As parents you’ve been force fed a barrage of carefully scripted “justifications” for these vaccines and in case anyone considered an independent thought, legislation would simply be updated to include new vaccines, essentially removing your choice. In all States in the US a child cannot enter school without having complied with a vaccination schedule. Can you object? Yes, but only in certain states, and usually only on religious grounds. States like California are mandatory, no matter your objection.

The health impacts of the mandated 16 vaccines (spread over 72 doses, before the age of 18) have never enjoyed close scrutiny. What we do know for certain is that older adults (50+) who benefited from far fewer vaccines (3 on average), have far more resilient immune systems when compared to a 20 or 30 year old. Our immune system benefits from each challenge it receives, learning and growing stronger. By preventing many non-fatal infections through an expanded immunization agenda, we actively restrict our immune system from developing properly.

In short, we are producing weaker and less resilient human beings, one’s that are more prone to disease and more likely to develop chronic conditions.

Shockingly, a pre-licensing placebo-controlled safety study is not required in the US for the licensing of a vaccine. Don’t, however, take my word for it. THE HHS confirmed this in response to a written inquiry in 2018, the reply coming from Melinda Wharton, MD, MPH, then Acting Director of the National Vaccine Program Office. The question is shown below;

Please explain how HHS justifies licensing any pediatric vaccine without first
conducting a long-term clinical trial in which the rate of adverse reactions is
compared between the subject group and a control group receiving an inert
placebo?

Inert placebo controls are not required to understand the safety profile of a new vaccine, and are thus not required. In some cases, inclusion of placebo control groups is considered unethical. Even in the absence of a placebo, control groups can be useful in evaluating whether the incidence of a specific observed adverse event exceeds that which would be expected without administration of the new vaccine. Serious adverse events are always carefully evaluated by FDA to determine potential association with vaccination regardless of their rate of incidence in the control group. In cases where an active control is used, the adverse event profile of that control group is usually known and the findings of the study are reviewed in the context of that knowledge.

Decades of indoctrination and conditioning have convinced us that science never lies and that we cannot question anything produced by the scientific community. Science does not lie, not in a pure, unadulterated form. What we are bombarded with on a daily basis is, however, not any form of science any ethical professional would dare to claim. It is business, abetted by regulatory bodies and governments, masquerading behind and appropriating science, which is then twisted to suit the purposes of the companies benefiting from it.

Truth has become an outdated, antiquated word in the modern world of medical science.

You may ask, what this has to do with RFK, Jr., vaccines, and the medical fraternity?

You’ve recently participated in a global medical experiment with completely unknown consequences, at least none that are yet glaringly apparent, aside from a global increase in cancers, heart conditions and a litany of other other medical conditions, many of which can prove fatal. COVID “vaccines” were administered globally to billions of individuals. You may be one.

Almost all of your doctors and medical professionals, with a few exceptions, encouraged you to take these treatments. The billing that they were approved for broad use was misleading and the manner in which approval was obtained left much to be desired. These treatments were experimental, not adequately tested, and couldn’t remotely be called definitively safe. Why would your trusted healthcare providers do this?

Indoctrination is trusting a system of which they are the product. It no longer exists to foster only the best interest of the patients but rather leaves open the possibility of conflict of interest around “patient care or profit.” Most doctors didn’t even think to question the safety of the “miraculous Covid cure.”

A Global Pandemic

At the end of 2019, the world was exposed to a global contagion we were told was deadly, and much like influenza, in some instances it was. The source of the contagion has yet to be established, but facts seem to point at a Chinese research facility, a topic you can read more about here. Covid was to become a household word over the next two years, one that would dictate movement, work, schooling, and every other normal aspect of our lives as countries closed their borders, curfews were installed, and almost every aspect of our day-to-day life was dictated by our elected governments.

Two months after the outbreak, a miraculous breakthrough was announced: a vaccine! Based on a new technology, mRNA, the vaccine promised to reduce transmission and offer protection. We waited with bated breath, and in late November 2020, the vaccine was released for public use. After months of confinement, travel restrictions, working from home, and avoiding elderly members of our families, we sighed a global sigh of relief.

That sigh proved to be a little pre-emptive. Suddenly, taking the vaccine was no longer a matter of choice. It became mandated, and in many countries governments hid behind cloaks of restrictions rather than coming out and publicly mandating the Covid vaccine. Work, school and access to food and housing were subject to individuals being vaccinated. As I sit and type this, I still cannot believe how dystopian it sounds.

Billions had the vaccine administered, many not though choice, but through coercion. No vaccine, no work, no school, no food, and no access to rented property. In countries like Australia people refusing the vaccine, anti-vaxers, as they were quickly labeled, were even put into interment camps.

A Closer Look Behind mRNA and Pfizer and Moderna’s “Vaccines”

Why would people have refused to be injected with the Covid “vaccines” if they promised to protect you and reduce transmission? It turns out not everyone can be classified as a sheep. Questions were asked right from the outset of the announcement of the release of the vaccines.

It takes anywhere between six to 10 years to bring a vaccine to market. The reason for this is that the vaccine requires lengthy trials to prove safety. We know from experience that side effects can take years to manifest. Bringing a product to market in nine months raised huge flags.

We now know that some companies involved in producing what they loosely termed a “vaccine” to take advantage of market protection (in particular, Modena and BioNTech/and Pfizer) obscured data and omitted certain tests in the clinical trials of their Covid treatments. Tests that would have disclosed the reality of their treatments’ ability to integrate with our DNA, use of the SV-40 enhancer (a known link to cancer) in their treatments in levels far exceeding acceptable levels (clear clinical evidence of this vector has been found in the vaccines despite their continued denial) and effecting a bait and switch with the release of their final product, altered from the original provided for testing.

——–

——

Essentially, and we can debate why until time provides answers, these companies, in a global outbreak orchestrated by unknown players and enforced by your governments, forced an essentially untested, new type of gene therapy (not a vaccine) down your global throats, the full consequences of which have yet to become apparent. This quote is from an expert in the field of genomics (Kevin McKernan, who headed up the global genome project) on the mRNA vaccines.

These gene therapies are an attempt to centralize control over this evolutionary process, where they can mandate mRNA injections into billions of people and play SimCity on the evolutionary process and the human trajectory. They are entirely incapable of doing this and it is a disastrous idea. The hubris of authoritarians is an extinction level risk for humankind and needs to be dis-intermediated swiftly.

I have linked to a few articles in the paragraphs abovefor those with an interest in genomics, viruses, and vaccines. Two years ago, this article would have been labelled as anti-vaxer and dismissed. I sincerely hope we’ve moved beyond that point and that science is able to reclaim its integrity. This brings us back to RFK Jr. and America’s co-opted health care system.

The Perfect Pharma Salesman is…

Your doctor, of course. When you present yourself for medical assistance, you are in fact, facing a representative of the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors will argue vehemently against this, but the fact remains, their universities, courses, curricula, and anything relating to their degrees and the educations they receive is regulated by pharma. Doctors are the public face of a multi-billion dollar marketing scheme and pharma are the beneficiaries.

A doctor is indoctrinated from the first day they step into a class.

Little wonder then they would play along with the farce of the Covid “vaccines”, knowing full well mRNA was a new and as yet unproven delivery method (previously restricted to testing on end-of-life patients) for what was an untested and unsafe treatment. Established beliefs and conditioning often fly in the face of logic and common sense. Little wonder they played along. Indoctrination is a powerful tool.

This indoctrination extends to every aspect of modern medicine, including the ridiculous number of times your child (if you’re a US citizen) is vaccinated by the time they reach the age of 18. Don’t believe me? Read this advice from the CDC, and do make a note of how many times Pfizer and Moderna’s names appear (the same companies that just experimented on you). The question this begs, is why would we suddenly be vaccinating our children so heavily, so frequently, and with a such a dizzying array of shots.

H.R.5546 – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986

The United States (in a moment of madness or more likely, successful lobbying) indemnified pharma companies to protect them against any possible legal claims arising from the use of a vaccine in children. In effect, this became a “get out of jail free” card that led directly to the frenzied development of “vaccines” for every imaginable disease under the sun. Once again, doctors were at the forefront of selling these treatments to their patients.

If you’ve been indoctrinated into the faith, it is sacrilege to question your god. In modern medicine, it is tantamount to self destruction. This indoctrination is the main obstacle Kennedy faces. Pharma’s influence permeates every level of modern healthcare, from politics to regulatory authorities such as the CDC and NIH and on, down to the doctors and nurses, the real face of modern medicine.

While many label Kennedy as anti-vaccine and a conspiracy theorist, this is simply a ruse to discredit him and evade examining the real and pertinent concerns he raises relating to the state of American healthcare. He has come up with an incredibly simple and elegant solution to the vaccine question.

Burning the “Get Out of Jail Free” Card

Remove the immunity enjoyed by pharma for childhood and other vaccines and sit back and wait to see how many pharma companies have actual faith in the products they are retailing. Expect to see the number of vaccinations your child currently endures reduced dramatically. Why? Simply because these products do carry risks, severe or otherwise, that have been obscured by companies in their haste to get a product to market. Make hay while the sun shines, as the expression goes, only in this instance it was profit rather than sunshine. Profit that was protected by the US government. Until now.

The topic of vaccines is an especially sensitive one, confounded by multiple factors when it should actually be governed by one simple question. Is the vaccine safe for your child? The truth is, we cannot be sure, except in the instance of mRNA based shots now touted for the market. These are fraught with hidden dangers and Kennedy’s removal of the blanket indemnity for these so called “vaccines” which are actually gene therapies, will no doubt result in their removal from the market.

The reason we cannot be sure is that the clinical trial system is as broken as the rest of healthcare, and is subject to the same manipulation and lobbying influences the rest of the healthcare system endures. Manipulation and subversion of data is common practice, the two most glaring public examples being the latest additions to the vaccine stable, namely Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid treatments.

Kennedy simply wants the truth to out. He wants to ensure your children are enjoying the protection they deserve and that the individuals playing medical roulette with their health are held to account. Convincing the devout (your doctors) of his intentions may be an insurmountable obstacle, unless we can bundle the lot on a donkey on the road to Damascus.

***

[Always consult with your physician to determine medical advice and direction. This article does not intend to suggest you should or should not receive vaccines according to a recommended schedule. It does recommend that you study peer-review science and ask informed questions.]

The post Kennedy’s Biggest Challenge Isn’t Vaccines, It’s Medical Indoctrination appeared first on Medika Life.

Covid vaccines are 98% percent effective at preventing infection and transmission.

Remember that statement? It was drummed into us as we were locked away. Later, as the efficacy percentages dropped, month to month, our livelihoods and access to basics like foodstuffs and accommodation became dependent on accepting a treatment that many were beginning to suspect wasn’t “as described” on the package insert. If one could be found anywhere.

Now, in 2023, in what can loosely be described as a post-pandemic phase, the lies continue. Despite glaring warnings from people in the know that mRNA can indeed transcribe itself into our DNA, thanks to DNA contamination (intentional or otherwise) of the vaccines that exceeds recognized safety levels by a number of factors, we still persist in the lie. That Covid vaccines are safe.

The world, or at least those who care to research the issue properly, know otherwise, and yet, the entire medical and scientific complex continues to promote mRNA vaccines, encouraging parents to vaccinate children as young as six months.

Can we trust science?

That’s the million dollar question and science seems hell bent on convincing us to the contrary. Little wonder then, that climate change skepticism is on the rise. Why would we trust the same community that propagated a half-truth for the duration of the pandemic and still, pathetically clings to it, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary?

I tend to look at evidence and data when evaluating a claim, and I must admit that in the past I placed a lot of faith in the medical community and science itself. What benefit, to the community, I asked myself, to propagate a lie? It turns out, my base assumption was both flawed and naïve, and for one simple reason. Science no longer exists solely for the purposes of advancing knowledge.

Clinical studies, long seen as the hallmark of evidence-based medicine, can be corrupted and data coerced to produce the desired results. No medical journal or publication escapes this insidious coercion of science. While I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories, it’s when science and politics converge, it’s challenging to determine who is believable. Science must return promptly to its historic mission to explore and publish untainted data.

Disinformation is blamed for increased climate skepticism, but in truth, the root of the blame lies squarely at the door of science. They have misled us, been caught in the lie, and despite this, still persist. It is therefore little wonder that the continuous deluge of news relating to climate change and our impending doom is greeted with growing skepticism.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Science must recognize that its absolute trust has been shattered. How do we believe in the urgencies of public health when we question the source of the information? Science and its advocates must revisit how to regain public confidence.

So is Climate Change real?

Undoubtedly. Our planet is warming. We know the earth is subject to cycles of hot and cold, and we’re headed into a hot one What role we play, if any, in accelerating this process is still largely debatable, and given the length of records we have access to, we can hardly make accurate predictions. 300 years pales in comparison to the planet’s billion year old history. Its been around awhile and undoubtedly will be here after our demise.

Science would you have you believe you are completely responsible for this natural cycle. Our role in speeding up the process is unknown and anyone who can claim to know otherwise is simply selling you snake oil.

What is true however is that we are polluting our natural resources. Plastics are contaminating every corner of the earth and we are endangering our access to clean drinking water. Unlike the occasional heat wave, potable drinking water is key to human survival, so in the end, the argument may be moot.

We won’t be around to see the poles covered in tropical vegetation.

The post Covid’s Impact on Climate Change and Health appeared first on Medika Life.

“Culture crushes innovation.”  Here, we must not point the finger of blame for the dysfunctional health ecosystem at physicians, nurses and allied health professionals on the hospital floor.  Healers want to heal as much as those who need their help seek answers and solutions. The shared problem is not how to utilize this “hot” evolving technology but are we prepared to make the investment in time and training!  Time to input (usable) data into EMRs and learning technologies that can sort and “scrape” through and highlight information to accelerate clinical decision-making. 

Using AI to Reject Patient Claims and Care

One part of the challenge is understanding how to cognitively maximize and explore vast amounts of information is another. The other is to come to agreement in how AI can and cannot be used ethically and responsibility. As we saw recently, a nascent AI system must not be used by major health insurance companies to deny patients coverage for medicines and procedures.

While the “system” is resistant to significant change and science has become politicized and misunderstood, we must rally to the dual-goal of saving lives and reducing costs.  Can information technologies and “intelligent health systems” do what people in power have not achieved?  Are we able to educate consumers about being partners in data security? Can information bring people – professionals and consumers – together and transform this country’s post-WWII build health system? Yes!

Cardiologist Eric Topol, MD, reflects on the tension between patient care and AI in a Time Magazine interview about his bestselling book Deep Medicine:

“AI will always need human backup. A machine could handle certain things autonomously–diagnosing a skin rash, for example. Doctors shouldn’t be dealing with things that machines will do better than them. But serious conditions, like getting a cancer diagnosis, are what doctors should be working on. I think once patients understand that there are things they don’t need doctors to do, they would love it–once they get used to it.”

Many health professionals (and patients) are understandably wary! In one Medscape interview a physician shared this experience:

“We’ve played around with it. It was very early on in AI and we noticed it gave us incorrect information with regards to clinical guidance,” said Monalisa Tailor, MD, an internal medicine physician at Norton Health Care in Louisville, Kentucky. “We decided not to pursue it further,” she said.

Don’t close the door on an evolving technology! Care professionals work within a system that hinges on economics – how the institution is paid and how it must cover costs.  What is to be done if the system cannot support the health professional’s efforts or make the best use of their training, abilities, energy and dedication?  What will happen as more and more health professionals ghost the provider system that they feel no longer addresses their emotional and economic needs? These are questions that must be addressed sooner than we think! AI is inescapable. It’s an evolutionary process that will improve – improve health professionals and care output – over time.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether we can wait to resolve all these questions while health costs soar and people risk dying from treatable illnesses.  We should already know that answer! If you’re living in the question, that’s great. One way to resolve your angst and uncertainty is to follow people – some pioneers and others pundits – who are also asking those questions, doing the necessary research and exploring sensible possibilities.

20 AI/ChatGPT Champions to Follow

It was a challenge to select only 20 influentials for this listing. There countless people writing, speaking and commenting about AI and ChatGPT. It’s a hot topic and “trendy.” This list is not about “trends” and it isn’t an exclusive roster of people. However, these people are key voices of influence at the frontlines of AI and ChatGPT and are boldly considering how the health sector will need to support and adapt to these technologies ethically. It is important to follow their social posts, speeches and writings. They are theorists, physicians and teachers. What they say and where they say it can inform your opinion and direction. Follow them and get smarter faster!

Acknowledgements

As always, thanks to my friend and Medika Life Founding Editor-in-Chief Dr. Robert Turner, and Cullen Burnell for their encouragement and suggestions, and to Carolyn Neugarten, Medika Life Editorial Assistant for her efforts in making this feature possible, and Tyler Mayers, whose expertise sharing content across social platforms makes important information widely accessible. Special appreciation to colleagues from numerous professional circles who shared their thoughts and contributed recommendations. Special acknowledgement to people who appeared on previous Medika Life Lists and continue on the path to improve the wellbeing of people and planet. These exemplary people are dedicated to improving people’s health and know their efforts will make a difference.

AI and ChatGPT are frightening to some and mysteries to others. Humanity must decide how to best deploy these evolving and “thinking” technologies. What to do next is a mindful choice in the hands of people, and must be for the sake of people.

Gil Bashe, Editor–in-Chief, Medika.Life

AI and ChatGPT Global Voices of Influence

Here is our Medika Life roster of 20 people to follow in alphabetical order; all-important voices – to track and learn from in the coming years We have included wherever available links to the social media platforms and bios.

Follow these Voices and Leaders of Influence – They are writing the future of how AI and ChatGPT will be essential to health care delivery.

Ran D. Balicer, MD

Dr. Ran D. Balicer, a public health physician, executive and researcher, serves as Chief Innovation Officer & Deputy-DG at Clalit – Israel’s largest health insurance organization, and is Founding Director of the Clalit Research Institute.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Regina Barzilay, MD

Dr. Regina Barzilay is a School of Engineering Distinguished Professor for AI and Health in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Kirk Borne, PhD

Dr. Kirk Borne is a Data Scientist, providing thought leadership, global speaking, content creation, mentoring, training, and consulting activities in data science, machine learning, and AI across multiple disciplines.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Atul Butte, MD, PhD

Atul Butte, MD, PhD is the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor and inaugural Director of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (bchsi.ucsf.edu) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Lex Fridman, PhD

Lex Fridman, PhD, is a Russian-American computer scientist, podcaster, and artificial intelligence researcher. He is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and hosts the popular Lex Fridman Podcast, a podcast and YouTube series.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Mo Gawdat, MBA

Mohammad “Mo” Gawdat is an Egyptian entrepreneur and writer. He is the former chief business officer for Google X and author of the bestselling business books Solve for Happy and Scary Smart – The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

John Halamka, MD, MS

John D. Halamka, M.D., M.S., president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, was trained in emergency medicine and medical informatics, Dr. Halamka has been developing and implementing healthcare information strategy and policy for more than 25 years.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Eric Horvitz, MD

Microsoft’s Chief Scientific Officer and an early AI champion for health and medicine going back many years, Dr. Eric Horvitz is among the founders and funders of Stanford’s 100-year longitudinal study of the impact of AI on Society.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Daniel Kraft, MD

Daniel Kraft, MD, is a Stanford and Harvard-trained physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator and is serving as the Chair of the XPRIZE Pandemic & Health Alliance. With more than 25 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and health innovation.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Tom Lawry

A leading AI transformation advisor to health and medical leaders around the world. Lawry is the best-selling author of Hacking Healthcare – How AI and the Intelligent Health Revolution Will Reboot an Ailing System, former Microsoft National Director of AI and now the managing director of Second Century Tech LLC, and partner in Aspire Health Innovations.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Fei-Fei Li, PhD

Dr. Fei-Fei Li is the inaugural Sequoia Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, and Co-Director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute. She served as the Director of Stanford’s AI Lab from 2013 to 2018.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Berci Mesko, MD, PhD

Bertalan Meskó, PhD is known as “The Medical Futurist” and the Director of The Medical Futurist Institute analyzing how science fiction technologies can become a reality in medicine and healthcare. He holds a PhD in genomics and is an Amazon Top 100 author. 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Mira Murati

Mira Murati is the Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI, and one of the most influential innovators in technology and AI. She oversees efforts to commercialize OpenAI products and improve them through human feedback. She serves on the leadership teams that developed the OpenAI ChatGPT and Dall-E systems.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Andrew Ng, PhD

Dr. Andrew Ng is a globally recognized leader in AI. He is Founder of DeepLearning.AI, Founder & CEO of Landing AI, General Partner at AI Fund, Chairman and Co-Founder of Coursera and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University’s Computer Science Department.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

John Nosta

John Nosta is a cutting-edge thinker in the world of technology, science, medicine and innovation. He is a globally recognized among the foremost voices constantly pushing the envelope on how AI and ChatGPT will transform health settings and work flow. Nosta is non-stop power thinker (and contrarian) and has more than 500 articles published on innovation topics.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Tam C. Nguyen

Associate Professor Tam Nguyen has more than 20 years of working in clinical trials, health and medical research and research management sector including tertiary teaching hospitals, medical research institutes and universities across Australia. He is the co-editor of the recent book: AI in Medicine (Springer).

• LinkedIn

Ziad Obermeyer, MD

Ziad Obermeyer, MD, is the Blue Cross of California Distinguished Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management. He is a physician and researcher who works at the intersection of machine learning and health.

• Twitter

Brian Roemmele

Brian Roemmele is a scientist, researcher, analyst, connector, thinker and doer. Brian became an early adopter of AI and neural networks and pioneered Prompt Engineering technologies and techniques to understand and extract information from AI platforms.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Mihaela van der Schaar, MD

Mihaela van der Schaar, MD, is the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Medicine at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute in London. In addition to leading the van der Schaar Lab, Mihaela is founder and director of the Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine (CCAIM).

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

 Eric Topol, MD

Eric Topol, MD, is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute; Executive Vice President, Scripps Research; Professor, Molecular Medicine, Scripps Research; and the Gary and Mary West Endowed Chair of Innovative Medicine, Scripps Research. In many ways, Dr. Topol was he kindled that started the AI transformation with his more than 1,300 publications and bestselling books.

Dr, Topol appears last – alphabetically – on this Top 20 Voices in AI and ChatGPT to follow. His ideas and prodding the system, perhaps place him first!

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Spot a broken link, typo, forgotten degree or name misspelled?

Oops! Apologies! While care has been taken in compiling this list and adding social media links, things go wrong or a name is misspelled or a link broken. Please do get in touch to address typos, amendments, or omissions by reaching gil.bashe@medika.life.

Thanks in advance and be healthy!

The post Medika’s Top 20 AI Voices to Watch. Follow These Experts as They Demystify AI and Its Future appeared first on Medika Life.

In the last decade we have disbursed over 500 billion dollars to health related care, much of it on the African continent. In the next decade we will spend even more, if our global economy is able to support it. Why? Why, after decades of pouring eye-watering sums of money into what appears to be a bottomless pit, are we no closer to the espoused goal of Universal Health Care or at the least, more robust and independent health systems in the communities we assist?

The answer is a simple, yet unpleasant one. Out of choice. We choose to perpetuate these dependencies and where possible, create new ones. A profit driven Western health system dictates it and charities comply, whether out of complicity or a desire to serve these vulnerable populations in any way possible, even if the mechanisms are flawed. Charity is big business. Consider this 500 billion was spent on healthcare alone.

To understand how we’ve arrived here and why the historical actions of charitable health outreach have created global dependencies requires background knowledge of the healthcare sectors, the non-profit industry, and the mechanisms that enable and support global health outreach. Central to this is acknowledging the ever expanding elephant in the room.

Our inability to step away from the flawed systems that power healthcare and how these systems and policies impact our ability to deliver meaningful aid lies at the heart of the problem.

While this article uses the terms charity and non-profit organization they should not be considered as inclusive of the entire charitable industry. The terms are used here in the context of those organizations that provide health related care, services and support globally.

How Lucrative Is The Charitable Industry?

Separating health based donations from general charitable donations isn’t a simple ask, as many charities engage in activities that cover more than one aspect of aid delivery, catering to both health and humanitarian services. There are a few figures below to allow you to form a clearer picture of the numbers involved, keep in mind however, these are not all health related.

A landmark study in 2018 identified 250,000 foundations across 38 different countries. 72 percent of these were established within the past 25 years. The highest concentration of foundations is in Europe (154,271) while North America also has a considerable number (91,850). Unsurprisingly, they tend to be more common in high-income countries where they control serious levels of cash.

The following infographic shows the assets held by philanthropy foundations at country level. The United States leads the way with $890 billion while the Netherlands comes second with $108 billion and Germany is third with $93 billion. China is also present on the list, rounding off the top-10 with just over $14 billion.

Infographic courtesy of Statista

How is this money allocated? Another survey by BNP Parabas released in 2015 and published in Forbes in the same year, offers some insight. Refer to the infographic below. American individuals and companies donate hundreds of billions of dollars to charity every year. In 2016, donations reached an estimated $390 billion, according to a report by Giving USA.

Infographic courtesy of Statista

As is the case in most years in the US, religion was the sector that received the most money in 2016. It accounted for $122.94 billion or 32 percent of total philanthropic giving in the U.S. in 2016 Education came second with $59.77 billion while human services rounded off the top three with $46.8 billion. Where did this money originate? The public were in first spot, accounting for 72 percent of the $390 billion total – $281.86 billion. Foundations gave $59.28 billion and corporations donated $18.55 billion in 2016.

The chart below, courtesy of Giving USA, represents a breakdown of these figures for 2022. Note the growth from $390 billion in 2015. Beside the chart is a graph, reflecting the corollary effect of a strong stock market on giving, a link that currently threatens charitable giving for the first time in over a decade.

Government Derived Funding for Global Health

Donor government funding, including both the bilateral funding given directly to other countries (which may be given to a country government or provided to NGOs and other organizations to carry out work in recipient countries) and the multilateral funding given indirectly through contributions to multilateral organizations, accounts for most external health aid channeled to the developing world. As such, this donor support constitutes a major component of the global health response.

Donor government funding for global health has risen significantly since 2002, growing from $4.4 billion to a peak of $22.8 billion in 2013 (see Figure 2). However, funding declined for the first time in 2014 to $21.5 billion and has since remained relatively flat.

Donor government funding for health has generally increased as a share of official development assistance (ODA), particularly over the last decade. These increases were largely spurred on by the creation of several new funding initiatives and mechanisms such as the Global Fund and PEPFAR. However, this share has remained essentially flat in more recent years and declined in 2014 and 2015. This flattening and recent decline has raised concerns about the ability of countries to meet global health goals and targets, such as those of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The U.S. has been the largest donor to health in each year over the entire period between 2002 and 2016, and has dedicated the greatest share of its ODA to health. The donor mix has shifted over this time, in part due to the entrance of new donors, particularly the Global Fund, which became the second largest donor to health after the U.S. in 2006 (and remains so today). The U.S. and the Global Fund combined accounted for more than half of total donor funding for health in 2016 (see Figure 3).

Totaling a Decade’s Charitable Giving

While figures are easy to find for individual countries, finding global ODA spends are more complex. To really quantify the efficacy of health based charitable activity, we need to understand how much money has been thrown at global health over the last decade and why we are still faced with increasing demands for ever more aid, despite the donations spent. The graph below shows a breakdown of ODA Health allocation by country for 2021.

Adding together figures for the last decade¹ (2012-2022), we arrive at the eye watering amount of $245 billion dollars, ODA funding, designated directly for charitable healthcare. This does not include billions more, raised directly from the public and foundations, earmarked for the purposes of improving health outcomes for disadvantaged communities across the globe. A more realistic figure that would include these donor populations would be in the region of $500 billion dollars.

Lets put that figure into context. It is the equivalent net worth of Bernard Arnault, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the three wealthiest individuals on the planet, combined. If it were a country, it would rank 25th based on GDP, somewhere between Poland and Belgium. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, in 2023 we will require more funding than ever to address global health disparities, and in 2024, we will require even more money.

Why? What are we doing wrong?

Creating Global Dependencies

Almost all large charitable organizations tasked with the delivery of health to developing countries intentionally create delivery mechanisms that encourage dependency on continued donor aid.

This is fact, If the focus of their work had been enabling downtrodden countries to develop self-sustaining methods for delivery of care that included strengthening health systems in-country, $500 billion dollars would have been sufficient to put most of these charities out of business by now, which, in an ideal world, would be seen as a stunning success. The reality however, stands in stark contrast.

To FIAT driven enterprises, captive audiences matter. Few industries, if any, are able to eclipse the potential for profit shown by healthcare. Their global market of patients continues to expand, this expansion matched only by a sharp upturn in the maladies afflicting the burgeoning numbers. We are getting sicker, earlier, and in larger numbers, from an increasing number of conditions, many previously considered rare, now chronic.

Emphasis for care has pivoted over the last few decades from curative to treatment based. We no longer seek to drive back disease, merely manage it. From a business based perspective, managing a sick patient, sometimes for decades, represents the gold standard of “captured market” profitability. Charities play their own, if unintended role in this play for profit, providing a vital funnel to large, otherwise inaccessible markets in developing countries.

In 2019, in the US alone, charitable institutions and non-profits employed over 12 million people². Their payrolls eclipse other large industries, including finance and construction. Providing for those less fortunate has become big business and as is inevitable with any booming enterprise experiencing growth, problems abound, some of which are inherited or enforced from supporting industries (read healthcare) while others are self inflicted. It is the beneficiaries of these charitable health enterprises that pay the associated costs.

While protracted treatment has become the mainstay of modern healthcare in developed nations, in developing countries the emphasis is placed on creating dependency. Charities that encourage and promote funding dependent projects and outreach. Missions that are cyclic by nature, repetitive and that require a continuous influx of donor capital to deliver care. This creates the necessary cycle essential to cornering a captive market.

Dependency is the goal, rather than an unintended consequence.

While the argument exists that the delivery of care and saving lives trumps the flawed methods of delivery, the current system suffers from various weaknesses, weaknesses that expose communities that are forced into aid-reliant dependency to risk, often life threatening in nature. Weaknesses that, under the right conditions, could collapse global health efforts and the elusive goal of universal health care.

Why not then develop care delivery systems that encourage self-reliance and that are self-sustaining, that integrate with and strengthen local healthcare systems, and remove these dependencies? If you’ve been paying attention, much of what you’ve just read goes to the heart of the matter. Captive markets matter and no where was this more clearly illustrated than during the Covid pandemic of 2020 that shut down the entire globe.

These dependencies are furthered by funding directives for foreign aid. As an example, EU countries under duress to meet targets issued by organizations like the WHO, pay over billions of dollars each year. To avoid missing quotas and to minimize workloads, large scale donations are the norm. Amounts often in excess of a $100 million dollar are granted annually, to single charities. This encourages poor business practice and suspect oversight, where auditing and controlling donated funds at scale becomes an impossibility.

AT the other end of the table, the benefiting charities are faced with the need to dispose of these huge sums within a calendar year or run the risk of missing the following year’s handouts. The system is antiquated, littered with loopholes for financial exploitation (which occurs all to frequently) and clearly not fit for purpose. It is revolving door, disposing of capital to keep up with quotas at a dizzying rate, one that does not allow for circumspection, investigation and oversight.

It is fertile ground for exploitation for the sake of profits, by an industry (healthcare) that has shown itself all to capable.

Whole industries have grown up in and around the delivery of charitable health care, providing product to the captive markets who have come to depend on Western charity, often with their lives. Most who operate within this system recognize it for what it is, but will not rock the boat. The stakes are too high, the profits too enticing.

So how are the billions spent and where do they originate?

The OECD and WHO 0.7% ODA/GNI Target

The best known target in international aid proposes to raise official development assistance (ODA) to 0.7% of donors countries national income. In 1970, The 0.7% ODA/GNI target was first agreed and has been repeatedly re-endorsed at the highest level at international aid and development conferences:

• in 2005, the 15 countries that were members of the European Union by 2004 agreed to reach the target by 2015
• the 0.7% target served as a reference for 2005 political commitments to increase ODA from the EU, the G8 Gleneagles Summit and the UN World Summit

The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is a unique international forum of many of the largest providers of aid, including 31 member countries. In 1969, the Pearson Commission proposed a target of 0.7% of donor GNP to be reached “by 1975 and in no case later than 1980.” This suggestion was taken up in a UN resolution on 24 October 1970. The target was built on the DAC’s 1969 definition of ODA.

DAC members generally accepted the 0.7% target for ODA, at least as a long-term objective, with some notable exceptions: Switzerland – not a member of the United Nations until 2002 – did not adopt the target, and the United States stated that it did not subscribe to specific targets or timetables, although it supported the more general aims of the Resolution.

In 1993, gross national product was replaced by gross national income (GNI), an equivalent concept. DAC members’ performance against the 0.7% target is therefore now shown in terms of ODA/GNI ratios.

In 2022, official development assistance (ODA) by member countries of the Development Assistance
Committee (DAC) amounted to USD 204.0 billion. The United States continued to be the largest DAC member provider of ODA (USD 55.3 billion), comprising more than a quarter of total DAC ODA, followed by Germany (USD 35.0 billion), Japan (USD 17.5 billion), France (USD 15.9 billion) and the United Kingdom (USD 15.7 billion).

Problems Abound

The DAC has recently changed ODA reporting rules to include transactions that require no financial sacrifice. This deprives ODA of its meaning as a gauge of aid effort, and vitiates the point of setting the U.N. ODA target. The changes have also rendered ODA incoherent as a statistical measure, making it a faulty tool for monitoring and analysis. ODA now fails to meet basic statistical quality standards. 

According to a report issued in 2019 by the Brookings Institute³;

ODA was never perfect, and for years critics complained about the inclusion of items—such as the costs of students and refugees in

donor countries—which transferred no resources to developing countries. But since 2014, DAC decisions mean that ODA is not just counting debatable items, but inventing numbers that do not exist in the real world.Brookings Institute

The report continues to catalogue a list of flawed reporting mechanisms that reduce any meaningful data to spreadsheets of incomprehensible nonsense, with double reporting and other statistical anomalies. The bottom line? Reported donor amounts now need to be taken with a large grain of salt. While it appears on the surface that aid continues to flow in ever increasing amounts from ODA, the real world impacts have been seriously curtailed by an actual reduction in physical money flowing to charities.

As economies begin to contract globally, expect this trend to worsen, with governments taking full advantage of the loopholes created by DAC to claw back funds required at home.

Foundations

The favored vehicle of a new breed of billionaire philanthropists, charitable foundations are a force to be reckoned with in the charity sector, disbursing billions annually to various causes. The goals and beneficiaries of these foundations align with political leanings and a strong case can often be made about the wisdom of self-created health outreach projects embarked on by these foundations.

The Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation is perhaps most controversial, with ill-conceived vaccination drives in countries like Swaziland, where a focus on reducing maternal mortality by treating HIV led to near collapse of the Swazi healthcare eco-system, and shifted mortality risk from the mother to the infants. Tinkering with fragile healthcare systems comes with consequences.

These foundations are also able to expand and interject personal agendas, financial or otherwise, into global healthcare policy by way of massive donations to institutions like the WHO, and again, the Gates Foundation features prominently. In 2018-2019, the United States was the largest donor to the WHO at $893 million, accounting for around 15 per cent of WHO’s budget. The Gates Foundation came only second, with $531 million, a position the Foundation has maintained for a while.

Critics argue, and rightly so, that foundations like the Gates Foundation hold undue sway over global health policy because of their donations, not only to the WHO, but in the fields of development, policy and advocacy and U.S. education. In 2022 Gates added $20 billion ($5 billion for 2022 and $15 billion for past pledges) to the Gates Foundation coffers, making him the single largest global charitable donor for the year.

Some $8 billion in donations went to foundations in 2022, with $5 billion injected into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone. The benefit of these donations to the various industries they cater to will not be experienced immediately but rather over many years. U.S. foundations are required to spend only 5% of their assets annually, and most foundations try to preserve their holdings so that they may continue operating well into the future.

Charitable giving in 2022 declined from the highs of 2020/21 to pre-pandemic levels. This decline in giving likely had something to do with 2022’s stock market volatility – major indices lost as much as 33% of their value – and the onset of high inflation. Both financial markets and inflation can influence charitable giving.

How much of this giving translates into actual patient care and how much of it utilized to pursue influence is unclear. What is however abundantly clear, is that both health policy and agenda are for sale for the right price, exposing the global population to healthcare that is decided by a handful of unelected individuals. The dangers of this are self-evident.

Public Giving

In the United States in 2021, the largest source of charitable giving came from individuals, who gave $326.87 billion, representing 67% of total giving. There are numerous factors that threaten this figure’s growth. As global economies contract post Covid and trillions in aid is directed to fund the war effort in the Ukraine funding available for health related outreach will no doubt suffer. We are becoming poorer and one of the first things to feel the impact of this will be charitable giving.

The influence of social media and main stream media also influence giving, earthquake relief in Turkey and other breaking human tragedies are brought (rightly so) to the forefront, jumping the queue and effectively drawing away funding from traditional donations. Increasingly volatile weather patterns, political instability in Europe and other factors will also play a role.

While we may see increases in public giving in the coming decade, traditional charities are less and less likely to benefit as the limited pool of funding is placed under ever increasing pressure to address a multitude of new demands.

Donor apathy also affects giving patterns. We are exposed to visual extremes on a daily basis, numbing us to images of poverty, suffering and need and the constant deluge makes it increasingly difficult for charities to find a foothold for their cause. Without resorting to “poverty porn” to stress the need for funding, most emergent charities find it more and more challenging to raise funds from the public sector.

Building a New Ship (Innovation Versus Iteration)

To effectively address solutions to a problem, either mechanical or system driven, you require two essential components. The first is innovation and the second, is understanding. Why understanding? Simply answered, you cannot create lasting solutions if you do not possess an intimate understanding of current solutions, their histories and iterative evolution.

How we have arrived here dictates how we plan for the future.

The term “improvement” is frequently interjected into discussions. It is a subjective and misleading term. Do we seek to simply modify an existing solution to “improve” outcomes, ensure a tool or system is optimal, or build an entirely new tool? Improvement suggests utilizing an existing solution, system or tool to solve an historical problem by iterative adjustment. To innovators, the term is anathema.

Healthcare, and its delivery is analogous to the above. For the last two decades, iterative jumps in technology have seen existing delivery and supply mechanisms within healthcare “upgraded”, affecting the systemic delivery of care to patients and the ways in which this care is dispensed. Very little of what we have witnessed can be categorized as innovative. “Improvements” abound, and while this process is essential to modifying solutions, at what point do we acknowledge the obvious?

The need to repeatedly “improve” can only suggest one thing. Our healthcare tools, systems and solutions are not fit for purpose. Spillover from the healthcare sector directly impacts the charitable delivery of care. The emphasis of focus, in both industries, falls on improvement when it should, far rather be placed on innovation. We assume, erroneously, that current tools and systems are fit for purpose when history suggests otherwise. When $500 billion doesn’t change the charitable health landscape, we need innovation.

YOU DON’T CHANGE THE SYSTEM, YOU BUILD A NEW ONE THAT MAKES THE OLD ONE OBSOLETE. BUCKMINSTER FULLER

True innovation does not seek to improve but rather it reinvents, and to do this, its starting point is always a desired outcome to a problem and one driving question. How to best achieve that. Only then, can existing solutions be properly evaluated and their functional worth determined. This process is disruptive in the true sense of the word. It can threaten established financial models, undermine the status quo and realign entire sectors of an industry. For these reasons, in healthcare, a protectionist policy of iteration is favored over innovation.

Better not to rock the boat, even if it is sinking.

Healthcare and the charities providing access to care do not, historically, encourage true innovation, and this, primarily, is why we see diminishing levels of care, prohibitive pricing, dependencies, profiteering and other ills that befall both sectors. Patching a leaky ship has only one eventual outcome.

The desire to repeatedly apply the same patches to the same holes indicates there is more at play in the charity sector than just ill conceived or poorly executed projects.

References

1. Donor Tracker; US/Global Healthcare 2023, URL https://donortracker.org/donor_profiles/united-states/globalhealth
2. Pestle Analysis for Charities, 2019. URL https://pestleanalysis.com/pestle-analysis-for-charities/
3. A note on current problems with ODA as a statistical measure, 2019, Brookings Institute URL https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/09/26/a-note-on-current-problems-with-oda-as-a-statistical-measure/

The post Charitable Health And The Wasted Billions appeared first on Medika Life.

It wasn’t just about the money, but about data, or rather the harvesting of data, which, if you want to be a stickler about it, is really also just all about making more money. In an industry that relies on data for much of its product development, digital, pharmaceutical, technical or otherwise, he who holds the most data, calls the shots.

Nowhere is this more true than in the field of genomics. The strides we’ve made in the last 10 years alone have revolutionized our ability to analyze and sequence genetic information, or DNA. DNA is the code to the life that flows through your body and your DNA is unique to you. It is your genetic fingerprint and holds the key to diseases, inherited or otherwise, that you may or still will, suffer from.

With each advance in our ability to decode DNA we move closer and closer to identifying key genes responsible for, well, just about everything that occurs in our bodies. We’ve also discovered that having certain genes misfire can predispose us to certain medical conditions and it is not unlikely that, in the near future, this information will allow us, with a fair degree of accuracy, to determine a person’s life span, and more importantly, invent pathways to intervene around suffering and disease.

So why now and why Covid?

Well, we’re now post pandemic, things have moved on, and Covid tests are now available that can be run at home. All good and well, but what happened to the billions of laboratory run PCR swabs we submitted to earlier in the pandemic? While companies undertook to destroy these, at no point did any testing laboratory issue a clear undertaking to not harvest your DNA from said swab.

During the pandemic, almost every American was subjected to a PCR test, sometimes on multiple occasions. Your details, along with your swab, were sent off to a laboratory for testing. I wrote an article on this topic way back in 2020, warning the public of the potential abuse of their data. You can read that piece here.

To think that an opportunity like this, literally a once in a lifetime present for data harvesting, would have been overlooked, is so preposterously naïve as to be laughable.

Which then raises the following questions;

• Who orchestrated the collection of this data? Was it government based, industry based, or a combined effort.
• Your DNA profile would now reside alongside your personal profile (remember, your details were attached to that swab). Who legally owns this DNA profile?
• Are the companies/government willing to issue an assurance as to the ethical use of this data, thereby ensuring you are not discriminated against, based on your DNA profile?
• As the data would have been illicitly harvested without your informed consent, are these questions simply moot, as no one will publicly acknowledge this?

Make no mistake, this was the DNA jackpot and companies may utilize this data to sell you products, refuse you products, refuse you work, refuse you insurance, withdraw your driving license, confiscate any guns you own (as soon as genes are identified that predispose an individual to violence or mental instability), the list is endless and the data worth an untold fortune.

It is, from a financial standpoint, potentially the biggest haul of the pandemic, a gift that will continue to offer returns to companies and governments until you close your eyes one day for the final time, probably on a predetermined day.

So the issue here isn’t really about “IF” your DNA was harvested from the swab you provided, but rather “WHO” now holds that DNA profile. If you’re considering committing a crime, I’d think twice about it, as that single hair you leave behind at the scene will result in the police knocking on your door. Remember, they don’t have to explain how they found you.

Isn’t this a good thing for our health?

It absolutely should be, if the powers that be could be trusted to act ethically with the data. We could identify individuals who are prone to certain diseases and conditions and intervene at an early stage, potentially saving billions of dollars in healthcare. Sadly, trust and ethics, particularly in the case of healthcare and government, were early victims of the pandemic, as the public was lied to, manipulated and then coerced on multiple levels.

Lets take an example. A gene is identified that can predict with 90% accuracy the onset of Disease X in people over the age of 40. Based on the DNA profiles now on record, filters show that 42 million Americans will contract Disease X in the next ten years. A quick calculation shows that treating, rather than preventing the disease will generate 30 times the profit, versus developing a cure.

Sadly, our healthcare systems are not designed for ethics and philanthropy. For the most part, they are FIAT driven systems that pursue profit as their ultimate goal. Only a naïve, well intentioned simpleton would suggest the above example has anything other than one inevitable outcome and it certainly isn’t cure.

The fact that the data has been harvested without your consent is of course, the ultimate red flag. If the public would have stood to only benefit health wise from the sharing of genetic data, don’t you think we would already have volunteered it? No. Deep down inside, we know we can no longer trust the institutions tasked with our wellbeing. They know that we know.

The post Was Covid Testing Used to Harvest Your DNA? appeared first on Medika Life.

This is an emotive topic for many, and it is necessary to add context early into the piece before we examine the history of the age of consent and discuss its current impact on today’s societies and politics.

Gary Glitter has just been released from prison after serving just half of a 16-year prison term for engaging in non-consensual acts of sex with two underage girls, aged 12 and 13. Had he lived over 100 years ago, there would have been no legal basis for prosecuting him for engaging in sex with these children, consensual or otherwise.

In the author’s opinion, individuals like Glitter are the fundamental drivers of the development of age of consent and rape laws. To be clear, if you are older than 25 and express an interest in girls under the age of 16, you should consider seeking professional counsel. If you’re over 40, then you certainly have nothing in common with a girl this young and no frame of reference for forming a relationship with her. Your motives are purely sexual or ego, often coupled with a desire to dominate and shape the object of your attention into a warped version of your hidden desires. To suggest consent is to condone psychological manipulation.

In America states such as Tennessee and Wyoming are waging political battles to preserve the right to marry at younger ages. The Wyoming Republican Party contests legislation proposing raising the state’s legal marriage age to 16, arguing that arbitrary limits on child marriage interfere with parental rights and religious liberty. What then of the psychological health of a parent who condones marriage at 14?

This suggested law—which passed the Republican-controlled Wyoming House of Representatives on a 36-25 vote late last month—proposes banning state residents from marrying anyone under the age of 16, while requiring anyone under the age of 18 seeking to get married to receive written consent from their parents under the eye of a competent witness.

Last year, a 32-year-old man married a 16-year-old girl in Wyoming, Guy Beaudoin, the deputy state registrar of vital statistics, said during a hearing on the bill. There have also been several instances of 14-year-olds being married in that state.

Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware are the only states where 18 is the legal age to get married. For other states, the legal age varies. The legal age is 17 in 10 states, while 21 others set the standard at 16. In Maryland, Hawaii and Kansas, it’s 15.

None of this is healthy or normal and more importantly, there is little that can be done to redeem or reprogram these individuals or even state legislatures that permit these practices. They will revert to type given the opportunity and we know from experience they are not deterred by age of consent laws. It is the author’s opinion that severe penalties are required to act as a deterrent. In short, our laws to punish individuals like Gary Glitter are woefully inadequate and society frequently fails the victims. The education of state and Federal representatives may need to be considered too.

Today, most countries set the age of consent at anywhere from 13 to 18 years of age, the logic being that the woman is emotionally mature enough to understand the full ramifications of her choices and that she has also, in most countries, attained the age of contractual adulthood. What motivated society to step in to protect young women? How we have arrived at this point may surprise you.

A History of Consent – Married and Pregnant at 12

The first age of consent statute appeared in secular law in 1275 in England as part of the rape law. The statute called Westminster 1 made it a misdemeanor to “ravish” a “maiden within age,” with or without her consent. The term “within age” was interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke as meaning the age of marriage, which at the time was 12 years of age.

In 1576, a law was issued making it a felony to “unlawfully and carnally know and abuse any woman child under the age of 10 years”. The law was generally interpreted as creating more severe punishments when girls were under 10 and imposing less severe punishment for acts with 10 and 11 year-old girls. Most of England’s North American colonies adopted the younger age. In the 16th century, a group of Italian and German states introduced an age of consent set at 12 years.

The laws made it easier to prosecute a man who engaged in sex with younger girls, with or without their consent. The law also made it impossible for an underage female to consent to sexual activity. There was however one exception: married women were not subject to the law.

The Age of Enlightenment

At the end of the 18th century, other European nations began to enact age of consent laws, prompted by the emergence of an Enlightenment concept of childhood focused on development and growth. Children were seen as more distinct in nature from adults than previously imagined, and were considered vulnerable to harm in the years around puberty. The French Napoleonic code provided legal context in 1791 when it established an age of consent of 11 years. This age of consent, which applied to boys as well as girls, was increased to 13 years in 1863.

Following France’s example, many other countries increased the age of consent to 13 in the 19th century. The likes of Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Swiss cantons, that mirrored the Napoleonic code, initially set the age of consent at 10-12 years and then raised it to between 13 and 16 years in the second half of the 19th century. In 1875, England raised their age of consent to 13 years; an act of sexual intercourse with a girl younger than 13 was now considered a crime. In the U.S. each state determined its own criminal law and the age of consent ranged from 10 to 12 years of age.

U.S. laws did not change in the wake of England’s shift and Anglo-American law did not apply to boys.

Why the different ages? Well, although scientists and physicians had established that menstruation and puberty occurred on average around age 14, in Europe at that period in history, different individuals experienced puberty at different ages. The law struggled to find a happy medium or decide on an arbitrary age to incorporate into law.

Child prostitution enters the picture

At the end of 19th century child prostitution was brought into the debate by moral reformers. Revelations at the time of child prostitution were central to their platform. Child prostitution, reformers argued, resulted in men taking advantage of the innocence of girls just older than the age of consent. “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” a series published by W. T. Stead, in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885 which was the most sensational and influential of the exposés circulating at the time.

Outrage followed on the heels of the articles, pushing British legislators to raise the age of consent to 16 years. The effects spilt over into the US and encouraged reformers in the U.S, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the British Empire, and Europe to push for similar legislation. By 1920, Anglo-American legislators had responded by increasing the age of consent to 16 years, and in some instances, it was set at 18 years.

Despite these ages being far above the normal age of menstruation which had been seen as a sign of adulthood, proponents justified them on scientific grounds suggesting psychological maturity came later than physiological maturity. They also argued that the age of consent should be aligned with other benchmarks of development, such as the age at which girls could enter into contracts and hold property rights, typically 21 years. Opponents remained focused on physiological maturity, however, and argued that girls in their teens were sufficiently developed not to need legal protection.

Moreover, they argued, by late adolescence girls possessed sufficient understanding about how to use the law to blackmail unwary men.

Historians argue that increasing the age of consent also gave the law a more pronounced regulatory dimension. In practice, these laws were often used to control the behavior of working-class girls. Reformers at the time, however, saw no distinction between protection and regulation. By making it a crime for girls to decide to have sexual intercourse outside marriage, the law protected them from themselves and from the immature understanding that led them to behaviors reformers considered immoral.

By the 1930s, support for setting the age of consent at 16 years or older had begun to weaken. Growing economic, social, and cultural independence for women saw girls in their teens assuming a role in western societies quite distinct from that of younger children. New concepts of adolescence and specifically of girlhood normalized sexual activity during the teenage years, at least within peer groups, as “sex play” necessary to achieve adult heterosexuality.

Emboldened and influenced by such ideas, girls more often talked of being “in love” with the men charged with having sex with them, and expressed sexual desire. Prosecutors and juries increasingly refused to treat such cases as rape. Legislators, however, did not change the legal age of consent.

In the 1930’s, the American term “jailbait,” showed cultural recognition of teenage girls as sexually attractive, even sexually active, but legally unavailable. American legislators did amend laws to take account of the offender’s age during the 1940s and 1950s as teen culture expanded and female adolescents exercised their sexual autonomy. During and after World War II, if both the male and female were underage (or between two and six years above the age of consent), the punishment was reduced.

Modern Day America

By the 1970s, feminist rape law reform campaigns had helped to expand age of consent laws. Aiming to challenge stereotypes of female passivity and growing concern about male victimization, they made it clearer that the laws concerned all youth—male and female—and that the laws protected them from exploitation rather than ensuring their virginity. European nations in general did not follow suit. Only Britain, in 2003, revised its legislation, making an act committed by an individual under 18 with one under 16 a separate, lesser offense.

Feminist rape law reform also saw the early application of gender-neutral language: instead of referring to “females” the law referred to any “person.” The nature of the act addressed, however, remained the same and age of consent laws applied only to heterosexual intercourse. The new language criminalized acts between underage boys and women, but not those between boys and men. Promoted as a means of formalizing equality between men and women, gender-neutral language won support as a means of protecting boys.

The treatment of such cases, however, was not gender neutral and drew upon gender stereotypes. In practice, boys were imagined as sexual agents, not victims, and as sexual agents, the prevailing assumption was that they would not be harmed by sexual acts with adult women.

In the U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional to apply the age of consent only to girls, justifying it with a new, “modern” basis for the law, the consequences of pregnancy for females. Despite this ruling, gender-neutral laws were still enacted around the country.

In the 1990s a new link was established between the law and teenage pregnancies. Conservatives seeking to control adolescent sexuality joined with welfare reform activists, promoting claims that the enforcement of the age of consent could prevent teenage motherhood (and rising welfare costs) that resulted from girls’ exploitation by adult men.

At the end of the 20th century, outside the U.S., age of consent laws were expanded to include same-sex couples, as a result of growing acknowledgment of gender rights and desire to reach those at risk of AIDS.

Puberty and its impact on health

Before looking at the social impacts of the current age of consent laws, it is perhaps fitting to address the issue of puberty and its impact on female and public health.

Over the past three decades, studies from Europe and the United States have shown a tendency towards earlier puberty onset in girls, with a greater change in the age of breast development compared to the first menstruation. Many point to obesity and exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals as the culprits.

According to an article published in Tidsskriftet that examines research carried out in Sweden and Norway looking at the onset of puberty;

Many complex factors affect the onset of puberty. Genetics are thought to explain 50–75 % of the variation, while the rest is attributed to lifestyle factors such as nutrition, general health, psychosocial stress, perinatal factors, body composition and environmental factors such as endocrine disruptors. The trend towards earlier puberty is often seen in connection with the parallel obesity epidemic among adolescents. Early studies on endocrine disruptors as a cause of earlier puberty onset initially shed light on the period immediately before puberty. More recent studies have demonstrated that exposure to such chemicals in the fetal and neonatal period are also relevant to puberty timing. The effect of various stressors depends on the period of occurrence and exposure. For example, prepubertal malnutrition or overnutrition (increased fat mass) in girls can lead to late or early puberty respectively, while intrauterine growth retardation is associated with early puberty.

In the same way, psychosocial stress preceding or during puberty can lead to delayed menarche, while accelerated puberty has been described in girls who experience such stress in early postnatal life or as an infant.

What impact does the earlier onset of puberty have on the health of women? Early puberty, particularly in girls, has been associated with adverse effects on adult health. At the population level, observations indicate that early menarche is associated with increased mortality as well as a higher risk of breast cancer , cardiovascular disease  and mental illness. In addition, early puberty has been shown to be associated with more frequent and prolonged adolescent-related risky behavior.

Freedom and the Modern Day Woman

More than 800 years after the first recorded age of consent laws, the one constant is the lack of consistency. Laws around the world define the socially appropriate age of consent anywhere from 13 to 18 years of age. Americans, in particular, have difficulty agreeing on what represents an adult female. It appears that society still has an issue regarding maturity when we achieve it and the woman’s right to freely consent to the act of sex outside the bonds of marriage.

Concerning the U.S., in Mississippi, for instance, where with parental consent, males can marry at 17 and females at 15. Boys below 17 and girls below 15 can marry with judicial approval and parental consent, while in Delaware, a minor (under the age of 18) may not marry until achieving the age of 18 (also the age of consent). Religion and societal tradition also play massive roles in determining what we see fit for setting these guidelines.

There can be little argument that most women (I use the term in this instance to refer to females that have reached puberty) enter the world of adulthood and sex far sooner than their counterparts of two or three generations ago. They are exposed at all levels and through every medium to the adult world of sex. Ten years old have the internet placed at their disposal, music videos and films normalize sexual behavior, and platforms like TikTok are inundated with young women and girls, some as young as 8, dressed provocatively and dancing suggestively. We condone this behavior, and yet we frown on the byproduct.

Some girls are sexually active by the time they reach their 13th birthday, some even sooner, driven, some would argue, by nature, while others would suggest it is the fault of the promiscuous societies they are raised in. The earlier onset of puberty may also impact early sexual activity. However, no research currently exists to support this.

As to current law affecting the age of consent, it has drawbacks. Feelings of guilt and fear affect mental health, while the threat of legal consequence can and does prevent girls from seeking advice, medical help, contraception and counselling. It can endanger their health and, in dangerous and deadly instances, the consequences of backstreet abortions gone wrong. Criminalizing – regardless of legal response – underage acts can have dire consequences for the young women who step over this legal line in the sand.

Can a 14 or 15-year-old girl be considered emotionally mature enough to consent to sex? Does current law infringe on their rights as young adults to make this choice? Is the age of consent law archaic, and should we not, instead, be focused on tightening rape laws that punish predatory individuals like Gary Glitter who choose to exploit young, underage people?

Scientists at Newcastle University in the U.K. have discovered that girls tend to optimize brain connections earlier than boys. The researchers conclude that this may explain why females generally mature faster in certain cognitive and emotional areas than males during childhood and adolescence, pointing to another factor that favors the right of choice for young females. Do not use that type of research to justify exploitation.

Our societies are riddled with mixed messages, encouraging the overt popularization and normalization of sex to underage children while criminalizing their pursuit of it. Perhaps a more sane approach would rely on investing heavily in school-based sex education and supportive parenting information rather than criminalization. Parents should be taught that a policy to guide, not hide, produces thoughtful, communicative, and well-grounded children who can function safely in an adult environment.

Age of consent laws will not prevent teenage pregnancies and most certainly do not prevent teenagers from engaging in sex. Instead, they teach children to hide their interests and actions from people who can guide them. All they are left with in the absence of our help are glamorous, material versions of sex in a “material world.”

The constant bombardment of suggestive clothing ads, provocative music lyrics, and the sexually illustrative and overt normalization through the medium of video of the sexual act between a man and woman impacts young minds. The lines between sex and love have blurred, and children are challenged to distinguish one from the other. Society, and parents owe it to the younger generation to highlight the emotional and physical dangers of engaging in an intimate act we can never walk back.

The post Puberty and the Age of Consent. When Should “Yes” Be No! appeared first on Medika Life.

This article contains claims that many will consider incendiary and anti-science. It therefore requires context and if you indulge me for a minute or two, I’d like, at length, to provide background before we address the large mammal. Words have power and we use them to record our history, describe the world around us, create narratives and chart the future. We use words to communicate our deepest thoughts, describe our fears and share our joys. And then, in some instances we use words to lie, both to others and ourselves.

I understand fully the responsibility that comes with the gift of being able to convey complex ideas to others, more importantly however, I also grasp the moral obligation attached to the gift. It should only ever be used for truth, or in the pursuit thereof. Science isn’t that different. It relies on words to describe complex concepts, often utilizing its own specific language, one that for most laypeople, places much of what is discussed beyond reach.

I am, for the record, a disciple of science. I believe. I always have. The logical purity of numbers and the wonders of the natural world are intertwined in an almost mystical fashion and our salvation, as a species will undoubtedly depend on science. Much like the Spiderman character however, the ability to wield an understanding and control over the natural world grants the scientist almost unlimited power. Power that, you guessed it, requires responsibility. Responsibility, morals and a strong sense of ethics.

That it what this article is about. It is not about science per se, but rather about the consequences we now face from the abuse and corruption of the discipline, morphing it into a tool whose primary focus is profit and control, rather than the betterment of our species. That, unfortunately, makes the brand of science currently being practiced, a danger to you and I. A fact the pandemic has highlighted with stunning clarity.

mRNA is the Pandora’s box of science, one of many advancing technology has uncovered. Make no mistake, mRNA holds huge promise for medicine, potentially even rivalling the discovery of penicillin. You can read an article I wrote on that exact topic in 2021, exploring the promise the technology holds.

So no, I am clearly not anti-science, at least not when the science being practiced is honest, ethical and cautious science, science that is aware of the potential impact of its actions on society and our wellbeing. That is not the science we have endured for the last three years, and we need to speak up. We have been systematically and intentionally lied to, misled and chemically abused for the last two years of the pandemic, potentially even right from the outset. Misled with words, scientific phrases couched in ambiguity and force-fed fear by the mass media, at the behest of politicians and scientists.

Now, when the dust settles, we need to face uncomfortable truths and a world that has changed, in ways we have yet to fully grasp. So, to the article, and if you should find yourself at odds with it, please, at least consider the questions it raises.

The Viral Elephant

If, and the “if” is looking more and more likely, the entire human race was just exposed to the first genetically engineered virus, we need to be urgently addressing the elephant in the room. The effects of the SARS-COV2 virus on our physiology are widespread and complex and it is critical more time is spent reverse engineering exactly how the virus was altered to increase its transmissibility.

I came across an incredibly interesting article while writing this piece from one of Medika’s contributors, William Haseltine, that describes in detail one of the unique tools this novel virus utilizes to evade and suppress our immune system. The article may prove heavy going for some, but it is an excellent read and provides insight on just how well adapted the virus is at exploiting our defenses.

Far more than being a one trick pony, SARS-COV2 is the Swiss army knife of viruses and we, unfortunately, are the can of baked beans.

You may notice how I refer to the above tool as unique. Its a term used all the time when discussing this virus. It is unique and the more we discover about it, the more likely it becomes that it was intentionally weaponized (for whatever purpose) to exploit our physiology. Simply put, the virus that has killed millions across the globe was likely released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is a product of science, American science, it is worth adding, practiced at a safe distance, on foreign soil and funded by American taxpayers.

For the first time in the history of humanity, over the course of the next two generations, this genetically manipulated virus will have infected the entire global population. For those who escaped the virus itself, there is no escaping the engineered bits (or spike protein) that have been artificially stimulated in your system by the mRNA vaccines. So the extent of the damage caused by the SARS-COV2 virus and its ability to access our entire physiology is not surprising, given it was designed for exactly that purpose.

We now face a new kind of threat, unknown medical risk by intentional design, a threat for which we are physiologically unprepared. This new world is filled with unknowns. Future mutations, revisited on us by livestock as we infect a host of animals that live in close proximity to us, or a reversion to the original SARS strain, far more deadly than SARS-COV2. How the virus and the vaccines impact our immune system’s response to future viral attacks is also up in the air. These are the issue’s we should be addressing now, with a sense of immediacy.

It is not melodramatic to suggest our species survival may depend on it, and if you think this is being melodramatic, then you still haven’t grasped the gravity of what has just unfolded.

The first step in this process requires accountability from the players involved, most notably EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, Anthony Fauci, Kristian G. Andersen, Dr. Ralph S. Baric, Dr. Shi Zhengli, et al. must be made to cooperate with a view to establishing the exact nature of their Gain of Function research on coronaviruses. Exactly what did they cook up in the lab in Wuhan and what else resides there on ice, patiently waiting for the next breach in safety protocols.?

It is also worth pausing a moment to consider the irony of the last three years, of looking to those who created the SARS-COV2 virus for our salvation.

The pandemic is rapidly transitioning from a global viral infection to chronic, long-term complications, with a range of symptoms so broad, doctors are at a loss as to how to define and treat them. Covid vaccines may play a significant, but as yet, unquantified role in many of these chronic and often fatal conditions, further muddying the waters. To truly understand which actor, the vaccine or the virus, both manufactured, may be to blame for the afflictions faced by millions, we need reliable, unbiased research and securing that is proving increasingly difficult.

Sifting Quicksand

Every corner of science and the politics that governs it has skin in the Covid game. The pharma industry, perhaps best positioned to carry out large-scale clinical research, can no longer be trusted. Any data released by pharma relating to anything pandemic related – especially in the absence of critical, independent third party review, cannot and must not be taken at face value.

The original Covid mRNA vaccine trials are evidence of this. The trials (170 people, in case you were not aware) were subjected to the most appalling “management” of candidates and data to validate the vaccine’s safety. Rapid development of a vaccine or treatment was of the essence to alleviate a collapsing medical infrastructure that was buckling under the pressure of the pandemic. Moderna took 28 days to solve the problem. 28 days. I’d say it again, but you can draw your own conclusions.

After nearly two decades, we hadn’t managed to develop a vaccine for the original SARS virus and yet, 28 days later, we had a working SARS-COV2 vaccine ready for clinical trials. The absurdity of this and the euphoric acceptance of this break with scientific reality go a long way to illustrating the desperation felt by many in the early days of the pandemic. Logic would rather suggest the virus was familiar to both Moderna and Pfizer prior to 2019.

Government agencies within the U.S. have been deeply complicit, providing funding via the NIH and the NIAID for developing and effectively weaponizing coronaviruses, ostensibly for the purposes of “further research.” Their ability to provide unbiased opinion on what poses a danger to the public they serve has been compromised. It is essential, moving forward, that both the FDA and CDC are overhauled, effectively preventing their pursuit of policies that place the public directly in harms way. Take their latest unanimous advice on vaccinating children as young as six months with mRNA vaccines.

Possibly the greatest indictment of the CDC is their mismanagement of VAERS. The CDC took 15 months before it finally evaluated data from the VAERS system in June of 2022. VAERS is a dedicated tool for collecting reports on vaccine side effects. So why wait 15 months? No sense in checking data for safety signals to simply verify what you already know, is there? Once you’ve checked that data, you can also no longer ignore it.

Every academic medical institution capable of performing the required research we so desperately need is at the same time beholden to outside funding. Research grants and future employment are dependent on not rocking the boat. To produce data that conflicts with, compromises or exposes funding sources (for the most part, pharma) is the equivalent of professional suicide and banishment to the land of the unfunded.

That leaves us with the politicians, whose agendas are rarely fueled by the best interests of the public. Although elected by us, they are all cling to the purse strings that enable them to reach their lofty heights. We will probably never know who orchestrated the official pandemic narrative, but it was the politicians who enforced it. In 2023, despite irrefutable evidence that disputes this narrative, most still repeat it ad nauseam.

To understand just how interwoven this has all become, take Peter Daszak, appointed by the WHO to head up a team to investigate the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan, effectively policing his own research. In record time he appeared on camera, stating that his investigation had turned up no evidence of a breach in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Lie upon lie, layer upon layer of deceit and deception. Little wonder then that trust is science is at an all time low.

Given the above, where do we then turn for reliable, agenda free research that is motivated only by the pursuit of the truth? We need to overcome this seemingly insurmountable obstacle before we can even consider unpacking the plethora of virus related questions that require answers. Some would suggest, the World Health Organization is best placed to oversee an investigation, but they too, possibly more than any other health body, are riddled with conflicts of interest on every level.

One thing is glaringly apparent though. There is large and growing body of evidence supporting the fact Covid vaccines are harming some, in many instances, fatally, which begs the following question.

WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO USE THEM? Why have we extended vaccination to healthy children and why does the CDC support this and promote it? How, in good conscience and with the safety of the public in mind, can governments and regulatory bodies allow the current narrative to continue? The study I have linked to above, references post vaccine induced myocarditis. Myocarditis post the Pfizer-Moderna combo was 28 times more common than post-Covid in 16-24 year old males in this massive Nordic study.

Impunity and the Point of No Return

No one is coming to save us and any hands that reach out from the medical and scientific community must, in light of the last three years, be considered tainted by default, until proven otherwise. This is the sad reality of where we currently find ourselves. Everyone in a position to put an end to the current pandemic narrative is compromised. They have passed the point of no return and although many may be racked by feelings or remorse, there is no world in which anyone admits fault, in particular to the virus’s origin and the efficacy of the vaccines.

That wonderful phrase “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” is absolutely applicable. Everyone sold the narrative and no one institutes an investigation in which they are also likely to be held accountable. Add to this, a growing number of individuals, intimately involved in the pandemic, who act with absolute impunity and concern only for shareholder and personal profit – or glory – and we seem to find ourselves in a spot of bother.

Realistically, no one in a position of power or acting from within the industry is going to the sound the alarm. Our only hope of getting to the truth lies in picking at the edges of the tapestry until it frays and pulls apart. It is left to fringe reporters to harass individuals like Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, who was accosted recently in Davos by two reporters from Rebel News. He was peppered with questions about their vaccine, its efficacy and more. Understandably, he diplomatically kept silent .

An eminent British cardiologist, Dr. Aseem Malhotra has also taken a stance against the vaccines and their manufacturers after the death of his father from a vaccine related illness. He is among a rising number of influential voices now starting to speak out publicly to call for an end to the mRNA vaccination campaign.

It is by no means a simple task or one for the feint of heart. Censorship is still frequently applied to any information that questions the ongoing Covid narrative, and on many social media platforms, content and users are still frequently de-platformed and often professionally sanctioned. Many have turned to Twitter, which, in recent months, since it’s acquisition by Elon Musk, has stopped censoring information that conflicts with the official narrative on the pandemic.

I’ve shared many articles during the last three years, relying mostly on common sense to question the incredibly dubious public health decisions as they’ve unfolded on a very public platform. At this point in the pandemic, we are now confronted with a very new and real threat, in the face of which, who did what, where, when and why, become almost irrelevant.

Mankind 2.0

What legacy will SARS-COV2 leave in its wake and how does that impact us and future generations? What long term impacts will the continued boosting of a novel drug with an abysmal safety record have on our physiology? What has it done to us over the last three years?

The truth is, we really don’t know the answers, which, in some instances, will require time and separating the vaccine’s effects from those of the virus have now become a research nightmare, thanks to the billions already vaccinated. In 2021, a group of academics valiantly tried to sound warning bells, this incredibly detailed article highlighting the potential dangers of mRNA vaccines.

We are headed into troubled waters, from a public health perspective. We may yet be plagued for generations to come by the ill effects of both the virus and the vaccines, no matter their delivery methods. More so, there is swirl and mistrust in voices of influence.

Long Covid, vaccine Serious Adverse Events (SAE’s – to many to list here) and strokes and heart related damage, in many instances fatal, already blight the medical landscape. Worryingly, the younger members of society appear to be as prone, if not more so, to developing adverse reactions, perhaps because their immune responses to the vaccine are more pronounced.

Humanity may have undone humanity, only time will tell. Time is needed to sort-out fact from fiction – probability from certainty. The responsibility now rests with us (you and I) to ensure we attempt to repair the damage and prevent any further rushed science being put to trial in the public space.

What can you do, you ask? Research all sides of the conversation. Ask questions and demand answers from those you have placed into positions of accountability. The truth will out – over time. Make your own, informed decisions – balancing your personal care and risk/risk – the risk of the current virus variant alongside your health status.

I’d ask one more thing of you. Trust your instincts and try to approach public facing pandemic information with a critical mind. There is almost always an agenda, from both sides of the fence and a little digging will normally uncover it. It’s time to leave the safety of the flock. In case you hadn’t noticed they’ve appointed the wolf as shepherd.

As a parting thought, please don’t vilify science. It is as much a victim of the avarice and greed of humanity, as we are. Perhaps, while we attempt to save ourselves, we can, in the same moment, rescue science. We are going to need it.

Missed Part 5 of the Covid Files on The Origins of Covid? Catch up here.

[EDITORS NOTE: The author is pro public health, pro science and pro vaccination. In this situation, he raises important questions and concerns for readers around the Covid SARS2 virus and Covid treatment approaches. His goal is to get people thinking in the best interest of future health innovation.]

The post Covid’s Elephant in the Room. We Must Address it appeared first on Medika Life.

The answers to the origin questions matter, if not simply for accountability, then for the sake of science and allaying a growing theory that perhaps we had created a monster and unleashed it on the world. The ensuing investigation (still technically ongoing), as with everything related to Covid, became a daunting, conspiracy-laden undertaking, riddled with misinformation, coverups, disclosures, and plenty of ass-covering. No one wants to be held accountable for global chaos and a mounting body count.

Two main theories evolved, and we will examine both. The first was that the virus was artificial or engineered and leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, whether with nefarious intent or by accident. The second drew its basis from conventional science that the virus had crossed over from the animal population (a zoonotic origin), either a bat or another unfortunate animal sold in the Wuhan market and destined for dinner.

I have tried to eschew technical terms in the article in favor of plain English, and where it cannot be avoided, I have attempted to explain the science involved to the best of my limited abilities. The article is long and perhaps a tad tedious in places, but background matters if you are really looking to understand the two opposing arguments.

Before we look at the – what can only roughly be termed – “evidence” supporting both claims, a few things worth noting about any origin theory.

There is a third possible scenario related to the location of “patient zero” or the first person infected with the virus. There are research laboratories spread across the globe that engage in Gain of Function (GOF) research, something I’ll discuss further in the article. Essentially GOF is the process whereby a virus is engineered to be more deadly. For example, the virus’s ability to infect its host would be amplified with genetic manipulation. The laboratory in Wuhan would have shared its research with any of these institutions.

We only assume that Wuhan was the point of origin, but it is possible that the virus was circulating in the human population earlier than December 2019 in another location. Like either of the aforementioned scenarios, the waters surrounding this possibility are equally murky.

The real problem posed by the new Covid virus came down to one thing. How it attaches itself to its human host and exploits our ACE2 receptors. What follows is a bit technical and you can ignore it and skip on to the next paragraph, as a working understanding of the virus’s mechanism of action isn’t crucial to following the story

The SARS-CoV-2 genome contains typical coronavirus genes but the receptor binding domain (RBD) in the S protein is highly specific. The site for furin-like protease cleavage of the S protein into S1 and S2 subunits is also unique.

These specific and unique adaptations make the virus so at home in our bodies and fuel the artificial theory. They have also, to date, posed the most significant stumbling blocks to identifying a zoonotic (animal) origin.

Also, before we dive in, scientists have identified the sources for the zoonotic origin of the SARS-COV outbreak in 2002. It is a complicated and often painstakingly long process to track down a carrier, an animal providing a cross-over point from animals to humans. Similarly, MERS is passed to humans by dromedary. We live in proximity to these animals, and it is this proximity that adds to the risk of cross-over events. These viruses are the exception rather than the rule.

Theory 1. Animal infects man, man infects man, and the pandemic begins

I cannot, in all honesty, suggest that there can be many people, including leading scientists, who in 2023, still place much faith in this theory. It can only however be ruled out once a definitive answer is provided. So, let’s explore why the natural origin theory was promoted so vociferously and why, to prove the theory, an animal infected with the virus, sold in the markets in Wuhan, needed to be found.

How infectious are these new viruses that originate in animals?

What follows below may seem long winded, but it is a necessary preface for a very important point, one of transmissibility, and it’s an important point to grasp in the origin debate.

Luckily for us, novel viruses are rarely adept at person to person transmission. The process by which they escape their animal host and manage to infect a human host is usually a result of a new mutation of the virus, and most of the time, the genetic mechanisms the virus has evolved are not well enough developed to make it effective at jumping from one human host to another. Many of these terrifying new strains that pop up are self-limiting and relatively easy to contain.

That, from a public health point of view, is a huge blessing, but it is unfortunately not always the case. Take the Spanish or the Great Flu of 1918. The virus responsible for the outbreak (H1N1) originated in ducks or poultry, supposedly in the US, despite the term “Spanish Flu.” One of the first recorded cases was on March 11, 1918, at Fort Riley in Kansas. While there is some disagreement about the US as the point of origin, there is no doubt the original host was avian. This virus not only managed the cross-species jump, but it also proved a winner in the infectious stakes, moving with deadly ease from one person to another.

As an interesting aside, the H1N1 virus claimed more than 50 million lives out of an estimated 1.8 billion people alive in 1918 and disappeared as rapidly as it had emerged. Estimates vary, but figures suggest it claimed between 1 and 5% of the global population. The SARS-COV2 virus has killed 6.73 million globally out of a population of 7.7 billion, infecting, according to the WHO, 662 million, or roughly about 10 percent of the global population. Deaths only represent approximately 1% of the infected and 0.01% of the total population.

SARS-NCOV2 is very infectious and as it mutates and develops new strains, it follows a typical viral evolution, becoming less deadly in exchange for an increase in transmissibility. So, to the point. The novel virus first documented in Wuhan is immediately an outlier. Unlike most other novel viruses, it is perfectly adapted to infecting humans.

No prior recorded run-ins with the good folk of planet Earth, the virus simply appears out of the blue in 2019, perfectly adapted to infecting it’s human host and equally adept at passing from person to person, in other words, highly transmissible. Now while the odds of this occurring naturally cannot be ruled out, they are slim. Really slim. We encounter thousands of viruses in the course of our day to day lives with no ill effects.

The changes that enable a virus to cross over to humans from their animal hosts, are, as I discussed earlier, rare and often self limiting. The virus makes the jump, but is unable to spread itself effectively from human host to human host (low transmissibility). You may not be aware of this, but new pathogens emerge frequently and fortunately for us, aren’t sufficiently evolved to maintain a presence in their new hosts (us).

Also, the more deadly pathogens tend to kill off their victims before the person has the chance to spread the new disease very far., thereby also limiting the spread. There is a sweet spot for viruses that want to hit it off with mankind, and very few achieve it. From early analysis of the SARS-COV2 virus, it offered the perfect balance of transmissibility and lethalness.

A virus made for humanity, if you’ll excuse the phrase.

Tracking down the deadly courier

As members of the identified species responsible for the original SARS-COV virus outbreak in China in late 2002, bats and civets were immediately marked as prime suspects. In the 2002 outbreak, initial assessments determined that the virus crossed to human hosts from zoonotic reservoirs, including bats, Himalayan palm civets (Paguma larvata), and raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), sold in exotic animal markets in Guangdong Province.

Initial suspicion fell on the pangolin as the original reservoir for the SARS-COV2 virus and some even suggested that the virus may have evolved by combining pangolin and bat COV strains, a theory later dismissed as the virus was subsequently shown not to be recombinant (made of of two or more strains). Then, in October 2020, the pangolin was exonerated. It could not, it was shown, have been responsible for harboring the virus that infected us.

Science dug deeper. Setting aside the pangolin, SARS-CoV-2 was also reported to bind to ACE2 from Chinese horseshoe bats, civet, cat, turtle, ferret, monkey, dog, Chinese hamster, buffalo, cow, sheep, swine and even pigeon, but none proved feasible as either a reservoir or as an intermediary between the reservoir and man.

A lot hinged on the fact that we had an established pattern with SARS-COV that appeared to be repeating itself. In 2002 it had been the wet markets in Guangdong Province and the exotic animals traded there, now it was the wet markets in Wuhan, specifically the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the first cases were supposedly recorded. Appearances can however be deceptive.

What if the Huanan market had not been ground zero for Covid-19? Could that rule out a zoonotic reservoir? As early as May of 2020, papers began circulating, questioning the publicly accepted narrative of the market and pointing to earlier cases in Wuhan, unrelated to the market. The quote below is lifted directly from one such paper published in Frontiers of Medicine.

COVID-19 is officially considered to have emerged at the Huanan
seafood wholesale market (HSWM) in Wuhan in December, however, epidemiological data show that early cases of COVID-19 were not related to HSWM and thus that it is not the site of emergence. Phylogenetic studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 might have circulated in Wuhan as early as October 2019 and that the virus then spread at low-level from person to person (the latency phase), before being imported to HSWM where it was detected in December 2019

Flaws in zoonotic theories for SARS and MERS predate SARS-COV2. Without getting into technical details (links included for those who wish to explore the topic in more depth) there are two basic models that allow a virus to jump species, the first being the spillover model and a second, referred to as the circulation model. In this model there is no requirement for zoonotic pressure or epizootic episode prior to the emergence of a human disease.

In layman’s terms, we (animals and humans) coexist with viruses (often shared) and are frequently infected with no ill effects. However, under the right conditions, one of these viral infections can mutate, perhaps in the presence of a host with a weakened immune system or genetic abnormality that predisposes the person to that specific virus’s genome. It is therefor possible that SARS-COV2 used a human chain as its intermediary and evolved in human hosts.

SARS-CoV2 is suggested to be one of nearly 900 zoonotic pathogens that have made the leap from nonhuman animals to human populations over millennia. Emerging evidence suggests we return the favor, according to  officially reported SARS-CoV-2 human infections in 23 nonhuman animal species, including not only big cats like tigers and lions but also domestic cats and dogs, gorillas, white-tailed deer, hamsters, farmed mink, otters, anteaters, manatees, hippopotamuses, and others, according to the World Organization for Animal Health.

There remains another issue, not frequently discussed. Technological advances in the sciences have outstripped our ability to fully comprehend what we can now observe and the intricate interdependencies of nature still elude us. A lot of what we see published is nothing more than an educated guess based on unfolding models. We may or may not be on the right track and the huge amount of conflicting opinion supports the fact that virology and its related fields are far from an exact science.

To date, no zoonotic reservoir or intermediary has been identified for the SARS-COV2 virus.

Theory 2. Man amplifies existing virus, dooms the world.

Subtitled: Wuhan, the Capital of Coincidences

I’ve written extensively on this topic during the last three years and you will find links to these articles interspersed below. For the sake of continuity, some of this older content is repeated, and has, where new information has emerged, been updated to reflect the ever evolving narrative. The information deals only with verifiable, known facts and where I digress into opinion, it will be clearly stated.

To fully understand what unfolds below, lets kick of with GOF research, as it plays an integral part of the man-made theory.

Gain of Function (GOF)

Gain-of-function research refers to the serial passaging of microorganisms to increase their transmissibility, virulence, immunogenicity, and host tropism by applying selective pressure to a culture. So in other words, in layman’s terms, it’s about creating something nastier, tougher, and more deadly than the original by manipulating it in a laboratory, for whatever purpose, military, scientific, or otherwise.

To level the playing field however, associating Gain of Function research as being mutually exclusive to influenza or coronaviruses is patently wrong. The field is immense and it is incorrect to equate GOF studies only with influenza transmission experiments. Virology is founded on adaptation approaches, and these have broad utility because they provide phenotypic evidence of a genotypic change when combined with a discriminatory biological assay.

Used responsibly, GOF is an incredibly useful and some would argue, essential tool in the virologists arsenal. Inadequate or flawed safety and ethics protocols are however commonplace in research laboratories where GOF is undertaken, particularly in countries like China. Without being dramatic, pursuing GOF research without properly ensuring its safety, could lead to an extinction-level event. Us being the species we wipe out. It’s an unlikely, but not impossible consequence.

For further reading, including the 2014 US moratorium on GOF, follow this link. Also you may be interested to know that another outbreak of the H1N1 strain in 1977 (the one that caused the Great Flu in 1918) was caused by a laboratory leak of the virus. You can read more about that here.

WIV or the Wuhan Institute of Virology

At the center of the web of coincidences surrounding the virus origin, sits the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, and one of it’s employees, a scientist affectionately known as batwoman. The WIV comes equipped with a biosafety laboratory, and of course, the facility works on coronaviruses, particularly the SARS-COV virus. That’s where batwoman comes into the picture.

Chinese virologist, Dr. Zheng-li Shi started out as a research assistant at the Wuhan Institute for Virology (WIV), with a focus on aquatic viruses. She trained in France and later pivoted to bats in 2004 after SARS broke out. She is widely recognized as a leader in the field and to facilitate her research, she has spent years collecting bats from caves across China, investigating how the coronavirus can jump from animal to human. Said bats are relocated to the Institute (where else) for further study.

Safety Levels in Laboratories handling Biohazards

SARS has not naturally recurred since 2003, but there have been six separate “escapes” from virology labs studying it: one each in Singapore and Taiwan, and in four distinct events at the same laboratory in Beijing.

Many instances involving the accidental release of pathogens have taken place in labs around the world. Hundreds of breaches have occurred in the U.S., including a 2014 release of anthrax from a U.S. government lab that exposed 84 people. The SARS virus escaped four times from the Chinese National Institute of Virology in Beijing causing four infections and one death and also escaped facilities in Singapore and Taiwan.

Despite our best efforts, we cannot ensure viruses used in GOF remain secure. China, unfortunately, has a reputation for lax safety protocols, and the WIV is no exception. In 2014 scientists calling themselves the Cambridge Working Group urged caution on creating new viruses. In what may have been prescient words, they specified the risk of creating a dangerous virus.

“Accident risks with newly created ‘potential pandemic pathogens’ raise grave new concerns,” they wrote. “Laboratory creation of highly transmissible, novel strains of dangerous viruses, especially but not limited to influenza, poses substantially increased risks. An accidental infection in such a setting could trigger outbreaks that would be difficult or impossible to control.”

If you’re thinking we ever learn, think again. In 2021 SARS-COV2 once again escaped from a high level biosecurity laboratory in Taiwan by infecting a laboratory worker. Clearly, we do not have sufficient technical prowess to deal safely with the viruses we create and collect.

Follow the Money

Did the NIH and the NIAID fund GOF research in Wuhan, or didn’t they? Enter the EcoHealth Alliance and Dr Peter Daszak, one of the strongest proponents (naturally) for the natural origin theory. More on that later. The short answer is an absolute, resounding yes. To avoid this article turning into a novel, you can reference the hard evidence in an article I published in 2021. Ironically, if you’re an American, your tax dollars may very well have contributed directly to the pandemic.

The referenced article does not deal with Dr Anthony Fauci’s role in this sordid saga, but given the volume of evidence that has emerged recently, you are free to draw your own conclusions regarding the extent of his involvement with EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak.

That pesky Furin cleavage site

As discussed earlier, one of the most prominent features of the virus relates to its S protein, in particular, the furin cleavage site, that, and the receptor binding domain (RBD) in the S protein is highly specific. So specific in fact, that many virologists took one look at them and had the same thought. Engineered. Not by nature, but by a far more malicious entity, man.

And that brings us back nicely to our friend from EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak. What follows is possibly either the greatest attempt to cover tracks in the history of science or intentional misdirection to further an alternate agenda. We may never know the true motivation, but we know the facts. Daszak lied.

On February 19th of 2020, a group of virologists and others published a letter in the Lancet on the origin, in their professional opinions, of the virus. This extract is taken directly from said letter.

“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,”

The author of this letter was none other than Peter Daszak and the signatories to it included Charles Calisher, Dennis Carroll, Rita Colwell, Ronald B Corley, Christian Drosten, Luis Enjuanes, Jeremy Farrar, Hume Field, Josie Golding, Alexander Gorbalenya, Bart Haagmans, James M Hughes, William B Karesh, Gerald T Keusch, Sai Kit Lam, Juan Lubroth, John S Mackenzie, Larry Madoff, Jonna Mazet, Peter Palese, Stanley Perlman, Leo Poon, Bernard Roizman, Linda Saif, Kanta Subbarao and Mike Turner (no relation).

Now under normal circumstances, this statement of support for their poor beleaguered Chinese colleagues would have been in good form, and the strongly worded endorsement of a natural origin for the virus, well within their rights, however, on the release of emails from the NIH and EcoHealth Alliance under a Freedom of Information request, it came to light that Peter Daszak (whom you will note declared no conflicting interests) was pursuing an alternative agenda. One he had coerced other signatories to agree to, amny of whom workerd for, or were involved with EcoHealth Alliance.

An article highlighting the extent of the coercion was published in the U.S. Right to Know website on the day the statement was published in the Lancet. Titled “EcoHealth Alliance orchestrated key scientists’ statement on “natural origin” of SARS-CoV-2” the article’s introduction leaves no doubt as to its intent.

Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know show that a statement in The Lancet authored by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” was organized by employees of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit group that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Now, if I am not mistaken, that looks pretty conflicted to me. The extent of the funding Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance received can be viewed here. One of Dr Fauci’s last acts as director of the NIAID before retiring in late 2022 was to award one final lump sum to EcoHealth Alliance, despite dismal failures by the company to account for, or produce records relating to their involvement with WIV and the GOF research undertaken there.

Peter Daszak intentionally sought, and still seeks, to influence public and scientific opinion on the origins of the virus to deflect attention from the elephant in the room.

Since 2010, scientists, in particular, one Ralph. S Baric, had known that coronaviruses use the spike protein to gain a foothold in their human hosts. Baric published a paper in 2010 entitled “Recombination, reservoirs, and the modular spike: mechanisms of coronavirus cross-species transmission” and was widely recognized as one of the leading figures experimenting on modifying the spike protein.

No prizes for guessing where Baric found gainful employment. He has developed genetic techniques to enhance the pandemic potential of existing bat coronaviruses, working in collaboration with Dr. Zheng-li Shi at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and with the EcoHealth Alliance. Coincidence after coincidence.

Moderna and Pfizer drive the nail home

Lest we forget, both Moderna and Pfizer produced almost identical mRNA based vaccines in record time. In fact, Moderna had theirs ready to go on the 28th of January, 2020. Impressive you say, but what does this have to do with the virus origins? Perhaps nothing and perhaps everything.

We know Moderna was heavily invested in pursuing a vaccine for coronaviruses and was intimately familiar with the SARS-COV virus. The company would no doubt have been privy to the research being carried out in Wuhan and may well have met with early success against newly engineered strains, particularly if they knew specifically how these strains interacted with our bodies. Almost a case of putting the cart before the horse.

Pure conjecture on my part, of course, but far from unlikely.

Putting the facts aside

Given the unending list of coincidences surrounding Wuhan, it would seem statistically impossible for the virus to have originated anywhere else. If I were a betting man I would also most certainly place my cash on Theory 2, as each coincidence further reduces the likelihood of natural origin. Which then raises one final question which must be broached, as unpleasant as it may be.

If the virus did indeed originate from within the WIV, was it’s release into the wild intentional or accidental?

Profiteering and Smoking Guns

Perhaps the final straw on the wobbling camel-of-natural-origins back is provided by the billionaires, new and old, that profited immensely from the death and chaos that unfolded post 2019. How profitable was/is the pandemic? Here are a few eye watering numbers to make you wish you’d followed a career path in virology.

Now while every bloke is entitled to an honest days wage, whatever their profession, profiteering from a global event you may directly, or indirectly, have initiated tends to raise an eyebrow. It provides an excellent motive for aiding and abetting the virus’s escape and while the likelihood is that the leak was unintentional and purely down to poor security protocols, if there was indeed a leak, we cannot, until proven otherwise, dismiss any of the theories swirling around Wuhan.

Profit, of course is not the only motivating factor, as conspiracy theorists will be quick to point out. Population control on a global scale requires mass vaccination, which, of course is easily justified in the face of a global viral threat. Who would engage in such monstrous evils? Why the elites of course, with fingers pointing towards the likes of Klaus Schwab (chairman of the World Economic Forum, currently meeting in Davos as I write this, to plan their next move), Bill Gates and others.

There may very well be a “smoking gun” that will inadvertently turn up somewhere in the years that follow, a shooter emerging from the grassy knoll, that confirms finally, one way or another where SARS-COV2 originated. I suspect the virus itself will offer up the final answers. As our technology improves, definitively identifying natural and engineered viral sequences in minutes will become a reality. It will also make detailed analysis of the “vaccines” possible, essential for restoring trust in medicines we use to treat billions.

So to return to the original pandemic question. Where did our current coronavirus originate? We may never know with certainty, our best bet being an educated guess based on snippets we’re told are facts, buried in the shifting sands of political opinion and scientific agendas. I made a choice in 2021, to believe that when presented with coincidence upon coincidence, we’d be fools to try and disprove the obvious conclusions these coincidences point to. Let’s disprove the obvious first and then look to natural origin.

Perhaps after evaluating the history of the last three years, you’ll join me on that side of the wall.

Missed Part 4 of the Covid Files on When is a vaccine not a vaccine? Catch up here.

The post On the Origin of Covid. With Apologies to Darwin appeared first on Medika Life.

The most notable health discoveries center around therapies and technologies that enable the health system to better address rare diseases, non-communicable diseases, chronic conditions and public health urgencies that demand attention. Yet, many – not all – of these conditions and situations might be prevented through preventive healthcare delivery and wellness strategies.

Longevity – healthy years – has long been a quest since Ponce De Leon searched out the healing waters that might magically maintain a youthful appearance. We are fascinated with the possibilities of longevity and the well-being of mind, body and spirit. Is this only a fantasy? Today’s research and science suggest otherwise. Like all great things; it takes work – personal investment in diet, exercise, mindfulness and preventive care. Why focus only on sick care. This is why Medika Life highlights 30 outstanding individuals whose efforts are transforming how we approach health and wellness.

Ambassadors of a Wellness Movement

All selected for the 2022/2023 Top 30 Influencers Transforming Health and Wellness roster have demonstrated commitment to improving people’s well-being and advancing the global wellness movement. This list recognizes and celebrates their achievements and encourages their journey! All of them originate and share bold ideas, engaging the diverse sphere of wellness in productive – sometimes controversial – conversation.

Those selected are pioneers and explorers who advance the sectors of beauty, diet, food, fitness, mental and medical health, relaxation and travel. Wellness isn’t only a “nice thing to do.” Done persistently, it has multiple levels of ROI. The Global Wellness Institute estimates that as we emerge from the pandemic, the wellness economy will reach nearly $7.0 trillion in 2025. Global Wellness Institute estimates that as we emerge from the pandemic, the wellness economy will reach almost $7.0 trillion in 2025. Wellness isn’t only a “nice thing to do.” Done persistently, it has multiple levels of ROI.

Wellness is often debunked as too “touchy-feely” and lacking scientific substance. We counter by asking whether sickness is a wiser financial investment – letting the downslide of health take its course. According to the Global Wellness Institute, there is an estimated ROI of $4-$14 for every $1 in public health, prevention, managing non-communicable diseases, and health promotion. At a time when the United States dedicates almost 20 percent of its GDP toward “health,” it is questionable whether that is sustainable. We may need to invest more time, money and policy development in nutritional education, women’s health, overcoming mental health stigma and encouraging a better balance between work and downtime. These 30 Wellness Influencers have the courage and entrepreneurial savvy to raise their voices and open their bank accounts to keep people on track to living longer and healthier.

The Challenge to Select Only 30 Influencers

Wellness and our life choices are complex. America is not a frontrunner in the wellness field – but the interest is strong. There is a science to wellness; however, the byproduct of its efforts aren’t quick fixes. Technology has a place in the wellness movement, yet the simple pleasure of community and conversation are also healing. To arrive at 30 individuals of influence was a process that took months! Those selected are ambassadors for a movement that includes hundreds, thousands, and, we hope, millions of advocates. Medika Life is privileged to champion these pioneering voices.

Analytics and Research

To compile this roster, Medika Life used analytical tools to review data from varied sources – from search to these individuals’ social impact and reach. We examined their readiness and effectiveness in engaging others and supporting wellness through presentations, podcasts, webinars, written content, and willingness to share insights in public forum. We include names that appeared in previous Medika Life lists when nominees focused on wellness policy, communications and outreach. However, priority has been given to highlighting influencers who have not appeared on our previous lists.

We considered geography.  We wanted to ensure that voices from around the globe are included. We looked to ensure diversity and equity. We focused on people with the courage to share their ideas through research, investment, art, music, and literature (backed by science) that inspire wellness, launched new companies and NGOs and advocated for beleaguered industries during the pandemic, such as the leisure and travel sectors.

Appreciation

As always, thanks to my friend and Medika Life Founding Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Robert Turner, for assisting me in preparing this roster of exceptional contributors to the wellness conversation. Also, appreciation to Medika Life authors and colleagues Cullen Burnell and Jordan Forbes for their support. Special thanks to the colleagues from professional circles who shared their thoughts and contributed their nominations, particularly those from the Global Wellness Summit community, which serves as a home to many wellness advocates.

Please also look at the Medika Life 2022 2021 Most Influential Voices in Healthcare and Women Transforming Healthcare lists. People who appear on those lists are incredible voices in health transformation. Many need no introduction, and others will be on your radar screen. All these individuals have an impact and are important to watch, follow, amplify and engage. Follow them all and chart their influence.

Gil Bashe, Editor-in-Chief, Medika Life

Top 30 Wellness Influencers Downloadable Banner

All influencers on the 2022/23 Top 30 Wellness Influencers list have a personalized banner that can be downloaded via the “clicking here” link below. We provide these individualized banners to acknowledge and thank them for their efforts toward improving patient experience and healthcare outcomes. Instructions on how to add the banner are shown on the page.

Influencers listed below can download their banners by clicking here. This is one example – there are 30 banners available – for each person – via the unique link.

Top 30 Wellness Influencers

Here is our Medika Life roster of 30 people to follow – not ranked, presented in alphabetical order, all-important voices – to have on your radar screen for future years. Follow their content and voices – these are amazing advocates for patient care and health innovation:

Belgin Aksoy

Creative Director, Richmond International; Founder Global Wellness Day

Wellness is a global movement, and Aksoy raised its banner by creating Global Wellness Day. In 2016, the Global Wellness Summit honored Aksoy and presented her with the “Leading Woman in Wellness” Award. That same year, Aksoy received the “Most Influential Spa Leader” Award from American Spa. Aksoy owns Richmond Nua Wellness-Spa, the award-winning wellness spa brand in Turkey. Her commitment to wellness and the community is well demonstrated.

Ken Dychtwald, PhD

Founder and CEO, Age Wave

Since 1986, Dr. Dychtwald has been the Founder and CEO of Age Wave, an acclaimed think tank and consultancy focused on the social and business implications and opportunities of global aging and rising longevity. His client list has included more than half the Fortune 500. He has served as a fellow of the World Economic Forum and was a featured speaker at two White House Conferences on Aging. Dr. Dychtwald has emerged as North America’s foremost visionary and original thinker regarding the lifestyle, marketing, health care, economic and workforce implications of the age wave. He is a psychologist, gerontologist, and best-selling author of 19 books on aging-related issues. Before longevity was a popular topic, Dr. Dychtwald was in the vanguard of elevating its importance.

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Thirty Inspiring Wellness-Sector Role Models

We hope you find these 30 Influencers of Wellness inspiring role models. Seeing the possibilities of extended health over many years is a better way to live. Still, we must continue to direct our eyes toward societal injustices that impede the ultimate goal of a health ecosystem that addresses physical and emotional needs. These wellness leaders champion a life filled with adventure, tasty food, and companionship must also join other health influencers who question the status quo of discrimination, disparities and disruption.

Let’s do our part to ensure these incredible people are heard and supported. Follow and engage with these outstanding advocates of a world filled with wellness. Also, follow people they follow – those people are future candidates for the Medika Top 30 and 50 lists. Again, with a list of 30 people, it’s impossible to include everyone we considered – there were many, and we look forward to featuring their efforts. That is why we urge everyone to visit past lists and engage.

This Spring, Medika Life hopes to release its 30 Voices in Digital Health Health List for 2023, featuring fearless life science innovators seeking to advance access to care, champion new therapies and accelerate diagnosis and alternative treatment approaches. Stay tuned! Follow Medika on Twitter and LinkedIn and follow our editorial staff for updates.

Spot a broken link, typo, forgotten degree or name misspelled?

Oops! Apologies! While care has been taken in compiling this list and adding social media links, things go wrong, or a name is misspelled or a link broken. We seek to honor those listed! Please do get in touch to address typos, amendments, or omissions by reaching gil.bashe@medika.life.

Thanks in advance and be healthy!

The post The Medika Life Top 30 Voices Transforming Wellness for 2022/23 appeared first on Medika Life.

As social media has grown in importance and become a go-to source for information, there have been persistent calls from lawmakers and regulators for owners and managers to be responsible for tagging the misinformation that has often been spread on their platforms and moderating it.  Does this ask exceed our abilities to monitor and engage and corral dangerous deniers?

Long before one of the world’s wealthiest people slapped down $44B to buy Twitter, the public was in the grip of a misinformation pandemic. Whether on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or any of several platforms, communication and public discourse have been partisan, ideologically informed and slanted.  During the pandemic, when this “Tower of Babel” was combined with inaccurate, non-authoritative and often conflicting pronouncements from those in authority, the public’s trust in elected officials, health authorities, drug companies and public institutions was broadly undermined.  By the time Elon Musk got to Twitter, in terms of trust, the horse had long fled the stable.

During the COVID-era, social media discourse has already enabled our nation to self-divide into tribes.  Whatever Musk’s intentions are, we are already in the midst of a perfect storm of “trust deregulation.”

TRUST TAKES YEARS TO EARN – IT’S LOST IN A MOMENT

Trust in institutions, it turns out, is short-lived and can be fragile.

Despite the great success of COVID vaccines, which are medical miracles, public health officials’ overstatement of their benefits contributed to reduced trust. Designed to protect and guard against viral transmission, vaccines were not all they were promised to be. Their protection turns out to be individual, not societal, and they guard against disease severity, like the flu shot, but not transmission.

As variants come onto the stage, we are encouraged to get another booster shot.  But the variant that now reigns supreme has no vaccine. It’s the “I don’t give a damn” adaptation. When the scientific story changed, it became hard to maintain confidence in the system.

Public health officials aren’t alone; there is a documented, dramatic trust decline in government and science, in addition to public health. Institutional trust diminishes as anxiety resulting from emotional (and social) isolation rises. Many blame social media for ratcheting that anxiety, as it’s often difficult to differentiate fact from fiction. But while Twitter is accountable for much chaos, it’s not responsible for the drop in consumer confidence in institutions.

Trust is personal, earned through consistent action over time. How institutions and companies — embodied by their CEOs, marketers, and communicators — engage transparently and honestly defines the quality of relationships and earns them trust.

While trust must be carefully earned, it can more easily be squandered. Public health institutions proved this.

The CDC needed to improve when it came to consumer mobilization. Masks work. Social distancing was effective. Vaccines and booster shots reduce disease severity. But are people continuing to wear masks, take precautions or get boosted? The Centers for Disease Control failed to establish itself as the go-to source for information and direction, and no longer enjoys the level of public trust it once did.

THE ERA OF VERIFY, THEN TRUST

And that takes us back to Twitter. While many point the finger at Twitter and other social platforms like Facebook as primary culprits in the mess we face, the causes of the current distrust go deeper. Poor communication and indecisive action from those in authority, a willingness to exploit crises for political and personal gain, coupled with news networks and media platforms that long ago moved from reporting facts to reflecting the tribal beliefs of their audiences’ ideological alignment contribute mightily to the loss of objective truth and the normalization of passing misinformation.

If quashing misinformation is to have any positive impact, consumers need to have a well-regarded, apolitical home base they can trust, which does not currently exist. How can Twitter alone be held accountable without this beacon of accuracy being seen as a go-to source?

Whether we advertise or not on this platform, there are right now 450 million monthly active users on Twitter!  Most do not register what Elon Musk says or represents.  If the billionaire throws his hands up and shuts off the lights, who wins the final round of this debate?

Many pundits sound Twitter’s death knell. Some are couching it as retribution for being a home for misinformation – or worse, hate.  But, if Twitter – with its global town square positive aspects still intact — collapses, does anyone win?

Without a trusted, objective source, it becomes critically important for consumers of information to adopt a more skeptical mindset to review information carefully to determine its value and truth.  And that means verifying the accuracy of information before sharing our trust.

MOVING FORWARD TO BUILD TRUST

Platforms like Twitter have a responsibility to their users, including protecting them from fiction that could lead to dangerous decisions regarding their health. Whether Elon Musk can be appealed to or not to reverse this decision to step back on quashing misinformation, regulators, corporate leaders and communicators must be reminded that creating and maintaining trust with the public is a micro-building community activity that happens house-by-house, person-to-person, and eye-to-eye.

We must recognize that Twitter is a microcosm reflecting people’s diversity, beliefs, and opinions. If Twitter fails, the plurality of opinion it has revealed over time doesn’t go away.  To build trust with that broad, diverse crowd of users, communicators need to make their cases with facts, convincingly, with authority and evidence, over and over.  It isn’t going to be simple to navigate these chaotic waters, but when it comes to combatting misinformation, we are all in the same boat.

The post Twitter’s Decision to Stand-down on COVID Misinformation Highlights a New Symptom — “Trust Deregulation” appeared first on Medika Life.