The Infectious Myth

Judith Levine on Sexual Assault, Bad Behaviour and Sexual Misunderstandings - 12.30.14

David talks with Judith Levine in Episode 42 about sexual assault, particularly about whether new ideas about “affirmative consent” are going to lead to injustices. The conversation also covers a description of restorative justice, and how it can produce better outcomes for both the victim and the perpetrator (if both decide to participate), leading to behavior changes without the lifelong consequences of a sexual crime conviction. David and Judith talk about several recent cases, some of which involve minor sexual misconduct, and some appear to involve the punishment of perfectly normal sexual behavior, based on this new desire to use harsh mechanisms to eradicate sexual misconduct on college campuses. And why so much attention to campuses, where increasingly financially privileged young people congregate, and not the home, workplace or the military or other domains? Is this actually class bias masquerading as a desire for justice?

 

Judith Levine is the author of four books, most relevantly the award winning, “Harmful To Minors: The Perils Of Protecting Children From Sex”. She has also written many articles, such as  “To stop campus rape, let kids grow up”. http://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/to-stop-campus-rape-let-kids-grow-up/Content?oid=2416807 and “Campus Rules are about Punishment not Sex”, http://bostonreview.net/blog/judith-levine-yes-means-yes-campus-rape-punishment-sex. She is on the board of the National Center for Reason & Justice  (ncrj.org).

 

You can find out more about her at http://judithlevine.com.

"Mad in America" with Robert Whitaker - 12.23.14

Robert Whitaker is the author of two important books critical of the current drug-oriented psychiatric treatment dogmas in western approaches to so-called mental illness – “Mad in America” and “Anatomy of an Epidemic”. He has received several award s for his writing, including a George Polk Award and a National Association for Science Writers award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

 

Whitaker talks about the evidence that pharmaceutical drugs for diseases, such as the ill-defined ‘schizophrenia’, do not work, and actually make things worse. Those who don’t have access to these drugs, in the third world, do better, and those who go off their medications do better than those who stay on. He believes that the reason the drugs are still widely used is because they do have short term benefits, and they are also addictive, so when people try to stop them their symptoms often worsen significantly for some time. They become a trap for doctors and for patients.

Ebola and Polio - 12.09.14

In Episode 40 David wraps up coverage of the Ebola epidemic, which is now winding down. He points out that the CDC, WHO and African governments have more money, and GSK has its vaccine trials well under way. The money has been made, the infectious panic is not needed any more.

 

The vaccine causes David to segue into talking about the polio vaccine, because this is considered to be the most successful vaccine in history, except that simply examining the timing of polio epidemics tells us that this could not be the case, that the epidemic was declining long before the majority of people were vaccinated

James Fetzer on the JFK Assassination, 9/11 and other ‘conspiracy theories’ - 12.02.14

 

David intended to talk to Professor James Fetzer about the JFK assassination, 9/11, and other situations in which the government’s story about the event has major holes, and alternative theories abound. They did talk extensively about these things, but first started talking about Wikipedia is used to punish and dismiss dissidents, by describing them as conspiracy theorists, discredited and so on.

 

Fetzer believes that the JFK assassination involved multiple shooters employed by the CIA and right-wing Cuban anti-Castro activists, to prevent the CIA from being broken up after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, and to heighten cold war tensions, which was very profitable for the military industrial complex. In his view Oswald was just a patsy, and his convenient assassination left only the government to tell the story.

 

David and Fetzer talk more about the mechanisms and evidence of 9/11 rather than the reasons why someone would want to instigate such an attack and blame it on a dozen muslims. Interesting parts of his view are that sophisticated nuclear charges, rather than nano-thermite, brought down the towers, and reduced it to a small pile of dust, and that planes did not fly into the twin towers, but projected holographic images.

 

For further information about his ideas and evidence, please see http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/fetzerexpandedx.pdf, http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/10/03/the-complete-midwest-911-truth-conference-parts-1-2-and-3/ and his blog at http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.ca

Lori Frasier and the other side of Shaken Baby Syndrome - 11.25.14

In episode 38 David interviews Lori Frasier, MD, who was “pretty concerned by your interview with Professor Tuerkheimer on November 4th. She presented a highly inaccurate picture of the medical approach to these cases."

 

While Tuerkheimer limited the discussion to “Shaken Baby Syndrome”, which she defined as cases prosecuted solely on internal medical evidence (the so-called ‘triad’ of symptoms), Dr. Frasier wanted to talk about “Abusive Head Trauma”, of which about half the cases she sees also have external signs of abuse (such as bruises, scratches, burn marks).

 

Frasier also claimed that there are very few cases prosecuted solely on the triad, that if you look closely there are often signs of abuse, and that sometimes judges exclude the evidence of abuse, but allow the triad to be entered as evidence, and convict solely on that basis. She feels that the defence experts are often highly irresponsible, inventing mythical diseases to help get the accused off. Although she agreed that some vaccines can cause internal brain damage (such as encephalitis), she did not agree that they ever caused internal bleeding.

 

One of the major problems for Shaken Baby Syndrome is that there is still no unambiguous evidence that a human being can generate the forces necessary to cause internal brain damage in an infant without external signs of injury. Frasier conceded this point, but did not see that this should lead to a review of all convictions made based on the assumption that this is possible.

The Infectious Myth - David Rasnick investigates Ebola - 11/18/14

In Episode 37 of “The Infectious Myth” David delves deeper into the flawed science of Ebola with molecular biologist Dr. David Rasnick. Dr. Rasnick has a PhD from Georgia Tech and worked in drug development for years.

 

Rasnick claims that there is no proof that Ebola has been isolated from humans, that tests when used on the general population have a huge false positive rate and that there is no known host for Ebola (although a lot of speculation) which is essentially for an infectious disease that is only rarely found in humans. He notes an association with Ebola outbreaks and illegal gold mining, indicating that there might be environmental factors at work, factors that are ignored by infectious disease specialists who have managed to completely capture this epidemic.

 

The two Davids touch on some of the external factors that may be at work increasing the hype over Ebola. Money is always one of these, the CDC and WHO budgets and the possibility for big Pharma to get vaccines or drugs approved. But Ebola is also of interest as a bioweapon, so studying this virus gives governments a cover for studying germ warfare. Another military factor is that the US wants to increase its presence in Africa, and would love to have a large military base in West Africa, so getting troops on the ground to help with Ebola may result in them staying there.

 

To find out more see David Rasnick’s website at http://davidrasnick.com, podcasts on Ebola at http://howpositiveareyou.com, and Jon Rapoport’s blog athttp://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/category/ebola/.

Dr. Erick Turner explains how clinical trials can be biased to make drugs seem better than they really are - 11/11/14

Drug companies have several methods to make drugs look better, but these organizations do not act alone. Drug researchers are also more interested in trials that show a positive effect with a new drug, and journals want to publish studies that change clinical practice. The mainstream media pick only a few studies as newsworthy, generally those that claim something earthshatteringly positive (or occasionally negative).

Dr. Erick Turner of the Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health and Science University and also the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Portland describes how these forces combine to reduce the likelihood that non-positive results (either showing no effect of a drug, or a negative effect) are ever published. Dr. Turner also describes how statistical tricks can be used to find an effect after the trial is completed. He also describes how the FDA is putting much more information about clinical trials on its website, but it is not easy to find. 

The consequence of hiding neutral or negative data, known as publication bias, is that when a researcher does a meta-analysis that combines together all the published data, they may document a false benefit, because of the data that has hidden from them. Since this process helps drug companies, researchers and journals, it continues, even though it does great harm to drug consumers.

Another technique is known as outcome reporting bias or HARKing (Hypothesizing After the Results are Known) which involves changing the primary outcome measure to another type of measurement that gave more favorable results, such as switching from one scale of measuring depression to another. This can be planned ahead by collecting more data than you plan to use, and then picking and choosing based on the results each measurement produces.

One of the ways to find out what has been hidden is to work with all the data. The FDA, for example, has virtually all the data on relevant studies, because clinical trials have to be registered. This data has been publicly available for many years, but is difficult to find. A newer development is clinicaltrials.gov, which also includes clinical trials that occur after drug approval and that are therefore inaccessible to the FDA. Since Dr. Turner once worked at the FDA he knows his way around the system.

To see more information about the work of Dr. Turner, and some useful figures, see: http://archive.sciencewatch.com/inter/aut/2009/09-may/09mayTurner/. A presentation that describes some of his findings, entitled “Truth Telling and Suppressed Drug Research Data”, can be found at: http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/continuing-education/center-for-ethics/ethics-education/continuing-education/upload/Kinsman-Turner-talk-2.pdf

Infectious Myth - Shaken Baby Syndrome with Law Professor Deborah Tuerkheimer - 11/04/14

David interviews Deborah Tuerkheimer, a law professor at Northwestern University, about the invalidity of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), which is sometimes known as AHT (Abusive Head Trauma). Cases based on a ‘triad’ of bleeding in the brain, bleeding in the retina, and swelling of the brain, with no other evidence of abuse (such as bruises, grip marks, cuts, scratches or broken bones) have resulted in thousands of convictions, and there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people still behind bars.

 

Recently there has been a shift and obtaining an SBS conviction has become more difficult. Some of the convicted have been released from prison. But this shameful medico-legal episode is not yet over. 

 

Deborah lucidly explains both the legal and medical context of SBS, and the negative interactions that occurred to produce the SBS medical dogma.

 

Deborah’s book is available from the publisher at: http://global.oup.com/academic/product/flawed-convictions-9780199913633;jsessionid=2B339D42F99785A4A57DCA39EFB2111B?cc=ca&lang=en& or through other book sellers such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

 

For a link to a database of more than 3,000 Shaken Baby Syndrome legal cases, see: http://www.medilljusticeproject.org/visualization/

Episode 34 – Ebola is not an infectious epidemic. Ebola virus has not been proven to exist - 10/28/14

Episode 34 – Ebola is not an infectious epidemic. Ebola virus has not been proven to exist

 

David reveals his preliminary research on Ebola, and why it is probably not an infectious disease. The major problems are the shoddy nature of the original research that claimed to have found a new hemorraghic fever virus, the lack of certainty in the testing, and a diagnosis that creates the illusion of infectivity, and that no longer requires hemorraghic symptoms (such as massive bleeding from the mouth, eyes and anus).

 

Fear is driving the world to clinical trials of new vaccines and drugs, that will result in massive profits, but will not solve the health problems of Africa, which are related to poverty, war and inequitable economies. The west only cares about Ebola because of our fear that it will cross oceans and devastate us. Sadly, deaths in vaccine or drug trials, or in later use of those products, will not concern the west.

 

The US military would love to have the headquarters of their Africa Command (Africom) in Africa, and not in Germany, and the militarized response to Ebola is a wedge that may allow them to do this.

 

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The Infectious Myth - Brian Hooker, the man at the center of the CDC vaccination scandal - 10/21/14

Brian Hooker is the man to which CDC whistleblower William Thompson confessed his sins, such as manipulating the data from an MMR vaccine study to eliminate the association between autism and the vaccine in black children. Hooker became interested in the vaccine issue after his son seriously regressed after receiving 3 vaccines at 15 months. He spent years trying to get information from the CDC about vaccine trials, often through freedom of information requests.

 

He was surprised when a CDC scientist wanted to talk to him. Obviously he was feeling guilty and he helped Hooker ask better questions of the CDC to get more and more information about the association between vaccines and autism, and other diseases.

 

This culminated in a paper that Hooker published in August of 2014, which was quickly taken down by the publisher (the German publishing giant Springer) on the basis of an undeclared conflict of interest (which never existed according to Hooker) and statistical problems, which were never elucidated.

 

As you will hear from this conversation, Hooker remains calm despite the storm swirling around him, and plans to continue with his analysis and publication of CDC data and other information concerning problems with vaccines, particularly in the United States where many more vaccines are used than in other countries.