CNN’s New Boss, Chris Licht, recently said that they need to be "Advocates For The Truth" To Regain "Trust." 05/02/2022 Obviously this sounds good, and it would be good, if they were actually addressing the biggest problems with their credibility; but they're not even coming close to doing that. This problem isn't limited to CNN, since over ninety percent of the media is controlled by a fraction of one percent, and they all have the same profit motive that is far more important to them than providing honest coverage. However, CNN and the other oligarchs are relying on the most fundamental principle of propaganda, "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth," or at least it seems to, especially if opposing views are not allowed, which is the case with mainstream media. Fortunately there are plenty of alternative media outlets, and academic researchers studying any given subject that reports more reliably on the news or causes of many social problems, and a small percentage of the public are learning where to find them, and a larger percentage of the public which hasn't found the best sources has at least learned to be very skeptical of traditional media.
This goes for many subjects that the media either doesn't cover at all or uses it for entertainment purposes without reporting on good research, including the most effective methods to prevent violence, which I've reported on recently, that they ignore while expressing shock and using it for entertainment purposes. This also includes recent coverage of the pandemic, where the phrase "trust the science" has gone viral but the coverage of science and the most credible solutions to many health problems not limited to COVID is virtually absent from traditional media. A recent interview on CNN, Doctor says misinformation is having 'disturbing' effect on life expectancy in US 05/08/2022 partially shows how incompetant they are, assuming you're familiar with some background from more reliable sources. In this video Dr. Robert Califf talks about how he claims misinformation is partly responsible for why life expectancy is lower in the United States than many other wealthy countries, and that it's getting even worse, supposedly because of misinformation, which I actually agree with, although not necessarily for the same reasons. He claims they understand the causes of many health problems costing people their lives prematurely, including heart problems, and of course the COVID pandemic saying that getting vaccines saves lives, and I certainly hope he's right; but the research on this is much more recent, without long term results, and research on other causes of deaths is much more credible.
One important issue, which was researched long before the pandemic and the evidence is overwhelming and simple enough for people without a medical background are studies that say Medicare for All Would Save $450 Billion and 68,000 Lives according to a Study 02/22/2020 This article was reported shortly before we got slammed by the pandemic at a time when the worst reports were coming from Wuhan, followed shortly by Italy and a few other countries, before we got slammed in late March of 2020. This is just one of close to two dozen studies, if not more that show Medicare for All will save billions of dollars, and most of them also show that many lives would be saved, including some studies from conservative think tanks. Yet the political establishment, media and Dr. Robert Califf don't even mention this. At the end of March 2020 I argued that the evidence showed that the vast majority of countries with universal health care were doing much better than the United States, with a few exceptions, which still included Italy and the United Kingdom and a few other countries that were exceptions; since then almost all of those exceptions have handled the pandemic much better, and now have a much lower fatality rate than the United States.
According to Worldometer Pandemic statistics by country the United States comes in eighteenth out of Two-hundred-and-twenty-eight countries (including a few micro states and a cruise line, subtracting these would still put it over 210), and all but two of the reasonably wealthy countries with universal health care are doing much better than the USA, with Greece having 7% fewer deaths per million; Italy having more than 10% fewer deaths per million; and Australia having more than 90% fewer deaths, and the rest of the wealthy countries somewhere in between. The only two exceptions that supposedly have universal health care, unlike the United States, are Poland and Brazil, which are now seventeenth and sixteenth out of 228 countries, just barely above the United States, for now anyway. Several months ago Brazil was more than 80 deaths per million above the USA, now they're only about 15; Poland was at least 30 or 40 above the USA, now they're only about 2; at this rate the United States will surpass the only two countries with universal health care by the end of June, and even though these two countries supposedly have universal health care, there are numerous articles showing they're not as well funded as other countries with universal health care, and perhaps even the USA, which is much more expensive, and it doesn't provide adequate health care for the poor.
Simply understanding the basic principles of insurance is enough to show that privatized for profit insurance can never be as efficient as universal Single Payer insurance, controlled by people accountable to the public with full disclosure, which almost always means the government, assuming the people running it actually want to do a good job. Pooled risk means everyone pays a modest amount of money into the pool even when they're healthy and don't need medical care and then the money is available when they need it. With private, for profit insurance, the profits come from that pool of money, as well as high CEO pay, large lobbying budgets, campaign contributions, an enormous advertising budget, and many other expenses that don't go to health care. With public insurance, there are still some bureaucratic expenses that can't be avoided, which are also there in private insurance, but they can eliminate lobbying, campaign donations, advertising, high profits, and CEO salaries, and all this money can be put toward actual health care saving both money and lives, as the studies I previously mentioned show. If CNN, the entire media and political establishment including Dr. Robert Califf were as concerned about protecting the public's health as they claim, there should be no doubt they would be speaking out much more about the advantages of Single Payer health care which every other wealthy country has, and they're all handling the pandemic much better than the United States. Even the vast majority of poor countries are doing better than the United States, with China, where it allegedly started, and which has been panicking in Shanghai the last couple months, only has three deaths per million for the whole country, which is 99.9% lower than our country, are handling it much better than the United States. The only fifteen other countries worse than the USA, Brazil, and Poland are all much poorer, including Peru and mostly Eastern European countries with serious social problems and poor health care. And, as it will become clearer there are many other issues where the establishment is obviously putting the profits of the wealthy ahead of the health of the majority, but even with just this one issue, it should raise major doubts about the credibility of the establishment; although, as I said, I still hope they're telling the truth, mostly, about the pandemic.
Another major issue where the establishment has demonstrated they're much more concered about profits for the wealthy than the health of the majority is patent reform, and once again there was an enormous amount of evidence showing that many lives, and billions of dollars can be saved by implementing it before the pandemic hit, although it hasn't gotten yearly as much attention. Both Dr. Marcia Angell author of "The Truth About the Drug Companies" 2005 and Harriet Washington author of "Deadly Monopolies" 2012 reported that the vast majority of research for new drugs is funded by tax payers, yet the insurance companies still get patents enabling them to gouge us. There are numerous other credible sources that confirm this but they get little or no media coverage to get their point across; while the media sells massive amounts of ads for insurance and drug companies, indicating, once again they have a financial incentive to be an advocate for profit, while pretending to be an advocate for truth. And there are many other examples where profits for wealthy corporations including the follwoing excerpt from Another book by Harriet Washington, A Terrible Thing To Waste 2019 p.9
The European Union, for instance, requires safety tests before any new industrial chemical is unleashed into the ground, atmosphere, and neighboring communities. It subscribes to the precautionary principle. In plain English, it is "better safe than sorry."
Because we have ignored this precept, lead poisoning has cost our country a staggering $50 billion. But it also has cost our nation something far more precious: 23 million lost IQ points every year. (As well as other medical expenses, possibly even including many premature deaths, most among poor African American.)
Harriet Washington also cites work from Robert Bullard, who has also done an enormous amount of research into environmental destruction that often targets the poor, especially African Americans. She goes on to describe how the lead industry knew how dangerous their product was at least as early as 1922, and one source may have learned about it at least twenty-two years earlier. They wouldn't allow women and children to work in some of their factories because of the health risks, but they continued to market it to the public. They knowingly misrepresented the facts for decades, at one point even trying to argue that lead was good for people's health compared to alternatives. By the seventies they finally admitted that lead was dangerous to people's health, at least to some degree, and stopped allowing the sale of lead paint and eliminated leaded gasoline. But to the best of my knowledge, they never considered charges of negligent mass homicide, which seems like a reasonable possibility considering the cover-up by the lead industry. At most there were some civil lawsuits, but it's unlikely that payments, which may not have even been disclosed to the public, were higher than the profits that the lead industry made, or high enough to compensate victims, many that were never compensated at all.
Many of us have been led to believe that the problem with lead was, for the most part, solved decades ago; and for most wealthy or even many middle class people it has. but this doesn't apply to most poor people, especially minorities and African Americans, in some cases middle class African Americans have to put up with more lead issues than poorer white people, and some have even been intentionally exposed to lead for research purposes, which even more were exposed to lead just to save money for wealthy property owners. Harriet Washington explains that at least two dozen children were exposed to lead intentionally in an experiment by the Kennedy Krieger Institute where they gave financial incentives to landlords to rent to parents with children that could be infected with lead poisoning to find out if partial cleaning up of lead would enable landlords to save money. The scientist offered parents of this study fifteen dollars and a promise that they would inform them of any hazards in the study, but they broke that promise, even when tests showed that they had elevated lead levels in their bodies. In addition to the participants in this study there were at least 37,500 Baltimore children who suffered from lead poisoning from 2003 to 2015, and who knows how many more nationwide, indicating this is an ongoing problem.
Harriet Washington cites one child, Ericka Grimes, and her parents who filed a lawsuit saying, "The KKI countered that its researchers had no contract or 'special relationship' with the study subjects and owed no duty to them. The circuit court agreed. Ericka Grimes had lost." A Terrible Thing To Waste 2019 p.62-7 Considering the details surrounding the case described by Washington this is an incredibly week defense and it's outrageous that the court agreed; but, the appeals court overturned and she was able to come to a settlement.
Harriet Washington doesn't say how much they settled for and there were a couple dozen additional parents that were filing other suits which hadn't been settled when she published her book, nor does she say whether there was a non-disclosure clause in the settlement, but there almost always are clauses like that which industries insist on and the courts routinely accept.
Why?
They don't provide a clear answer that I know of; but it seems pretty clear that rich people want to keep settlements secret so that other victims won't know how much they might get in another lawsuit, nor will they be able to use a significant portion of the evidence that might be kept secret as a result of the non-disclosure agreement. The bigger question is why do the courts and political establishment go along with it? The short answer seems to be that they're controlled by campaign donors, not informed voters. And, of course, the reason a large percentage of the voters aren't well informed is because over 90% of the media is controlled by six corporations catering to the wealthiest people in the country, and, in many cases, they even rely on biased research on many different subjects, or simply decline to report on the best research on any given subject, including environmental racism. Neither Harriet Washington or Robert Bullard get much if any media coverage from mainstream media, and there are many more good researchers on every other subject that are also ignored by traditional media.
This includes many biased research studies which Harriet Washington covers in several of her books and a good article, Flacking for Big Pharma 06/03/2011, which explains how drug companies use a variety of methods to influence medical research, often putting profits ahead of the health of the public; this includes allowing advertising from Pharmaceutical companies to influence medical journals, which get a large portion of their funding from their ads. Lawrence Lessig author of "Republic Lost'' 2011 p.25 also makes the same point when he discusses harm from BPA writes "In a single line, none of the industry-funded studies found evidence of harm, while more than 85 percent of the independent studies did." He also makes a similar claims about possible harmful effects from cell phone use where he points out that all the industry funded studies show no harmful effects but most, if not all studies not funded by the industry find a "biologic effect."
Lawrence Lessig said that when people point out the financial conflicts of interests industry funded researchers are "offended," and I've seen many other pundits or politicians act with self-righteous indignation on the media when they were caught with conflicts of interests, and the media often doesn't question their claims with additional evidence. One case that comes close to being an exception was ten years ago when Steve Kroft of '60 Minutes' Questioned Whether Pelosi Traded Stock On Inside Information 11/14/2011, and she acted with self-righteous indignation, and there was another clip where she looked even worse, although I couldn't find that. But this was ten years ago about stock trading that may have happened fourteen years ago, but she continues to do insider trading, although it doesn't get as much media coverage, and when it does, sometimes it comes from sources that are considered less reliable like when Joe Rogan pointed out Nancy Pelosi's Strange Response to Insider Trading Question 12/22/2021, and at least one other occasion when Trump criticized her for this, making it seem like the accusations are biased. If you Google "Nancy Pelosi insider trading," or check on other politicians with conflicts of interests there are plenty to be found, but if you trust traditional media to report on it, there will be much less news featured in a high profile manner, and when they do report something, it falls down the memory hole fast.
In other cases the academic world often lets politics impact decisions about academic conflicts of interests as well, occasionally implicating some people of wrongdoing when they expose corporate corruption, and covering for others that actually do have financial conflicts of interests even when the evidence implicates them. One example, which Harriet Washington describes in "A Terrible Thing to Waste," p.92-6, she describes how Pediatrician and Professor Herbert Needleman led the way in showing how lead impacts health was charged with "scientific misconduct," twice, and eventually exonerated. His Wikipedia page also describes these incidents and shows that at least some of the people backing these charges had ties to the Lead Industries Association, and others were anonymous. Nevertheless, he was exonerated and his scientific conclusions were accepted; and, if anything, research in the decades since then have strengthened his claims. Washington also describes how the Lead Industries Association has a long track record for distorting the science going back almost a hundred years, and there's good reason to believe they're responsible for a large number of deaths, perhaps in the thousands if not millions, since they covered up the damage done by lead for decades. Lead is just one of many more poisons that are in our envirnment that kill thousands if not millions of people; Bullard and Washington can't possibly cover them all, but tehre books do provide dozens more examples which should be considered negligent mass murder, where wealthy corporations profit by polluting and killing poor people, mostly minorities, and on the rare occassions where they finally get partial compensation it's often only a fraction of the profits for wealthy people and a fraction of the losses for the poor, like Anniston Alabama, which Washington reports on and explains that the adults only got an average of about $9,000 each, and children only $2,000, while lawyers and a clinic that shut down got half the funds, which may have been about three hundred million total, but profits for the oligarchs run into the billions, so this is just a cost of doing business, profiting off the deaths of innocents.
This isn't the only example where politics may have had more to do with academic discipline than science. In RFK Jr.'s book "The Real Anthony Fauci'' he describes how Peter Duesberg had misconduct charges against him, and was eventually exonerated, due to lack of evidence; yet he's demonized by the academic, media and political world because he doesn't go along with dominant beliefs and exposes financial conflicts of interests. RFK Jr. also tells about how Dr. Paul Offit had financial conflicts of interests, and was once found guilty of libel and forced to pay $5,000 to The Jenny McCarthy Foundation. (Dr. Paul Offit, The Autism Expert. Doesn't See Patients with Autism? 10/26/2009) Dr. Paul Offit also blamed Rachel Carson for allegedly causing the deaths of millions, when she did the opposite by protecting the environment. There's much more evidence showing that the chemical companies he represents are doing far more damage like Monsanto GMOs, BPA, and other chemicals, some of which have been proven to kill thousands. In Peter Duesberg's book, "Inventing the AIDS Virus" he describes how Robert Gallo was found guilty of academic misconduct, initially; and had this reversed only after they changed the rules for him. There's little or no doubt the establishment would never change the rules to absolve academics that challenge the establishment, like Peter Duesberg or Herbert Needleman and help them repair their reputations, instead even though there was no justification for the false complaints against them, they were demonized. And people that expose major scientific and financial conflicts of interests rarely get any media attention , and are often demonized for exposing fraud. This is much easier for people who read good non-fiction books to recognize, since they can see the smears and realize that the establishment often ignores legitimate scientific concerns and replies with smears.
Marcia Angell, Harriet Washington and Robert Bullard haven't been smeared much by traditional media, that I know of, but they get virtually no media coverage either, and the people that read their books know how credible they are. One good reason why they might not be smeared in a high profile manner is this might draw attention to them and the media is more likely to be exposed for these smears. Professor Herbert Needleman never got a lot of media coverage in the first place, yet the oligarchs tried to smear him; Peter Duesbeg did get a little more coverage but was smeared much more as a fring researcher; however, before the AIDS crisis he was one of the most credible and respected academics, and he raised a legitimate question about how Robert Gallo, who was eventually found guilty of misconduct and only cleared after the rules were changed for him, bypassed the normal peer review process to claim that HIV causes AIDS. If Duesberg was wrong about this the academic world could simply provide the original research paper showing the connection, as he asked. Furthermore, since he was ridiculed and demonized, they've found that people infected with HIV live, on average, as long as those without HIV, and they often never get full blown AIDS, while many people not infected with HIV do get full blown AIDS.
The video I cited above where Dr. Robert Califf claimed that the leading cause of death is misinformation and didn't mention the current crisis with baby formula, but when I first saw it live on CNN there was a reference to it after the segment that was posted on the internet, and they discussed a whistleblower. I didn't find that portion online, but there were several articles about it claiming that an Abbott employee blew the whistle on safety problems which eventually led to a recall and shutting down the plant that produced 40% of the baby formula in this country, which caused the current shortage. The FDA waited at least two months before doing anything, and when this shortage exploded the media only spent a modest amount of time telling people about the recall, and even less time telling people that they continued to sell formulas that may be unsafe. They also spent little or no time telling people the reason this happened was because the government allowed the baby formula to consolidate until three or four companies controlled almost the entire market, and when one of those companies controlling 40% of the market had to shut down it created the crisis. Their idea of trying to fix the problem is to reopen the plant with few, if any additional reforms to prevent it from happening again.
The stage was set for this shortage years, if not decades ago, but traditional media, including CNN, didn't report on it or many other potential disasters, including numerous recalls of just about everything, including baby formula and other baby foods, sometimes because they have arsenic or other dangerous chemicals. Harriet Washington reported a little of this in "A Terrible Thing to Waste," in 2019, and there was a report in 2017 saying that 80% of baby formula contains arsenic, lead, cadmium and other potentially toxic substances. In 2021 there was a report by the U.S. House of Representatives saying Baby Foods Are Tainted with Dangerous Levels of Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury 02/04/2021 but this got minimal media coverage. In some cases there were recalls, in other cases they continued selling tainted products without fully informing the public, and traditional media, including CNN, provides little or no coverage of this, or many other important issues that impact people's health raising major doubts about whether they're advocates for "truth" or "profits." In many cases they sell an enormous amount of ads to corporations profiting from unhealthy food or contributing to environmental pollution, and they also often have interlocking board members or stockholders. Recently when I looked up the leading stock holders of the six major media companies the top ten were all large Wall Street investment firms, and three investment firms, The Vanguard Group, BlackRock Fund Advisors, and State Street Global Advisors were among the top ten in five of those six corporations and in three of them they were the top three. Our media is controlled by a fraction of one percent of the public, and they're all owned, for the most part, by the same investment firms.
If CNN or other traditional media outlets were "advocates for truth" they would have covered much more damage to the environment with the poor and minorities affected far more than middle class people, and especially the wealthy; but of course they don't, with the best research only reported in a very low profile manner, while chemical and oil companies buy much more advertising space, and even Harriet Washington, who mostly focused on the United States, reported that it's much worse for many poorer third world countries, which was confirmed by Steve Cohen who wrote The Human and Financial Cost of Pollution 10/23/2017 which says:
“In 2015, diseases caused by air, water and soil pollution were responsible for 9 million premature deaths, that is 16% of all global deaths. Exposures to contaminated air, water and soil kill more people than smoking, hunger, natural disasters, war, AIDS, or malaria.”
Nearly all of these deaths (92%) took place in poorer nations. In wealthier nations that have worked to reduce pollution, the benefits of pollution control far outweigh the costs. According to this Commission, the global financial costs of pollution are huge, totaling “$4.6 trillion per year—6.2% of global economic output”. The study reported that in the United States, air pollution control pays off at a rate of 30-1. Every dollar invested in air pollution control generates thirty dollars of benefits. Since 1970 the U.S. has invested about $65 billion in air pollution control and received about $1.5 trillion in benefits.
One thing which Dr. Robert Califf did mention in the interview I cited at the top of this article was heart disease, and he said they know how to make this much less likely, which I don't doubt; but he didn't say how, nor did he cite a source that people could go to. I may not be an expert, but I do know that good diet and exercise are important to reduce the risk of heart disease, But Dr. Califf didn't discuss this at all, nor does CNN or other traditional media outlets; fortunately there are numerous good researchers that do including Marion Nestle author of "Food Politics," Eric Schlosser author of "Fast Food Nation" and Michael Pollan author of several good books on the subject, but none of these three or other good researchers get much if any media time to explain to the public how to reduce their risks of diet related threats to their health, including heart disease. What does get an enormous amount of air time on comercial TV are ads selling unhealthy foods like soda, fast foods or other profitable, but fatty and unhealthy foods.
Then when many people put on too much weight, instead of advising them to eat better and exercize more, without paying for weight loss programs, they sell an enormous number of ads promoting weight loss or exersize programs that almost never work. Everyone knows about exercise equipment that is buried under piles of clothes and never gets used, and we don't have to buy specific weight loss products when fruits and vegitables or other healthy food are available at modest prices. If there wasn't a high profit motive for these products they wouldn't be spending enormous amounts of money on advertising, and maney advertising experts warn of, including Marion Nestle. Marion Nestle also reported, in her second edition of her book, about how obviously false reviews were placed on Amazon before her book was even released, and an empty threat of slander from the sugar industry, designed to intimidate her. She sent them a reply to point out any errors they thought she might have made, which she would address, but they didn't respond. She was familiar with intimidation tactics like this and knew that the truth is a legitimate defense against libel or slander, so they had no case, and this was a bluff. Commercial media is far more concerned with selling the most profitable ads than they are with educating the public, even when it encourages them to buy products that aren't good for their health or that don't do what advertisers claim they will do.
Like the rest of reporting on environmental destruction, especially when it targets the poor, this received very little media coverage. Upton Sinclair reported on the brazen bias in favor of the wealthy in "The Brass Check" 1920 over a hundred years ago, and even though some health hazards, like the dangers of smoking or lead have been reported better since then, there are other problems with the media that have gotten even worse, as pointed out by Robert McChesney, who wrote a new introduction to the "Brass Check about fifteen years ago and a couple very good books, "Rich Media Poor Democracy'' and "The Problem With The Media," which explains how educators in the 1920s tried to use the radio to help educate the public but the political establishment decided to make the radio entirely for profit, and television followed this precedent; McChesney also reported on how the media consolidated into just six corporations controlling over 90% of the media between 1980 and 2000, creating the current oligarchy system which is even worse than the system described by Upton Sinclair.
This is just a fraction of the incompetant or biased reporting from traditional media, including CNN about environmental destruction; and there's much more about any other given subject, including wars based on lies, the most effective ways to reduce violence, or only covering candidates supported by Wall Street oligarchs and many more subjects, often that I have covered alternative media outlets or good non-fiction books that do much better reporting or research. One tactic that mainstream media often uses is they simply refuse to cover these good and credible sources, but often cover right wing extremists, like Alex Jones or Breitbart which are even worse than they are most of the time, making themselves look like the lesser of two evils, although they try to portray themselves as being honest. This tactic is much more effective against people that have never been accustomed to checking alternative media outlets.
Fortunately, in most cases younger people are supposedly more accustomed to checking alternative media; which may mean their ability to fool people will continue to weaken as older people die off and are replaced by younger people accustomed to alternative media. However, that's still not enough to overcome the incredibly corrupt and unjustifiable advantage wealthy media outlets have by controlling over 90% of national media, especially when billionaires also control social media, and can use it to censor their critics or ensure they get featured much less often than those they support. As I said in the beginning, CNN and the other oligarchs are relying on the most fundamental principle of propaganda, "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth," or at least it seems to, especially if opposing views are not allowed, which is the case with mainstream media. This won't change until we have a much more diverse media and we ensure that all political candidates get a chance to get their views across, not just those supported by traditional media. As it is, these six corporations can rig elections by simply refusing to cover candidates that don't support their agenda, ensuring honest candidates never get the name recognition they need to get elected.
We are literally in the process of destroying the planet with the worst damage being done in the poorest communities, and even though it's being partially reversed in the wealthiest communities, for now, over all, the environmental destruction is escalating steadily, and it may be a matter of time before we cross a point of no return, although I can't say for certain when that point will be. The squad claimed there was a point of no return for Climate Change in about ten to twelve year, when they ran in 2018. But now they're coming to Biden's defense when he does little or nothing, except a few minor reversals of Trump's policies. If they were right in 2018, by doing nothing now, they've become part of the problem; even if they're wrong and we have more time, the longer we wait the tougher it will be to solve the problem, so they're still part of the problem.
Another big part of the problem is that by refusing to report on the best research of this, or any other subject, traditional media, including CNN, is an advocate for Profit, NOT "Truth" as they claim, even when it costs thousands if not millions of lives, and if we do pass a point of no return before acting, that could grow to billions of lives, or if we count animals as well, trillions of lives.
As I post this, there's another major debate going on about gun control following the latest mass shooting; but, as I've pointed out in many previous articles, even though this is one important contributing cause of violence, there are many others, and good academic research to show how to reduce all contributing causes of violence. But, once again the media refuses to cover the best academics explaining about other contributing causes of violence, and there's little or no chance they'll accomplish anything about the one issue they do cover.
The following are additional sources or related articles:
Lawrence Lessig "Republic Lost" 2011 In a single line, none of the industry-funded studies found evidence of harm, while more than 85 percent of the independent studies did. p.25
The concern that I want to flag, however, begins, again, when one looks at the source of these studies. Dr. Henry Lai of the University of Washington has examined 326 of these radiation studies. His analysis divides the studies into those that found some biologic effect and those that did not. Good news: the numbers are about even. Fifty-six percent of the studies found a biologic effect, while 44 percent did not. Not great (for cell phone users), but perhaps not reason enough (yet) to chuck your iPhone.
But Professor Lai then divided the studies into those that were funded by industry and those that were not. Once that division was made, the numbers no longer seemed so benign. Industry-funded studies overwhelmingly found no biologic effect, while independent studies found overwhelmingly that there was a biologic effect. p27
Tulsi Gabbard: Biden's "Ministry Of Truth" Is The Kind Of Thing You See In A Dictatorship 04/29/2022 "So now they've created this body that'll do two things. Number one, it will work through the mainstream media and flood the airwaves with whatever propaganda message that they're pushing at any given time and try to drown out anyone with alternate views. And number two, they will silence dissenting voices through intimidation," she said. "This isn't something new, this is something they have already been doing. The only difference is they're formalizing it, making it official. The silver lining in this is they are revealing exactly who they are."
Tulsi's speech on Hannity 04/29/2022
These are the most and least trusted news outlets in the US 04/09/2019 CNN is tied with the NYT for fifth and sixth out of nine as most trusted.
Here are the most- and least-trusted CNN, MSNBC and Fox News hosts 11/15/2018 Anderson Cooper is the only CNN anchor in the ten most trusted list coming in second; CNN has three anchors in the least trusted ten, with Don Lemon coming in third, Chris Cuomo coming in eigth, and Anderson Cooper coming in tenth, he's the only anchor on both lists. Brian Williams, who was caught repeatedly lying a few years before this poll somehow managed to come in sixth for most trusted anchors and wasn't even listed in the top ten least trusted anchors.
A battle plan for CNN to regain its standing as the ‘most trusted name in news’ 02/03/2022
"Once again CNN is rated as the most credible news source ..." 2002
How Can CNN Possibly Claim It’s ‘The Most Trusted Name in News’? 08/09/2017
Chuck Todd removed from MSNBC 05/06/2022
EPA: Progress Cleaning the Air and Improving People's Health
CDC CAUGHT Tracking Millions Of Phones During Covid 05/10/2022
CDC Has No Records to Support Claim that COVID Vaccines Do Not Cause Variants 05/10/2022
Growing share of Covid-19 deaths are among vaccinated people, but booster shots substantially lower the risk 05/11/2022
Covid deaths no longer overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated as toll on elderly grows 04/29/2022
Breakthrough deaths comprise increasing proportion of those who died from COVID-19 05/10/2022
Lawmaker report says meatpackers worked with Trump administration to change worker regulations 05/12/2022
How did we get here? A look back at Michigan's emergency manager law 02/03/2016
Wikipedia: Flint water crisis
COP26: Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report 10/1/2021
Maryland issues first fish advisory for PFAS 10/19/2021
Caught between a rock and a hard place 09/26/2021
DOD releases new data on PFAS contamination of bases 10/09/2021
Exclusive: Thousands of farms warned about toxic PFAS from military bases; no fix in sight 09/20/2021
‘Forever chemicals’ contamination at Defense Department sites threatens Chesapeake Bay fish 08/11/2021
Extinction Rebellion
Vieques 12 Years Later: Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied 05/06/2016
Military Poisons files an environmental violation complaint with the EPA 08/30/2021
Sewer Sludge from Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant in Washington, DC is highly contaminated with PFAS 07/31/2021
Town of Chesapeake Beach Tests Oysters from 23 Miles Away 08/11/2021
‘They rake in profits – everyone else suffers’: US workers lose out as big chicken gets bigger 08/11/2021
Whistleblower told FDA about baby formula issues months before recall, complaint says 04/29/2022
Whistleblower alerted FDA to alleged safety lapses at baby formula plant months before recalls, complaint shows 04/28/2022
Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial 11/02/2021
Past FDA whistleblower disclosures raise safety questions concerning COVID-19 vaccine trials and manufacturing 02/23/2021 Multiple Covid-19 vaccines are rapidly nearing market release in the United States following several pharmaceutical companies receiving public funds through Operation Warp Speed. However, the close public scrutiny of these vaccines have highlighted the opportunities for fraud and malfeasance. With oversight of the production of these vaccines falling to the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the whistleblower complaints levied at the FDA and several vaccine-manufacturing companies in recent years have become more concerning.
Ex-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder And 8 Others Criminally Charged In Flint Water Crisis 01/14/2021
Wikipedia: Flint water crisis
The 1914 10 Dollar Bill was printed on Hemp Paper and the picture on the back displays farmers plowing hemp The first Federal Reserve Bank notes were issued in 1914. This $10 bill bears the signature of Andrew Mellon, the Secretary of the Treasury under multiple presidential administrations. Mellon was also the head of several oil companies and banks. Mellon was the uncle of Harry Anslinger, the first leader of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1931-1961.
The year is 1914. The years of the First World War and the farmers who grew "hemp" in exchange for US dollars... Keep that in mind and read on. 05/16/2022
Report: Pollution is connected to 9 million deaths worldwide each year 05/18/2022
U.S. House of Representatives Report: Baby Foods Are Tainted with Dangerous Levels of Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury 02/04/2021
Manufacturers allowed baby food contaminated with heavy metals to remain on shelves, lawmakers say 09/30/2021
Companies aren’t doing enough to reduce heavy metals in baby food, congressional report finds 10/01/2021
Baby Cereal Sold at Walmart Recalled for Arsenic Levels 10/13/2021
Is There a Gerber Baby Food Recall? 11/29/2021
Baby Food Recall 2022: Are There Harmful Chemicals & Toxic Metals In Your Baby’s Food? 05/12/2022
80% of Baby Formula Contains Arsenic & Other Toxins: Study 10/30/2017
Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry 2002 by John Stauber (Author), Sheldon Rampton
Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future Paperback – January 10, 2002 by Sheldon Rampton (Author), John Stauber
Marion Nestle "Food Politics: How The Food Industry Influences Nutrition, And Health, Revised And Expanded Edition" 2007
Map Shows Over 17 Million People in US Threatened by Toxic Fossil Fuel Pollution 05/24/2022
The risk of lead poisoning isn’t just in Flint. So we mapped the risk in every neighborhood in America. 04/06/2016
Josh Hawley’s latest attack on Ketanji Brown Jackson is genuinely nauseating 03/18/2022
Ketanji Brown Jackson finishes her testimony in Supreme Court confirmation hearings 03/23/2022
Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmation Hearing Feb.-April 2022
The Who-Cares-If-You’re-Innocent Project 03/07/2022 Republicans want to blame the rise in crime on liberal permissiveness, which includes, in their view, the right to counsel. .... The fact that the Innocence Project’s work is exonerating those who did not commit the crime they were convicted of didn’t matter.
