Follow The $cience

Sharyl Attkisson has been a genuinely independent investigative journalist for over 40 years with such outlets as CBS News, PBS, and CNN. It is fitting that she is a fifth-degree black belt master in taekwondo as she needed just such martial arts skills when venturing into public health arena – as Megyn Kelly correctly notes, ‘Using real world examples, Sharyl Attkisson reveals the shocking influence of the government-pharmaceutical complex when it comes to the media, the Internet, journalism, politicians, medical journals, studies, and the doctors we rely on for advice.’ The book is also endorsed by Jay Bhattacharya MD, PhD, who has recently been nominated as director of the NIH and was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which Drs Fauci and Collins systematically sought to undermine, as FOIA emails reveal. The US has the most politically and economically driven ‘health system’ (in fact a disease management system) in the world, while ‘Americans are increasingly depressed, fat, infertile, unfocused, and medicated’ – this is why the Make America Healthy Again movement has gained traction under the impetus of RFK Jr – as I write, pharmaceutical interests are pulling out all the stops to prevent his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services, using many of the propaganda techniques described in this bold and eye-opening book.

Sharyl chronicles her own journey from naïve acceptance of medical establishment messages and taking scientific research at face value to her current informed position based on a lifetime of experience at the coalface. In the epilogue, she sums up by saying that ‘as an investigative journalist, I’ve learned how money and profits drive virtually every decision impacting public health. I’ve discovered the hard way that government officials, doctors, medical associations, researchers, and non-profits mislead and lie. I’ve come to understand that the many scandals occupying the health arena involve the same components as the other scandals I’ve investigated over the decades: cover-ups, greed, profits, and lies.’ (p. 301) If this sounds uncompromising and harsh, then the episodes described in the book provide ample evidence for these strong statements.

Her two key takeaways are, first, ‘the ethics lapses and fraud that happened during Covid – from the cover-up of its origins, to mismanagement of treatments, to the disaster of the vaccines – are on a scale larger than the world has ever seen before.’ And since not a single public official has made any apology or public acknowledgement about being mistaken about the disease or vaccines, ‘they’d do it all again.’ There are already signs that bird flu has been weaponised in the same way with gain of function research, and the notorious Disease X lurks in the wings of ‘pandemic preparedness.’ Some establishment figures are openly saying that another pandemic will take place under the incoming Trump administration. Sharyl’s second takeaway ‘is that all of this has prompted to call to action that’s louder than almost any before’ with its realisation of the perversion of science and its impact – which is ‘why chronic illnesses are running amok under the watch of the best-funded public health system on the planet.’ This makes no sense in a non-corrupt world, but the fact is that US health experts ‘remain hyperfocused on collaborating with the insurers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical interests that are getting rich off our poor health. (p. 277) As Sharyl observes in the introduction, success ‘is measured by how many people are taking expensive drugs or getting vaccinated. It’s not about preventing illnesses; it’s about treating them indefinitely.’

Multiple examples highlight the same pervasive pattern of corruption and influence. As Sharyl notes, ‘there is an entire cottage industry made up of experts for hire, non-profits, LLCs, super PACs, websites, foundations, PR companies, global law firms, and crisis management specialists that make a living destroying those who dare come down on the wrong side’ – as was abundantly clear during Covid. One detailed example concerns Professor Hayes’ research on atrazine, where he found a systemic feminising effect. When he published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he set in motion the massive Syngenta PR discrediting machine that tried to get the work retracted or influence the university to stop him from publishing (intimidation details on p. 48). Basically, the research is only acceptable if it comes down in favour of the herbicide/drug. The lesson to be learned in this case as in others is ‘how a corporate team mounted sustained, multipronged personal attack against the scientist, his reputation, and his career’ (p. 52) all in the interests of controlling the public narrative and safeguarding industry profits.

Sharyl devotes a number of chapters to the history of vaccines and in particular the issues raised by Covid as a recent illustration of the most influential propaganda movement of our time. A key element of campaigns revolves around ‘mislabelling accurate facts as “disinformation,” smearing certain scientists, and falsely attacking people as “anti-vaccine”.’ She documents 15 specific examples of the magnitude of orchestrated pushback, which includes cruelly smearing the parents of vaccine-injured children. They cannot be characterised as anti-vaxxers as they vaccinated their children! A key financial concern for the industry is to promote ‘vaccine confidence’ and deter ‘vaccine hesitancy.’ Perhaps the biggest scandal is the controversy surrounding the purported vaccine – autism link as the stakes are so high. Under no circumstances must the government give the impression that there might be such a link as it would open the floodgates.

Interestingly, cases brought before the vaccine court under the label encephalopathy can be won, but using the a-word guarantees failure. The same propaganda is pushed out in terms of ‘disproven myths’, ‘settled science’ and ‘debunked conspiracy theories’ – a chapter describing the ways in which Robert De Niro was effectively stymied from screening Vaxxed or even setting up a two-way debate is very instructive. Sharyl comments that ‘vaccine industry interests will do anything to prevent a fair, even-handed discussion of the facts,’ especially with respect to research on safety. Many people like De Niro have had the experience of being ‘bullied into backing down from asking rational questions about vaccines.’ (p. 126) She herself has had programmes pulled at the last minute due to industry pressure, and scientists are understandably reluctant to put themselves into the front line.

The book also describes the role of some of the key spokesman like Dr Paul Offit (pp. 137 ff.), and the many often unacknowledged conflicts of interest on the part of doctors and scientists who sit on government committees. Sharyl’s discussion of Covid is equally well-documented, including the systematic campaign against early treatment using hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as this would undermine emergency use authorisation of the vaccines. It is emblematic that President Biden, Dr Fauci, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky all insisted that vaccines would prevent Covid; by October 2022, they had at least 19 shots between them, with nine bouts of Covid! The book documents multiple false and discredited claims, many repeated by mainstream journalists, and in particular claims made by the CDC, many of whose previous directors have gone through the revolving door into the pharmaceutical industry. If all this sounds implausible to you, the arguments and illustrations laid out in this book are in my view incontrovertible – people reading this are sure to have a spectrum of views and experiences, but if you read through to the end, I am confident that you will find Attkisson’s analysis both eye-opening and persuasive.

One final point about gain of function research from a bio-defence perspective discussed in detail here: the intrinsic link between such research and the development of a corresponding vaccine. Sharyl notes that the record shows that ‘US and Chinese scientists partnered up to invent a vaccine for a dangerous virus that didn’t yet exist. They then created such a virus in the lab to experiment on, in order to invent the vaccine. It’s important to understand that that particular vaccine would only be useful if that particular virus somehow got loose. It somehow got loose.’ (p. 217) Many scientists told her off the record that such research should not have been allowed, but they were also afraid to step forward and commit career suicide. The cynical paradox is well expressed in this italicised passage: ‘How does one create a defensive weapon, such as a vaccine, against a biological agent that doesn’t yet exist? Answer: by creating that agent.’ (p. 228) There must now be sustained international pressure to update the Bioweapons Treaty and to ban such dangerous research on ethical grounds. However, there are more than 13,000 scientists whose livelihood depends precisely on this…

If all the sounds intractable, Sharyl provides practical guidance for truth-seekers and a comprehensive glossary of recommended sources for reliable and non-partisan information. She then puts forward an action plan that readers can implement. Overall, this book fully lives up to its subtitle of ‘how big pharma misleads, obscures, and prevails’ – the incoming administration has a unique chance to change the direction of the American health system, but I would not hold your breath, given the power of the vested interests at play – as one producer put it when pulling one of the author’s programmes, ‘we do not operate in a political vacuum’ – nor a financial one when pharmaceutical companies are responsible for 75% of advertising revenue.