and powerful were rich and powerful not because of luck or chance or happenstance, and certainly not from the deployment of cutthroat business tactics and underhanded dealings; no, the rich and powerful had attained their status because they came from “better stock.” Conversely, the poor were poor because of their “defective germ plasm.”
As transparent as it seems to us today that this ideology was a self-serving self-justification for the ruling class, it was quickly taken up as the great social crusade of the early 20th century. From Teddy Roosevelt to H. G. Wells to Julian Huxley to Winston Churchill, there was widespread support for the eugenicist notion that society must strive to make sure that the rich and “well-born” breed as much as possible, and the poor, infirm, and “feeble-minded” be prevented from having children.
A common eugenicist argument was that the scarce resources of society should not be used to support the lower classes, as that only encouraged more of their kind. Instead, life-saving medical care and intervention should be rationed so that those resources can be best put to use elsewhere. So-called negative eugenicists even took things further, with some, like famed playwright George Bernard Shaw, calling for people to be called before a state-appointed board to justify their existence or be put to death.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW: [. . .] But there are an extraordinary number of people whom I want to kill. Not in any unkind or personal spirit, but it must be evident to all of you — you must all know half a dozen people, at least—who are no use in this world. Who are more trouble than they are worth. And I think it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly appointed board, just as he might come before the income tax commissioner, and, say, every five years, or every seven years, just put him there, and say: “Sir, or madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence?”
But, in the post-WWII era, as the name of eugenics became tarred by association with the Nazi atrocities, the talk of death panels and other harsh eugenicist notions was dropped from public conversation. Now, the quest to reduce the size of the poor population was spoken of as “population control” and “reproductive health.” Still, occasionally, these old negative eugenics ideas are revisited in moments of candor.
GATES: You’re raising tuitions at the University of California as rapidly as they [sic] can and so the access that used to be available to the middle class or whatever is just rapidly going away. That’s a trade-off society’s making because of very, very high medical costs and a lack of willingness to say, you know, “Is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient—would it be better not to lay off those 10 teachers and to make that trade off in medical cost?” But that’s called the “death panel” and you’re not supposed to have that discussion.
It is worth questioning why this man, who openly muses about death panels and the trade-offs of providing health care to the elderly, is to be taken completely at face value in his attempts to slow population growth in the third world or to handle a coronavirus health crisis that primarily affects the elderly.
That the Gates agenda is being driven by a eugenicist ideology is suggested by multiple lines of evidence, both historical and current.
As we have also seen in “Why Big Oil Conquered the World,” the Rockefeller family was instrumental in funding and promoting eugenics, both in America and overseas.
The Rockefellers helped fund the Eugenics Record Office.
The founding director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, William Welch, sat on the ERO’s board and helped direct its activities.
The Rockefellers sponsored the studies of the eugenics researchers at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Germany, including Ernst Rüdin, who would go on to draft Nazi Germany’s forced sterilization law.
And, when the American Eugenics Society became embarrassed of its own name, its long-time director, Frederick Osborne, merely took over as president of the Rockefeller-founded Population Council.
This dedication to the cause of “public health” did not escape the approving gaze of Bill Gates, Sr. In a chapter of his 2009 book, Showing Up for Life, called “Walking With Giants,” he writes admiringly of the Rockefellers and their influence in the field:
Every corner we’ve turned in the field of global health, we’ve found that the Rockefellers were already there and had been there for years.
When we committed to childhood immunization we found ourselves building on efforts the Rockefeller Foundation had helped launch and fund in the 1980s.
When we became interested in fighting malaria and tuberculosis, we learned that the Rockefellers had been studying the prevention and treatment of such diseases around the globe for, in some cases, as long as a hundred years.
A similar dynamic held true in the case of HIV/AIDS.
A lesson we learned from studying and working with the Rockefellers is that to succeed in pursuing audacious goals you need like-minded partners with whom to collaborate.
And we learned that such goals are not prizes claimed by the short-winded. The Rockefellers stay with tough problems for generations.
SOURCE: William H. Gates. Showing Up for Life (pp. 158-159)
As Gates, Sr., suggests, it is by working with “like-minded partners” that such “great” achievements in the field of global health can be made. For the Gates, these like-minded partners include the Rockefellers themselves. Bill Gates, Sr., got to discuss global health, agriculture and environment with the likes of David Rockefeller, Sr., and David Rockefeller, Jr., at a meeting on “Philanthropy in a Global Century” at Rockefeller University campus in 2000. And Bill Gates, as we have seen, co-hosted a meeting on reducing the population with David Rockefeller in 2009.
But the most salacious hints of a deeper agenda are not to be found in the Gates’ public associations, but in the associations that they have tried to hide from the public.
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Jeffrey Epstein may be dead, but this story isn’t. A shocking new report from The New York Times sheds light on the connection between Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the late Jeffrey Epstein. After Gates’ name came up in connection with Epstein and MIT Media Lab, Gates gave a statement to The Wall Street Journal where he insisted he did not have any business relationship or friendship with Epstein. But a new report outlines conversations with Gates and Epstein and a conversation with Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation. A connection between their foundation and JPMorgan Chase to set up a charitable fund to benefit Epstein. You know what I want to know: Why?
Beginning in August of last year, a string of information connecting Bill Gates to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein began to emerge.
Flight logs revealed that Gates had flown on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet.
An email surfaced showing disgraced MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito—who resigned from his position after it was discovered that he had helped cover up Jeffrey Epstein’s identity as an “anonymous” donor to the lab—informing his staff that a $2 million donation to the lab in 2014 was a “gift from Bill Gates directed by Jeffrey Epstein.”
As the story gained momentum, Gates tried to downplay the relationship, with a Gates spokesperson protesting that Gates “didn’t know it was Epstein’s plane,” and Gates himself insisting that “I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with [Epstein].”
This was immediately contradicted by The New YorkTimes, who reported in October of 2012 that Gates had in fact met with Epstein on multiple occasions, even going so far as to discuss the creation of a multibillion dollar charitable fund with seed money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase.
According to the Times, Gates emailed his colleagues about Epstein in 2011: “His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me.”
Epstein’s will even named Boris Nikolic—a Harvard-trained immunologist who served as the chief scientific advisor to both Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and who appears in the sole publicly known photo of Epstein and Gates’ 2011 meeting at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion—as the backup executor of Epstein’s estate.
It is not difficult to see why Gates would try to distance himself from his relationship with a child sex trafficker. Epstein, after all, is suspected of ensnaring high-ranking politicians, businessmen and even royalty in an intelligence-directed “honeypot” operation, recording them in the act of sexually abusing underage girls and using that evidence as blackmail.
But, as it turns out, the attempt to suppress the Gates-Epstein story may have been an attempt to suppress the revelation of an altogether different shared interest.
KRISTEN DAHLGREN: Sources say several accusers have come forward in New Mexico, where Epstein owns a sprawling ranch. According to a new report published in The New York Times—not verified by NBC News—Epstein wanted to use the ranch for controlled breeding, using his DNA to improve humanity. Citing two award-winning scientists and an advisor to large companies and wealthy individuals, the article reports Epstein surrounded himself with leading scientists and would tell them he wanted to have 20 women impregnated at a time on the ranch.
The already scarcely believable Jeffrey Epstein story took another bizarre turn in August of 2019, when it was reported that Epstein “Hoped to Seed the Human Race With His DNA.” As The New York Times explained, Epstein’s plan to impregnate 20 women at a time at his New Mexico ranch in order to “seed the human race with his DNA”—a plan he told to a number of the “scientific luminaries” he kept in his orbit—put a modern gloss on a very old idea:
Mr. Epstein’s vision reflected his longstanding fascination with what has become known as transhumanism: the science of improving the human population through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Critics have likened transhumanism to a modern-day version of eugenics, the discredited field of improving the human race through controlled breeding.
Epstein’s interest in genetics led him to sponsor a number of scientists working in the field, including George Church, a Harvard geneticist whose lab received funding from Epstein’s foundation from 2005 to 2007 for “cutting edge science.” Church publicly apologized for his connection to Epstein, which included several meetings a year from 2014 onward. This was neither the first nor the last time that this unassuming Harvard biologist, whose “cutting edge science” often strays into controversial areas, caused a public scandal. In 2019, Church proposed a “genetics dating app” which was immediately denounced as applied eugenics.
Church also acted as scientific advisor to Editas Medicine, a startup seeking to use the genome-editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9, to eliminate diseases by deleting the parts of a genetic code responsible for the illness. In 2015, the company announced it had raised $120 million from a group led by Epstein’s appointed backup executor, Dr. Boris Nikolic. Naturally, that group of investors included Bill Gates.
Yes, Bill Gates is certainly following his father’s advice to collaborate with “like-minded partners.”
So, the question remains: Is Bill Gates motivated by eugenics? Given that eugenics went underground over half a century ago, we are unlikely ever to unearth a frank admission along those lines from Gates himself. After all, there are no longer any card-carrying members of the American Eugenics Society; the society was rebranded in the 1970s when, as the society’s founder noted, “it became evident that changes of a eugenic nature would be made for reasons other than eugenics, and that tying a eugenic label on them would more often hinder than help their adoption.”
But there was an American Eugenics Society in the 1920s, and it just so happened to boast a “William H. Gates” on its member roster. But perhaps that is just a coincidence.
And there was an American Eugenics Society in the 1960s, when William H. Gates II was preceded as head of Planned Parenthood by Alan Guttmacher, who simultaneously served as the Director of the American Eugenics Society.
And perhaps it was coincidence that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation organized their London Summit on Family Planning, at which the Gates recommitted themselves to funding population control in the third world, in July 2012, on the anniversary of the First International Eugenics Congress, held in London exactly 100 years prior.
And perhaps it is reaching to compare the young Bill Gates’ dating preferences to the genetic-based dating favored by modern-day eugenicists.
JAMES WALLACE: I interviewed several women who had dated Bill just briefly and one told me the very first question Bill asked her was: “What did you score on your SAT test?” You know, this is not exactly what a young woman wants to hear. For Bill Gates, though . . . He had scored a perfect 800 on his math portion of the SAT and this was a matter of pride with him. And he wanted to make sure whoever he was dating, you know, had scored a pretty high grade.
No, we cannot expect an answer about Bill Gates true motives to come from Gates himself. By this point the question of Bill Gates’ intentions has been buried under the combined weight of hundreds of millions of dollars of paid PR spin. Like the Rockefellers before them, the Gates have long since learned the secret of enlarging their family fortune—not to mention their control over the human population—by donning the mask of philanthropy.
There are many perspectives on Bill Gates; depending on who you ask, he is a computer savant, a genius businessman, or a saintly philanthropist. But all of these perspectives have been brought to you through PR outlets founded or funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is no longer a subject for historians but hagiographers.
Now we must confront the question of why this man is motivated to build such a web of control—control over our public health agencies—
GATES: And for all 193 member states, you must make vaccines a high priority in your health systems, to ensure that all your children have access to existing vaccines now—and to new vaccines as they become available.
GATES: And the lack of an ID system is a problem, not just for the payment system, but also for voting and health and education and taxation. And so it’s a wonderful thing to go in and create a broad identification system
GATES: Once financial flows go underground—where you have lots of legitimate transactions mixed in with the ones you want to track—and once they’re going over a digital system that the US has no connection to, it’s far more difficult to find the transactions that you want to be aware of or that you want to block.
We must confront the possibility that this quest for control comes not from a selfless spirit of generosity that never seemed to exist before he became a multi-billionaire, but from the same drive for money, the same desire for domination and the same sense of superiority that motivated him on his way up the corporate ladder.
But if the answer to the question “Who is Bill Gates” is “Bill Gates is a eugenicist,” that tells us some important things about the world that we are living in.
It tells us that Gates is deceiving the public into supporting his takeover of the world with a false front of philanthropy.
It tells us that the goal of the Gates, like the goal of the Rockefellers before them, is not to improve the world for humankind, but to improve the world for their kind.
And most importantly, it tells us that Bill Gates is no comic-book supervillain, single-handedly directing all of the chaos that is unfolding in the world or single-handedly bringing his own order to that chaos.
No, if Bill Gates is a eugenicist, driven by a belief in the superiority of himself and his fellow wealthy elitists, then what we are facing is not one man, or even one family, but an ideology.
This is not a trivial point. One man, whatever his wealth, can be stopped easily enough. But even if Bill Gates were to be thrown in jail tomorrow, the agenda that has already been set in motion would continue without missing a beat. An entire infrastructure of researchers, labs, corporations, governmental agencies and public health bodies exists, funded more often than not by Gates, but driven by the belief of all those millions of people working for these various entities that they are truly working in the best interest of the people.
No, an ideology cannot be stopped by stopping one man. It can only be stopped when enough people learn the truth about this agenda and the world of total, pervasive control that is coming into view.
If you have watched all four parts of this exploration on Bill Gates, then you are now one of the most informed people on the planet about the true nature of this agenda. You have seen how the takeover of public health has been used to railroad the world into a headlong rush toward mandatory vaccinations, biometric identification and digital payments. You have seen how the pieces of this puzzle fit together, and how they represent a far greater threat to the future of humanity than any virus.
Here is the good news: Armed with this information, you have the antidote to the scourge of this eugenicist ideology. The truth is that ideologies are viruses of the mind; they spread from person to person, infecting them with ideas that can lead to a disease of the body politic.
But here is the even greater truth: Inoculations do work. Inoculations of truth against the lies of those spreading their poisonous ideology.
If you have made it this far, it is incumbent on you to help inoculate those around you against the corrupt ideology of Bill Gates and all those who seek to control the population of the world. You must help to spread this information so that others have a chance to see the bigger picture and decide for themselves whether they are willing to roll up their sleeves and accept what is coming, or not.
But time is not on our side. Even as we speak, mass vaccination campaigns are being prepared:
ALLISON ARWADY: You know we are already building our plans to vaccinate the whole city of Chicago and working with others across the region on a major plan for this. We’ve bought syringes, we’ve bought cold boxes, we’ve planned out locations.
Biometric identification schemes and “immunity passports” are already being rolled out:
CARYN SEIDMAN BECKER: And so while we started with travel, at our core we’re a biometric-secure identity platform, where it’s always been about attaching your identity to your boarding pass at the airport or your ticket to get into a sports stadium or your credit card to buy a beer. And so now with the launch of Clear Health Pass, it’s about attaching your identity to your COVID-related health insights for employers, for employees, for customers.
Programs for tracking, tracing, and surveilling the entire population are already being beta-tested:
DEENA HINSHAW: Today we are launching another useful tool that can supplement the critical detective work we are conducting in public health. Alberta Trace Together is a voluntary, secure, mobile contact tracing application to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
And the digital payment infrastructure, the system of financial exclusion that will allow governments to turn off our access to the economy at will, is being put into place:
UHURU KENYATTA: In order to avoid the risk of transmission through physical handling of money, we encourage the use of cashless transactions such as mobile money, M-Pesa and otherwise, and credit cards.
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: People are using touchless payment systems much more than they’re using cash, both because we’re not interacting with people directly as much anymore and also because cash is kind of skeezy.
We must spread the word about the dark nature of this population control agenda to as many people as we can before our ability to speak out against this agenda is taken away for good.
Thanks to the likes of Bill Gates, the virus of this population control agenda is already here. It is threatening to crash the system as we’ve known it.
But if Bill Gates has taught us anything, it’s how to deal with a virus.
Prof. Maxwell J. Mehlman
“Improved Humans: Legal and Political Aspects of the New Genetics”
Templeton Research Lecture
November 12, 2008
Listen to the podcast
“Directed Evolution: Public Policy and Human Enhancement”
Templeton Research Lecture
April 20, 2009
Listen to the podcast
Maxwell J. Mehlman is the Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University and the Director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western University’s School of Medicine.
His recent publications include: Genetics: Ethics, Law and Policy [Second Edition] (2006, co-authored with Lori Andrews and Mark Rothstein); and Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society (2003).
n response to the criticism of unethical human experimentation, the Reich government issued “Guidelines for New Therapy and Human Experimentation” in Weimar, Germany. The guidelines were based on beneficence and non-maleficence, but also stressed legal doctrine of informed consent.
The ten points of the code were given in the section of the verdict entitled “Permissible Medical Experiments”
The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.
The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.
The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
Henry T. Greely, From Nuremberg to the Human Genome: The Rights of Human Research Participants, in Medicine After the Holocaust: From the Master Race to the Human Genome and Beyond, Sheldon Rubenfeld ed., New York: Palgrave, 2010.
Over the next few decades, Elon Musk is hoping to send 42,000 satellites to space.
He is hoping those satellites bring high-speed internet to every corner of the world— from the rainforest to Antarctica.
Foreign Policy writer, Evgeny Morozov, questions whether “the Internet brings us closer together”, and despite its early ideals that it would “increase understanding, foster tolerance, and ultimately promote worldwide peace”, the opposite may be happening.
Google, Twitter, Facebook—are U.S. companies that other governments increasingly fear as political agents. Chinese, Cuban, Iranian, and even Turkish politicians are already talking up “information sovereignty” a euphemism for replacing services provided by Western Internet companies with their own more limited but somewhat easier to control products, further splintering the World Wide Web into numerous national Internets. The age of the Splinternet beckons.[
The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy organisms.
The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.
The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.
The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.
The list of the Bradford Hill criteria is as follows:
Strength (effect size): A small association does not mean that there is not a causal effect, though the larger the association, the more likely that it is causal.
Consistency (reproducibility): Consistent findings observed by different persons in different places with different samples strengthens the likelihood of an effect.
Specificity: Causation is likely if there is a very specific population at a specific site and disease with no other likely explanation. The more specific an association between a factor and an effect is, the bigger the probability of a causal relationship.[1]
Temporality: The effect has to occur after the cause (and if there is an expected delay between the cause and expected effect, then the effect must occur after that delay).
Biological gradient (dose-response relationship): Greater exposure should generally lead to greater incidence of the effect. However, in some cases, the mere presence of the factor can trigger the effect. In other cases, an inverse proportion is observed: greater exposure leads to lower incidence.[1]
Plausibility: A plausible mechanism between cause and effect is helpful (but Hill noted that knowledge of the mechanism is limited by current knowledge).
Coherence: Coherence between epidemiological and laboratory findings increases the likelihood of an effect. However, Hill noted that “… lack of such [laboratory] evidence cannot nullify the epidemiological effect on associations”.
Experiment: “Occasionally it is possible to appeal to experimental evidence”.
Analogy: The use of analogies or similarities between the observed association and any other associations.
Some authors consider, also, Reversibility: If the cause is deleted then the effect should disappear as well.
