Health

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11 COVID Assumptions Based on Fear not Fact | Golden Age of Gaia

Editor’s Note: Johnny Freedom just finished this newly released expose’ of COVID-19 with pertinent facts to educate folks about this alleged viral “pandemic”, which as it turns out, wasn’t  what was initially projected. Instead, as we predicted months ago, the COVID-19 social engineering and psychological operation that lock downed much of the world, destroyed millions of businesses and livelihoods, put hundreds of millions at the risk of starvation, was done as a pretext for global regime change. Inform yourself, take off your masks and blindfolds and step into freedom once again. Get the real story and order your copy today (PDF or PRINT). $25 PRINT ORDER LINK: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=QCQQL3JUTVURE (includes PDF Version with Live Links to Sources)

By Makia Freeman

COVID ASSUMPTIONS

The assumptions people make about COVID, how dangerous it is, how it spreads and what we need to do to stop it – are running rampant, running far more wildly than the supposed virus SARS-CoV2 itself. The coldly calculated campaign of propaganda surrounding this ‘pandemic’ has achieved its aim.

Besieged with a slew of contradictory information coming from all angles, people in general have succumbed to confusion. Some have given up trying to understand the situation and found it is just easier to obey official directives, even if it means giving up long-held rights.

Below is a list of commonly held COVID assumptions which, if you believe them, will make you much more likely to submit to the robotic, insane and abnormal conditions of the New Normal – screening, testing, contact tracing, monitoring, surveillance, mask-wearing, social distancing, quarantine and isolation, with mandatory vaccination and microchipping to come.

ASSUMPTION 1: The Method of Counting COVID Deaths is Sensible and Accurate

A grand assumption of the COVID plandemic is that the numbers are real and accurate, especially the death toll. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. We have had confirmation after confirmation after confirmation (in nations all over the world) that authorities are counting the deaths in a way that makes no sense.

Well, it makes no sense if you want to be sensible or accurate, but it makes perfect sense if you are trying to artificially inflate the numbers and create the impression of a pandemic where there is none. The sleight of hand is achieved by counting those who died with the virus as dying from the virus. This one trick alone is responsible for vastly skewing the numbers and turning the ‘official’ death count into a meaningless farce devoid of any practical value.

ASSUMPTION 2: The PCR Test for COVID is Accurate

As I covered in previous articles, the PCR test (Polymerase Chain Reaction) was invented by scientist Kary Mullis as a manufacturing technique (since it can able to replicate DNA sequences millions and billions of times), not as a diagnostic tool. COVID or SARS-CoV2 fails Koch’s postulates. The virus which shut the world down has still to this day never been isolated, purified and re-injected, or in other words, has never been 100% proven to exist, nor 100% proven to be the cause of the disease. When used to determine the cause of a disease, the PCR test has many flaws:

1. There is no gold standard to which to compare its results (COVID fails Koch’s postulates);
2. It detects and amplifies genetic code (RNA sequences) but offers no proof these RNA sequences are of viral origin;
3. PCR is not detecting a virus per se, but rather a small shattered part of the viral genome. The test comes back positive as long as there are tiny shattered parts of the virus left, because the PCR method amplifies the tiniest fraction of the viral genetic material. The virus may be deactivated or dead, but the PCR test won’t tell you;
4. It generates many false positive results;
5. The PCR test can give a completely opposite result (positive or negative) depending upon the number of cycles or amplifications that are used, which is ultimately arbitrarily chosen. For some diseases, if you lower the number of cycles to 35, it can make everyone appear negative, while if you increase them to above 35, it can make everyone appear positive;
6. Many patients switch back and forth from positive to negative when taking the PCR test on subsequent days; and
7. Even a positive result does not guarantee the discovered ‘virus’ is the cause of the disease!

In summary, the PCR test doesn’t identify or isolate viruses, doesn’t provide RNA sequences of pathogens, offers no baseline for comparison with patient samples, and cannot determine an infected from an uninfected sample. That is staggeringly useless! Here is a quote from the article “COVID19 PCR Tests are Scientifically Meaningless”:

“Tests need to be evaluated to determine their preciseness — strictly speaking their “sensitivity” and “specificity” — by comparison with a “gold standard,” meaning the most accurate method available. As an example, for a pregnancy test the gold standard would be the pregnancy itself. But as Australian infectious diseases specialist Sanjaya Senanayake, for example, stated in an ABC TV interview in an answer to the question “How accurate is the [COVID-19] testing?”:

If we had a new test for picking up [the bacterium] golden staph in blood, we’ve already got blood cultures, that’s our gold standard we’ve been using for decades, and we could match this new test against that. But for COVID-19 we don’t have a gold standard test.”

Jessica C. Watson from Bristol University confirms this. In her paper “Interpreting a COVID-19 test result”, published recently in The British Medical Journal, she writes that there is a “lack of such a clear-cut ‘gold-standard’ for COVID-19 testing.”“

Here is the admission about the PCR test by the CDC and FDA:

“Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms …this test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.”

Accurate would be about the last word I would use to describe COVID PCR testing, yet it is currently the standard test worldwide for COVID. Another magnificent example of many COVID assumptions. Go figure.

ASSUMPTION 3: The Antibody Test for COVID is Accurate

If you realized by reading the last section that the COVID PCR tests are flawed and meaningless, get ready for more absurdity with the COVID antibody tests. They are also known as serology or serological tests. As I covered in the article COVID Antibody Tests: Here Comes More Trickery and Fakery, there are numerous reasons why the antibody tests don’t really work and can be interpreted any way you want:

1. Old blood samples contain COVID antibodies, so if a test finds antibodies, they may have been there for years or decades. There is no way to tell if they were recently acquired;
2. Like the COVID PCR test, they generate many false positive results;
3. They test for antibodies which may not even be specific for COVID;
4. Antibodies don’t actually prove immunity, since there are people who fight off disease with little or no antibodies, and conversely, there are those with high antibody titers or counts, but who still get sick; and
5. The results can be interpreted any way you want. The presence of antibodies could mean you’re safe and immune to future COVID waves, or conversely, it could mean you’re dangerous (sick and infected right now). It’s all about the interpretation.

Hhmmm … all these COVID assumptions are not exactly reassuring, are they?

ASSUMPTION 4: The COVID Case Count is Rising

Someone skeptical of the alternative view I am painting here may ask at this point: well if COVID is not that dangerous, how come cases keep rising? The answer is simple: because there is more testing. The more we test, the more cases we will find, because this ‘virus’ (really an RNA sequence) is far more widespread than we have been told, and there are far more asymptomatic people than we have been told (which shows it’s not that dangerous).

As discussed in previous articles, there is really no proof that people didn’t have this particular RNA sequence for years or decades before the test, so the test results are quite meaningless.

That aside, a general rule of thumb is that wherever there are people trying to gain power, there will be fraud, and COVID testing is no exception. It has been exposed that tens of thousands of coronavirus tests have been double counted (in the UK, but probably happening in many places). This article explains that the “discrepancy is in large part explained by the practice of counting saliva and nasal samples for the same individual twice.”

Additionally, the COVID tests are using the PCR method as discussed above in COVID Assumption 3, which has many flaws, including the flaw of results flipping back and forth depending on the number of cycles, as this previously quoted article states:

” … it is hardly surprising that there are several papers illustrating irrational test results. For example, already in February the health authority in China’s Guangdong province reported that people have fully recovered from illness blamed on COVID-19, started to test “negative,” and then tested “positive” again.

A month later, a paper published in the Journal of Medical Virology showed that 29 out of 610 patients at a hospital in Wuhan had 3 to 6 test results that flipped between “negative”, “positive” and “dubious”.

A third example is a study from Singapore in which tests were carried out almost daily on 18 patients and the majority went from “positive” to “negative” back to “positive” at least once, and up to five times in one patient.

Even Wang Chen, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, conceded in February that the PCR tests are “only 30 to 50 per cent accurate”; while Sin Hang Lee from the Milford Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory sent a letter to the WHO’s coronavirus response team and to Anthony S. Fauci on March 22, 2020, saying that:

“It has been widely reported in the social media that the RT-qPCR [Reverse Transcriptase quantitative PCR] test kits used to detect SARSCoV-2 RNA in human specimens are generating many false positive results and are not sensitive enough to detect some real positive cases.” ”

ASSUMPTION 5: Thermal Imaging/Screening for COVID is Effective

Taking people’s temperature by pointing a gun at their head is blatant conditioning. It sends the subliminal message that the State is all powerful and can aim a gun-like device at your head, and you are powerless to do anything but submit. On a practical level, taking people’s temperatures has no effect in stopping viral spread. Even if someone has an elevated temperature, what does that mean? There is a natural variation in human body temperatures; everyone operates at a slightly different temperature.

Besides, even if your temperature is elevated, that could be because you were just exercising, running to catch a flight, just had an angry conversation with someone, just got the phone after a stressful call, had to discipline a disobedient child, etc. Think about all the things that make you stressed and irritated, or raise your blood pressure, which could lead to an elevated temperature!

In this way it is similar to the antibody test; it can show a result, but the result can be interpreted in so many ways that it renders the result pointless in terms of science (although there is a very much a point in terms of control).

ASSUMPTION 6: Asymptomatic People Can Spread the Disease

One particular piece of propaganda hammered in hard to people’s brains which is still doing great damage is the idea that anyone could be a carrier and could therefore infect anyone else. This has the effect of making people anxious, scared and even paranoid in just going about their daily life.

However the idea that asymptomatic people can spread the disease is not something to worry about. This Chinese study A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers published in May 2020 exposed 455 subjects to asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV2. None of the 455 were infected!

WHO (World Health Organization) official Dr. Maria van Kerkhove was reported by MSM CNBC saying the following last month in June (though she later backtracked her comments):

““From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.””

ASSUMPTION 7: Making Schools Adopt Insanely Restrictive Measures Will Stop COVID Spread

Of the many COVID assumptions floating around, these next two are based on the idea that children are a significant source of COVID spread. They are not! The figures from WorldOMeter state that children aged 0-17 years have 0.02-0.06% share of world COVID deaths, which is essentially zero. Meanwhile, CDC stats show that “among 149,082 (99.6%) cases for which patient age was known, 2,572 (1.7%) occurred in children aged <18 years” which is likewise a tiny fraction.  With this in mind, why on Earth would the CDC issue these draconian guidelines (pictured above and also found at this link in full) for American schoolchildren, if not to condition and dehumanize them?

ASSUMPTION 8: It’s a Good Idea for Government to Take Abduct Kids from COVID-Positive Parents

Governmental abduction of children using COVID as a pretext has begun. This article from June 17th 2020 reports how the “LA County Dept. of Children and Family Services (DCFS) recommended that the court remove [a] child from their physical custody after the parent tested positive for COVID-19. This is a non-offending parent. The judge ruled in favor of DCFS and detained.”

Let that sink in for a minute. The State stole a child from his/her parents just because a parent showed a COVID-positive result on a (deeply flawed) test! Can anyone spell T-Y-R-A-N-N-Y? This is the outcome of the sinister and oxymoronic warning given by WHO official Michael Ryan in March, that people would be removed from their families in a “safe and dignified” way. Ryan said:

“In some senses, transmission has been taken off the streets and pushed back into family units. Now we need to go and look in families to find those people who may be sick and remove them and isolate them in a safe and dignified manner.”

Mercola.com reports that the CDC is recommending newborns be separated at birth from their parents for COVID testing.

How bad does it have to get before people wake up to what is happening?

ASSUMPTION 9: Social Distancing is Backed by Solid Scientific Evidence

Another of the baseless COVID assumptions is that all this social distancing or physical distancing is backed by solid scientific evidence. It’s not. Whether it’s 6 feet, 1.5 meters or 2 meters, the virus seems to be able to jump different distances depending upon what country it is in. The article There is no scientific evidence to support the disastrous two-metre rule states:

“The influential Lancet review provided evidence from 172 studies in support of physical distancing of one metre or more. This might sound impressive, but all the studies were retrospective and suffer from biases that undermine the reliability of their findings.”

Meanwhile UK governmental advisor Robert Dingwall said:

“We cannot sustain [social distancing measures] without causing serious damage to society, to the economy and to the physical and mental health of the population …I think it will be much harder to get compliance with some of the measures that really do not have an evidence base. I mean the two-metre rule was conjured up out of nowhere … Well, there is a certain amount of scientific evidence for a one-metre distance which comes out of indoor studies in clinical and experimental settings. There’s never been a scientific basis for two metres, it’s kind of a rule of thumb. But it’s not like there is a whole kind of rigorous scientific literature that it is founded upon.”

Of course, the assumption that social distancing works is based on the underlying assumption that there is a distinct and isolated virus SARS-CoV2 which is contagious and is the sole cause of all the disease – which has not been proven.

ASSUMPTION 10: Mask Wearing for Healthy People is Backed by Solid Scientific Evidence

The penultimate assumption for today is the wonderful topic of masks, or face diapers and face nappies as many have started calling them. One of the COVID assumptions that many are still clinging to is that it is ‘respectful’ to wear masks because masks protect healthy individuals from getting sick from viruses. This is patently false. As covered in the previous article Unmasking the Truth: Studies Show Dehumanizing Masks Weaken You and Don’t Protect You, masks are designed for surgeons or people who are already sick, not for healthy people. They stop sick people spreading a disease through large respiratory droplets; they do nothing to protect well people. In fact, they restrict oxygen flow leading to under-oxygenation (hypoxia), which in turns leads to fatigue, weakness and a lower immunity. With a lower immunity comes … more susceptibility to disease. As I previously wrote, the masks many people are wearing – homemade from cloth – are a joke if you think they will stop a virus which is measured in nanometers (nanometer = 10–9 meters, or 0.000000001 meters). They won’t stop a virus but they will assuredly become a hotbed for microbes to develop due to the warm and humid conditions. For the scientifically minded, here’s what Dr. Russell Blaylock had to say:

“The importance of these findings is that a drop in oxygen levels (hypoxia) is associated with an impairment in immunity. Studies have shown that hypoxia can inhibit the type of main immune cells used to fight viral infections called the CD4+ T-lymphocyte. This occurs because the hypoxia increases the level of a compound called hypoxia inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), which inhibits T-lymphocytes and stimulates a powerful immune inhibitor cell called the Tregs. This sets the stage for contracting any infection, including COVID-19 and making the consequences of that infection much graver. In essence, your mask may very well put you at an increased risk of infections and if so, having a much worse outcome.”

ASSUMPTION 11: We Live in a World of Indiscriminate Killer Viruses

The biggest assumption of this entire scamdemic is that viruses are indiscriminate killers which can cross species and jump bodies through the air to infect people. In fact, the nature of the humble virus has been totally misunderstood by mainstream science, fueled by the Medical Industry which promotes germ theory and the myth of contagion to keep you in fear and to raise demand for its toxic products (Big Pharma petrochemical drugs and vaccines). Viruses have been demonized. As discussed in earlier articles such as Deep Down the Virus Rabbit Hole – Question Everything, virologist Dr. Stefan Lanka exposed the truth that viruses do not cause disease. Lanka famously won a 2017 Supreme Court in Germany where he proved that measles was not caused by a virus. Lanka writes:

“Since June 1954, the death of tissue and cells in a test tube has been regarded as proof for the existence of a virus … according to scientific logic and the rules of scientific conduct, control experiments should have been carried out … These control experiments have never been carried out by official science to this day. During the measles virus trial, I commissioned an independent laboratory to perform this control experiment and the result was that the tissues and cells die due to the laboratory conditions in the exact same way as when they come into contact with allegedly “infected” material.

In other words, the cells die of starvation and poisoning (since they are separated from energy and nutrients from the body, and since toxic antibiotics are injected into the cell culture), not from being infected by a virus. This great video presentation entitled Viral Misconceptions: The True Nature of Viruses is well worth watching. It outlines many stunning truths about the nature of viruses, such as:

– Viruses are created from within your cells; they do not come from outside the body

– They arise as a result of systemic toxicity, not because the body has been invaded by an external threat

– Viruses dissolve toxic matter when body tissue is too toxic for living bacteria or microbes to feed upon without being poisoned to death. Without viruses, the human body couldn’t achieve homeostasis and sustain itself in the face of systemic toxicity

– Viruses are very specific. They dissolve specific tissues in the body. They do this with the assistance of antibodies

– The more toxicity you have in your body, the more viral activity you will have

– The only vector transmission of a virus is through blood transfusion or vaccines; otherwise, viruses cannot infect you by jumping from one body to another

– Viruses are discriminatory by nature, made by the body for a specific purpose. They are not indiscriminate killers

– The RT-PCR test (PCR test for short) observes genetic material left over by the virus, not the virus itself (see assumption 2)

CONCLUSION: Time to Question all Your COVID Assumptions

The good news is that these are assumptions not facts. When you look closely, you will realize the entire official narrative on COVID is a house of cards built on sand. It cannot stand up to close scrutiny. This knowledge is the key to remaining sane and free in a COVID-crazed and brainwashed world. Spread the word. Evidence, information and knowledge will dispel assumptions and ignorance.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles, author of Cancer: The Lies, the Truth and the Solutions and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and Parler. His articles are regularly syndicated and featured on sites such as David Icke, Wake Up World, Activist Post, Waking Times, Global Research, The Sleuth Journal and many more.

SOURCE: Golden Age of Gaia

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Judge Rules Pennsylvania Governor’s Shutdown Orders Unconstitutional | The Epoch Times

A federal judge has struck down Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s CCP virus restrictions that required people to stay at home, put limits on gatherings, and ordered “non-life-sustaining” businesses to stay shut down.

U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV on Sept. 14 sided with plaintiffs that included drive-in movie theaters, hair salons, farmers markets, and several GOP officials who sued as individuals. Butler, Greene, Fayette, and Washington counties were also listed as plaintiffs.

Stickman’s judgment stipulates that “the congregate gathering limits imposed by defendants’ mitigation orders violate the right of assembly enshrined in the First Amendment,” the “stay-at-home and business closure components of defendants’ orders violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” and “the business closure components of Defendants’ orders violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The judge, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, argued that the actions taken by Wolf and Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, who are both Democrats, “were undertaken with the good intention of addressing a public health emergency,” but that “even in an emergency, the authority of government is not unfettered.”

“The liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms—in place when times are good but able to be cast aside in times of trouble,” Stickman said. “There is no question that this country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort.”

Stickman added that the solution to the crisis “can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment.”

Furthermore, he said, the Constitution “cannot accept the concept of a ‘new normal’ where the basic liberties of the people can be subordinated to open-ended emergency mitigation measures.”

Wolf has lifted a number of restrictions since the lawsuit was filed several months ago, allowing businesses to open again and canceling the statewide stay-at-home order. Pennsylvania also has a gathering limit of 25 people for events indoors and 250 for events outside.

Pennsylvania has reported that more than 145,000 people have contracted the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus since the beginning of the pandemic, while more than 7,800 have died.

Wolf’s spokesperson told The Associated Press that his office is reviewing the judge’s decision.

“It’s a complete and total victory for the counties, the businesses and the representatives,” said attorney Thomas W. King III, who represented the plaintiffs, as reported by Triblive. “You can’t order the entire population of Pennsylvania to stay at home.”

Source: The Epoch Times

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The Failed Experiment of COVID-19 Lockdowns: New data suggest that social distancing and reopening haven’t determined the spread | The Wall Street Journal

An empty downtown street amid the Covid-19 lockdown in Chicago, March 21

By Daniel L. Luskin

Six months into the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. has now carried out two large-scale experiments in public health—first, in March and April, the lockdown of the economy to arrest the spread of the virus, and second, since mid-April, the reopening of the economy. The results are in. Counterintuitive though it may be, statistical analysis shows that locking down the economy didn’t contain the disease’s spread and reopening it didn’t unleash a second wave of infections.

Considering that lockdowns are economically costly and create well-documented long-term public-health consequences beyond Covid, imposing them appears to have been a large policy error. At the beginning, when little was known, officials acted in ways they thought prudent. But now evidence proves that lockdowns were an expensive treatment with serious side effects and no benefit to society. 

TrendMacro, my analytics firm, tallied the cumulative number of reported cases of Covid-19 in each state and the District of Columbia as a percentage of population, based on data from state and local health departments aggregated by the Covid Tracking Project. We then compared that with the timing and intensity of the lockdown in each jurisdiction. That is measured not by the mandates put in place by government officials, but rather by observing what people in each jurisdiction actually did, along with their baseline behavior before the lockdowns. This is captured in highly detailed anonymized cellphone tracking data provided by Google and others and tabulated by the University of Maryland’s Transportation Institute into a “Social Distancing Index.”

Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown—which range from April 5 to April 18—it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger Covid outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns—the District of Columbia, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts—had the heaviest caseloads.

It could be that strict lockdowns were imposed as a response to already severe outbreaks. But the surprising negative correlation, while statistically weak, persists even when excluding states with the heaviest caseloads. And it makes no difference if the analysis includes other potential explanatory factors such as population density, age, ethnicity, prevalence of nursing homes, general health or temperature. The only factor that seems to make a demonstrable difference is the intensity of mass-transit use.

We ran the experiment a second time to observe the effects on caseloads of the reopening that began in mid-April. We used the same methodology, but started from each state’s peak of lockdown and extended to July 31. Confirming the first experiment, there was a tendency (though fairly weak) for states that opened up the most to have the lightest caseloads. The states that had the big summer flare-ups in the so-called “Sunbelt second wave”—Arizona, California, Florida and Texas—are by no means the most opened up, politicized headlines notwithstanding.

The lesson is not that lockdowns made the spread of Covid-19 worse—although the raw evidence might suggest that—but that lockdowns probably didn’t help, and opening up didn’t hurt. This defies common sense. In theory, the spread of an infectious disease ought to be controllable by quarantine. Evidently not in practice, though we are aware of no researcher who understands why not.

We’re not the only researchers to have discovered this statistical relationship. We first published a version of these findings in April, around the same time similar findings appeared in these pages. In July, a publication of the Lancet published research that found similar results looking across countries rather than U.S. states. “A longer time prior to implementation of any lockdown was associated with a lower number of detected cases,” the study concludes. Those findings have now been enhanced by sophisticated measures of actual social distancing, and data from the reopening phase.

There are experimental controls that all this research lacks. There are no observable instances in which there were either total lockdowns or no lockdowns at all. But there’s no escaping the evidence that, at minimum, heavy lockdowns were no more effective than light ones, and that opening up a lot was no more harmful than opening up a little. So where’s the science that would justify the heavy lockdowns many public-health officials are still demanding?

With the evidence we now possess, even the most risk-averse and single-minded public-health officials should hesitate before demanding the next lockdown and causing the next economic recession.

Mr. Luskin is chief investment officer of TrendMacro.

Source: The Wall Street Journal & TrendMacro

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The Lockdown Has Gone From a Mistake to a Crime | PJ Media

Editor’s Note: Johnny Freedom just finished this newly released expose’ of COVID-19 with pertinent facts to educate folks about this alleged viral “pandemic”, which as it turns out, wasn’t  what was initially projected. Instead, as we predicted months ago, the COVID-19 social engineering and psychological operation that lock downed much of the world, destroyed millions of businesses and livelihoods, put hundreds of millions at the risk of starvation, was done as a pretext for global regime change. Inform yourself, take off your masks and blindfolds and step into freedom once again. Get the real story and order your copy today (PDF or PRINT). $25 PRINT ORDER LINK: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=QCQQL3JUTVURE (Includes PDF with Live Links Via Email)

By Dennis Prager

Four months ago, I wrote a column titled “The Worldwide Lockdown May Be the Greatest Mistake in History.” I explained that “‘mistake’ and ‘evil’ are not synonyms. The lockdown is a mistake; the Holocaust, slavery, communism, fascism, etc., were evils. Massive mistakes are made by arrogant fools; massive evils are committed by evil people.”

Regarding the economic catastrophe in America and around the world — especially among the world’s poor who are dependent upon America and other first-world countries for their income through exports and tourism — I wrote, “It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus, that created this catastrophe.”

Unfortunately, I was right.

The world should have followed Sweden’s example. That country never locked down and has even kept children under 16 in school the entire time. As Reuters reported on July 15, the number of Swedish children between 1 and 19 years of age who have died of COVID-19 is zero. And the percentage of children who contracted the illness was the exact same in Sweden as it was in Finland, which locked down its schools.

As regards teachers, Sweden’s Public Health Agency reported that “a comparison of the incidence of COVID-19 in different professions suggested no increased risk for teachers.” Nevertheless, with few exceptions, teachers in Los Angeles and elsewhere refuse to enter a classroom that has students in it. Their disdain for their profession has been superseded only by that of the Los Angeles teachers union, which announced that teachers will not resume teaching until the police are defunded.

People who defend lockdowns and closing schools point out that Sweden has the eighth-highest death rate per million in the Western world. But, needless to say, this has no bearing at all on the issue of whether Sweden was right to keep schools open or whether our country was wrong to close them, let alone keep them closed now. The overwhelming majority of deaths from COVID-19 in Sweden were among people over 70 years of age, and most of those were people over 80 and with compromised immune systems.

Reuters reported that three separate studies, including one by UNICEF, “showed that Swedish children fared better than children in other countries during the pandemic, both in terms of education and mental health.”

For more than a month, Sweden has had almost no deaths from COVID-19 while the entire society remains open and almost no one wears masks. (In Holland, too, almost no one wears masks.) For all intents and purposes, the virus is over in Sweden.

I live in California, a state governed by that most dangerous of leaders: a fool with unlimited power. Despite the fact that California ranks 28th among the 50 states in deaths per million, Gov. Gavin Newsom has destroyed and continues to destroy tens of thousands of small businesses and untold numbers of livelihoods. His continuing to forbid — a half-year after the onset of the pandemic — indoor dining in restaurants is leading to a projected permanent closure of approximately 1 in every 3 restaurants in the state.

The same catastrophic destruction will likely affect retail businesses and services such as hair and nail salons. But all this human tragedy — not to mention increased depression and suicides among the young and increased abuse of children and partners — means nothing to Newsom, to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti or to the Los Angeles Times, whose editors and columnists continue to advocate for the lockdown while they receive their salaries.

Why can people eat with no mask in an airplane — inches, not six feet, from strangers — but cannot eat in a California restaurant, which is so much bigger than the inside of an airplane, while sitting six feet from others? Because Newsom ordered it, the Los Angeles Times supports it and, like sheep, Californians have accepted it.

According to the California Association of Museums, “Museums are losing over $22 million a day due to the statewide quarantine. As of August 1, 2020, California museums have lost more than $2.9 billion in revenue. Museums have a $6.55 billion financial impact on California’s economy, support 80,722 jobs, and generated $492 million in tax revenues for the State of California in 2017 and over $1 billion in federal taxes.”

And the American Alliance of Museums issued results from a survey on July 22, 2020, that warned 1 out of every 3 museums may shutter forever as funding sources and financial reserves run dry.

On Aug. 3, The Wall Street Journal wrote, “In March … There was broad public support for the prudent goals of preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed and buying scientists time to develop therapies.” But the left — the media and Democratic governors and mayors — immediately moved the goalposts to “bending the curve” and “saving one life,” enabling them to get away with destroying lives and livelihoods.

I conclude with the words of a Swedish medical doctor, Sebastian Rushworth:

“Covid is over in Sweden. People have gone back to their normal lives and barely anyone is getting infected any more. I am willing to bet that the countries that have shut down completely will see rates spike when they open up. If that is the case, then there won’t have been any point in shutting down in the first place … Shutting down completely in order to decrease the total number of deaths only makes sense if you are willing to stay shut down until a vaccine is available. That could take years. No country is willing to wait that long.”

The lockdown is a crime. But even more upsetting is that it is supported by so many Americans. This country is unrecognizable to those of us who lived through the 1968-1970 pandemic, which killed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 100,000 Americans — the 2020 equivalent of 170,000 Americans. Nothing shut down. Not one mask was worn.

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is “The Rational Bible,” a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, “No Safe Spaces,” will be released to home entertainment nationwide on Sept. 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

Source: PJ Media

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A 2020 Study Revealed: Unvaccinated Children are Healthier than Vaccinated Children | Webly

By James Herer 

On May this year, the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), a “medical and scientific collaborative established to provide research funding for independent studies on causal factors underlying the chronic disease and disability epidemic”, produced a report regarding the pilot study which appeared in the Journal of Translational Sciences. The study compared unvaccinated children (261 subjects) to partially or fully vaccinated (405 subjects) homeschooling kids and results concluded that the vaccinated were more likely to develop neuro-developmental disorders (NDD) and allergies. The nearly 700 subjects were “assessed based on their mothers’ reports of vaccinations and physician-diagnosed illnesses”.

Contrary to what the actual studies say, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) assure the public that vaccines are safe and effective and that all children should get vaccinated. But ironically, there are also instances that they tell the opposite; that they accept they have no real data to back that up, either short-term or long-term. 

This isn’t difficult to understand as these vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants and heavy metals (aluminum, mercury, etc.), plus formaldehyde and other chemicals and preservatives which usually have unknown health risk. In addition, there are also no real study figuring what could be the long-term effects of importing contaminants of DNA from fetal cells (aborted) to your body, and of various animal DNA and so-called retroviruses. Yet the WHO and other government agencies recommend “50 doses of 14 vaccines by age six, 69 doses of 16 pharmaceutical vaccines containing powerfully immune-altering ingredients by age 18”.

The CMSRI also reported:

“In the 80s, autism occurred one in 10,000 children; by the early 1990s, one in 2,500. Five years ago, one in 88 children were diagnosed. And today it is one in 68. In the homeschooler study, the risk of being diagnosed on the spectrum was more than four-fold higher among vaccinated children (OR 4.3). The CDC still quotes a 2004 Pediatrics study claiming to debunk a link between autism and vaccines even though one of its authors, their own top scientist William Thompson, admitted that he and colleagues colluded to obscure and then shred data (he kept copies) showing a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Thompson confessed in one taped telephone chat to Brian Hooker, a bioengineer professor at Simpson University and the father of an autistic child.”

Meanwhile, vaccineinjury.uk reported that:

“The UK Government has paid out about £73million to nearly 1000 children and adults, representing 1 in 8 claimants who were minimum 60% injured by a vaccine between 1979-2014. Vaccines have been accepted by most governments to cause a multitude of devastating injuries, including brain damage, seizure disorders, deafness, Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and death.”

In addition to these disturbing likely outcomes, here is more worrisome finding:

“Allergic rhinitis (hay fever) is another one of those current inexplicably soaring pediatric plagues; in 2012, it affected 6.6 million children. It is strongly associated with another spiking childhood disorder, asthma. More than three million American kids have a food allergy and one in four children have eczema. Worldwide, allergies have been increasing and they now affect almost half of all American school kids. All this allergic disease was leading to more medication. The vaccinated children in the study were 22-fold more likely to have taken allergy medicine than the unvaccinated.”

Meanwhile, deeprootsathome.com concluded in their report:

“…in spite of public health hysteria over outbreaks of measles at Disneyland and mumps resurgence, there was no evidence that vaccinated children were any more protected against these so-called “vaccine-preventable diseases”. Children in both groups had about the same rates of infection with measles, mumps, Hepatitis A and B, influenza, rotavirus and meningitis (both viral and bacterial. Unvaccinated children in the study were actually better protected against some “vaccine-preventable diseases” than children who got the shots. Since 2000, the CDC has recommended four shots against seven different strains of pneumococcal infections before age 15 months (13 strains since 2010), but vaccinated children in the study were 340 percent more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia compared to unvaccinated children.”

If this isn’t frightening enough, it might be more helpful to the public to hear that earlier this year, there was another new peer-reviewed study comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children. The results concluded that “unvaccinated children have better health outcomes than their vaccinated peers within the conditions examined”. It showed that vaccination before one year of age “led to significantly increased odds of medical diagnoses of developmental delays, asthma and ear infections in children”. The study was done in three U.S. medical practices and showed that unvaccinated kids are less-susceptible to diseases and infections. Based on medical records of over 2000 children, born between November 2005 and June 2015, the study followed the subjects incessantly for a minimum of three years from birth. The vaccination status of the subjects “was determined based on any vaccination received prior to one year of age which yielded 30.9% of the children in the unvaccinated group”.

According to the press release:

“The study, coauthored by Dr. Brian Hooker and Mr. Neil Miller, is unique in that all diagnoses were verified using abstracted medical records from each of the participating pediatric practices. Lead author of the study, Dr. Hooker, stated, “The results definitely indicate better health outcomes among the conditions studied in children who did not receive vaccines within their first year of life. These findings are consistent with additional research that has identified vaccination as a risk factor for a variety of adverse health outcomes. Such findings merit additional large-scale study of vaccinated and unvaccinated children in order to provide optimal health as well as protection against infectious diseases.”

Read the full report of the 2020 study here:

Additional references:

Source: Weblyf

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Plandemic: InDOCTORnation World Film Premiere | Digital Freedom Platform

Screen Shot 2020-08-24 at 4.18.21 PMThe Digital Freedom Platform by London Real exclusively livestreamed what might be the most important documentary you will ever see: PLANDEMIC – INDOCTORNATION.

Created by the team behind the game-changing Plandemic video segment from Mikki Willis featuring Dr. Judy Mikovits that went viral and was banned on every major social media platform for exposing the truth about Covid-19, this new FEATURE LENGTH PIECE which is the most revelatory film on what is driving the vaccine agenda, the various roles of the WHO, Bill Gates, Tedros Adhanom, Anthony Fauci and more.

Going deep into what is really happening with mainstream media, Silicon Valley tech giants, big pharma and our health protection agencies, Mikki’s new film finally connects the dots… And we are excited to be able to share this with you…

We believe that this film will fundamentally shift the discourse around Coronavirus, the lockdown and the vested interests involved.

Source: Freedom Platform & London Real

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Trump Announces Emergency Authorization of Convalescent Plasma for CCP Virus | The Epoch Times

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-BRIEFING

US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 13, 2020. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump announced Sunday night the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma to treat the CCP virus.

“I’m pleased to make a truly historic announcement … that will save thousands of lives,” Trump said, describing it as a “breakthrough in a fight” against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Trump announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made an emergency use authorization of convalescent plasma for the virus, saying it is “safe and very effective.” He said the treatment will reduce mortality from the virus by about 35 percent.

Convalescent plasma treatments use blood from COVID-19 patients who have recovered and built antibodies against the virus. Doctors then infuse the plasma into people to prevent severe symptoms of the virus, says the Mayo Clinic, which is researching the treatment.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called on Americans to donate plasma to help battle the COVID-19 pandemic. He described the 35 percent death reduction rate from the treatment as a “major breakthrough.”

Emergency authorization is not full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, but it suggests that the agency believes the benefits of the therapy outweigh the risks. Antiviral drug remdesivir is another medication approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus that emerged last year in mainland China.

According to the FDA’s website, “Although promising, convalescent plasma has not yet been shown to be safe and effective as a treatment for COVID-19. Therefore, it is important to study the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 convalescent plasma in clinical trials.”

Convalescent plasma has been used since the 19th century to treat a variety of illnesses including chickenpox, Diptheria, and the flu. Namely, it was used to combat the Spanish flu pandemic from 1918 to 1920 that killed tens of millions of people.

“With plasma we’re leveraging the body’s amazing ability to develop antibodies and immunity to pathogens,” Stony Brook Medicine researcher Elliott Bennett-Guerrero, who is studying the use of this convalescent plasma in virus patients, told The Verge several months ago.

He added: “We transfer those protective factors to people who are sick and haven’t been able to mount an immune response.”

“I hear great things about it … that’s all I can tell you,” Trump recently said during White House briefing, referring to convalescent plasma therapy. “It could be a political decision because you have a lot of people over there who don’t want to rush things because they want to do it after November 3, and you’ve heard that one before.”

On Saturday, Trump said that someone at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics,” adding that “obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives.”

His remarks were rebuked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“The FDA has a responsibility to approve drugs, judging on their safety and their efficacy, not by a declaration from the White House about speed and politicizing the FDA,” Pelosi said in a news conference, reported The Hill.

Source: The Epoch Times

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CHD Holds Press Conference with Legal Team and Plaintiff in Lawsuit Against Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Three of Facebook’s So-Called “Fact-Checkers” | Collective Evolution

external-content.duckduckgoChildren’s Health Defense (CHD) filed a lawsuit on Monday, August 17, 2020 in San Francisco Federal Court charging Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and three fact-checking outfits with censoring truthful public health posts and for fraudulently misrepresenting and defaming CHD. CHD is a non-profit watchdog group that roots out corruption in federal agencies, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and exposes wrongdoings in the Pharmaceutical and Telecom industries. CHD has been a frequent critic of WiFi and 5G Network safety and of certain vaccine policies that CHD claims put Big Pharma profits ahead of public health. CHD has fiercely criticized agency corruption at WHO, CDC and FCC.

According to CHD’s Complaint, Facebook has insidious conflicts with the Pharmaceutical industry and its captive health agencies and has economic stakes in telecom and 5G. Facebook currently censors CHD’s page, targeting its purge against factual information about vaccines, 5G and public health agencies.

Facebook acknowledges that it coordinates its censorship campaign with the WHO and the CDC. While earlier court decisions have upheld Facebook’s right to censor its pages, CHD argues that Facebook’s pervasive government collaborations make its censorship of CHD a First Amendment violation. The government’s role in Facebook’s censorship goes deeper than its close coordination with CDC and WHO. The Facebook censorship began at the suggestion of powerful Democratic Congressman and Intelligence Committee Chairman Representative Adam Schiff, who in March 2019 asked Facebook to suppress and purge internet content critical of government vaccine policies. Facebook and Schiff use the term “misinformation” as a euphemism for any statement, whether truthful or not, that contradicts official government pronouncements. The WHO issued a press release commending Facebook for coordinating its ongoing censorship campaign with public health officials. That same day, Facebook published a “warning label” on CHD’s page, which implies that CHD’s content is inaccurate, and directs CHD followers to turn to the CDC for “reliable, up to date information.” This is an important First Amendment case that tests the boundaries of government authority to openly censor unwanted critique of government

Attorneys Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Roger Teich, and Mary Holland represent Children’s Health Defense in the litigation.

The lawsuit also challenges Facebook’s use of so-called “independent fact-checkers” – which, in truth, are neither independent nor fact-based – to create oppositional content on CHD’s page, literally superimposed over CHD’s original content, about open matters of scientific controversy. To further silence CHD’s dissent against important government policies and its critique of Pharmaceutical products, Facebook deactivated CHD’s donate button, and uses a variety of deceptive technology (i.e. shadow banning) to minimize the reach and visibility of CHD’s content.  In short, Facebook and the government colluded to silence CHD and its followers. Such tactics are fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment, which guarantees the American public the benefits to democracy from free flow of information in the marketplace of ideas. It forbids the government from censoring private speech—particularly speech that criticizes government policies or officials. As Justice Holmes famously said, “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” The current COVID pandemic makes the need for open and fierce public debate on health issues more critical than ever.

Mark Zuckerberg publicly claims that social media platforms shouldn’t be “the arbiters of truth.” This case exposes Zuckerberg for working with the government to suppress and purge unwanted critiques of government officials and policies.

The court will decide whether Facebook’s new government-directed business model of false and misleading “warning labels,” deceptive “fact-checks,” and disabling a non-profit’s donate button, passes muster under the First and Fifth Amendments, the Lanham Act, and RICO. Those statutes protect CHD against online wire-fraud, false disparagement, and knowingly false statements.

CHD asks the Court to declare Facebook’s actions unconstitutional and fraudulent, and award injunctive relief and damages.

Source: Collective Evolution & Children’s Health Defense

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Dawning of the Corona Age: Navigating the Pandemic by Johnny Freedom | Liberty International


Author’s Note: Five months of intensive research, collating 670 research and news sources, are compacted in this succinct, readable and entertaining 167-page compendium about the “pandemic”. It provides a comprehensive overview for those with an open mind, still willing to learn, to expand perspectives far beyond media tidbits. This is the Dawning of the Corona Age. 

May we remove our masks – and blindfolds – to take notice of what is actually rapidly happening around us to navigate how we can still “live free in an unfree world”.

This newly released book is dedicated to You. Thank you for educating yourself, “thinking twice before you think”, calmly sharing your insights, acting wisely and thereby reclaiming authority over your life! Enjoy the first chapter of thirty-two below. 

“A compelling exploration far beyond the immediate impacts of the “pandemic”, Dawning of the Corona Age imagines how our human world may be altered long into an uncertain future. “

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THE PANDEMIC:
Season 1, Episode 1 

1. Preface & Introduction

Like a television series straight out of science fiction films, such as, V for Vendetta, Pandemic and The Matrix, the mainstream media narrative relentlessly broadcast at “We the People” seemed at first as surreal and as strange as an episode of The Twilight Zone. 

Now, suddenly, and apparently without warning, we are living in a strange hybrid between George Orwell’s novel 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and The Matrix. Science fiction has now become real.

George Orwell wisely observed that, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” In 1958, Aldous Huxley warned that, “Pharmacology and propaganda will make the masses love their slavery. As the world is forced into accepting greater and greater levels of government control in all areas of life, remember that nothing in politics happens by chance. There is a science to creating empires.” 

As  the lead character Orpheus revealed in The Matrix film, “The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”

These perspectives reflect a deeper sense of what may be happening in our world today. For those open-minded enough to consider the truth as more important than convention and its lies, that sobriety is more essential than distorted states of consciousness, that the Earth and all of its natural wonders are more beautiful than any virtual reality, this book may just break open the possibility of a transformation of our understanding of this “pandemic”. 

In truth, this may be the “crowning” of a “new age” of consciousness emerging from the rubble of an old world dying around us. A “Corona” age may very well be on the horizon if we act from a higher understanding of our own existence as true human beings instead of from our limited perspectives of material existence.

For those with the courage to question authority, to question even our present sense of reality, this book is for you.

“Do not believe in what you have heard; do not blindly believe in traditions just because they have been handed down for many generations; do not believe in anything just because it is rumored and spoken by many; do not believe merely because a written statement of some old sage is produced; do not believe in conjectures; do not believe in that as truth to which you have become attached from habit; do not believe merely
the authority of your teachers and elders,
or news sources or books.

Question all authorities and truisms.

Decide for yourself what is the veracity of your perceptions.
Ponder what is not true. Even more so, ponder what is true, deeply and continuously.”
~ Buddha

$10 PDF ORDER LINK: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=H7ZVUNGC58QE2

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THE PANDEMIC: COVID-19, Season 1, Episode 1

  1. DumbedDownPreface and Introduction (PDF)
  2. Seven Known Strains of Coronavirus (PDF)
  3. COVID-19 Did Not Naturally Occur By Animal to Human Contact
  4. China’s COVID-19 Coverup
  5. Faulty Computer Simulations & Projections
  6. Skepticism of Mainstream Narratives & Projections
  7. Herd/Individual Immunity, Lockdowns & Quarantines
  8. The Immune System is Your Primary Defense
  9. How Contagious is COVID-19?
  10. “Exosomes” as a Natural Release of the Human Body
  11. Masks or No Masks?
  12. Invalid Testing & Inconclusive Diagnosis for COVID-19
  13. Inflated Death Rates & Asymptomatic Cases
  14. Hydroxychloroquine is an Effective Treatment
  15. Emerging & Effective Treatment Protocols
  16. Questioning the Need, Safety & Efficacy of a Vaccine for COVID-19
  17. Dangers of Vaccines Laced with Toxic Materials
  18. Germ Theory is the Wrong Approach, Look to the Biome

THE LOCKDOWN: Season 1, Episode 2

  1. CoronaWorldInternational, National & State Declarations of Emergency
  2. COVID-19 & The 5G Factor
  3. Total Surveillance State & The Right to Privacy
  4. Legal Authorities for U.S. Public Health Officials & State Governors
  5. Stimulus Bills Are Fast Tracks to Socialism & U.S. Bankruptcy
  6. Chinese Coverup & Propaganda
  7. Undeclared War Between China & United States
  8. Global Goals of the Pandemic
  9. The New World Order
  10. Big Pharma Funding Regulatory Agencies Providing Oversight & Developing Public Policy
  11. Internet Censorship & Medical Fascism
  12. The Global Health Protection Racket
  13. The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be

THE CORONA AGE: 2020 & BEYOND, Season 2

  1. BecomeEnlightenedDawning of the Corona Age

APPENDIX

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Public Health Legal Authorities to Collect, Use, Share, and Protect Information | ASTHO

FlaginSunlightOverview

Public health agencies need to collect, use, and share information to prevent disease and injury and protect the public against natural, accidental, and intentional health threats. Various federal and state laws may impact public health activities regarding such information.

Public health agencies may collect and maintain information that identifies an individual or is sensitive in nature, such as information about communications systems or detailed emergency response plans. In these situations, freedom of information (FOI) laws establish parameters for information that must be shared, upon request, and that which may be exempted from public disclosure. In applying the laws, public health agencies may need to juggle competing interests and balance individual privacy against the need to protect or inform the public.

Public health agencies face additional challenges when sharing information with law enforcement, especially when conducting a joint investigation where a public health threat may involve criminal activity. (See ASTHO Public Health Collection, Use, Sharing and Protection of Information Issue Brief  and Authorities and Limitations in Sharing Information Between Public Health Agencies and Law Enforcement Issue Brieffor detailed analyses of issues and law.) (Download a printable PDF.)

Constitutional Considerations

Generally, state and local public health agencies have broad and flexible authority to protect the public health. However, the exercise of governmental power has limits. The United States Constitution contains a Bill of Rights1 that sets out individual liberties and protects individuals from the arbitrary use of governmental power. These rights may impact public health collection and sharing of information.

Right to Privacy
The Constitution provides a limited right to privacy, including “informational privacy.”2 State laws that require reporting of or public health agency access to identifiable information are permissible when they are reasonably directed to the preservation of health and properly respect a patient’s confidentiality and privacy.3

Right Against Unreasonable Search and Seizure
With the owner’s permission,4 public health agencies may enter or search the premises of an individual or business, take biological specimens or environmental samples for testing, copy records, and remove evidence that might be relevant to a public health concern. However, absent consent or the applicability of another exception, public health agencies must comply with requirements in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment requires that a warrant be obtained, based upon probable cause, to search someone’s premises or seize their property. The Fourth Amendment applies to both criminal investigations and health and safety inspections and investigations.5 In addition to consent, other exceptions to the warrant and probable cause requirement might apply to public health inspections and investigations, including searches of pervasively regulated businesses,6searches of premises or items open to the public,7 and searches based on exigent circumstances if delay is likely to lead to injury, public harm, or the destruction of evidence.8

Right Against Self-Incrimination
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination prevents the government from forcing an individual to be a witness against himself or herself during trial or a custodial interrogation. If an individual is not informed of his or her right against self-incrimination, the individual’s statements and evidence obtained as a result of these statements may be suppressed in criminal proceedings. This right may arise when a public health incident involves criminal activity, especially when law enforcement and public health investigators are conducting joint interviews or public health agencies assist law enforcement to gather evidence.9

Practice Notes

  • Identify information to be obtained or shared.
  • Identify the purpose for which the information is needed.
  • Determine whether this is the minimum necessary for the purpose or whether de-identified information will serve the purpose.
  • Identify sources for the information, such as healthcare providers, schools, other businesses, and individuals.
  • Identify applicable federal or state laws.
  • Determine and meet conditions or requirements for obtaining or sharing information; in some situations, an individual’s consent may avoid legal issues when disclosing private information.
  • If privacy protections prevent disclosures necessary to protect the public, consult with counsel to identify relevant legal responsibilities, evaluate competing moral claims, and document determined course of action.

State Constitutions
State constitutions, along with court decisions that interpret state constitutions, must be reviewed to identify individual rights that exceed the U.S. Constitution. State constitutions may be sources of additional provisions that govern information sharing; for example, some constitutions define individual privacy rights or cover the public’s right to obtain governmental records.

State Statutes

Generally, state law governs state and local public health agencies’ authority and responsibilities regarding collection, use, disclosure, and protection of information. State laws vary in nature and scope. Authority may be based on general statutes, such as public health laws that grant public health agencies communicable disease control authority. Specific laws may also apply.

Case Reporting
These laws mandate that healthcare providers, laboratories, and others report specific communicable diseases and other illness of public health concern. Reporting requirements vary by state, and may also include poisonings, chemical or radiological exposures, suspected acts of terrorism, and other conditions.

Syndromic Surveillance
State laws may require or authorize reporting to electronic syndromic surveillance systems of information that is routinely gathered in emergency rooms or other places that may indicate an emerging disease or other public health threat before confirmed diagnoses are made.

Investigatory Authority
State laws may specifically grant public health agencies authority to conduct investigations and gather evidence, or such authority may arise from general statutory powers. State laws may also establish procedures for obtaining warrants to search the premises of an individual or business and seize evidence related to a public health threat.

Privacy Provisions
Public health or other laws may contain provisions to protect the confidentiality of information that identifies an individual and to limit its disclosure by public health agencies. Exceptions may be provided, for example, for disclosing information to other agencies, law enforcement, or the public when necessary to protect the public’s health.

Freedom of Information
All states have laws that require information held by governmental agencies to be provided upon request. FOI laws promote transparency and accountability of governments, facilitate consumers’ ability to make informed choices, and safeguard citizens against mismanagement and corruption. Public health agencies—like other governmental agencies—need to be sensitive to these important considerations in responding to FOI requests. At the same time, these laws may create challenges for public health agencies with regard to requests for private information about individuals or sensitive information, such as information that is preliminary, incomplete, or might present a national or state security risk. FOI laws include exemptions that may allow public health agencies to withhold private or sensitive information under certain circumstances. These exemptions vary among states in nature, scope, and prerequisites for denying disclosure.

Federal Statutes

Federal laws that impact collection, use, disclosure, and protection of information by public health agencies include, but are not limited to, the following.

HIPAA Privacy Rule
The Privacy Rule10 adopted under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)11 established national privacy protections for individually identifiable health information. The Privacy Rule may apply to healthcare providers or others that provide information to public health agencies. Depending on a public health agency’s organization, the Privacy Rule may apply to a public health agency when it discloses individually identifiable information. The Privacy Rule is not intended to interfere with public health functions and contains provisions that allow public health agencies to collect identifiable health information and disclose it, including to law enforcement, when authorized by law or when necessary to protect the public from an imminent threat.

FERPA
Privacy protections established by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)12 limit information that schools may provide to public health agencies about students. However, exceptions allow schools to provide certain directory information, such as student name and contact information, and necessary information to appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies.13

Surveillance Data Systems
Various federal laws, such as the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002,14 establish surveillance data systems that allow collection of information provided by state and local governmental agencies and integration of federal, state, and local data systems.

Critical Infrastructure
Confidentiality requirements apply to federal disclosure of certain information to state or local governmental agencies related to critical infrastructure and supplies and resources to protect the public’s health. For example, federal law protects the confidentiality of information voluntarily provided by the private sector to the federal government regarding vaccine tracking and distribution15 and information about critical infrastructure.16 Although the federal government may share this information with state and local government and agencies, those agencies must protect its confidentiality.

Practice Resource

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press provides the Open Government Guide at http://www.rcfp.org/open-government-guide, which is a complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws. Each state’s section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states.

Sources

  1. U.S. Const., Amds 1-10.
  2. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977).
  3. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977); Planned Parenthood of Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976).
  4. Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248 (1991).
  5. Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967) (search of residences); See v. City of Seattle, 387 US 541 (1967) (search of commercial property).
  6. New York v. Burger, 482 US 691 (1987).
  7. Gostin LO. Public Health Law – Power, Duty, Restraint. (2008), p 468, 699-700. See endnotes 57-58.
  8. Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499 (1978).
  9. Richards, EP. “Collaboration between Public Health and Law Enforcement: The Constitutional Challenge. Emerging Infectious Diseases.” Available at http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/10/02-0465_article.htm. Accessed 11-15-2012. Goodman, R.A., Munson, JW, Dammer, K., Lazzarini, Z., and Barkely JP. “Forensic Epidemiology: Law at the Intersection of Public Health and Criminal Investigations.” Journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. Available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14968670. Accessed on 2-7-2013.
  10. 45 C.F.R. Parts 160 and 164.
  11. Pub. L. 104-191, 42 U.S.C. § 300gg et seq.
  12. Pub. L. 93-380, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, implemented by 34 C.F.R. Part 99.
  13. 34 C.F.R. § 99.31.
  14. Pub. L. 107-188, 42 U.S.C. 300hh et seq.
  15. Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. § 247d-1.
  16. Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107-296, 6 U.S.C. 131 et seq., which is part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

Note: This document was compiled from April–November 2012 and reflects the laws and programs current then. It reflects only portions of the laws relevant to public health emergencies and is not intended to be exhaustive of all relevant legal authority. This resource is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional legal or other advice. The document was funded by CDC Award No. 1U38HM000454 to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials; Subcontractor Subcontractor University of Michigan School of Public Health, Network for Public Health Law – Mid-States Region.

Source: ASTHO