John Roulac

From Corrupted to Trusted: (Liberal) America’s Shifting Perceptions of the FDA

John Roulac — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 16:20:31 +0000

From Corrupted to Trusted: (Liberal) America’s Shifting Perceptions of the FDA

Until recently, most Americans had little trust in the FDA. But when COVID arrived in early 2020, a scared nation deepened in tribal identity and then turned its faith and trust over to FDA and CDC. Interestingly, during COVID, medical professionals' trust in the FDA and CDC plummeted. Let’s explore how American perceptions of the FDA have changed and what this faith has delivered to our nation.

In 2008 I obtained a letter written by an FDA official, which was sent to a competitor of Nutiva (the organic foods brand I founded in 1999). It warned firms to remove any reference to ‘non-GMO’ on food labels. Virtually every natural food brand quickly changed their labels. As CEO of Nutiva I determined that the warning was not based on any FDA regulation, but was an illegal abuse of power by an FDA official serving the interests of the GMO industry. We chose to ignore the letter, and luckily I never heard from the agency. This is just one of many examples of the FDA’s suspect moves over the past decades.

The FDA has failed to regulate a toxic food system of dis-ease, inflammation, and the destruction of nature via harsh pesticides, leaving Americans with weakened immunity and vulnerability to pathogens. Tragically the U.S.A. has one of the highest COVID death rates in the world.

The FDA Has Been a Case Study of a Captured Agency

From the 1980’s thru 2019, the FDA was not considered trustworthy by the American people and was often described as “corrupt, filled with cronyism, or a captured agency”.

During the 1980s groundswell of the organic food movement, many Americans realized that Monsanto and the chemical industry's cozy relationship with the FDA was a major issue. Most liberals were not happy with FDA policies that became the target of many legal campaigns over the safety and efficacy of GMO foods, pesticides and drugs.

In 1990, the FDA set out to make dietary supplements prescription only. The industry unified and rallied to pass the DSHE Act, legalizing supplements as foods.

There has been a revolving door of chemical and pharma executives between the FDA and industry, as was the case in 2009 when ex-Monsanto executive Michael R. Taylor was hired as the FDA’s food czar. Corn oil and corn syrup were given a pass, while eggs and beef were considered unhealthy. Then came Scott Gottlieb MD, the former FDA Commissioner from 2017 to April 2019, where in June of 2019, he became a Director at Pfizer and Chair of their Regulatory and Compliance Committee.

In fact, as documented by the international news organization Quartz, “as of 2019, nine out of the last 10 FDA commissioners – representing nearly four decades of agency leadership – have gone on to work for pharmaceutical companies.

FDA approval of dangerous drugs such as Prozac and Vioxx has been standard operating procedure. Back in 2012, CBS’ 60 Minutes exposed collusion between the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA on anti-depressants. The majority of FDA’s drug budget is in fact funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

In 2013, a report published in the Journal of Law and Medicine summarized by Dr. Donald W. Light highlighted that ‘about 90 percent of all new FDA approved drugs over the previous 30 years were found to be little or no more effective for patients than existing drugs’, that ‘the bar for “safe” was equally low, even when properly prescribed’, and that ‘125K excess deaths occurred in the United States each year among people taking properly prescribed drugs to be healthier.’

A fall 2019 Gallup Poll ranked the pharmaceutical industry as the most poorly regarded industry in Americans' eyes. Americans were more than twice as likely to rate the pharmaceutical industry negatively (58%) as positively (27%).

In 2020, as fears of COVID swept the land, the constant drumbeat of fear, isolation, and extreme polarization helped cultivate a “collective trauma” for the American people. Humans are social animals shaped by cultural context. The deepening of tribal identities, Trump zig-zagging at the helm of the pandemic response, and the presence of the QAnon conspiracy movement caused an even deeper distrust of anything associated with Trump, including the FDA. By October 2020, trust in the FDA was at an all-time low.

Shifting Tides

Ironically, this all changed when Joe Biden assumed office. Liberals and democrats flipped rapidly from FDA skeptics to FDA cheerleaders in a matter of months, the perverse logic seeming to be "We hate Trump and now we are on Team FDA-Pharma".

In May 2021, a Pew Research Poll found that the share of adults who are “basically content” with the federal government had risen to the highest point since 2004, driven by Democrats. In July 2021, an Annenberg Public Policy Center Poll found that 77% of Americans were confident that the FDA was providing trustworthy information about treating and preventing COVID-19.

Interestingly enough, at the exact same time that the general public’s trust in the FDA and CDC was soaring, healthcare professionals’ trust in the FDA and CDC was dramatically decreasing. A group of 20 + medical professionals spoke at a U.S. Senate Roundtable on January 24, 2022 (skip ahead to 51:28). Perhaps the views of many of these healthcare professionals have not been able to reach the general public because MDs and nurses regularly face termination or threat of medical board decertification for publicly speaking of vaccine injuries, low cost effective treatment protocols, or on other matters that don’t fit the current approved narratives.

The FDA Now is Trustworthy, Credible and Authoritative…Really?

It appears the majority of left-leaning Americans believe that the FDA has their best interests at heart regarding COVID policies and are obeying them without question. As leading clinical MDs remind me, much of what Americans base their opinion on is often simply pharma marketing claims disguised as medical science. In a world of corruption, brainwashing, and dishonesty, it’s not easy to know whom to trust. It’s a classic example of mass formation psychosis, where people adhere to groupthink in order to find meaning and resolution in uncertain times, no matter how irrational.

It’s a stunning sociological study to see a mass population trusting leaders of companies with very low ethical standards. Just months ago, most would never agree to be injected with an experimental genetic drug therapy every six months based on FDA edicts. Upon shot five or six under threat of job loss or travel ban, and mounting vaccine injury reports, will more Americans resume asking good questions?

Repeat after me…

Many Americans are repeating the FDA and the pharma sector’s slogan of “Vaccines are Safe and Effective”, almost like the pledge of allegiance to the flag, while ridiculing or ignoring other proven preventative and early treatment measures (as outlined in my recent article ‘Pharma’s Culture War’).’ Thousands of practicing MDs along with the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) agree that having more tools in the toolkit is wise and that “Early Treatment of COVID is Safe and VERY Effective”.

MDs and countries from around the world who focus on early treatment send very few patients to the hospitals, whereas countries with high vaccine rates such as the EU, UK, and the U.S.A. have some of the highest death rates in the world. Regions such as Africa and Northern India (until recently) had very low rates of vaccination and very low COVID cases and deaths. Tokyo, Japan and Delhi, India’s COVID cases in the latter half of 2021 were 175 to 2000 times less than London or NYC (see graphic and data below) and their COVID hospital beds were virtually empty. These regions often used early treatment protocols to reduce the spread.

Oddly many Americans cheering on the FDA have little awareness of why other countries are doing much better than the USA. Why is that not in the news? What is the connection of early treatment, inflammation, diet, toxic pesticides, soil health, gut biome and industrial agriculture?

Suppression of safe and effective treatments

The FDA, media, and the pharma sector have ignored the overwhelming benefits of Vitamin D and lifestyle choices. An Israeli study offers the strongest proof yet of Vitamin D’s power to fight COVID. “We found it striking, to see the difference in the chances of becoming a severe patient when you are lacking in Vitamin D compared to when you’re not,” said Dr. Amiel Dror, a Galilee Medical Center physician. The U.S. media virtually never publishes positive articles on Vitamin D, which often appear in international media. Why has the FDA and the media not published statistical COVID hospitalization and death data on Vitamin D levels or on inflammation? Why have most Americans not bothered to pay attention to their Vitamin D levels?

Before COVID, the FDA never issued edicts preventing doctors from prescribing low cost and re-purposed medicines. 20% of all medicines prescribed in the U.S.A. today are generic repurposed, (e.g. a heart drug given to a cancer patient). Clinicians do this every day and no long term studies are required, since safety data is already established.

They agencies just can't stop pulling the same old BS, day after day, generic drug after generic drug. The case of fluvoxamine is just the most absurdly indefensible. Not subtle. They do this crap right out in the open. And we let them.https://t.co/sclcEUYiU8
— Pierre Kory, MD MPA (@PierreKory) February 2, 2022

Fluvoxamine, !vermect!n, Nitazoxanide and Hydroxychloroquine are safe, commonly prescribed medicines and are part of the FLCCC COVID treatment protocols. According to Pierre Kory, MD “Since the summer of 2020, U.S. public health agencies have continually shut down the use of generic treatments. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded 20 large research studies of patented pharmaceutical industry drugs before only recently agreeing to study repurposed generic medicines.”

https://rumble.com/embed/vqjcrs/?pub=4

The fact that doctors at the bedside are being fired or prevented from providing life saving vitamins and medicines is truly a black mark in America and has likely contributed to a significant number of unnecessary deaths. Instead they are told to use the highly toxic Remdesivir which can cause renal failure and hospitals are paid bonuses for treating COVID patients with this drug.

Censorship is Now a Liberal Value?

Many liberals now want to cancel, restrict or censor their perceived ‘tribal enemies’. Some scream about medical issues that they have little or no training in as if they are judge and jury, and maybe even represent science itself as Dr. Fauci has alluded to. Easily triggered, they often refuse to even listen to the world-renowned MDs and scientists that they are criticizing or read the published science themselves.

Recently, Joe Rogan’s podcast came under fire, accused of promoting ‘COVID misinformation’, for hosting Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone. Dr. Peter McCullough is the former Vice Chief of Internal Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and is one of the most published authors in his field with 600 citations in the National Library of Medicine. Dr. Robert Malone is one of the principle inventors of mRNA vaccine technology. Both hold views on COVID treatment and COVID vaccines that fall outside the mainstream ‘FDA-and-CDC-approved’ narratives, though neither are anti-vaccine. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell jumped in (unsuccessfully) to help ‘cancel’ Joe’s podcast as other artists followed with support from the woke mob (see: Not Your Cuppa Joe? Here’s a Thought: Move ON).

It seems absurd, yet Americans and our media now tar and feather anyone who dare question the approved narratives. Wokeism is now becoming the tip of the spear for the pharma industrial complex to cancel those that fall out of line. Facebook is now even starting to ‘fact check’ regenerative agriculture posts that mention holistic grazing with climate benefits.

Dissent = Misinformation

Dissent, and even skepticism is now being dangerously characterized as “misinformation”, while pharma marketing claims are now often labeled as “science”. It’s almost as if Orwell’s ‘newspeak’ is coming to life in realtime.

And the latest news is even more Orwellian as the Biden Administration mentions ‘misleading COVID narratives’. Disagree With Government Policy? Homeland Security Says You’re a ‘Terrorist’ if You Speak Out.

To even question the “Vaccines are Safe and Effective” narrative means possible loss of work or family drama. The ‘take the vaccine not for your health but to protect your mother’ mantra was repeated ad nauseum, despite the fact that you can still get COVID, spread COVID, and die from COVID even if you are vaccinated.

What does “safe and effective” really mean?

Mirriam Webster defines “safe” as:: 1 : free from harm or risk: unhurt.

Vaccine injuries are generally under-reported but the numbers related to the COVID vaccine are staggering and increasing rapidly. From altering menstrual cycles in women to heart disease in boys and men, and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, the expanding list goes on. With the growing vaccine injury issues of the mRNA jabs, Israel (which currently has one of the highest COVID death rates in the world- despite 4 jab booster regime) recently ordered 5 million non-genetic, non mRNA ‘old school’ Novavax vaccines.

A report reviewing data in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, co-authored by Dr. McCullough and Dr. Jessica Rose, a virologist and epidemiologist in Canada, found that the relative risk for myocarditis is increased by 19-fold in age 12 to 15-year-old males following the second mRNA vaccination compared to background myocarditis rates for this age group. Interestingly, the report was pulled without a clear reason or explanation one week before the CDC deadline to review vaccine safety data in children.

A recent preprint from Kaiser Permanente Northwest also concluded that ‘the true incidence of myopericarditis is markedly higher than the incidence reported to US advisory committees’ and that ‘the VSD should validate its search algorithm to improve its sensitivity for myopericarditis.'

“Vaccine effectiveness” is another interesting term. Early epidemiological data is showing reduced rates of hospitalization and death in groups that are at higher-risk for developing severe COVID. However, there is now overwhelming evidence that the vaccines are not effective in preventing you from getting or transmitting COVID. Thus is this term ‘safe and effective’ based on sound science or should it have a qualifying statement to go along with it?

Weaponization of Vaccination Status

Mandates and vaccine passports based on experimental genetic vaccines (many of which were never officially approved by the FDA) are violations of the Geneva Convention, and arguably violations of the Nuremberg Code and human rights in general. One’s right to a job or going to your favorite café is now dependent on draconian and ever-changing rules. California governor Gavin Newsom’s announcement of the lifting of indoor mask mandates only for those vaccinated, besides not being based on science, is divisive and antagonistic. Two shots were not enough and shortly three will be required to be a “member of society”, and soon perhaps four, five or more. Do Americans still have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Waking Up (from the Woke?)

It’s truly strange times when your close friends or family would unwittingly rather have untold numbers of Americans die of a treatable disease (which must all be “misinformation”). However, a growing number of people are beginning to question the failed COVID policies. Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands and the UK have all started to lift COVID restrictions. Remember when liberals used to suggest the U.S.A. should follow Scandinavian countries like Denmark?

Every day more people learn of the growing vaccine injuries or censorship of low cost repurposed medicines. Many are beginning to worry about the lack of transparency, misleading narratives, mandates and censorship, yet are afraid to say anything for fear of attacks on their reputation.

Regeneration

It’s certainly fascinating to watch this unfold. Will public support fade for vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, school masking, and firing MDs for practicing medicine at the bedside? Will we gain the understanding of the linkage between soil health, pesticides, our gut biome health and regenerative agriculture (my 2021 article discusses this issue in more depth) as a key to boosting our personal and planet’s health? As we shift from this pandemic to endemic phase, let’s make an extra effort to play more and nurture ourselves and our community. It’s time. Let’s regenerate.

The post From Corrupted to Trusted: (Liberal) America’s Shifting Perceptions of the FDA appeared first on John Roulac.

Pharma’s Culture War: Are Simple, Cheap & Effective Options Being Downplayed?

John Roulac — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 01:47:14 +0000

Our long journey to eradicate the coronavirus has in part become a culture war that has pitted well-meaning groups against each other, especially around the topic of vaccines vs. therapeutic treatments for COVID. There is a growing and disturbing trend toward authoritarian censorship of well-respected and science-driven medical doctors who are sharing information about COVID-19 therapeutic approaches that go beyond vaccines. Many countries in the Global South are using early treatment protocols with outstanding success, resulting in very low rates of cases and deaths. The FDA’s and CDC’s lack of early treatment policies is not only harming Americans' health and causing needless deaths but also hitting taxpayers, given inflation and the rising cost of hospitalization.

It’s understandable that vaccines have taken center stage. Vaccination against diseases such as smallpox, polio, and other pandemic-level viruses throughout history has reduced or eliminated their devastating consequences and helped the world recover from their impacts. While COVID-19 vaccinations are helping to reduce hospital cases, they may not be lowering transmission rates—as seen in Israel and the USA but not widely reported in the American media.

As reported in Nature, COVID vaccine immunity is waning. Politico reported that the Israeli government briefed the Biden administration in mid-September 2021 that the double-vaxxed country has confirmed that vaccines are now wearing off. As of August 15, of the 514 Israelis hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19, 59% were fully vaccinated.

“There are so many breakthrough infections, and most of the hospitalized patients are actually vaccinated,” says Uri Shalit, a bioinformatician at the Israel Institute of Technology, adding, “One of the big stories from Israel: ‘Vaccines work, but not well enough.’” Thus, therapeutic treatments and drugs that have already saved countless lives are especially vital against new variants that may further evade vaccine protection.

During this COVID-19 crisis, many have begun to question the organizations meant to inform and regulate health policies. Why is this lack of trust happening? Why does Big Pharma appear to be following a similar playbook to Exxon or Monsanto, dangerously clouding the issues of the pandemic and corrupting the science? The fact that daughters of COVID-19 patients are suing hospitals that are taking away proven, safe, and effective medicines from their dying mothers is quite concerning. The fundamental principles of medicine and the Hippocratic oath “to treat the ill to the best of one's ability” are under siege. A consistent message from many doctors is the utter lack of transparency at the FDA, CDC, and WHO.

What is a safe and ethical path forward for public health policy and the vanquishing of COVID-19? Can people let go of the intense hatred and judgment of “the other side”? And can we chart a middle way, free of the tired right vs. left dogma? How we will answer these questions is of vital importance.

There is a growing interest in wellness solutions and therapeutic drugs that go beyond a vaccine, face mask, and distancing approach. Yet many liberals appear to have entered a strange twilight zone or have been blue-pilled in “Big Pharma’s Matrix,” often repeating Pharma’s talking points with little knowledge of the subject.

It’s truly a polarizing issue. Wall Street, the FDA, Big Tech, China, Russia, the corporate media, and the Democratic political establishment of the USA have seemed to line up with Big Pharma against the Hippocratic Oath, a growing mountain of scientific evidence, a robust and diverse mix of thousands of clinical doctors in 79 countries, and health-oriented and right-leaning people in the developed world, alongside much of the Global South.

It’s Time for Therapeutics

As the need for therapeutic treatments for COVID-19 is becoming more and more clear, a growing number of people (vaxxed and unvaxxed) are beginning to take vitamin D, zinc, quercetin, melatonin, and the amino acid derivative NAC, as well as the medication !vermect!n, which is as safe as aspirin and costs the WHO a few cents a pill.

There is a need to pause here, because the anti-science propaganda and attacks on !vermect!n have been so vicious that even talking about it within the context of peer-reviewed data and hard science can lead to censorship and deplatforming (hence the alternate spelling, here, of !vermect!n). The coordinated propaganda campaign against !vermect!n has led many to accept the idea that it is simply a horse dewormer, an unproven treatment, and a laughable folk remedy that only anti-science Fox news viewers are using. That is all despite the fact that !vermect!n has a total of 64 studies, 45 peer-reviewed with 32 randomized control trials showing improvement of 63%+ in early treatment and 84%+ in prophylaxis (Source: https://ivmmeta.com) and is regularly used in therapeutic treatments in 79 countries around the world. Here are six compelling !vermect!n studies: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Whereas countries in the Global South provide COVID home kits of Vitamin D, zinc, and !vermect!n, the USA tells its citizens, in effect, that they are on their own with no treatment protocol until they get so sick they have to go to the hospital, at which point the damage is often done. Despite the mounting evidence on the importance of vitamin D and zinc, our governments and public health agencies are MIA during a pandemic. A multifaceted early treatment interferes with viral replication, assisting in recovery and immune defense and reducing the number of COVID-19 long-haulers.

Many physicians are prescribing weekly prophylactic doses of !vermect!n. Upon early detection of COVID-19, patients take it daily (along with supplements) for 5-10 days. The FLCCC protocol also now includes gargling with mouthwash several times daily to reduce viral loads.

COVID-19 therapeutic supplements including vitamins C and D, zinc, melatonin, quercetin, and N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) have been shown to assist the body in reducing viral loads and provide an additional choice of self-care, based on sound best practices. China has augmented therapy with traditional Chinese medicine. Top researchers at the University of California have launched a groundbreaking FDA-approved clinical trial to study the use of mushrooms and Chinese herbs for COVID-19. Traditional botanicals such as Nigella Sativa (black cumin seeds) are being tested for their potential in COVID-19 therapeutic treatment. A new Israeli therapeutic drug called Opaganib is in phase II/III, has been approved in Mexico, the UK, and Russia, and could reach the USA market in 2022. COVID-19 therapeutics also include drugs that Merck and Pfizer are rushing to market, Molnupiravir and PF-07321332, Remdesivir, off-patent drug !vermect!n, antibiotics, and IV ozone therapy. The overwhelming evidence of the efficacy of COVID-19 therapeutic treatments begs the question of why there is so much energy to block access to them.

Weaving Race, Profit, and Health Care

We can partly trace today’s medical-system avoidance of cheap-and-effective treatments and prophylactics to oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller’s efforts to vilify apothecary and natural remedies in the early 20th century, and to replace them with patented, high-priced pharmaceuticals. Non-Western countries are not immune to this unethical influence.

For five thousand years, Ayurveda was India’s central healing art, with its yoga and herbal applications practiced by millions. Sadly, British and American Pharma doctrine has virtually erased this time-honored practice from schoolbooks, depriving Indians of knowledge of their own culture. Is profit dictating health protocols and preventing MDs from helping patients?

Let’s explore how many countries are improving COVID-19 outcomes with consistent early treatment, and learn from real clinical doctors, not just officials or “Hollywood doctors” who never see patients.

The Case for !vermect!n Around the World

In comparing countries such as the USA, the UK, France, Israel, and others taking a “vaccine-only” approach without early treatment to countries in the Global South using early treatment strategies via Covid kits and with lower vaccine rates, the latter have lower rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths compared to the former. !vermect!n’s potential has been known since early in the pandemic. In August 2020, the Australian professor and respected physician Dr. Thomas Borody released a COVID-19 treatment protocol that includes !vermect!n.

“We have a therapy that can fight COVID-19,” said Borody. “The medications have been around for 50 years. They are cheap and FDA-approved, with an outstanding safety profile. Why are we just waiting around for a vaccine? To save lives we should be using whatever is safe and available right now. In fact, international data reports a symptom improvement within four to six days.”

The Delta variant emerged in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state with a population of 240 million. If a country Uttar Pradesh, would rank as the 6th largest in the world. When Uttar Pradesh and Delhi distributed home kits including !vermect!n, antibiotics, Vitamin C and D, COVID-19 rates dropped quickly, as explained by the UK’s Dr. John Campbell and Dr. Lenny Da Costa’s short video. In May 2021 the WHO reported on the success of the Uttar Pradesh home kits, yet did NOT include the contents. On 9-14-2021 The Hindustan Times reported: The key parts of the Uttar Pradesh government's plan to tackle Covid-19 included contact tracing, early detection, isolation, and free provision of medicine kits and treatment to the rural populace. Compare Uttar Pradesh’s 27-daily-cases vs. the USA’s 132,000 as of 9-6-2021. Why is this not news? Does the west look down upon BIPOC nations, or is the US very insular , is profit a driving force or could it be a combination of all three ? Also, “A 73 percent reduction of COVID-19 infection among healthcare workers for the following month after receiving a two-dose !vermect!n prophylaxis” was reported at AIIMS in Bhubaneswar, India.

Pressure from the WHO threatened the use of !vermect!n in Indian home treatment kits in May of 2021. Ms. Dipali Ojha, a lawyer for the Indian Bar Association, filed a legal case against the WHO in May 2021 stating that they sought to address the “medical tyranny that we all face” and to learn more about what is behind WHO’s anti-!vermect!n stance.

A Japanese physician, Dr. Kazuhiro Nagao, was interviewed about his successful use of !vermect!n with 500 of his COVID-19 patients. Dr. Haruo Ozaki, chair of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association, declared on August 13, 2021, “!vermect!n has demonstrated significant benefits in reducing infections and deaths . . . and while clinical trials are important, it’s time to greenlight doctors to prescribe !vermect!n.” In another sign of censorship, YouTube removed Dr. Ozaki’s video discussing medical science, and Twitter removed this graphic below.

Dr. Kazuhiro Nagao on Japanese TV saying he's used #ivermectin as early treatment for over 500 covid patients with practically 100% success rate. Asks for nationwide use.

Dr. Nagao is director of the Nagao Clinic and a university professor.

News story:https://t.co/gqoIAzMUHo pic.twitter.com/OiCuLS73Os
— Bren (@brenontheroad) August 27, 2021

In its success with !vermect!n, Japan and India are far from alone. Many doctors from Latin America to Asia have implemented community health programs to conduct trials of !vermect!n’s efficacy in prevention and treatment through regional usage. The New York Times article “Covid Ravaged South America. Then Came a Sharp Drop in Infections” explains that the sudden drop in cases can’t be understood, yet makes no mention of the fact that Latin American doctors regularly prescribe !vermect!n for their COVID-19 patients. Nor did the Times mention that the Guatemalan and Bolivian governments’ version of “ICU in a box” included supplements and !vermect!n, or that El Salvador gives free medication to anyone who gets COVID. In December 2020, the Mexico City government provided 83,000 COVID kits with !vermect!n (a very low dosage of 12mg for 2 days) to COVID-positive patients and thereby reduced hospitalization rates by 50-70%. A recent study out of Peru demonstrated a 14-fold reduction in nationwide excessive deaths. Furthermore, 31 African countries that were already using !vermect!n as an antiparasitic have reported much lower rates of COVID-19 compared to 22 countries that were not.

I recently interviewed a West Coast MD who prescribed !vermect!n prophylactically (along with vitamin D, zinc, quercetin, and melatonin) to over 500 patients 1-2X a week for the past year with no breakthrough cases.

In the United States, Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) is a group of expert clinicians continually updating COVID protocols for early home-based prevention and treatment, based on clinical observations as well as the scientific literature.

FLCCC’s president, Dr. Pierre Kory, was invited twice to testify in front of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs—in May 2020 to recommend steroids for hospitalized patients (which later became part of standard care), and in December 2020 to recommend !vermect!n (which was not adopted in standard care). Dr. Kory’s US Senate testimony was removed from YouTube.

The FLCCC provides numerous prophylaxis studies on the efficacy of !vermect!n. Excellent !vermect!n resources include this video and !vermect!n for COVID-19: a real-time meta-analysis of 63 studies as well as these studies: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Millions abroad have received !vermect!n for COVID-19 (often in home health kits), hundreds of clinical doctors prescribe it, and very few doctors have ever stopped prescribing it. Studies confirm that it is most effective when taken early following an infection, along with supplements. Instead of the !vermect!n vs. vaccine debate, it’s really another medicine in the tool kit for MDs. (It’s not, on its own, a silver bullet. Please note that no information in this article is meant to be taken as medical advice, for which you should consult your doctor.)

The History of !vermect!n

!vermect!n originated from a single soil sample in Japan in the late 1970s. In 2015, the Nobel Committee for Medicine, in its only award for treatments of infectious diseases in more than six decades, honored !vermect!n.

!vermect!n is on the WHO “List of Essential Medicines,” and it has an exceptionally good safety record, considered as safe as aspirin. It’s being used safely and effectively in 79 countries across the world to treat COVID-19. Since the 1980s,this low-cost, off-patent medicine has been used by humans (including small children) 3.7 billion times, for a variety of tropical diseases such as river blindness. It has one of the highest safety ratings of any drug.

What does off-patent mean? When a pioneer drug is approved, it gets a patent of 20 years. After the patent runs out, anyone can make that drug if they prove bioequivalence. Thus, there is no financial incentive for the drug company (Merck, in the case of !vermect!n) to carry out costly double-blind studies. Investment in new drugs is far more lucrative.

The Media War on !vermect!n

Big Pharma has been attacking !vermect!n with a well-timed media blitz.

In August 2021, as news spread of the effectiveness of !vermect!n as a lifesaving medicine, Pharma’s misinformation campaign managed to sway many people and pressured doctors and pharmacies against it, despite the readily available facts and data about !vermect!n efficacy. The media played along, with !vermect!n falsely called a “horse de-wormer” in both serious news stories and comedy routines, and by FDA Twitter. A news story of an Oklahoma hospital reported to be overflowing with sick patients overdosing on !vermect!n, shared by the likes of The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow,turned out to be a complete fabrication. Such stories are weaponizing !vermect!n to further polarize this cultural war. (See Matt Taibbi’s piece: Can a Drug Be "Right-Wing?)

Also, mischaracterizing !vermect!n as a drug only for animals when it is used so widely by humans in the Global South is insulting at best. Such a colonialist undertone is not a good look for privileged Western nations who have received the majority of available vaccines. Is it any wonder that some BIPOC individuals believe they live in an unjust, racist system? Those of privilege might ponder issues a bit more, rather than repeating slogans like rabid sports fans.

Blocking Access to Life-Saving, Affordable Medicine

“How many people need to die, how many people need to get unnecessarily sicker, before Congress is prepared to take on the greed of the prescription drug industry?”
—Bernie Sanders 9/12/2021

Bernie Sanders was speaking more generally about Big Pharma’s greed during a rally at the HQ of one of America’s top lobbying firms. Americans are now awakening to the fact that Big Pharma and captured agencies like the FDA and WHO are blocking worldwide access to lifesaving medicines. People are dying needlessly.

In the United States, the FDA and CDC are issuing edicts to MDs and hospitals to not use off-patent drugs or supplements. Many pharmacies are refusing to fill such prescriptions, though CVS in Washington, DC (whose customers may well be high-ranking military and Congressional leaders) is filling them. There is no shortage of !vermect!n; many pharmacies may be lying to the public based on Big Pharma pressures. The drug is completely legal for use in COVID-19, and the FDA has no regulatory authority to prevent MDs from prescribing it for patients, yet many doctors refuse to even write prescriptions. Media articles fail to mention that the National Institute of Health recommends the management of any disease, treatment decisions ultimately reside with the patient and their health care provider and is neither for nor against !vermet!n. One New York woman sued a hospital after !vermect!n was withdrawn from her COVID-19-afflicted husband, and won the case.

Dr. Paul Marik, Board-Certified in Internal Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, Neurocritical Care and Nutrition Science, the author of over 450 peer-reviewed journal articles receiving over 25,000 citations, the author of four critical care books, and a professor at East Virginia Medical School, believes that public health entities are steering people away from the “off-patent” drug, regardless of favorable evidence, because “Nobody is making money from it.” In the interview below, Dr. Marik states that, with hundreds of doctors and researchers obtaining beneficial results using !vermect!n, there “must be a great conspiracy” to fake results from dozens of countries, all from a product that costs pennies.

In the spring of 2020, cardiologist Dr. Bruce Boros, who operates three clinics in the Florida Keys, was among the first Florida physicians to surface as a prescriber of !vermect!n to his COVID-19 patients. Soon after, the five-hospital Broward Health System approved the drug for use, one of the first and few hospital groups in Florida to do so. The FDA then pushed back and directed doctors and hospitals to not use !vermect!n. Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the EU did the same. Even so, in August 2021 more than 88,000 US prescriptions were written for !vermect!n in one week alone.

How Ivermectin Saved Actor Louis Gossett Jr. from Dying of COVID-19

When Academy Award-winning actor Louis Gossett Jr. walked out of an Atlanta hospital sick with COVID, he reached out to Florida Keys Dr. Bruce Boros, who would save his life.

Critics who say that !vermect!n’s effectiveness is not proven are mostly officials or “Hollywood doctors,” not clinical doctors. Skeptics cite a lack of controlled trials, yet 64 studies in over a dozen countries show its efficacy against COVID-19, with results ranging from a 50 percent to 80 percent reduction in deaths and hospitalizations. Several gold-standard meta-analyses have been conducted. Officials claim that only large, double-blind, randomized controlled trials would provide adequate evidence. This is nearly impossible to achieve without the resources of the pharmaceutical industry. Giving a placebo for a life-threatening disease would not only be immoral but a violation of the Geneva Convention. In the scientific community, meta-analyses are considered the highest level of evidence. The costly drug Remdesivir was approved by the FDA with only one efficacy study, a fraction of that of !vermect!n. The WHO approved !vermect!n for the treatment of scabies based on only 10 randomized trials. It made some sense that COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out quickly in the rush to fight the pandemic, but by early 2021 there was good research on !vermect!n for COVID vs. the new vaccines. And, speaking of vaccines, vaccine-hesitant people are considering the old school forthcoming Novavax mRNA-free vaccine.

Left out of this whole conversation is the fact that Merck is rushing to market its own oral therapeutic drug. It is reported that Merck can only receive the $1.2B government payment for its oral drug if there is no existing drug on the market. Could this perhaps be a reason for the intense anti-!vermect!n campaign?

The Pharma Medical Complex, i.e., “Big Pharma,” believes that doctors who treat their COVID-19 patients with off-patent medicines or supplements should lose their medical licenses. And recently the FDA pressured Amazon to stop selling the completely safe and effective supplement NAC, which helps boost the immune system and is used to treat patients recovering from COVID-19.

In the May 2021 article The Drug that Cracked Covid, well-known Philadelphia Inquirer journalist Michael Capuzzo shared both a personal and a global story:

“The absence of treatments for COVID-19 is a global crisis,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said recently on 60 Minutes, for vaccines “are not enough.”

Fortunately, I knew of an early treatment for my daughter Grace. It’s a cheap generic drug, safer than Tylenol, FDA-approved to treat scabies and lice, with many other uses that make !vermect!n a “wonder drug.”

Doctors have repeatedly told Michael Capuzzo that the pressure from the medical establishment and government agencies against !vermect!n’s use is unprecedented.

The COVID “Black-and-White” (CBW) Fallacy Emerges

In 2021, Democrats have positioned themselves as the party of science, as contrasted with the climate-denying, science-ignoring, and QAnon-conspiracy-theorizing wing of the Republican party. In fact, my article of 9-2-2020 shared my concerns about QAnon and the far right. Some Democrats view realities in the black-and-white terms of Biden vs. Trump, or proven science vs. hoaxes. The COVID “Black-and-White” (CBW) types claim to believe in science and data. Perhaps they’re thinking, If only everyone would get a vaccine, COVID-19 would magically disappear so we could all go back to our normal lives!

It seems that anyone who questions Pharma’s profit motive or vaccine effectiveness, or who emphasizes off-patent medicines, is considered a danger and must be shunned or deplatformed. CBW folks don’t see that the FDA and WHO policies negatively impact the Global South and other Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) by making it harder to obtain traditional therapeutics. For example, low-cost and effective treatments were restricted in the Philippines and other countries after FDA pronouncements in August 2021. Despite this, the Philippine government in early September approved a study on !vermect!n. Put simply, the COVID black-and-white polarization is a danger to our society. Advocates of the mainstream narrative are not only possibly harming themselves and their loved ones, but they are also blocking public access to safe and effective medicines.

Beyond Black-and-White . . . the Middle Way

middle way: a course of action, mode of conduct, or policy for action between two extremes

Most people simply want to protect themselves and their families from COVID-19. Those who choose the middle way see value in mainstream medicine and the benefits of vaccines. They reject both mandatory vaccines and wild conspiracies of QAnon to pursue a way of wellness and health. The middle way seeks to restore balance, linking soil health to gut health and nutrient-dense foods to the body’s immune system. The middle way seeks to regenerate our farmland, our forests, and our personal health and sees all this as being interconnected. The middle way looks beyond media propaganda and rejects the extremes of both sides.

The Pharma Medical Complex—A Page Out of Industry’s Playbook

Ever wonder how much Monsanto or Bayer spends on ghostwriting fake research submitted to the FDA or demonizing solutions such as regenerative agriculture? It’s estimated to be perhaps $100 million a year. How much do you think Big Pharma spends, considering that their profits are vastly greater? Their playbook says to create doubt about anything that threatens their vaccine monopoly (at least until the advent of a new, on-patent therapeutic drug such as Molnupiravir, which Merck is rushing to market).

Anyone outside of Big Pharma thinking is subject to being painted as a kook. Listening to Big Pharma, CNN, or Americans’ social media comments, one could conclude that they are all singing from the same hymnal. If you increasingly feel lost in a dystopia, as if George Orwell’s 1984 quote has jumped from its pages into reality in 2021, you are not alone. “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

This is hardly the first instance of damage by profit-oriented policies. Climate science has been denied, keeping oil sales high. Glyphosate was deemed safe but then shown to cause cancer. Ritalin has been promoted for children as young as two. Statin drugs have been the go-to cure for heart disease, while even healthy fats were blamed for the disease. The difference in today’s predicament is that every human on the planet is directly affected. Which of these most leads to increased risk of COVID-19 death?—obesity, stress or anxiety, being sedentary, or being unvaxxed? All four are risk factors, but the first three lead to inflammation, a known factor in poor COVID-19 outcomes that is rarely mentioned.

What Will Our Future Hold?

Will captured agencies continue to keep silent about even the most simple and accessible protective health tips such as exercising or boosting levels of vitamin D? Will citizens feel required to receive frequent boosters that may no longer be effective (as variants outsmart the tech), just to keep their vaccine passports current? Will failure result in losing a job or access to travel, music events, restaurants, and other public spaces?

Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has said, "We're transitioning from a pandemic to more of an endemic virus . . . An endemic is an outbreak in particular regions that's always present . . . like the common cold.”

Let us bring forth a world where we rely on our best scientists and our best clinical doctors, providing the best therapeutics, to end this 18-month-long nightmare of fear. We must honestly confront today’s shackles to awaken to a better tomorrow.

Whether or not this coronavirus becomes endemic, it would be wise to have your own COVID-19 home kit, to follow a wellness regime including vitamin D and zinc, and to request Congressional pandemic hearings. Let us not forget the ancient oath of Hippocrates “to treat the ill to the best of one's ability.” It’s time for common sense to prevail, for families and friends to heal and communities to thrive and regenerate once again.

P.S. Here is a link to the charts and graphics.

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Making America’s Rivers Blue Again: Connecting the Dots Between Regenerative Ag & Healthy Waterways

John Roulac — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 02:44:00 +0000

Two hundred years ago, before the Industrial Revolution, the rivers across North America ran clear and blue. Rivers from the mighty Mississippi to the Columbia flowed wild and clean into the sea.

In the 1800s and 1900s, the growth of manufacturing and agriculture across the continent brought prosperity to America, but at the great cost of unmitigated pollution. In 1969, Ohio’s Cuyahoga River caught fire due to toxic runoff from nearby factories. This incident sparked the modern Earth Day movement and in 1972 helped pass the Clean Water Act, which established much-needed industrial regulations that considerably improved water quality in the United States. Unfortunately, lawmakers overlooked the negative impacts of agriculture on America’s waterways.

The food industry is complex and, like all established industries, focused on staying profitable. Today’s agricultural practices result in rainstorms washing pesticides, fertilizers, feedlot manure, and bare soil into our waterways and oceans, turning rivers from clear reflections of blue skies to hues of greenish brown.

The good news: there are profitable and earth-friendly ways to grow nutrient-dense food, draw down carbon to address climate chaos, and return our rivers to their natural blue appearance. Soil regeneration is the solution.

“Regenerative Agriculture” describes farming and grazing practices that reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity — resulting in both carbon drawdown and an improved water cycle. There are five recognized principles of regenerative agriculture: keep the soil covered, minimize soil disturbance, maximize crop diversity, maintain living roots in the ground year-round, and integrate livestock.

Discoloring Our Rivers

Satellite images show that many of America’s rivers have changed color since 1984. It’s as if someone used green and brown crayons to color over the blue waterways.

The massive change comes from modern farming practices, so reliant on tilling, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and bare, fallow farmlands. Companies like Monsanto, Bayer, Dupont, and Syngenta (pesticides and genetics); Tyson, Smithfield, ADM, Bunge, and Cargill (processors); and General Mills, Danone, Nestle, Mars, Heinz, and Hormel (food brands) — hereinafter referred to as “Big Ag” — have built an agriculture system based on synthetic chemicals, massive federal subsidies, and consolidation (including red tape to prevent local food processing).

This not only hurts farmers’ pocketbooks, but also the environment and human health. Big Ag has impacted policy in Washington, DC, and within land-grant ag universities. Today’s specialization mindset has resulted in college graduates of agronomy knowing little about soil health, while medical school graduates know even less about nutrition. This is like throwing gasoline onto today’s health crisis.

The synthetic fertilizers used by most U.S. farmers inevitably run off into waterways, color our rivers green with deadly algae blooms, and kill aquatic life (called eutrophication). For instance, the southern U.S. runoff zone, the Gulf of Mexico, is now a “dead zone” — measuring 6,952 square miles in 2019.

Quoting my 2017 Ecowatch article Spaceship Earth, Your Main Oxygen Systems Are Collapsing:

“Industrial agriculture not only contaminates our oceans with pesticide and nitrogen-fertilizer runoff . . . it is stripping our soils of carbon, which ends up in the oceans and creates acidification. At the current trajectory, in just a few decades there won’t be much left alive in our oceans as the phytoplankton dies — all because of how we grow our food.”

It’s important to understand that fertilizer is predominantly made from fracked natural gas, releasing nitrous oxide (N2O) — a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide but virtually ignored in climate change discussions. In a recent study published in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists discovered that N2O emissions are increasing at a faster rate than any other type of greenhouse gas emission, mainly due to a rise in nitrogen fertilizer application for food production.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are also a big contributor to U.S. river pollution. There are somewhat more cows today in the U.S. versus bison (which are much larger) two centuries ago. The real issue is nitrous oxide belching from fertilizer plants not methane from cows munching grass. Monsanto, the fertilizer industry, and Impossible Foods is betting they can pull a fast one on Americans.

America’s consumption of CAFO chicken is growing, with more than nine billion broilers produced for KFC, Chick-fil-A, and retailers such as Costco each year. Rural America is a sacrifice zone, dealing with impacts to both air and water. Over 20% of rural wells in ag regions are contaminated from synthetic fertilizers.

Let us remember “Mni Wiconi” (a Native American saying meaning Water is Life). Farmers who practice regenerative agriculture can reduce their chemical inputs, saving millions of dollars while building healthy, spongy soil with an increased water-holding capacity. Such practices will keep our streams, rivers, lakes, and gulfs flowing with clear, fresh blue water.

Got GMOs?

It’s not just our waterways that are being harmed. A shocking new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences notes that insect populations are dropping 1–2% per year and “. . . are absolutely the fabric by which Mother Nature and the tree of life are built.” Scientists believe pesticides are a leading cause of this collapse. Some critics of regenerative agriculture focus on carbon and miss other linkages.

As prominent entomologist Dr. Jonathan Lundgren emphasized, “This isn’t a bee problem. The bees are the canary in the coal mine. This is the worst mass extinction event that the planet has ever experienced. Agriculture has become much too simplified.” The use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is promoted as if they were the only way to produce food in the 21st century. Ken Roseboro, editor of The Organic & of the Non-GMO Report recently said, “Several regenerative farmers have told me they just don’t need the GMO traits, and their yields are better with non-GMO seeds.”

The problem of pesticides is intimately linked to that of GMOs. The majority of GMO seeds sold today are genetically engineered to work with toxic herbicides such as glyphosate.

This extinction machine starts right in the seed-processing plant. Virtually all GMO seeds (in addition to other seeds and even nursery plants) are coated in neonicotinoids, neurotoxins so persistent that they destroy life on the scale of entire ecosystems — bees, insects, birds, mammals. France has mostly banned their use.

Pesticide and fertilizer factories stink and produce poisons. They are located mostly in disadvantaged communities whose residents already suffer from myriad health issues, and this national issue reeks of environmental discrimination.

The Myths of Fake Meat

“The mad rush for fake food and fake meat . . . is a recipe for accelerating the destruction of the planet and our health.” — Dr. Vandana Shiva

The modus operandi of the CAFO giants (Tyson, Hormel, Smithfield, et al) is to continue producing ecologically devastating factory-farmed feedlot beef, chicken, and pork while simultaneously introducing patented and highly processed fake-meat foods. Plant-based meat alternatives are a superb way of distracting health-and-animal-rights-oriented consumers from Big Ag’s overreliance on tillage, monocrops, GMOs, and toxic pesticides. Many Americans now shy away from GMO foods, switching to certified Non-GMO, pasture-finished, and organic foods.

What is a dominant industry to do? Fear not, Big Ag has a plan: combine its GMO and other crops into novel products that approximate meat, rebrand them as “plant-based,” et voilà!

Properly grown plant-based foods are fine, but the key is “properly grown”. Little of the emerging plant-based foods are grown using health principles, which is how we end up with paradoxes like vegans and Monsanto becoming bedfellows. Beyond Meat using non-GMO pea protein is a much better choice than the GMO soy, corn, and heme Impossible Burger; yet both are highly processed.

Missing the Mark

Big Ag has rebranded “plant-based” and partnered with a high-powered “greenwash orchestra” to sing the praises of bird-killing meat alternatives. How vegan is that? A powerful alliance of Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors, Big Ag executives, and the billionaire-backed plant-based food industry, with their well-paid allies from Oxford University and The Guardian, form the choir. The soloists? A sprinkling of misinformed environmentalists and animal rights activists. Most of these “experts” lack scientific curiosity, undervalue the promise of regenerative agriculture, and thus are missing the mark of regen ag.

It’s a lot easier for some to dismiss all meat consumption as unethical. The emerging holistic regenerative grazing practice improves biodiversity and soil carbon drawdown. It is profoundly different from destructive CAFOs and conventional grazing that promulgates soil erosion.

The best propaganda is carried out by those who don’t even realize they’re engaged in it. These people share some traits of cult zealots, spinning oft-repeated untruths such as “meat is bad, and plants (referring to annual grains) are good.” Their main rationale: soil-killing farming practices are acceptable because plants are not meat. Manipulative marketing campaigns suggest that 100% pastured beef is “worse” than CAFO beef. Many rely on outdated, old-school ag research.

As Aldous Huxley eloquently wrote, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” In this case, the fact ignored is that hoofed animals are essential to restoring the earth’s vast grasslands through holistic grazing, with a huge upside for carbon sequestration achieved where farm crops cannot grow.

In holistic regenerative systems, animals graze the grass and do not return until the grass is knee-high. While it seems counterintuitive, over time more animals — not less — will be needed as the grassland regenerates. On February 17, 2021 The New York Times article featured Texas rancher Adam Isaacs and his goal of turning his 5,000 acres into something closer to the lush mixed-grass prairie that once thrived in this part of the Southern Great Plains and served as grazing lands for millions of bison. This emerging science of holistic grazing is conveniently ignored, much as AT&T in the ’90s dismissed the nascent Internet revolution.

Leaders who are “missing the mark” and thus helping to pollute America’s rivers include:

1. Bill Gates, a major investor in fake-meat companies (such as $50M investment in Impossible Foods), is also a major funder of chemical GMO agriculture. While his foundation has done other good work, (along with Gates recent focus on greening the cement and steel sectors) his investments in Monsanto represents a double standard.

Gates is now the top private farmland owner in America, and his alliance with Bayer/Monsanto jeopardizes vast amounts of American farmland. In 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations launched the nearly $1B Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), promising to double crop productivity and boost incomes for 30 million small farmers by 2020. This resulted in significant failure that ignored regional food solutions while pushing high-tech fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid seeds.

Ironically, Fonio, Africa’s most valuable native superfood grain, which does not require fertilizers or pesticides, was not promoted. Perhaps Bill Gates will change operating systems to embrace regeneration and resiliency.

2. Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown, who has declared that he wants to end all animal agriculture by 2035. Regenerative ag advocate and Soil4Climate co-founder Seth Itzkan states, “Impossible Foods should really be called Impossible Patents. It is not food; it’s software, intellectual property — 14 patents in each bite of Impossible Burger. It’s iFood, the next killer app.”

Supporting Cast:

3. The Sierra Club, which has attacked regenerative ag while promoting the Impossible Burger (made with Bayer/Monsanto’s bee-killing GMO soy and corn) via tweets and videos. It is encouraging to see several Sierra Club ag state chapters prioritize soil health. For example, the Iowa chapter has an excellent farm policy that acknowledges the role of animals in soil health. However, to date the national headquarters has chosen to ignore the Midwest chapters. The Club has received over $140M from Michael Bloomberg.

4. World Resource Institute (WRI) has published reports dismissing the potential of regenerative agriculture while undervaluing the role of holistic grazing and healthy soil biology. Six leading researchers from the U.S., France, and Scotland recently disputed a WRI report, stating, “The science is clear that regenerative agricultural practices have the biophysical capability to contribute significantly to both soil health and climate change mitigation!”

A web data search of WRI’s food reports yields no results for Monsanto or Bayer. How can this NGO address global environmental and food issues with no mention of the world’s largest pesticide and GMO seed companies? And, in 2008, a WRI blog post said of Monsanto’s cancer-linked glyphosate: “The weed killer is generally considered safe for workers.”

Further, the WRI July 2019 Sustainable Food Report/Course 5, “Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agriculture Production,” listed four key approaches yet overlooked regen ag as a key driver to reduce nitrogen demand. From America to Africa, regen farmers and ranchers (far from WRI’s DC and London offices ) are proving that food can be grown without copious amounts of nitrogen fertilizers .

WRI influences UN food policies and attracts big money; Jeff Bezos recently donated $100M. Like the Sierra Club, WRI does good work in forestry, yet its food-policy research leaves much to be desired.

5. British writer and animal rights activist George Monbiot pushes a plant-based view while dismissing non-vegan regenerative agriculture. Like many urban environmentalists, Monbiot mistakenly views grazing animals as the enemy to be removed.

In 2015 Ecowatch published my letter “Why Are Climate Groups Only Focused on 50% of the Solution?” describing how soil health regeneration could address climate chaos. Paul Hawken’s Project Drawdown shows that many of the leading climate solutions are nature-based (soils, forestry, agroforestry, holistic grazing, etc.) While many national environmental groups have kept their heads buried in the sand, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is actively promoting the importance of soil health. And I applaud the National Audubon Society’s 2019 article, “Grazing Like It’s 1799: How Ranchers Can Bring Back Grassland Birds.” A new ranching generation is taking cues from historical bison herds to help prairies and wildlife.

The challenge: Most people don’t understand the earth’s water and carbon cycles, and this results in destruction of our natural resources. Regenerative ag opponents hold misguided positions, including “Eating meat is murder, so vegan industrial farming is good”; “Tweak the incumbent system and eat less meat”, and “Regenerative agriculture isn’t a viable solution.”

Soil Regeneration Is the Answer

Regenerative agriculture is a renewal of hearts and minds that transforms farming and ranching. It is a conscientious agricultural system that mimics nature’s patterns and prioritizes the health of the soil. Regenerative farmers use cover crops (keeping soil covered year-round), agroforestry, and holistic animal grazing. Large-scale farmers like Rick Clark of Indiana, who successfully manages a 7,000 acre, no-till organic regenerative farming operation, are demonstrating how soil health is transforming agriculture.

Here are five useful measurement tools for quantifying regenerative agriculture.

“Farmers,” Dr. Kris Nichols observes, “harvest sunlight via living root systems and expand soil microbial life.” And no wonder: The microbes in a teaspoon of healthy soil rivals the people who live on earth. And this directly impacts resilience.

Each 1% increase in soil organic matter helps hold another 20,000 gallons of water per acre, making the land more resistant to droughts and floods. Vast amounts of carbon are thus sequestered as soil organic matter increases. And this helps restore the water cycle, which many believe may be even more important than the carbon cycle to moderate climate chaos. Regeneration offers society a resilient natural wealth account, one we can draw upon as climatic turmoil heads our way. The fastest way to grow our natural wealth is by restoring degraded lands.

The Netflix film blockbuster Kiss the Ground (of which I’m an Executive Producer) shows us what the future is made of: a dynamic and growing movement of farmers, ranchers, investors, and food advocates creating a new dawn for agriculture. Almost miraculously, red state Republicans and deep-blue coastal environmentalists are uniting around the rallying cry of healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy rivers, healthy animals, healthy people, and healthy climate. Many conventional large-scale farmers, focusing on soil health, have used regenerative practices to reduce their synthetic input consumption by 50–75% after just four or five years. Even Big Ag is beginning to get the message, as challengers inside Big Ag companies are starting to push regeneration to help farmers become more profitable and protect their soils. Perhaps most encouraging of all, regeneration is increasingly driven by women, bringing a more holistic mindset to the movement.

Even food giants such as General Mills are starting to shift their supply chains by contracting with regenerative ag leader Understanding Ag (Ray Archuleta/Gabe Brown/Dr. Allen Williams/Shane New). Danone has committed to converting 100,000 acres to regenerative practices by 2022. Cargill recently partnered with Rodale in an unlikely alliance to increase organic farmland, with a goal of transitioning 50,000 acres of corn and soy to organic. Oregon fast-food chain Burgerville proudly features its №6 Burger made with 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef.

In Guatemala, Contour Lines Corp. is replacing “slash-and-burn” ag with organic food forests to empower dozens of indigenous communities. Anthony Myint has founded Zero Food Print, a program for restaurants to add a few cents’ cost to each meal, using funds to create a table-to-farm movement that helps farmers implement regenerative practices. Sixth-generation Iowa farmer Mitchell Hora is creating digital tools for farmers to use to build healthier soil. American Sustainable Business Council’s Regenerative Agriculture Working Group has been highly engaged, bringing 70 businesses, investors, and organizations to drive innovative and inclusive state and federal regenerative agriculture and food justice policy solutions.

For eons, indigenous peoples have grazed animals for food, fiber, and sustenance. They don’t see themselves as separate from nature. Urban elites who dismiss the need for animals betray their lack of ecological literacy. Worse, their mindset can be seen as colonialist, for many pastoralist communities around the world still depend on livestock for their livelihoods.

Sadly, Western history and policies have discriminated against people of color. Yet a growing movement exists to change federal policies to allow loans and land access to Black and Native American farmers and ranchers. One such project is the Rosebud Economic Development Corporation (REDCO), including the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s plan to build a 1,500-head bison herd on 28,000 acres of tribal land by 2025, with support from the U.S. Department of the Interior and World Wildlife Fund.

Personal Health Begins in the Soil

Contemporary soil quality is so poor that today’s food contains a mere fraction of the minerals and vitamins it held eighty years ago.

Today’s degenerate food system (factory meat or plant-based) is fueled by Omega-6-laden corn, soy, and canola oil, which are leading contributors to heart disease and inflammation. A CAFO burger has up to four times more Omega-6 and five times less Vitamin E than a 100% pasture-raised burger. Persistent pesticide use leads to human and animal gut-health issues. A new study published in January 2021 reveals evidence that glyphosate and Roundup disturb gut microbiome and blood biochemistry at doses that regulators claim to be safe. So, while factory-farmed meat is abhorrent, many of the plant-based alternatives found in the supermarket can damage our earth and our bodies in much the same way that factory meats do. Regenerative food is more nutrient-dense, and it nurtures our immune system and gut biome.

As the NRDC aptly states, “. . . we started learning about soil health because the topic intersects very closely with our water conservation advocacy. Scientists, farmers and ranchers, public health experts, and ecologists taught us about soil’s role in improving the water cycle, sequestering carbon, increasing biodiversity, reducing toxic pesticide and synthetic input use, improving rural livelihoods, providing climate resilience, and growing healthier foods. Regenerative agriculture was the phrase that kept coming up.”

Regeneration Six-Punch List

Here are six things you can do to help regenerate our lovely earth:

1. Purchase more regionally grown, non-GMO, organic and regenerative food that is raised in harmony with soil health principles, and where possible, know your farmer.

2. Look for pasture-finished meat or organically grown or ethically raised meat labels. Seek out regional, small-farm butchers and ranchers. Avoid industry-owned grocery brands such as Applegate (owned by Hormel) or Tyson.

3. Compost food scraps and leaves at your dwelling, land, organization, or municipal facility.

4. Contact your members of Congress to encourage President Joe Biden and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to support soil health and regeneration.

5. Invest in or volunteer your support for local food producers working to improve their soil and regeneration practices.

6. Watch soil-health documentary Kiss the Ground on Netflix and share it with your network.

Let’s build a regenerative food system where bees buzz, dragonflies hover, and fish and frogs thrive. It’s going to take a change of hearts and minds; only then will America’s rivers run blue again. Let’s regenerate.

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Is the Wellness Movement Being Tainted by QAnon and the New Age Right?

John Roulac — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 16:49:02 +0000

Americans in increasing numbers are choosing wellness lifestyles. From yoga to turmeric drinks, tantra to organic foods, and fasting to superfood smoothies, what was once obscure is now mainstream. In the last 30 years, the benefits of making simple nutritional and lifestyle changes have led millions to question the medical and industrial-food systems.

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4 Things You Need To Know About Buying CBD

John Roulac — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 16:51:54 +0000

It’s no secret that CBD is having a moment. Known primarily for its wide range of health and beauty benefits, this trendy ingredient is appearing in everything from mascara and moisturizers to sparkling water and chocolate. But have you ever thought about the quality of the CBD oil in your favorite products, or where it comes from?

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Vegans and Monsanto: Odd Bedfellows for Bee Death and Glyphosate

John Roulac — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 16:53:46 +0000

In a strange twist, Monsanto and Silicon Valley are now using the vegan movement to justify ecosystem destruction. This dollar-driven endeavor is happening under the cuddly moniker of “plant-based foods.”

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Will Californians Understand the Smoke Signals?

John Roulac — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 17:56:40 +0000

How the Fires Are Linked to Climate Chaos, Soil Health & Food Choices -
In late 2017, Northern Californians suffered a firestorm in eight counties simultaneously, followed by the devastating Thomas Fire (now the largest in state history) in Southern California.

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Oxford Study Attacks Regenerative Agriculture — Monsanto Ally?

John Roulac — Sat, 04 Nov 2017 16:58:30 +0000

A University of Oxford think-tank, the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), has come out with a report, Grazed and Confused, that likens 100-percent grass-fed beef to that produced on a 10,000-cow confined animal feedlot operation (CAFO) like Harris Ranch on Interstate 5 in Central California—calling them basically the same in climate impacts.

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Spaceship Earth, Your Main Oxygen Systems Are Collapsing

John Roulac — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 19:35:24 +0000

Yes, Houston, we have a problem: Our oceans are dying. As the brilliant futurist Buckminster Fuller used to point out, our Spaceship Earth is hurtling through space at a great speed.

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How Organic Farmers Can Help Save The World

John Roulac — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 00:30:32 +0000

Here is an article on the 36th annual Ecological Farming Conference at the Asilomar Conference Grounds, where I gave the keynote address on opening night.

People think it's cars that are the top contributors to carbon dioxide in the air, but greenhouse gasses released in the manufacturing of synthetic fertilizers for farming are bigger problems.

Furthermore, organic farming techniques tend to promote carbon sequestration, as organic farms tend to grow more crops on their land over the course of a year, so there are fewer periods of bare farmland.

Read on for the dispatch from this important agricultural conference.

cropped farmer at harvest image courtesy Hartwig HKD / CC 2.0

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