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Corporate Corruption Media Articles

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Toxicologists Find 829 Chemicals in Everyday Items May Cause Breast Cancer
2024-01-10, Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/toxicologists-chemicals-hormones-breast-cancer-1859190

Common consumer products may contain hundreds of chemicals that could increase our risk of developing breast cancer, scientists have warned. While some chemicals are known to directly cause cancer, many others indirectly promote the cancer by increasing our susceptibility to the establishment and growth of certain tumors. Breast cancer occurs when cells in the breast tissue grow out of control. Among the many risk factors associated with this disease is over-exposure to estrogen, progesterone and hormonal disruption. And it's not just hormonal contraception that can influence our body's hormone levels; numerous synthetic chemicals have been shown to disrupt our hormones, with potential impacts on our risk of developing various diseases. "Breast cancer is a hormonal disease, so the fact that so many chemicals can alter estrogen and progesterone is concerning," Jennifer Kay, a research scientist at Silent Spring Institute, said. In a new study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, Kay and colleagues searched through multiple international and U.S. government databases to identify chemicals that had been found to cause mammary tumors in animals. In total, the team identified 921 chemicals that could potentially promote the development of breast cancer, 90 percent—or 829—of which are commonly included in consumer products, food, drinks, pesticides, medications and workplaces.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


The New Space Race Is Causing New Pollution Problems
2024-01-09, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/science/rocket-pollution-spacex-satellites...

In the past few years, the number of rocket launches has spiked as commercial companies — especially SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk — and government agencies have lofted thousands of satellites into low-Earth orbit. And it is only the beginning. Satellites could eventually total one million, requiring an even greater number of space launches that could yield escalating levels of emissions. Scientists worry that more launches will scatter more pollutants in pristine layers of Earth’s atmosphere. And regulators across the globe, who assess some risks of space launches, do not set rules related to pollution. Experts say they do not want to limit the booming space economy. But they fear that ... we may understand the consequences of pollution from rockets and spacecraft only when it is too late. Already, studies show that the higher reaches of the atmosphere are laced with metals from spacecraft that disintegrate as they fall back to Earth. In a paper published in 2022, soot from rockets was shown to be nearly 500 times as efficient at heating the atmosphere as soot released from sources like airplanes closer to the surface. A separate study also published in 2022 found that if the rate of rocket launches increased by a factor of 10, their emissions could cause temperatures in parts of the stratosphere to rise as much as 2 degrees Celsius. This could begin to degrade the ozone over most of North America, all of Europe and a chunk of Asia.

Note: The risks posed by satellites expand beyond emissions. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on climate change from reliable major media sources.


Bottled water contains thousands of nanoplastics so small they can invade the body’s cells, study says
2024-01-08, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/health/bottled-water-nanoplastics-study-wellne...

Researchers have discovered bottled water sold in stores can contain 10 to 100 times more bits of plastic than previously estimated — nanoparticles so infinitesimally tiny they cannot be seen under a microscope. At 1,000th the average width of a human hair, nanoplastics are so teeny they can migrate through the tissues of the digestive tract or lungs into the bloodstream, distributing potentially harmful synthetic chemicals throughout the body and into cells. One liter of water — the equivalent of two standard-size bottled waters — contained an average of 240,000 plastic particles from seven types of plastics, of which 90% were identified as nanoplastics and the rest were microplastics. Microplastics are polymer fragments that can range from less than 0.2 inch (5 millimeters) down to 1/25,000th of an inch (1 micrometer). Anything smaller is a nanoplastic that must be measured in billionths of a meter. The new finding reinforces long-held expert advice to drink tap water from glass or stainless steel containers to reduce exposure. In the new study, published ... in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Columbia University presented a new technology that can see, count and analyze the chemical structure of nanoparticles in bottled water. Nanoplastics ... can invade individual cells and tissues in major organs, potentially interrupting cellular processes and depositing endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.


We’re being censored, claim victims of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine
2024-01-06, The Telegraph (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/06/were-being-censored-victims-of-as...

Victims who suffered life-changing injuries from the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine say they have faced censorship on social media when trying to discuss their symptoms. The UK-based pharmaceutical giant is being sued in the High Court in a test case by a father-of-two who suffered a significant permanent brain injury as a result of a blood clot after receiving the jab in spring 2021. A second claim is also being brought by the widower and two young children of a woman who died after having the jab. Some who have experienced serious adverse reactions from the AstraZeneca vaccine ... have been given “warnings” on social media websites such as Facebook when trying to talk to one another about their experiences. They say they are being forced to “self censor” and speak in code to avoid having their support groups shut down. In one instance, YouTube attempted to censor a video of testimony given by lawyers to the Covid Inquiry about vaccines, flagging the clip as a violation of its “medical misinformation policy”. UK CV Family, a private Facebook group with 1.2k members for people left injured or bereaved from Covid vaccines, was started in November 2021 by Charlet Crichton after she suffered an adverse reaction from the AstraZeneca jab. Facebook blocked Ms Crichton from commenting at one stage “to prevent misuse” and there were occasions where her account was temporarily banned because her “activity didn’t follow our community standards”.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government COVID vaccines and media manipulation from reliable sources.


Sidney Wolfe, fierce critic of Big Pharma and FDA, dead at 86
2024-01-02, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2024/01/02/business/sidney-wolfe-fierce-critic-of-drug-com...

Sidney M. Wolfe, an American physician turned activist who relentlessly lobbied against drug companies and the US Food and Drug Administration, died on Monday in his Washington home. He was 86. Wolfe ... co-founded the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, which “promotes research-based, system-wide changes in health-care policy and drug safety,” according to the group’s website. He also served as the director and senior adviser of the non-profit, where he crusaded against FDA rulings on more than two dozen dangerous or ineffective drugs until they were yanked off the market. In an op-ed published in HuffPost in 2011, Wolfe ridiculed the FDA for being “cautious on food safety — reckless on prescription drug safety.” The banned medicines include the diabetes drug phenformin, which was linked to hundreds of deaths and sold under the trade names DBI and Meltrol in the US for 20 years. Wolfe was also responsible for the banning of the anti-inflammatory Vioxx ... which he warned caused serious heart damage years before it was taken off the market — as well as the anti-diarrheal alosetron. His group also successfully petitioned federal regulators to include a warning on aspirin bottles about Reye’s syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal condition that causes swelling in the liver and brain. In addition, Wolfe was a fierce foe of silicone gel-filled breast implants for breast augmentation and reconstruction surgeries, claiming in the 1980s that they cause cancer.

Note: Read the full remembrance of Dr. Sidney Wolfe’s legacy. His leadership helped remove 28 dangerous medications off the market, and paved the way for “vital and path-breaking research and advocacy on doctor discipline, mental health, tobacco, pharmaceutical marketing, drug company payments to doctors, medical devices, health insurance and the imperative of Medicare for All, unnecessary Cesarean sections, unregulated supplements, medical resident work hours, and more.” For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.


Journalism profession has ‘lost its way’ — and it’s not just the New York Times
2024-01-01, The Hill
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4380053-journalism-profession-has-lost-i...

The former opinion editor of the New York Times, James Bennet, took his former employer to task recently in a lengthy essay. The headline of the piece boldly asserted that the New York Times has “lost its way.” Inasmuch as the newspaper represents professional expectations and standards for the entire journalism world, Bennet could be translated as saying the broader news industry has also lost its way. The Times is just the largest float at the front of a parade heading in the wrong direction. Public sentiment about the news industry as a whole is at dismal levels. Gallup polling shows Americans’ confidence in the news media to report in a “full, fair and accurate way” is at historically low levels. Given this lack of trust, it only stands to reason that Americans are less likely to follow the news at all. There is no need to consume news from sources one can’t trust. Journalists rank near the bottom of public ratings of professions in terms of ethics and honesty. Activism has replaced journalism’s former mission to provide fact-based information on which citizens can manage their lives and hold the powerful accountable. Of course, opinion and analysis have always been a part of journalism. But there has long been a sense in the journalism profession that such activist content was to be confined to designated sections, and that the news was to be fact-driven and balanced. Fairness is a skill that journalists once prided themselves on achieving.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of revealing news articles on media corruption from reliable sources.


The Military Industrial Complex Scam
2023-12-30, LA Progressive
https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/military-industrial-complex-scam

In the past 20 years, every major US foreign policy objective has failed. The Taliban returned to power after 20 years of US occupation of Afghanistan. Post-Saddam Iraq became dependent on Iran. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad stayed in power despite a CIA effort to overthrow him. Libya fell into a protracted civil war after a US-led NATO mission overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. Ukraine was bludgeoned on the battlefield by Russia in 2023 after the US secretly scuttled a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. Despite these remarkable and costly debacles ... the same cast of characters has remained at the helm of US foreign policy for decades. American foreign policy is not at all about the interests of the American people. It is about the interests of the Washington insiders, as they chase campaign contributions and lucrative jobs. In short, US foreign policy has been hacked by big money. To understand the foreign-policy scam, think of today’s federal government as a multi-division racket controlled by the highest bidders. The Wall Street division is run out of the Treasury. The Health Industry division is run out of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Big Oil and Coal division is run out of the Departments of Energy and Interior. And the Foreign Policy division is run out of the White House, Pentagon and CIA. Each division uses public power for private gain through insider dealing, greased by corporate campaign contributions and lobbying outlays.

Note: War profiteering is an old game. General Smedley Butler wrote War is a Racket in 1935. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war and government corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.


New Spin on a Revolving Door: Pentagon Officials Turned Venture Capitalists
2023-12-30, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/us/politics/pentagon-venture-capitalists.html

The high-stakes world of Pentagon lobbying is being altered by the rise of defense technology startups. Retiring generals and departing top Pentagon officials once migrated regularly to the big established weapons makers like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Now they are increasingly flocking to venture capital firms that have collectively pumped billions of dollars into Silicon Valley-style startups offering the Pentagon new war-fighting tools like autonomous killer drones, hypersonic jets and space surveillance equipment. The New York Times has identified at least 50 former Pentagon and national security officials, most of whom left the federal government in the last five years, who are now working in defense-related venture capital or private equity as executives or advisers. In many cases, The Times confirmed that they continued to interact regularly with Pentagon officials or members of Congress to push for policy changes or increases in military spending that could benefit firms they have invested in. Pentagon procurement officials confirmed that they had repeatedly met with former Defense Department officials who are now venture capitalists. They said recommendations pushed by the venture capitalists had played a role in changes they are making in the way they acquire technology. In the last four years, at least $125 billion of venture capital has flooded into startups that build defense technology ... compared with $43 billion in the prior four years.

Note: If you can't access the above article, here's an alternate link. Learn more about arms industry corruption in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Meet the Companies Profiting From Israel’s War on Gaza
2023-12-21, ScheerPost
https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/21/meet-the-companies-profiting-from-israels-w...

As of Wednesday, a U.S.-based Quaker group’s online database listed over two dozen companies profiting from the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have spent the last 10 weeks waging what experts call a “genocidal” war that sent defense stocks soaring. Backed by $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States, Israel declared war on October 7 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza. “The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without massive weapon transfers from the U.S.,” said Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Boeing, the world’s fifth-largest weapon manufacturer, makes F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters used by the Israeli forces, as well as “multiple types of unguided small diameter bombs (SDBs) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits” that have been used “extensively” during the war. Caterpillar’s armored D9 bulldozers ... have been crucial in the Israeli military’s ground invasion. Other companies on the list include weapons giants such as General Dynamics, General Electric, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX—formerly Raytheon—as well as vehicle companies AM General, Ford, Oshkosh, Toyota, and drone manufacturers AeroVironment, Skydio, and XTEND.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.


Poison centers see nearly 1,500% increase in calls related to injected weight-loss drugs as people accidentally overdose
2023-12-18, CNN News
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/health/semaglutide-overdoses-wellness/inde...

Poison control centers across the US say they are seeing a steep increase in calls related to semaglutide, an injected medication used for diabetes and weight loss, with some people reporting symptoms related to accidental overdoses. Some have even needed to be hospitalized for severe nausea, vomiting and stomach pain, but their cases seem to have resolved after they were given intravenous fluids and medications to control nausea. From January through November, the America’s Poison Centers reports nearly 3,000 calls involving semaglutide, an increase of more than 15-fold since 2019. In 94% of calls, this medication was the only substance reported. In most of the calls, people reported dosing errors, said Dr. Kait Brown, clinical managing director of the association. “Oftentimes, it’s a person who maybe accidentally took a double dose or took the wrong dose,” Brown said. Semaglutide was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2017. It is sold as Ozempic when used for diabetes and Wegovy when used for weight loss. Even when used as directed by a doctor, people can have stomach and bowel side effects, including nausea, vomiting and constipation, especially when they start the drugs. After celebrities began openly embracing Ozempic on social media in 2022 as a way to lose weight, demand overwhelmed supply. There’s no specific antidote for a semaglutide overdose.

Note: The money behind the makers of weight-loss drugs is staggering, with the economic value of Wegovy's Novo Nordisk soaring to over $420 billionexceeding the entire GDP of Denmark, its home country. Read more on the significant adverse effects associated with these drugs. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.


Former EPA official says agency fails to protect public from toxic pesticides
2023-12-15, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/15/epa-failing-public-health-pes...

Karen McCormack, a retired Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientist who spent 40 years with the agency, told Al Jazeera’s investigative show Fault Lines that she believed the EPA was not fulfilling its mission to protect the public from harmful chemicals. “In the last three decades that I have worked at EPA it has been very rare for a toxic pesticide to be taken off the market,” she told Fault Lines. “Just about every, every new pesticide application that is submitted to the agency is approved, no matter how high the risk.” As the Al Jazeera report notes, paraquat is banned in 58 countries but its use is on the rise in the United States. The Guardian’s Paraquat Papers, published in 2022 in collaboration with the New Lede, exposed years of corporate efforts to cover up paraquat’s links to Parkinson’s disease, mislead the public, challenge published scientific literature and influence the EPA. Dr Deborah Cory-Slechta, a prominent researcher, told Al Jazeera: “There is a very strong and compelling body of evidence based on the epidemiology studies and what we know from animal models of Parkinson’s disease” that paraquat causes changes in the brain that lead to Parkinson’s. As revealed by the Guardian, in 2005 Syngenta worked behind the scenes to keep Cory-Slechta from sitting on an EPA advisory panel, deeming her a threat to paraquat. Company officials wanted to make sure the efforts could not be traced back to Syngenta, the documents showed.

Note: Internal corporate documents reveal how global chemical giant Syngenta secretly influenced scientific research regarding links between its top-selling weedkiller and Parkinson's disease. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Appeals panel invalidates EPA approval of streptomycin pesticide on citrus groves, citing risks to bees
2023-12-13, Courthouse News
https://www.courthousenews.com/appeals-panel-invalidates-epa-approval-of-stre...

A Ninth Circuit panel on Wednesday rolled back the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the use of the pesticide streptomycin sulfate on citrus groves to fight citrus disease. The underlying lawsuit was brought by farmworkers and other interest groups, which argued the EPA had greenlit streptomycin sulfate for use on citrus plants without adequately considering potential harms from the chemical. The panel, consisting of U.S. Circuit Judges Ronald Gould and Johnnie Rawlinson ... and Daniel Bress ... partially ruled in favor of the EPA — determining there was substantial evidence for the EPA’s assessment concerning risks which could lead to antibiotic resistance. However, they said, the EPA’s assessment concerning risks to bees and other pollinators was incomplete. In a statement after the ruling, the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups involved in the suit, applauded the Ninth Circuit's decision. The rollback of streptomycin approval "is a significant win for public health, farmworker safety and endangered species," [said attorney] Hannah Connor. Streptomycin sulfate is used as an antibiotic to treat serious illnesses but has also found use as a pesticide. The Center for Biological Diversity claims spraying streptomycin on citrus trees to combat citrus greening disease is “highly ineffective” and argues that its use as a pesticide violates the Endangered Species Act because it causes long-term health effects to endangered animals and plants.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and government corruption from reliable major media sources.


How 2 Companies Came to Dominate the Media Business
2023-12-13, The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/netflix-disney-media-consolidation/

It wasn’t so long ago that the traditional film and television business was thriving. The Big Six media conglomerates—General Electric, Time Warner, Sony, Disney, News Corporation, and Viacom—ruled the industry. But the double whammy of streaming and the pandemic toppled the old-media oligopoly. So most of the legacy media giants now are struggling simply to survive, while a new breed of digital-age behemoths, led by Amazon and Apple, gauge their film and television prospects, and Disney and Netflix lead the way into an uncharted online landscape. The failure of the conglomerates to adapt is none too surprising. Spurred by Reagan-era economic policies and the FCC’s deregulation campaign, the media industries converged in a series of M&A waves that began in the 1980s with the News Corp–Fox, Time-Warner, and Sony-Columbia mergers and culminated in the acquisition of Universal by GE, NBC’s owner, and the launch of NBC Universal in 2004. At that point, the Big Six owned all the major film studios, all the broadcast networks, and most of the top cable networks. They dominated other media industries as well, but their key assets were their film and television holdings. The Disney+ launch was a tipping point in the streaming era, prompting the ramp-up of Warner’s HBO Max, NBCU’s Peacock and ViacomCBS’s Paramount+. It also came just before the outbreak of Covid-19, which accelerated the global move to streaming.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on censorship and media corruption from reliable sources.


How Meta’s New Face Camera Heralds a New Age of Surveillance
2023-12-13, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/technology/personaltech/meta-ray-ban-glass...

For the past two weeks, I’ve been using a new camera to secretly snap photos and record videos of strangers in parks, on trains, inside stores and at restaurants. I was testing the recently released $300 Ray-Ban Meta glasses that Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking empire made in collaboration with the iconic eyewear maker. The high-tech glasses include a camera for shooting photos and videos, and an array of speakers and microphones for listening to music and talking on the phone. The glasses, Meta says, can help you “live in the moment” while sharing what you see with the world. Meta, Apple and Magic Leap have all been hyping mixed-reality headsets that use cameras to allow their software to interact with objects in the real world. To inform people that they are being photographed, the Meta Ray-Bans include a tiny LED light embedded in the right frame to indicate when the device is recording. When a photo is snapped, it flashes momentarily. When a video is recording, it is continuously illuminated. As I shot 200 photos and videos with the glasses in public, including on BART trains, on hiking trails and in parks, no one looked at the LED light or confronted me about it. And why would anyone? It would be rude to comment on a stranger’s glasses, let alone stare at them. The ubiquity of smartphones, doorbell cameras and dashcams makes it likely that you are being recorded anywhere you go. But Chris Gilliard, an independent privacy scholar who has studied the effects of surveillance technologies, said cameras hidden inside smart glasses would most likely enable bad actors — like the people shooting sneaky photos of others at the gym — to do more harm.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


The secret science of how drugs like Ozempic and Jardiance get their weird names
2023-12-12, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2023/12/07/lifestyle/the-secret-science-of-how-ozempic-and...

If you’ve ever found yourself absentmindedly humming the “oh-oh-oh-Ozempic” jingle, you have David Paton to blame. The singer-songwriter ... co-wrote “Magic” — the 1975 hit for his band Pilot that he reworked and sang for the trendy weight-loss drug’s TV commercials, which play incessantly. “I have heard from doctors about patients not remembering the names of drugs but singing the songs,” a former product manager for drug companies that include Merck and Pfizer, [said]. It can cost billions of dollars to develop a pharmaceutical, so promoting it is essential. And that all starts with the name. “We try to craft a name that [has] five to nine letters and two to four syllables.” But it even comes down to the exact letters. “Let’s say there is an oral drug instead of an injectable, we’ll explore something that sounds liquidy or has an O in it,” Fernando Fernandez, managing director of BX: Brand Experience Design Group, [said]. “If we expect a product to have an extra level of efficacy, we might put an X in the name.” Consumers like taking drugs with the letter Z, which may have played a role in the naming of Ozempic and Zepbound. According to the Canadian Medical Journal, the letters X, Y and Z all impart a “high tech, sciency” [sic] feeling to drugs such as the sleeping medication Xanax. “People have hesitancy about taking drugs,” a medical advertising veteran told The Post. “If they don’t have diabetes, they wonder why they are taking a diabetes drug to lose weight. The weight-loss drug has to be called something different, even though it is very close to being the same thing. The name Wegovy is playful and memorable and obviously works.”

Note: The money behind the makers of weight-loss drugs is staggering, while concerns grow about the significant adverse effects of these drugs. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.


Pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant, inquiry finds
2023-12-12, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/12/pharmacy-records-police-...

The nation’s largest pharmacy chains have handed over Americans’ prescription records to police and government investigators without a warrant, a congressional investigation found, raising concerns about threats to medical privacy. Though some of the chains require their lawyers to review law enforcement requests, three of the largest — CVS Health, Kroger and Rite Aid, with a combined 60,000 locations nationwide — said they allow pharmacy staff members to hand over customers’ medical records in the store. Pharmacies’ records hold some of the most intimate details of their customers’ personal lives, including years-old medical conditions and the prescriptions they take for mental health and birth control. Because the chains often share records across all locations, a pharmacy in one state can access a person’s medical history from states with more-restrictive laws. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, regulates how health information is used and exchanged among “covered entities” such as hospitals and doctor’s offices. But the law gives pharmacies leeway as to what legal standard they require before disclosing medical records to law enforcement. In briefings, officials with eight American pharmacy giants — Walgreens Boots Alliance, CVS, Walmart, Rite Aid, Kroger, Cigna, Optum Rx and Amazon Pharmacy — told congressional investigators that they required only a subpoena, not a warrant, to share the records.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


In the name of ‘fake news,’ NewsGuard extorts sites to follow the government narrative
2023-12-10, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2023/12/10/opinion/newsguard-extorts-sites-to-follow-the-g...

An opaque network of government agencies and self-proclaimed anti-misinformation groups ... have repressed online speech. News publishers have been demonetized and shadow-banned for reporting dissenting views. NewsGuard, a for-profit company that scores news websites on trust and works closely with government agencies and major corporate advertisers, exemplifies the problem. NewsGuard’s core business is a misinformation meter, in which websites are rated on a scale of 0 to 100 on a variety of factors, including headline choice and whether a site publishes “false or egregiously misleading content.” Editors who have engaged with NewsGuard have found that the company has made bizarre demands that unfairly tarnish an entire site as untrustworthy for straying from the official narrative. In an email to one of its government clients, NewsGuard touted that its ratings system of websites is used by advertisers, “which will cut off revenues to fake news sites.” Internal documents ... show that the founders of NewsGuard privately pitched the firm to clients as a tool to engage in content moderation on an industrial scale, applying artificial intelligence to take down certain forms of speech. Earlier this year, Consortium News, a left-leaning site, charged in a lawsuit that NewsGuard’s serves as a proxy for the military to engage in censorship. The lawsuit brings attention to the Pentagon’s $749,387 contract with NewsGuard to identify “false narratives” regarding the war [in] Ukraine.

Note: A recent trove of whistleblower documents revealed how far the Pentagon and intelligence spy agencies are willing to go to censor alternative views, even if those views contain factual information and reasonable arguments. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on corporate corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.


‘Chilling’: Some Smart Toys Can Collect Kids’ Iris Scans, Fingerprints, Vital Signs and More
2023-12-07, The Defender
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/smart-toys-biometric-data-collect...

The annual “Trouble in Toyland” report, produced by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and released before the holiday season, historically has focused on safety hazards found in traditional children’s toys. According to the 38th annual “Trouble in Toyland” report, released in mid-November, “Toys that spy on children are a growing threat.” The threats “stem from toys with microphones, cameras and trackers, as well as recalled toys, water beads, counterfeits and Meta Quest VR headsets.” “The riskiest features of smart toys are those that can collect information, especially without our knowledge or used in a way that parents didn’t agree to,” said Teresa Murray, Consumer Watchdog at the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and author of the report. “It’s chilling to learn what some of these toys can do,” Murray said. Smart toys include “stuffed animals that listen and talk, devices that learn their habits, games with online accounts, and smart speakers, watches, play kitchens and remote cars that connect to apps or other technology,” according to PIRG. Smart toys can pose the risk of data breaches, hacking, potential violations of children’s privacy laws such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), and exposure to “inappropriate or harmful material without proper filtering and parental controls.” According to PIRG, “We don’t know with certainty when our child plays with a connected toy that the company isn’t recording us or collecting our data.”

Note: A 2015 New York Times article called smart objects a "trainwreck in privacy and security." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


COVID Vaccine Death Data Leak Sparks Arrest: It 'Blew My Mind'
2023-12-06, Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/covid-vaccine-death-data-leak-sparks-arrest-it-blew-...

A New Zealand man was recently arrested after allegedly illegally accessing COVID-19 vaccine data from the country's health agency. Barry Young, 56, a former IT employee at Te Whatu Ora, the country's health agency, was arrested and accused of illegally obtaining COVID-19 vaccine data and sharing it on the internet. Young appeared on Infowars, where he was interviewed by ... Alex Jones. "I just looked at the data and what I was seeing, since the rollout, it just blew my mind. I was just seeing more and more people dying that shouldn't have been dying. It was just obvious," Young told Jones. The incident comes as COVID-19 vaccine skeptics have continued to question the efficacy of the inoculation. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently announced that he was suing vaccine manufacturer Pfizer "for unlawfully misrepresenting the effectiveness of the company's COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to censor public discussion of the product." During the interview with Infowars, Young explained that he had suspicions about the COVID-19 vaccine in New Zealand since its rollout. "I want people to analyze this, I want people to look at it...we need to open it up and the government needs to have an inquiry about it. Just bring it to the public's attention," Young said.

Note: U.S.-based genomics scientist Kevin McKernan had uploaded Barry Young's data onto a file hosting service, MEGA, only to have his whole account deleted by MEGA overnight. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID vaccine problems from reliable major media sources.


Experts call for fewer antidepressants to be prescribed in UK
2023-12-05, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/05/experts-call-for-fewer-antide...

Medical experts and politicians have called for the amount of antidepressants being prescribed to people across the UK to be reduced in an open letter to the government. The letter coincides with the launch of the all-party parliamentary group Beyond Pills, which aims to reduce what it calls the UK healthcare system’s over-reliance on prescription medication. A total of 8.6 million patients in England were prescribed antidepressants in 2022-23, with the amount having almost doubled since 2011. Published in the British Medical Journal ... the letter says: “Rising antidepressant prescribing is not associated with an improvement in mental health outcomes at the population level, which, according to some measures, have worsened as antidepressant prescribing has risen.” The letter goes on to say that reducing the rate of antidepressant prescriptions could be achieved through measures that includes stopping the prescribing of antidepressants for mild conditions, and funding and delivering a national 24-hour prescribed drug withdrawal helpline ... to help those experiencing withdrawal symptoms from prescription medication. [Former chief executive of NHS England, Nigel] Crisp said: “The high rate of prescribing of antidepressants over recent years is a clear example of over-medicalisation, where patients are often prescribed unnecessary and potentially harmful drugs instead of tackling the root causes of their suffering, such as loneliness, poverty or poor housing.

Note: Antidepressants are some of the most commonly prescribed medications, yet their significant risks are often withheld from public debate. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.


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