Sounding the Alarm on Connection Between Fertility and Pesticide Exposure
A systematic review of scientific studies on pesticides and fertility finds exposure associated with lower semen quality, DNA fragmentation and chromosomal abnormalities.
A systematic review of scientific studies on pesticides and fertility finds exposure associated with lower semen quality, DNA fragmentation and chromosomal abnormalities.
Published in the journal Andrology, the review is yet another warning from a long string of researchers sounding the alarm over the connection between global fertility and toxic chemical exposure.
With data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicating roughly one in five couples are unable to conceive after a year of trying, and trends continuing to slope downwards, it is critical that contributing factors be identified so that protective changes can be made.
After screening more than 1,300 studies, researchers narrowed their review down to 64 papers assessing semen parameters and DNA integrity after pesticide exposure. Each study is analyzed for its design, the pesticide investigated, the population studied, controls and reproductive effects determined.
Pesticides are evaluated for their impacts to sperm quality and DNA integrity based on their chemical class. Organochlorine insecticides, which are all banned but still persistent in soil, air, water and food in the United States, include a range of impacts to sperm quality.
Higher levels of DDT or its breakdown metabolite DDE are associated with lower semen count, and motility and morphology below normal threshold values established by the World Health Organization (WHO). (Under WHO threshold values, a sub-fertile condition is defined by values lower than the fifth percentile of the general population.)
Several studies find that as organochlorine concentrations increase in individual males, sperm parameters also fall.
In addition to sperm quality, organochlorines are associated with chromosomal aberrations in several studies, including effects such as sperm disomy, where sperm have extra or missing chromosomes. This can result in viable offspring, but those offspring are at greater risk of abnormalities.
Organophosphate, the class of insecticides that replaced the organochlorines as they were phased out, also present a range of deleterious impacts. These chemicals include pesticides like malathion, still widely used, and chlorpyrifos, which is only now being phased out of agricultural use.
Effects on sperm parameters are particularly pronounced for individuals in farming regions or with a history of occupational pesticide work.
However, studies on the general population also show cause for concern, finding total sperm count and concentrations inversely related to urinary metabolites of organophosphate insecticides.
Apart from sperm quality, the literature reveals several studies showing organophosphate exposure resulting in missing or extra chromosomes in sperm, with particular attention paid to diethyl phosphate, a non-specific organophosphate metabolite.
Synthetic pyrethroids are also singled out in the scientific literature for their links to sperm damage. These are the insecticides that are replacing the organophosphates, as they are being phased out for their myriad health hazards.
Unfortunately, the game of whack-a-mole played by the pesticide industry with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s allowance has not resulted in chemicals that are safer for long-term human fertility.
Like organophosphates, occupationally exposed individuals are particularly affected, with pyrethroid factory workers showing higher rates of sperm abnormalities and lower motility than non-exposed individuals. Factory workers are also more likely to exhibit DNA fragmentation in their sperm.
Another concentration-dependent relationship is found, with individuals reporting higher levels of urinary 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA), a non-specific pyrethroid metabolite, having a lower sperm counts, disomy and a greater chance of exhibiting sperm morphology below WHO thresholds.
Beyond these three classes, scientists did find evidence of negative associations with carbamate class insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, but the low number of studies does not allow for extensive analysis. Mixtures of various pesticides are cited as having similar effects to the three main pesticide classes investigated though firm results were difficult to specify due to lack of complete information.
In general, occupationally exposed workers are most at risk, with chronic exposure being associated with greater sperm defects.
The results of the study are concerning in light of steadily declining sperm counts. A 2017 study found that sperm counts since 1973 have fallen by nearly 60%.
One author of that study, Shanna Swan, Ph.D., captured public attention regarding sperm declines through her book “Countdown,” which goes into great depth regarding the impact of environmental chemicals on human fertility.
Researchers have been sounding the alarm on the impact of pesticides on fertility for decades. In 2013, a previous literature review evaluating pesticide impacts on fertility found pesticides strongly associated with declines in sperm count.
As she recounted in a presentation at Beyond Pesticides’ 2021 National Pesticide Forum Dr. Swan’s own work is borne out of efforts to try to disprove a paper published in 1992 by Carlsen et al., which highlights significant declines in sperm quality since the late 1930s.
As the human civilization grapples with a range of cascading crises, from climate change to the insect apocalypse and global biodiversity crisis, we may be missing the chance to address one of the most critical aspects to the continuation of humanity as we now know it.
To explain the concept of molding your thoughts and beliefs to someone else’s i of what is or isn’t, we must take a look at how our minds work when it comes to believing or not believing that something exists. Whether it is true or not. This is especially important today when most of us get our news stories in single sentence alerts, and from single sources that already align with your belief system. Of course, this is exactly how we hope science doesn’t work.
Many perceive the human mind is of finite boundaries. In other words, we must be able to see things in a tangible manner; in a way that the mind can perceive the information. (Of course, our minds are not finite, but the Scientific Method has not evolved to take that into account; at least not yet). We make it finite by putting any gathered information in some sort of order. In mental boxes or file cabinet so that we are able to understand the information that enters our senses. If we see something that doesn’t make sense, we can’t just allow it to be simply something that doesn’t make sense…we must make sense out of the nonsense.
How is this done?
By using previously gathered information, which at all costs must be explainable, repeatable, and tangible in order to be considered “real”. Never mind that this method excludes a multitude of existing information. Kind of like how important evidence can be thrown out of a court of law due to improper procedures.
But isn’t information and evidence still exactly what it is…information and evidence?
And what happens when there is the need to prove something that isn’t really based on our definition of what is deemed to be real or not? Well, there is a hierarchy of so-called credible people that we automatically trust to tell us when something is real or isn’t real. Let’s explore how this works by looking at the following playful example:
NEWS ALERT: The LittleOrange Elephant With Bright Red Dots
A person claims that they saw a littleorange elephant with bright red dots, no bigger than a mouse, walk by.
Okay, well, besides being extremely unfashionable with such coloring, this occurrence may be a bit hard for you to believe. But… what if it was your friend that had seen the little elephant? What would you think? Would you believe them? Well, if you are like most of us, you might be thinking your friend may have a small problem and should consider seeking some “professional” help!
And what if it was the homeless fellow living on the street that saw this little orange elephant? What would you think then? I would wager a guess that you’d be crossing to the other side of the street in a pretty fast sprint!
Now let’s say that the person who saw this unlikely creature was the very eccentric artist who is known for her imagination? Would this make a difference? We may think “how cute” it is that she, “thinks” she saw a little orange and red elephant and, by the way, not at all unusual given the character of this creative artist.
Now let’s say that it was an influential person, such as some credible scientist, who saw this little colorful trunk-nosed animal. What would we think now? This is where we begin to really break the rules of “what is,” or perhaps where the “what is” was created.
Most of us would still probably think that this scientist had inhaled a few too many chemicals in his lab, while a few of us may stroke our chins and wonder, “what if he did see this thing? I mean he isn’t just anybody…he’s a scientist after all!”
Okay, okay…are you still hanging with me because now it’s really starting to get good!
Now let’s say that at the most recent annual conference of the Nobel Prize winners (now THESE are the most credible, influential people on the planet, right?) EVERYONE saw this little orange elephant with bright red dots walking across the stage. (And I’m not even going to go crazy by saying the little elephant was dancing across the stage…he was just merely walking; because that’s more believable, right?) Of these highly regarded scientists, how many would admit they saw this little guy? How many would believe it was, perhaps, some sort of terrorist attack? And once word had gotten out, how many of us would be glued to the 24-hour sensationalist cable news channels?
“Did you hear about the alleged little elephant sighting? They said he had red dots!”
“Did this really happen?”
“Are there more little elephants roaming our cities, or was this the only one?”
“Maybe they are really little aliens disguised as orange elephants with bright red dots and they are going to take over the planet!”
You know there would be a series of point-counter-point interviews with “specialists” from various arenas—if you watch cable news channels, by now you realize that there are specialists for everything! Perhaps there is a Cryptozoologist (the study of unknown animals…a “pseudoscience” of course) and a Zoologist (the study of known animals…you know, “real” science) for a “balanced” debate.
Or maybe there is another debate between a Republican strategist and Democratic strategist—after all, it is a known fact that most scientists, as well as most of the academia, are “demo” liberals and it would be just like them to come up with something wacky like this to take the public’s focus away from the real issues – so say their Republican counterparts!
So the bigger question here is…how many people would now believe this all to be true? That there indeed is a little orange elephant with bright red dots no bigger than a mouse running around out there…and it’s still on the loose! I would even bet that there would be an immediate creation of something like The Colorful Little Elephant Society (TCLES)—website, theme song and all!
So, as with anything abstract or “imaginary,” it can be difficult for most people to comprehend information presented in this fashion, even for many scientists! Up until now, we have been comfortable with the certainty of Newtonian Physics that tells us to neatly place everything that is considered “known” into solid theories which ultimately become universal laws. So this shows how the scientific method requires specific criteria in order for something to be proven as truth and classified as “real”.
But what about those people who have been healed from “incurable” diagnoses outside of the required criteria? What of those who have survived cancers (even stage 4) from “alternative” methods? What of those who have been cured of diabetes in only a few months? And what of those who have been totally healed through energy medicine—the most intangible form of health care known (or unknown) to man yet?
We are in the infancy stages of this new idea. Many call it new science, new age, quantum physics. But whatever the term used, the essence of this theory scares many who have relied upon what is considered “known”. And it is incomprehensible to those scientists who feel they must be able to “touch” it, record it and most importantly control it.
Imagine when the idea that our world was not really the center of the universe was presented to the scientists of that time. The confusion, even denial, they must have felt. How can we expand our mind and see what we “think” isn’t there, yet, “know” that it really does actually exist? There is a story that on their first encounter with the Europeans, the American Indians could not see the first strange ship as it approached their shores, mainly due to the fact that it was not in their psyche to recognize it. Perhaps the same may be said about UFO sightings.
Isn’t it possible that this can also be applied to medicine? I think yes!
We seem to always want to “box” up different concepts and then forever rely on these packages for all things that require an explanation. And just like we are reluctant to throw away the boxes we have carefully stored in our attics, we continue to allow ourselves to be buried deeper and deeper in our dogmatic box. We stand with such dogmatic arrogance and conviction that we even deny the possibility of new and different concepts simply because we find it impossible to “box” the “unboxable”.
So why would some of us believe that this little orange elephant with bright red dots does exist, while others simply refuse to believe it? What if it turned out that quantum theory proves that parallel universes do in fact exist and that for a few moments we saw an example of something that lives in another world—a world that simultaneously exists with our own.
If what we actually “know” to be true is in fact not true, where does this put our current beliefs and moreover, our strongly dogmatic position of what reality really is?
Science, via quantum physics, has found that everything we believe to exist really doesn’t exist as we think it does. Based on that premise, how can we state with true conviction what is real and what is not? How can we continue to trust those few who are so entrenched in a medically dogmatic position, even when it is obvious that the system is not just broken, but is decaying from its very core?
Pop Quiz:What color was the little elephant? Did you remember the elephant as orange or did pink pop into your head first? If you thought orange, good for you! If you thought pink, then this is a perfect example of the power of dogmatic belief in action!
In a study sponsored by Yale University — and started before COVID-19 shots were rolled out — researchers tested different messages of how to best persuade people to get injected.
Officially titled, “Persuasive Messages for COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake,”1 the researchers must have had some forethought that people would be wary of an experimental gene therapy, and set to work to decipher the best propaganda campaign to ensure their widespread uptake.
The study’s abstract starts out with questionable statements from the start, parroting the myth that “Widespread vaccination remains the best option for controlling the spread of COVID-19 and ending the pandemic.”2 The authors do not, however, expand on how this is so, considering that just three months after the shot those who are injected are just as likely to pass COVID-19 to their close contacts as those who do not get the shot.3,4
The reasons why people may be reluctant to get COVID-19 shots — such as safety and efficacy concerns — are also ignored by the study,5 which is only concerned with how to best use psychological tactics to get people on board with being injected.
Guilt, Anger, Embarrassment or Cowardice — What Works Best?
The full study, which was published in the December 3, 2021, issue of Vaccine,6 involved two experiments. The first tested “treatment messages” designed to affect people’s intentions about whether or not to get the shot. For the control group, subjects were exposed to a message about bird feeding, while others read the baseline vaccine message, as follows:
“To end the COVID-19 outbreak, it is important for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 whenever a vaccine becomes available. Getting the COVID-19 vaccine means you are much less likely to get COVID-19 or spread it to others. Vaccines are safe and widely used to prevent diseases and vaccines are estimated to save millions of lives every year.”
For the experiment, the following messages were added to the baseline message:7
Personal freedom message
Economic freedom message
Self-interest message
Community interest message
Economic benefit message
Guilt message
Embarrassment message
Anger message
Trust in science message
Not bravery message
For example, the guilt message, which is designed to work by social pressure, reads:8
“The message is about the danger that COVID-19 presents to the health of one’s family and community. The best way to protect them is by getting vaccinated and society must work together to get enough people vaccinated. Then it asks the participant to imagine the guilt they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and spread the disease.”
Never mind that this statement is false, since they can still spread the disease if they’re injected. Similarly misleading messages designed to demean, guilt and shame people into getting the shot include:9
“If one doesn’t get vaccinated that means that one doesn’t understand how infections are spread or who ignores science.”
“Those who choose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are not brave.”
“[I]t asks the participant to imagine the embarrassment they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and spread the disease.”
“[I]t asks the participant to imagine the anger they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and spread the disease.”
The researchers explained it this way:10
“One subgroup of messages draws on the idea that mass vaccination is a collective action problem and highlighting the prosocial benefit of vaccination or the reputational costs that one might incur if one chooses not to vaccinate. Another subgroup of messages built on contemporary concerns about the pandemic, like issues of restricting personal freedom or economic security.
We find that persuasive messaging that invokes prosocial vaccination and social image concerns is effective at increasing intended uptake and also the willingness to persuade others and judgments of non-vaccinators.”
Propaganda Messages Created With No Scientific Support
It’s ironic that the study includes a “trust in science” message, since the messages used in the study were created in early or mid-2020, before science was available to support them. Yet, as noted by a Children’s Health Defense (CHD) article, “The messages tested by the researchers have been woven into mainstream media narratives and public health campaigns throughout the world.”11
In the second part of the study, the most effective messages from part one were tested on a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. This included the baseline message along with community interest, community interest + embarrassment, not bravery, trust in science and personal freedom messages.
They found that, compared to the control group, psychological messages that involve community interest, reciprocity and embarrassment worked best, leading to a 30% increase in intention to get injected, along with a 24% increase in willingness to tell a friend to get injected and a 38% increase in negative opinions of those who decline to get the shot.12
The messages are designed to not only impact people on an individual level, but also further divide society by encouraging people to pass negative judgment onto others and pressure others to comply with “social norms.” According to the researchers:
“Viewing vaccination through the lens of a collective action problem suggests that in addition to increasing individuals’ intentions to receive a vaccine, effective public health messages would also increase people’s willingness to encourage those close to them to vaccinate and to hold negative judgments of those who do not vaccinate.
By encouraging those close to them to vaccinate, people are both promoting compliance with social norms and increasing their own level of protection against the disease. Also, by judging those who do not vaccinate more negatively, they apply social pressure to others to promote cooperative behavior.”
Shots as a ‘Morally Right Choice’
Since the pandemic began, conforming to confusing and questionable public health mandates has been made an issue of moral superiority — to the point that those who questioned mask mandates were labeled as “grandma killers.”13
In an article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020, it’s further noted that “vaccination is a social contract in which cooperation is the morally right choice.”14 It further suggests that, under this social contract, people should change their behaviors toward those who choose not to get injected, and, indeed, people who are “especially compliant,” i.e., vaccinated, were less generous to those who were not.15 Further:16
“If so, vaccinated individuals should reciprocate by being more generous to a vaccinated other. On the contrary, if the other doesn’t vaccinate and violates the social contract, generosity should decline.”
Propaganda Aimed at Making People Feel ‘Disgusting’
CHD pointed out that one of the authors of the Yale study, Saad Omer, “has an extensive interest in public health messaging” and was behind the “Building Vaccine Confidence Through Tailored Messaging Campaigns” in 2020, which used social media to convince people to get COVID-19 and other shots.17
Working with the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts Working Group on COVID-19 Vaccines, Omer detailed what worked in the past to increase the uptake of the HPV vaccine, and suggested it could work for COVID-19 shots. The solution, he said, involved appealing to values and stooping so low as to make a person feel disgusting while presenting vaccines as a form of purity. CHD quoted Omer, who said:18
“We wanted to test out, can we have a purity-based message? So we showed them pictures of genital warts and described a vignette, a narrative, a story, talking about how someone got genital warts and how disgusting they were and how pure vaccines are that sort of restore the sanctity of the body.
So we just analyzed these data. This was a randomized control trial with apriori outcomes. We found approximately 20 percentage point effect on people’s likelihood of getting an HPV vaccine in the next 6 months … We are trying out liberty-based messages or liberty-mediated messaging around this behavior related to COVID-19 outbreak.
That wearing a mask or taking precautions eventually make you free, regain your autonomy. Because if the disease rates are low, your activities can resume.”
This is similar propaganda to what’s being used to promote vaccine passports, with many willingly giving up freedoms that, once gone, may be difficult, if not impossible, to get back. By showing proof that you’ve received a COVID-19 shot, via a digital certificate or app on your phone, the hope is that you can once again travel freely, attend a concert or enjoy a meal in your favorite restaurant, just like you used to.
Except, being required to present your “papers” in order to live your life isn’t actually freedom at all — it’s a loss of freedom that you once had, one that disappeared right before your eyes and one that’s setting the stage for increased surveillance and control, and erosion of your privacy.
Propaganda Is the Real Misinformation
Carefully crafted messages that play on your emotions and moral compass are just one part of the campaign to ensure public compliance with the mainstream narrative. Fact checking is another tool being used in order to control virtually everything you see and hear online, in order to serve a greater agenda.19
Take the term “conspiracy theory,” which is now used to dismiss narratives that go against the grain. According to investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, this is intentional, as the term itself was devised by the CIA as a response to theories about the assassination of JFK.
Debunked, quackery and antivaccine are all terms that are similarly being used as propaganda tools. “There’s a whole cast of propaganda phrases that I’ve outlined that are cues. When you hear them, they should make you think, ‘I need to find out more about it,’” Attkisson says.20
Likewise, CHD explained, “The efforts to eliminate ‘misinformation’ resulted in unprecedented censorship of virtually anything that steps outside of state-sanctioned consensus and the creation of a captive audience primed to accept a singular narrative.”21
It’s important to remain aware that messages are being carefully crafted to mold human behavior to comply with COVID-19 shots and other public health measures — and to recognize that the use of propaganda is perfectly legal, even in the U.S.
As CHD continued, “And thanks to a multibillion-dollar budget from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we are under the influence of the best messages money can buy — whether or not those messages are true.”22
Fraudsters are selling bots on Telegram that are designed to trick investors into divulging their two-factor authentication, leading to accounts being wiped out.
Crypto investors are being targeted around the country.
Dr. Anders Apgar, a Coinbase customer, said his account had a balance of more than $100,000 in crypto when it was hacked during a robocall
Dr. Anders Apgar was out for dinner last month with his family, and his phone would not stop buzzing. It looked like a robocall, so he tried to ignore it.
But the calls would not stop. Then his wife’s phone also started to ring.
“When she picks it up, a banner came across, a notification that says, ‘Your account’s in jeopardy,’” he said.
The warning, which he said was a text message, prompted him to pick up his phone. That was when the couple’s nightmare started.
It’s the kind of nightmare many crypto account holders around the country are facing as hackers target a boom in the industry, cybersecurity experts said.
The Apgars, who are both Maryland-based obstetricians, began investing in cryptocurrency several years ago. By December, their account had grown to about $106,000, mainly held in bitcoin. Like millions of investors across the country, their account is with Coinbase, the country’s largest cryptocurrency platform.
When Apgar picked up the phone, a female voice said, “Hello, welcome to Coinbase security prevention line. We have detected unauthorized activity due to failed log-in attempt on your account. This was requested from a Canada IP address. If this (is) not you, please press 1, to complete precautions recovering your account.” The call lasted just 19 seconds.
Alarmed, Apgar pressed 1.
He said he cannot remember if he manually entered his two-factor authentication code or if it came up automatically on his screen. But what happened in that moment led to his account being locked in less than two minutes. As Apgar has not regained access, he said he assumes the fraudsters stole most if not all of the crypto, but he can’t be sure.
“It was just dread and an emptiness of just, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t get this back,’” he said.
The Apgars were targeted by a particularly insidious type of fraud that takes advantage of two-factor authentication, or 2FA. People use 2FA, a second level of security that often involves a passcode, to safeguard a range of accounts at crypto exchanges, banks or anywhere else they carry out digital transactions.
Dr. Anders Apgar
CNBC
But this new type of fraud goes right at that 2FA code, and it uses people’s fear of their accounts being hacked against them. In taking action they think will protect them, they actually expose themselves to thieves.
The fraud tool is called a one-time password, or OTP, bot.
A report produced by Florida-based cybersecurity firm and CNBC contributor Q6 Cyber said the OTP bots are driving substantial losses for financial and other institutions. The damage is hard to quantify now because the bot attacks are relatively new.
“The bot calls are crafted in a very skillful manner, creating a sense of urgency and trust over the phone. The calls rely on fear, convincing the victims to act to ‘avoid’ fraud in their account,” the report said.
The scam works in part because victims are used to providing a code for authentication to verify account information. At first listen, the robocalls can sound legitimate — especially if the victim is harried or distracted by other things at the moment the call comes in.
“It’s human nature,” said Jessica Kelley, a Q6 Cyber analyst who authored the report. “If you receive a call that tells you someone’s trying to sign in to your account, you’re not thinking, ‘Well, I wasn’t trying to.’”
The bots began showing up for sale on messaging platform Telegram last summer. Kelley identified at least six Telegram channels with more than 10,000 subscribers each selling the bots.
While there is no official estimate on the amount of crypto stolen, Kelley said fraudsters routinely brag on Telegram about how well the bots have worked, netting for each user thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto. The cost of the bots ranges from $100 a month to $4,000 for a lifetime subscription.
“Before these OTP bots, a cybercriminal would have to make that call himself,” Kelley said. “They would have to call the victim and try to get them to divulge their personal identifiable information or bank account PIN or their 2FA passcode. And now, with these bots, that whole system is just automated and the scalability is that much larger.”
“Once the victim inputs that 2FA code, or any other information that they requested the victim put in their phone, that information gets sent to the bot,” Kelley said. The bot “then automatically sends it to the cybercriminal, who then has access to the victim’s account.”
She said criminals could “potentially steal everything, because with these transactions, they can do them one after the other until the amount is basically drained.”
In a statement to CNBC, a Coinbase spokesperson said, “Coinbase will never make unsolicited calls to its customers, and we encourage everyone to be cautious when providing information over the phone. If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from a financial institution (whether Coinbase or your bank), do not disclose any of your account details or security codes. Instead, hang up and call them back at an official phone number listed on the organization’s website.”
David Silver, another Coinbase customer, knew the company would not be calling him. He recently received a robocall saying there was a problem with his account.
“And immediately, it was an electronic voice that told me it was Coinbase Fraud Department,” he said. “And I immediately turned to the lawyer sitting next to me and said, ‘Start videoing.’ I knew instantaneously what this was and what it was going to be.”
Attorney David Silver
CNBC
Silver knew what the call was about because he is not just a Coinbase client — he is an attorney who specializes in cryptocurrency and financial fraud cases.
Silver pressed 1 and found himself on a live call. A person got on the line pretending to be a Coinbase employee.
“And they immediately started telling me things that I know are in violation of what Coinbase would do,” he said. “For instance, they will never ask for your password. They will never try and take over your computer.”
Silver asked if he could be sent an email verifying that the call was from Coinbase. The answer was no.
“And their answer was no because there’s only certain ways that you can mask the email coming directly from a domain that nowadays, the domain carriers such as GoDaddy, Google — it’s very hard to spoof email coming from the domains,” he said. “And they weren’t willing to send me the email. I would say that was my last shred of hope that they were legitimate is when I asked them to send me the email and they said no.”
After nearly seven minutes, Silver was asked to share his computer screen. He ended the call.
“I’m not surprised I got the call. But I do question how they had my personal cell phone number and where they’re getting that information to tie me to Coinbase,” he said.
Apgar said he wishes he had never answered the phone. To make matters worse, he has been unable to get his account access restored, he said. When CNBC reached out to Coinbase about the Apgars regaining access to their account, a company spokesperson said the matter was turned over to its security team.
Apgar said Monday that he had just responded to an email from Coinbase to help restore access to the account.
Out of 23 monkeys that had Elon Musk’s Neuralink microchips implanted in their brains at the University of California Davis between 2017 and 2020, 15 of them died, and all suffered debilitating health effects, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Neuralink was founded in 2016 with a goal of helping people recover from traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, curing depression, and connecting humans to the internet.
Out of a total of 23 monkeys implanted with Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chips at the University of California Davis between 2017 and 2020, at least 15 reportedly died.
Via Business Insiderand the New York Post, the news comes from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an animal-rights group that viewed over 700 pages of documents, veterinary records, and necropsy reports through a public records request at the university.
Neuralink was founded in 2016 with a goal of helping people recover from traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, curing depression and other mental health disorders, and connecting humans to the internet for everything from music streaming to near-telepathic communication. The company has often touted its successes, such as a demonstration on a pig in 2020, and a 2021 video of a macaque playing Pong with its mind.
The project has attracted a great deal of interest from celebrities like Grimes and Lil Uzi Vert, and people suffering from paralysis often petition Musk on social media to be a part of human trials. Musk previously said that he hoped to begin human trials in 2021, but that goal has been pushed back to 2022. Based on the PCRM’s findings, the brain chips may be nowhere near ready.
“Pretty much every single monkey that had had implants put in their head suffered from pretty debilitating health effects,” said the PCRM’s research advocacy director Jeremy Beckham. “They were, frankly, maiming and killing the animals.”
Neuralink chips were implanted by drilling holes into the monkeys’ skulls. One primate developed a bloody skin infection and had to be euthanized. Another was discovered missing fingers and toes, “possibly from self-mutilation or some other unspecified trauma,” and had to be put down. A third began uncontrollably vomiting shortly after surgery, and days later “appeared to collapse from exhaustion/fatigue.” An autopsy revealed the animal suffered from a brain hemorrhage.
The PCRM filed a complaint with the the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday, accusing UC Davis and Neuralink of nine violations of the Animal Welfare Act. “Many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a ‘brain-machine interface,’” the group wrote in the complaint.
A new federal terror advisory contains a threat assessment that characterizes Americans who “mislead” others into questioning government-approved messages as being on par with terrorists. That is as anti-American messaging as could be imagined. America was founded on questioning governments, foreign and domestic. And that has been her saving grace, the reason for her unique success.
The assessment specifically identifies those who engage in “the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions” as “threat actors.” It also cites “widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19” as having a deleterious effect on government institutions.
Actually, it’s the actions of government institutions that often have a deleterious effect on (people’s views of) government institutions…and on the people. But, no matter, our First Amendment rights are out the window. 1984 is here. “Wrong-thought” has been criminalized.
If not stopped—and reversed– this is the end of the Great Experiment and the Land of Opportunity.
So, fellow threat actors, what are we to do about this?
First off, we must realize that “misinformation” is what has typically been put out by governments since governments were instituted among men. The larger and more powerful the government in relation to the people, the more preposterous the misinformation, false narratives, outright lies, and other propaganda it will churn out. And the less it will tolerate dissent and independent thought. This is a historical fact. It was true of feudal kings. Offend the king and it could be “off with your head.” The Third Reich blamed all Germany’s troubles on the Jews. So it imprisoned and exterminated them. The Soviet Union killed millions of folks who didn’t toe the party line. Speak out against the government? Hello, “re-education” camp or gulag. And today we have Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea…and, of course, China. (How’s your “social credit score?” You might be about to find out.) China graciously exported the pandemic to the West, and it now appears many Western nations may be attempting to appropriate its system of government, as well. Talk about forgiveness and tolerance. Amazing. The governments of Australia, New Zealand, Austria, several other European nations, and even Canada and the United States have quickly and zealously headed down the road to tyranny.
Leftists in the U.S. are attacking the First and Second Amendments (among others). These are the essence and guarantor of our freedoms, respectively. They are marginalizing, canceling, and even incarcerating those who have the effrontery to challenge their narrative. Meaning their power. That is tyranny. That is terrorism. They are “threat actors.” And they do this while accusing Trump supporters, Christians, patriots, rednecks, Rogan listeners, Republicans, rural residents, truck drivers—and anyone else with whom they disagree– of being a “threat to our democracy.”
The truth is precisely the opposite, of course. They are the threat to our democracy. Demonstrably and inarguably. They want to squelch free speech and vigorous dialogue. They wish to take away your right to protect yourself and your family. They wish to pack the court. They wish to end the filibuster. Theywish to eliminate the Electoral College. We don’t wish to do any of those things to them or anybody else. Oh, and they locked us all down and masked us all up for the past two years.
There has been much talk of a Second Civil War or a Second American Revolution. Either, of course, would be tragic, insofar as violence and bloodshed are concerned. But what we really need, and what might help avoid either of the aforementioned, is a second Declaration of Independence. If our elite rulers knew—were absolutely convinced– that we will no longer accept their forays into tyranny and despotism, will no longer meekly acquiesce to their every wish and whim no matter how banal, damaging, or evil, perhaps we could start reclaiming and restoring “our democracy.” Peacefully.
I’ll even offer to write it.
It might go something like this:
“As Americans, we still hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. And that legitimate governments are instituted among men to secure these rights, not attempt to repeal them. We must never forget that just governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. These are the defining characteristics of America, the blueprint for this nation, and we will not throw our birthrights away. As our Founders noted, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. Indeed, when a government is trending towards absolute despotism, it is their duty to do so. For, as Americans, we owe it to our forefathers, ourselves, and our posterity to reclaim our former freedoms and see to a rebirth of our once blessed and unrivaled republic.
“The following are some of the abuses, injuries, and usurpations compelling us to make this Declaration:
“Our leaders have used a pandemic, that they partially paid for, to tell us that we couldn’t leave our houses. For the first time, they quarantined the healthy. They told us that we must wear a mask over our mouths and noses at all times, even indoors. They said we couldn’t visit our loved ones in hospitals or in hospice. Pure, unadulterated evil. They barred us from attending weddings and funerals. They informed many of us that our jobs are ‘not essential,’ even as they paid many not to work. Preposterous! They have fomented and excused months-long violent protests and riots by some which led to numerous deaths and billions of dollars in damage…while incarcerating without charge many who peacefully walked into our Capitol Building. They have unilaterally instituted a two-tier system of justice, where laws apply utterly differently to different people based on ideology. They have weaponized the FBI, CIA, DOJ, DHS, and IRS against the American people, and are now even attempting to do the same with our military. They have, through extreme incompetence or malevolence given succor to our enemies and created grave doubts in the minds of our friends and allies. They have decided not to tend to or defend our Southern border, leaving us wide open to criminals, drug and sex trafficking, and potential acts of terrorism. They do this because they wish to replace us, legal citizens, with those whom they can more easily control—and whom they can count on to vote for them in the future. Monstrous! Moreover, they have created conditions mandating that crime rates will surge across the nation, making all of us less safe. They have disabled our energy industry, making us once again dependent on foreign actors and adversely affecting our national security. They have mismanaged the economy, driving up inflation and diminishing our quality of life. They have—in myriad ways—caused absolutely needless pain and suffering for scores of millions of Americans, as reflected in the skyrocketing rates of substance abuse and suicides. All these are egregious and frightening acts signaling a descent into tyranny.
“Yet, whenever we have petitioned for redress, we have been summarily rebuffed. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. We have been mocked, scorned, canceled.
“Our leaders must know that we will not choose hopelessness and despair. We will not tolerate their arrogance, scorn, and contempt. We will, once more, be free.
“Therefore, we the citizens of the United States of America, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the universe for the righteousness of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare that, to this end, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
GOP Senator Demands DoD Investigate Leaked DARPA Bombshell Over Covid-19 Origins
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has requested any findings from a Department of Defense investigation into the origins of Covid-19, following the recent publication of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) report obtained by Project Veritas.
According to the leaked report written by a Marine, EcoHealth Alliance sought a contract to use controversial gain-of-function genetic manipulation techniques to study bat coronaviruses. While the proposal was rejected by DARPA, it was subsequently picked up by Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which funneled money to EcoHealth via a sub-grant.
Fauci has repeatedly claimed NIAID did not fund gain-of-function research into bat coronaviruses.
“It is apparent that Dr. Fauci has not been forthright with the American people regarding his involvement in funding dangerous research,” Sen. Johnson told the Daily Caller.
“According to the Major’s disclosure, EcoHealth Alliance (EcoHealth), in conjunction with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), submitted a proposal in March 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) regarding SARS-CoVs. The proposal included a program, called DEFUSE, that sought to use a novel chimeric SARS-CoV spike protein to inoculate bats against SARS-CoVs,” reads Johnson’s letter.
“Although DARPA rejected the proposal, the disclosure alleges that EcoHealth ultimately carried out the DEFUSE proposal until April 2020 through the National Institutes of Health and National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The disclosure highlights several potential treatments, such as ivermectin, and specifically alleges that the EcoHealth DEFUSE proposal identified chloroquine phosphate (Hydroxychloriquine) and interferon as SARS-CoV inhibitors.”
The leaked documents also suggest that Covid-19 was created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Johnson asks the DoD to interview the Marine who reportedly authored the report, and undertake an investigation into its claims.
While President Joe Biden has portrayed anyone supporting the filibuster as a virtual confederate sympathizer and Bull Conner wannabe, the attacks did not sway senators like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. who defiantly went to the floor to deliver a speech calling for the end of the politics of division. She, and her colleague Sen. Joe Machin, D-W.V., stood firm in support of the filibuster. The response from the commentators on the left was pure unadulterated rage. Many like MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell cruelly mocked her from appearing emotional. However, one of most chilling attack came from a reported staff member at the ACLU, Sarah Michelsen, who encouraged people to keep up the pressure to “break” Sinema. The senator has been continually harassed by activists, who even followed her into a bathroom to berate her.
Michelsen, a former state director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, is a “senior strategist” at the ACLU. Like many, Michelsen seemed thrilled that Sinema seemed emotional in her speech and encouraged activists to “keep going” with the attacks because they are “breaking her.”
Michelsen seemed to be following the lead of President Biden, who was widely criticized for his Atlanta speech declaring that anyone supporting the filibuster was attacking democracy and supporting autocracy. He continued the attacks yesterday on the Hill despite the fact that he was clearly not intimidating either senator into changing their positions.
It did not matter that Biden showed equal passion as a senator to denounce those who would find excuses for abandoning the filibuster rule. He called such efforts “disastrous” and proclaimed: “God save us from that fate … [it] would change this fundamental understanding and unbroken practice of what the Senate is all about.”
Despite the support of the rule by figures from Barack Obama to Chuck Schumer, it is now officially a “relic of Jim Crow” and open season on anyone standing with the senate tradition.
It is not clear what Michelsen did or does at the ACLU. Her Twitter account was taken private after her attack on Sinema. The account calls for defunding police and chaos.
What is most notable about Michelsen’s attack (like the diatribes of President Biden) is that they are clearly not working to intimidate these senators. Yet, activists still want to continue them because they can. The age of rage gives them license to hate and harass. That is enough to “keep it up” in harassing those who hold opposing views.
Neuroscientists have been working on a number of advanced techniques with military applications
Magnetogenetics is a technique of using magnetic fields to remotely control cell activity
In human experiments, scientist experimented with reducing religious feelings
In animal experiments, researchers were able to induce specific behaviors in mice using genetically modified viruses and magnetic fields
Another area of behavioral modification is “digital vaccines,” which is special software for behavioral change
This story is about behavioral modification, both as a philosophical ambition and as a military application. This topic is vast — so I’ll focus on a few relatively recent developments, especially in the area of magnetogenetics. But first, morality pills!
Morality Pills
In August 2020, Forbes published an article titled, “Could A ‘Morality Pill’ Help Stop The Covid-19 Pandemic?” It was based on the opinion of a bioethicist Parker Crutchfield who stated the following:
“Moral enhancement is the use of substances to make you more moral. The psychoactive substances act on your ability to reason about what the right thing to do is, or your ability to be empathetic or altruistic or cooperative.”
The problem that Crutchfield was trying to solve with his theoretical ‘morality pills’ was the pesky COVID contrarians, the proverbial grandma killers who refused to comply with masking and social distancing.
“The problem of coronavirus defectors could be solved by moral enhancement: like receiving a vaccine to beef up your immune system, people could take a substance to boost their cooperative, pro-social behavior.”
The author seemed to think very highly of his own ability to make perfect decisions about things — including about the best pandemic response — and therefore he had no qualms about imposing his opinions on others in the form of pills or, perhaps, morality injections. He went as far as to say that “a solution would be to make moral enhancement compulsory or administer it secretly, perhaps via the water supply.”
Crutchfield further referred to his work, in which he explored the concept of enhancing democracy by secretly medicating the citizens. He stated the following:
“Some theorists argue that moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory. I take this argument one step further, arguing that if moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory, then its administration ought to be covert rather than overt. This is to say that it is morally preferable for compulsory moral bioenhancement to be administered without the recipients knowing that they are receiving the enhancement.
My argument for this is that if moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory, then its administration is a matter of public health, and for this reason should be governed by public health ethics.
I argue that the covert administration of a compulsory moral bioenhancement program better conforms to public health ethics than does an overt compulsory program. In particular, a covert compulsory program promotes values such as liberty, utility, equality, and autonomy better than an overt program does. [emphasis mine].”
Bravissimo! Does this combo of freedom and covertly administered forced medication come with DeBlasio fries?
The good thing about morality pills is that they are seemingly theoretical … hopefully. How about creating fake memories? That, now, is actual science! In 2014, Smithsonian Magazine published an article titled, “Meet the Two Scientists Who Implanted a False Memory Into a Mouse,” which described a series of rather sadistic experiments showing that implanting false memories was achievable. (Should we mandate morality pills for the scientists? Just wondering.)
Implanting a False Memory in a Mouse
The scientists did a number of manipulations that I will describe in great technical detail in just a second — but the gist of it is that they placed a mouse in a particular box and gave the mouse a foot shock while simultaneously triggering a memory of being in a different, “safe,” box from an earlier experiment when the mouse was is that other box without receiving the shock.
They then placed the mouse in the “safe” box again, and the mouse acted terrified, as if it associated that first box with being given a shock, while in reality the shock was given in the second box, not in the first box. The conclusion that the scientists drew was that in the mouse’s mind, it “remembered” being given a shock in the box in which it had never been given a shock.
Great technical detail: Working with genetically engineered lab mice, the scientists injected their brains with a biochemical cocktail that included a gene for a light-sensitive protein (channelrhodopsin-2). The cells participating in memory formation would then produce the protein and become light-sensitive themselves.
Namely, they “surgically implanted thin filaments from the laser through the skulls of the mice and into the dentate gyrus. Reactivating the memory — and its associated fear response — was the only way to prove they had actually identified and labeled an engram [a unit of cognitive information imprinted in a physical substance].
The researchers sacrificed the animals after the experiment and examined the brain tissues under a microscope to confirm the existence of the engrams; cells involved in a specific memory glowed green after treatment with chemicals that reacted with channelrhodopsin-2.”
In order to manipulate a specific engram to create a false memory, they “prepared the mouse, injecting the biochemical cocktail into the dentate gyrus. Next, they put the mouse in a box without shocking it. As the animal spent 12 minutes exploring, a memory of this benign experience was encoded as an engram.
The following day, the mouse was placed in a different box, where its memory of the first (safe) box was triggered by shooting the laser into the dentate gyrus. At that exact moment, the mouse received a foot shock. On the third day, the mouse was returned to the safe box — and immediately froze in fear. It had never received a foot shock there, but its false memory, created by the researchers in another box, caused it to behave as if it had.”
Here you have it. The scientists were allegedly able to create a false memory in a mouse by torturing it and its fellows. False memories, check. How about manipulating religious feelings in people? Did the scientists try? Sure they did.
Experiments To Manipulate Religious Beliefs With Magnetism
In 2015, an article called, “Neuromodulation of group prejudice and religious belief” was published in “Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.”
The authors of the study “presented participants with a reminder of death and a critique of their in-group ostensibly written by a member of an out-group, then experimentally decreased both avowed belief in God and out-group derogation by downregulating pMFC activity via transcranial magnetic stimulation. The results provide the first evidence that group prejudice and religious belief are susceptible to targeted neuromodulation.”
Magnetogenetics
Speaking of magnetic stimulation, let’s talk about magnetogenetics. Magnetogenetics is a biological technique that involves the use of magnetic fields to remotely control cell activity. According to the behavioral research company Noldus, “magnetogenetics, or the use of electromagnetic control, involves activating cells using magnetic fields. With magnetogenetics researchers have found a way to control neurons with electromagnets.”
For context, magnetogenetics is adjacent to two other methods, optogenetics and chemogenetics. Optogenetics is based on switching populations of related neurons on or off on a millisecond-by-millisecond timescale with pulses of laser light. Optogenetics is an invasive method that requires insertion of optical fibers that deliver the light pulses into the brain. Chemogenetics uses engineered proteins that are activated by designer drugs and can be targeted to specific cell types.
The “Magneto” Experiment
In 2016, two University of Virginia scientists demonstrated that neurons in the brain that have been supplemented with a synthetic gene can be remotely manipulated by a magnetic field. In their own words, they “may have discovered a major step toward developing a ‘dream tool’ for remotely controlling neural circuits.”
At the time, Güler, a biology professor at UVA, and UVA neuroscience Ph.D. candidate Michael Wheeler “engineered a gene that can make a cell sense the presence of a magnetic field. They coupled a gene that senses cellular stretch with another gene that functions as a nanomagnet. This synthetic combination turns on only when in the presence of a magnetic field, allowing them to control neuronal activity in the brain.”
“In a series of tests on mice that had the Magneto gene used to express comfort or pleasure, the mice voluntarily went to a chamber of their cage where the magnetic field was present, similar to going there as if food was present.
Likewise, when the magnetic field was turned off, the mice did not display any particular preference for that area of the cage. But when the magnetic field was turned back on, they again moved to that area of the cage. Mice without the Magneto gene did not display any behavioral changes in the presence of magnets.”
According to the Guardian, the premise of the experiment was that nerve cell proteins activated by heat and mechanical pressure “can be genetically engineered so that they become sensitive to radio waves and magnetic fields, by attaching them to an iron-storing protein called ferritin, or to inorganic paramagnetic particles.”
The technique used the protein TRPV4, which is sensitive to both temperature and stretching forces that “open its central pore, allowing electrical current to flow through the cell membrane; this evokes nervous impulses that travel into the spinal cord and then up to the brain.”
The scientists “used genetic engineering to fuse the protein to the paramagnetic region of ferritin, together with short DNA sequences that signal cells to transport proteins to the nerve cell membrane and insert them into it …
When they introduced this genetic construct into human embryonic kidney cells growing in Petri dishes, the cells synthesized the ‘Magneto’ protein and inserted it into their membrane. Application of a magnetic field activated the engineered protein, as evidenced by transient increases in calcium ion concentration within the cells.”
“Next, the researchers inserted the Magneto DNA sequence into the genome of a virus, together with the gene encoding green fluorescent protein, and regulatory DNA sequences that cause the construct to be expressed only in specified types of neurons.
They then injected the virus into the brains of mice, targeting the entorhinal cortex, and dissected the animals’ brains to identify the cells that emitted green fluorescence. Using microelectrodes, they then showed that applying a magnetic field to the brain slices activated Magneto so that the cells produce nervous impulses.”
When the scientists placed the animals into an apparatus split into magnetised a non-magnetised sections, “mice expressing Magneto spent far more time in the magnetised areas than mice that did not, because activation of the protein caused the striatal neurons expressing it to release dopamine, so that the mice found being in those areas rewarding. This shows that Magneto can remotely control the firing of neurons deep within the brain, and also control complex behaviours.”
Let me just say that as a citizen, I don’t feel particularly relaxed knowing that this research exists — especially under today’s circumstances. Usually, whenever there is a technology that is suitable for behavioral modification and crowd control, somebody tries to use it. Politicians and greedy corporate leaders are funny this way! When there’s a hammer …
Dr. James Giordano’s Talk on Military Neuroscience
Speaking of hammers, I highly recommend you watch this mind-twisting, sci-fi-sounding, and frankly creepy presentation on military applications of neuroscience by Dr. James Giordano, Professor at Georgetown University Medical Center who has served as a Senior Science Advisory Fellow of the Strategic Multilayer Assessment group of the Joint Staff of the Pentagon.
In his presentation, Dr. Giordano talks about neuroweapons and how new developments in brain science can be used in the military (and beyond). Some of the applications and scenarios he describes will make you scratch your head very hard!
“Digital Vaccines”
Another area of behavioral modification is the so called “digital vaccines,” or behavioral modification software. According to the Center for Digital Health at Brown’s Alpert Medical School, digital vaccines are “a solution to the problem of creating sustained behavioral change” and “a subtype of digital therapeutics, which use neurocognitive training to promote positive human behavior using technologies like smartphone apps.”
They are called “vaccines” because they create resistance to disease through a different mechanism. (I would posit that they are called “vaccines” because it’s a trendy, investor-friendly word that might also potentially come with a lack of legal liability — but that’s just my cynical guess.)
Carnegie Mellon University hosts Digital Vaccine Project, an initiative that focuses on the development and evaluation of “digital vaccine” candidates. Among other candidates, they are talking about a “digital vaccine” for COVID-19, which looks suspiciously like a gamified, nudging bot designed to train people to practice good “health-hygiene habits,” as defined by the owners of the algorithm.
This sounds to me like a good ol’ missionary in a shiny digital form: an unsolicited and unwanted “boss” with a superiority complex and no sense of tact!
Sooner or later, the scientists will figure out that their “patients” become annoyed by the bot out of their wits — at which point the hopeful priests of behavioral modification will come up with a “fix” on top of a “fix” — and money will be made by investors every step of the way — as it usually goes, at the price of the people.
Let me end by saying that technological behavioral modification is a rotten idea, driven by maniacs. The fact that hunger for total control is so painfully prevalent in our world doesn’t change the pathological nature of that hunger.
The need for mechanical control is born out of fear and anxiety, and that’s undeniable. And yes, today, the Machine still reigns and has the power to bully but without a doubt — whichever way we get there — we are moving toward a world where we are fully alive and free. The stronger and braver we are in the face of the darkness, the sooner we get free.
About the Author
To find more of Tessa Lena’s work, be sure to check out her bio, Tessa Fights Robots.
regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19” as having a deleterious effect on government institutions.
