Harvard conducted a symposium Monday on what the AIDS establishment calls HIV denialism. This is a slight improvement from AIDS denialism, since nobody being called an AIDS denialist actually denied the phenomenon of immune system collapse, only that it was caused by HIV. However, the unbridled hubris of AIDS experts was on full display.

Death by denial
Symposium explores HIV denial, conspiracy theories

People who deny that the HIV virus causes AIDS continue to persist in their beliefs despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, nurtured by the broad reach of the Internet and cherry-picked scientific claims, AIDS authorities said Monday (Oct. 19).

These experts need to look in the mirror. They are as guilty of cherry-picking evidence as any scientist corrupted by money. Where is this overwhelming evidence that HIV causes AIDS? There is plenty of evidence that it doesn’t, but of course, that’s cherry-picked out of consideration, out of sight, out of mind.

Researchers from Harvard, elsewhere in the United States, and South Africa convened at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts to decry HIV “denialism,” saying that the continued questioning of HIV’s role in AIDS harms those infected with the virus by discouraging both testing and treatment.

Both the testing and treatment are utterly fraudulent, so it isn’t the questioning that harms people afflicted with AIDS.

Laura Bogart, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston, introduced the event, saying that denialism also includes odd beliefs, such as that drugs for HIV treatment actually cause AIDS. Denialism, she said, is gaining momentum because of the reach that its proponents have on the Internet, and it may have greater traction in communities that already mistrust the government because of past discrimination, revelations of secret medical experiments, and the like.

The symposium examined how denialism affects prevention and treatment, public policy, and human rights.

“Bad ideas have bad consequences,” Bogart said.

She’s got that right. The idea that HIV causes AIDS has terrible consequences. What’s so odd about the contention that HIV drugs cause AIDS? They sure as hell can cause the symptoms of AIDS, including death. Is Bogart trying to say HIV skeptics have greater reach on the web than the AIDS establishment? Who is she trying to kid?

Seth Kalichman, professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut, said denialist beliefs are surprisingly widespread. He said most people’s attitude when hearing of HIV denial is, “Oh, those people are still around?” In the uncertain early years of the AIDS epidemic, Kalichman said, denialists were dissidents from the prevailing but still uncertain scientific views. As the body of evidence about the nature of HIV and AIDS grew, dissent turned into denial, wrapped in conspiracy theories. Now, Kalichman lumps HIV denialists with those who deny the Holocaust and global warming, and who believe 9/11 conspiracy theories. All use similar strategies, he said, including false experts, bad science, and selective use of valid scientific results.

This guy has his nerve. There is plenty of good evidence to demonstrate the flaws in the HIV=AIDS theory, unlike any of his other examples. To lump these groups together is beyond insulting, it borders on slander. There is some reasonable doubt as to the theories explaining global warming and 9/11, but the Holocaust? Can this guy be serious, or is his smug blind faith so all-consuming he can’t see how farfetched his analogy is? The AIDS establishment is absolutely chock full of false experts, bad science, and selective use of valid scientific results. Look in the mirror, Mr. Alleged Scientist. How about Dr. Robert Gallo, for instance, who rewrote the paper that launched the whole HIV=AIDS theory so extensively, his revisions came to conclusions completely unjustified by the actual study done by his assistant, Dr. Popovic? Gary Null has posted a PDF of Gallo’s scribbles and crossouts on the original paper. The first sentence of the first paragraph on page 4 says it all.

Despite intensive research efforts, the causative agent of AIDS has not yet been identified.

Gallo crossed that sentence out. Gee I wonder why.

Kalichman cited a 2007 report on 696 gay men in five U.S. cities that showed a surprisingly high acceptance of denialist beliefs. Forty-five percent, he said, agreed with the statement “HIV does not cause AIDS,” and 51 percent agreed with the statement “HIV drugs can harm you more than help you,” remarking that it would be troubling if even half those numbers believed such statements.

Kalichman said research shows that the Internet is a critical source of denialist information, and that people who hold denialist beliefs are more likely to have symptoms, less likely to adhere to drug regimens, and less likely to take treatment medication in the first place.

What’s troubling is that anyone believes the AIDS establishment. If Kalichman’s theory about who doubts conventional wisdom is accurate, he shouldn’t worry, as those skeptics will be dying off in a hurry, right? Oddly, it appears that those who avoid recommended treatment are far more likely to survive, since taking those drugs long-term is another case of a cure which never cures anybody, but does a great job of exacerbating the disease.

Denialism may have done its most damage in South Africa during the tenure of President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki, who endorsed denialist beliefs, delayed the beginning of large-scale AIDS drug treatment, which allowed the pandemic to grow unchecked.

Recent research showed how damaging denialist beliefs can be, concluding that Mbeki’s failure to roll out HIV drugs between 2000 and 2005 resulted in 330,000 unnecessary deaths and the infection of 3,500 infants with HIV.

Interesting how this result is blithely stated as fact. How many unnecessary deaths have been caused by HIV treatments, or by refusing to treat the actual diseases that resulted in deaths blamed on HIV? Thabo Mbeki had great courage to defy the AIDS establishment. Unfortunately sub-Saharan Africa is still afflicted with widespread poverty, malnutrition, infectious water, parasitic infections, tropical diseases, and tuberculosis, all of which can be deadly, particularly for people in poor health to begin with. This can account for most, if not all, of those allegedly unnecessary deaths. Yet the population is increasing in spite of all that, the great AIDS pandemic notwithstanding.

Something’s terribly wrong with this picture. All this money going to fight HIV is wasted, while relatively small sums could alleviate all those actual problems killing impoverished Africans in droves. However, since capitalism as we know it wouldn’t recognize the value of cleaning up the water and treating the actual diseases, the big money goes to researching HIV drugs and vaccines, while producing those drugs makes the manufacturers fortunes. Same old crap masquerading as science, though denouncing the critics as equivalent to Holocaust deniers is really going too far. I’m used to the ironic foolishness of denouncing concerned scientists such as myself as Luddites, or anti-progress, or uninformed environmentalist wackos, but really, how dare he make that comparison. This symposium stopped just short of calling HIV skeptics murderers. No, they’re trying to save the lives of those dying from the bad science passing as HIV treatment! That might sound like I’m calling doctors murderers, but I know they believe they’re trying to save lives, though it seems to me their efforts are consistently backfiring. Does Kalichman really think all the scientists questioning the AIDS establishment are that deluded, or false experts engaged in bad science and cherry-picking data? In the echo chamber of conventional wisdom, he can get away with that staggering leap of illogic. I say again, look in the mirror.

This is a bulletin from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), which gives permission to repost this anywhere. It was originally posted at Daily Kos, where there are some comments.

Thu May 14, 2009 at 08:42:44 AM PDT
by nirsnet

These days, clean energy ranks right up there with Mom, apple pie and ice cream as an All-American attribute. You can barely sit through a TV show, listen to the radio, or even read a blog without coming across an ad from someone extolling the virtues of some “clean” energy form or another.
Never mind that some of them—from nuclear power to “clean” coal—bear no resemblance to the cleanest solutions like wind, solar and energy efficiency. Some industries have more money to spend on ads than others….

But clean energy has become All-American for good reason: we need clean energy for the 21st century. I’m a huge clean energy advocate, and I spend my days working to encourage implementation of clean, sustainable energy technologies.

So what could be more virtuous than a federal Clean Energy Bank? On the surface, the idea sounds perfect: the federal government would set up a bank to support the development and implementation of clean energy technologies, especially those that private investors can’t or won’t fund. In fact, it’s so perfect the Senate Energy Committee has already approved the concept as part of its upcoming energy bill, and the House Energy Committee is considering adding a Clean Energy Bank proposal from genuinely clean energy advocate Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) to the Waxman-Markey cap and trade climate bill.

So why is the environmental community lining up to oppose the Clean Energy Bank and considering it must-defeat legislation?

Well, there are a couple of teeny-tiny little problems with the concept as written in both the Senate energy bill and Inslee bill in the House. Kind of like there were teeny-tiny little problems with unregulated derivatives trading, or lack of federal oversight and regulation, or corporate greed, that brought our economy to its knees last October.

It is not at all far-fetched—indeed, it’s completely foreseeable—that, as the Clean Energy Bank legislation is currently written, we could see trillion dollar or more taxpayer bailouts of “clean energy” technologies within the next decade. You didn’t like TARP? Wait until taxpayers have to bail out the likes of Duke Power, UniStar Nuclear, Southern Company and even your local mom and pop solar and wind concerns at levels that would make even Citigroup or General Motors blush—except that there are a lot more “clean energy” companies and projects out there than there are national banks or car manufacturers.

I could be wrong, of course, but it’s my personal wild guess that taxpayers are getting a little tired of bailing out corporate America. And, if you follow my personal wild guess reasoning, the idea that taxpayers might be forced to bail out a trillion dollars, or even a few hundred billion, in “clean energy” failures would probably destroy any hopes of building a genuinely sustainable energy economy or effectively dealing with the climate crisis; not to mention, coming on the heels of what we are still going through as an economy, raising the specter of permanent recession. And, of course, any presidential administration that oversees such an eventuality is not likely to be around to cope with the next such eventuality. These are high stakes, folks, and all from the innocuous, even virtuous-sounding, Clean Energy Bank.

THE DEVIL IS ALWAYS IN THE DETAILS
A thousand mea culpas. This should have been posted and distributed a few weeks ago, before the Senate Energy Committee even started considering Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) proposal to add a Clean Energy Deployment Administration to his energy bill. But we missed it, and so did everyone else, except, perhaps, the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Let’s face it: it’s pretty tough for environmentalists to oppose something called a Clean Energy Bank, or even a Clean Energy Development Administration, which is starting to sound a little more bureaucratic. Maybe we just wanted to believe.

But here’s the reality: Sen. Bingaman’s Clean Energy Bank bill would provide more concrete government backing for dirty energy technologies than anything any lobbyist for the nuclear power or coal industries could have dreamed of even a year ago. And here’s the rub: even if the Bank funded only renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, it would still be an economy-wrecker. It is simply unacceptable on any grounds.

And here is why: ‘‘(3) RELATION TO OTHER LAWS.—Section 14 504(b) of the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 (215 U.S.C. 661c(b)) shall not apply to a loan or loan guarantee under this section.’’.

What this seeming gobbledygook actually means is that there is NO limit—none whatsoever—to the amount of money that can be directed to “clean energy” technologies by this proposed bank. $10 billion? No problem. $100 Billion? No problem. $1 Trillion? NO PROBLEM!

This was confirmed in discussions yesterday between Senate Energy Committee staff and experts from Union of Concerned Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council. (We have to wonder if Rep. Inslee—a strong clean energy advocate and not exactly a good friend of the nuclear industry—might have missed the implications too; perhaps he hasn’t fully realized that his bank legislation, which was modeled after Bingaman’s, would set up an unlimited slush fund for the nuclear power industry)

The Bingaman Clean Energy Bank bill, as well as Inslee’s bill (which is nearly identical, with one minor improvement), would authorize this new entity—the Clean Energy Development Administration, which would have an administrator and a nine-member Board of Directors, and virtually no other oversight—to issue as much money in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees as it feels like for any projects that might fall under an exceedingly broad “clean energy” definition.

Let’s take a look at what might be funded under this definition: New nuclear reactors, for one, as many as the industry might consider building, at whatever cost the industry thinks necessary. That alone has the entire environmental community up in arms, since no matter what industry propaganda may say, the environmental movement remains adamant that nuclear power is an unacceptable solution to the climate crisis. It’s dirty—even without a catastrophic meltdown, it releases radiation into the air and water at every step of the nuclear fuel chain; it’s dangerous, because there is always the risk of catastrophic meltdown even with new reactors; it creates lethal long-lived radioactive waste we don’t have the slightest idea how to handle for millennia of millennia; it undercuts non-proliferation efforts abroad; and, even if none of the above were the case, it is the most costly method of producing electricity available and using it would divert resources from the cleaner, safer, cheaper, and faster means of addressing the climate crisis we need to implement.

“Clean coal” could also be funded under this definition, including such environmentally dubious (ok, I mean destructive) concepts as coal-to-liquids (a two-in-one pollution punch), as well as unproven carbon sequestration technologies.

But even if this Bank were only oriented toward renewable energy and energy efficiency, we would still have to oppose it. With all respect and love toward our compadres designing and building new solar PV, solar thermal, wind, geothermal and other 21st century technologies, even they don’t deserve unlimited taxpayer backing for their projects.

The Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office both have already projected a 50% or greater failure rate for loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors. And there is no denying that the failure rate for renewable energy projects is going to be above zero, possibly above 20%. While it’s fine for taxpayers to take some risk for new energy technologies, it’s not fine to bet hundreds of billions of our dollars on new energy projects or take risks of 50% or more, especially on such capital intensive projects as new nuclear reactors, which are now projected to cost some $10 billion or more each.

And, for the skeptics out there, let’s face facts: the nuclear power industry is the one most in need of this money. Why? Because there is no private capital available to support construction of new nuclear reactors. It’s that simple—private investors simply won’t take that risk. If Bank of America or Citigroup have been thinking for the past few years that nuclear reactors are too risky but subprime mortgages aren’t, then I have to think a 50% projected failure rate might be too low. Admittedly, these are somewhat hard times for new renewable energy facilities as well, but until last October money was flowing freely to them, and as the recovery begins, private investment will begin flowing to them again. But private money won’t flow to nuclear power under any circumstances without the taxpayers taking the risk.

The reality is that the nuclear industry has already asked for $122 Billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees (most of which would actually be taxpayer-funded as well, through the Federal Financing Bank). And that would cover only about 20 reactors. Getting to the GOP’s dream of 100 new reactors by mid-century (outlined by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn, in the GOP Saturday radio address a couple weeks ago), would cost at least five times that amount—and that’s before the cost overruns start rolling in. For comparison, a Department of Energy study of 75 existing reactors found an average cost overrun of 207%. If that level holds true for a new generation of reactors, we’d be looking at trillions of taxpayer dollars at risk.

AND WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Yes, I believe in supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency with taxpayer dollars—but limited taxpayer dollars. The potential for unlimited taxpayer loan guarantees for any technology offers the potential for economy-killing failure, for misdirection of money, for rampant corruption.

Have our Congressmembers learned nothing from the debacle of the banking, mortgage and various other crises? Apparently not.

But hopefully the public has, and together we can stop this nonsense.

Please join us in opposing the absolutely unconscionable Clean Energy Bank proposals now before the Senate and House. Contact nirsnet@nirs.org to get on our e-mail list to be able to take effective action; you can also sign up at www.nirs.org. We’ll keep you up-to-date and give you action ideas and opportunities. Or contact the local or national environmental group you’re already a member of—we’re all in this together. But act fast, these bills are moving quickly, even though no one, including Hill staffers, seems to understand exactly what they do.

Note: Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) has offered a different Clean Energy Bank bill, but it explicitly includes nuclear power and “clean” coal as “clean” energy technologies, and thus, while it doesn’t provide for unlimited loan guarantees, is also unacceptable. But you might want to contact Van Hollen and tell him that if he’ll amend his bill to include only genuinely clean energy technologies, it might be a good alternative to the unacceptable bills making their way through Congress now.

Michael Mariotte
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to the actual President-elect is strictly intentional, but the statements I’m attributing to him are pure guesswork on my part.

Me: Now look here, Mr. President, I’ve kept my peace while you assemble your team of hawks,  corporate friendly free traders, and pro-nuclear pro-agrofuel pollution-marketer scientists and environmentalists for hire. You’re not in office yet, and you’re supposed to get a honeymoon. Sorry, you have a scandal to deal with already.

Obama: I was stunned and dismayed by the actions of Governor Blagojevich, but neither I nor any of my staff are implicated in his corrupt dealings.

Me: I meant your speechwriter Jon Favreau, immortalized in a Facebook photo fondling a lifesize cardboard model of a famous woman while a buddy poses as if he’s trying to force beer down her throat, pulling her head back by her hair. I’m sure you know the story. Do you think an apology is enough?

Obama: Senator Clinton accepted the apology. That’s the end of the matter.

Me: So, that’s supposed to be the end of it? Wow, are you naive. Women aren’t about to put this aside just like that. You better believe they are pissed. Clinton has to make light of it. She wants that job. She’s in a bad position, hostile work environment I believe is the legal term?

Obama: Nothing could be further from the truth. Jon was naive and disrespectful, but he has learned from his mistake. He is sorry and will show proper respect to members of the Cabinet in the future.

Me: At least on camera. Do you expect anybody to believe that?

Obama: Why shouldn’t they? The apology was sincere. I believe Jon thought that was an innocent joke, but a lesson learned the hard way will stick.

Me: You are a hopeless optimist. You should fire him. He’s all fine words and you have to provide the substance. Why don’t you write your own speeches?

Obama: As if I have the time or the talent for that. I’m a communicator. That’s one of my talents.

Me: It’s called charisma. You don’t snow me. I think you’re stuck with Mr. Favreau because you think he writes great lines. Lines are only great if the speaker puts real feeling into them. Guys with charisma can put great feeling into lines, but it’s not quite the same as real feeling.

Obama: And they call me a parser!

Me: You’re a politician. You know the difference between acting and speaking your own words with your own feelings.

Obama: You know what happens to people who try that. The media is merciless, sharks pouncing at the first sign of vulnerability.

Me: I think the women in this race can attest to that. Do you think it’s wise to have a shark writing your speeches?

Obama: He’s a young man who didn’t realize the implications of his drunken actions. Senator Clinton has forgiven him. She has been gracious about the entire affair. What’s your problem?

Me: The implications of those actions.

Obama: The matter is closed.

Me: You wish! Fire the guy quick, or you risk women getting really riled up!

Obama: (Snorts) I think I’m a better judge of American women than you. I’ll take my chances. Senator Clinton has accepted the apology. She is satisfied Jon won’t be causing any more trouble making embarrassing spectacles of himself.

Me: You have great faith in this guy. Why? Is it if it’s not broken, don’t fix it? He is broken, so his apology isn’t worth much.

Obama: Jon Favreau is a fine upstanding young man. I’m certain he will grow and learn from this experience.

Me: Hard to argue with blind faith. You don’t need this kind of baggage. Bad enough you gave Larry Summers a high post. He’ll never live down that crack about women not being able to compete in hard sciences because of genetics. This is a great mind? Some people think Sigmund Freud was a great scientist, but his understanding of women was atrocious. He was a great one to pathologize female psychology, since he wanted to stuff it into his own framework. It didn’t fit, just like Summers and Favreau don’t fit in a government I could believe in, though they do seem to fit right in with the rest of your crew. That’s my problem. These are party hacks and scientists for hire. What is this, a kinder gentler version of corporate empire you’re promising?

Obama: I surround myself with the best minds, regardless of political affiliation, so I can hear different sides of each issue to inform my decisions. I reject your insinuations. These are people of the highest integrity. Your suspicions are baseless and cynical. America needs its people to hope for the best, so we can all contribute our best to make America a beacon of hope and liberty for the world again.

Me: All right, enough of you for now! You really ought to fire that speechwriter! I’m sure Obama isn’t listening to silly fools like me, or outraged feminists in the blogosphere. I had to say something, regardless. This is really callous and disrespectful to women. I don’t much like Senator Clinton, but she almost won, could have been VP, and Secretary of State is a top Cabinet post, if not the top. She deserves some respect from a speechwriter for the President. He sure has no business groping a mockup of her, grinning as though he was proud as could be. This was no joke or laughing matter, despite the yuck it up attitude of such luminaries as James Carville (It’s a piece of cardboard, stupid!). This is typical of the blatant abuse of the women running for President and VP in this campaign. Obama ought to put a stop to it here and now. This is his golden opportunity to show respect for women means something in this country, at least for this President. But he’ll pass. Political expediency rules the day. This is the change I need?

ETA: I decided to trackback to one of those outraged feminists who wants to keep this scandal front and center, and whose call to protest inspired this entry.

On June 14 I posted at the Gary Null Forum to update my original post, which questioned the motivations for certain outrageous statements Dr. Rima Laibow made about CODEX in a video, repeated nearly verbatim in an interview Gary Null did, which I heard on the local Pacifica station. I was careful not to embellish the story on Null’s forum, but I’ll state some of my conclusions at the end here. I got suspicious originally because of this appeal for money using the story of Laurie Jessop on her web site:

The family is in desperate need of support and legal assistance. The Natural Solutions Foundation is taking this threat to our collective Health Freedom and our Freedom of Speech very seriously. The Foundation will continue to assist and are building a network of natural physicians, Constitutional lawyers and other experts to be ready to act as “amicus curiae” – Friends of the Court – in similar cases. If you can help us fund or staff our Health Freedom Posse, please reply via email. Remember that your donations key to these battles!

Laurie Jessop requested emphatically that Health Freedom USA remove that appeal, but she was ignored. Orac has that linked on one of his posts attempting to prove Laurie Jessop’s story was just a hoax I made up. She never got a red cent from that appeal, only assurances that since her story was in the public domain, Health Freedom USA could care less how she felt about them using her story to raise money.

This was my original post at the Gary Null forum from Jan. 29 this year.

Dr. Rima Laibow has posted on her web site the video of her talk Nutricide – Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs.

The video begins with this: Let me tell you about Codex Alimentarius. Let me define it for you. Let me help you understand the enemy. And let me assure you, that absolutely nothing that I’m going to tell you is exaggerated, is interpolated, or is imagined. Everything I’m going to tell you is documented, and a great deal of it is documented on my web site.

At 16:18:

Let’s talk about milk. We have recombinant bovine growth hormone, and now we can choose milk with it or milk without it, butter with it, butter without it, right? Not under CODEX. Because under CODEX, every dairy cow on the planet must be treated with Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone. Furthermore, under CODEX, every animal used for food on the planet, whether it has fins, feet, or feathers, every animal on the planet must be treated with sub-clinical antibiotics, must be treated with sub-clinical antibiotics and must be treated with exogenous growth hormones. CODEX requires, mandates, that all food be irradiated, unless it’s eaten locally and raw. All food, including organic food, of course.

Those are exact quotes from her video. On the morning of 12/13/2007, I sent the following fax to Natural Solutions Foundation:

Subject: CODEX
I tried to send an e-mail, but your system kept giving me an error, claiming I hadn’t entered a subject! I heard Dr. Rima Laibow say CODEX will require all cows to be injected with rBST, and all food to be irradiated. Did I hear that correctly? Could I get a source for these statements? I went poking around the CODEX site, but couldn’t find anything like that. Is it hiding, or did I just not know where to look? Please respond via e-mail. Thank you.

I got no response. On 12/31/2007, I sent the following through their regular e-mail system, which had been fixed by then:

I heard Dr. Rima Laibow say CODEX will require all cows to be injected with rBST, and all food to be irradiated. Did I hear that correctly? Could I get a source for these statements? I went poking around the CODEX site, but couldn’t find anything like that. Is it hiding, or did I just not know where to look?

This is a second request. I tried to send this request for a source nearly three weeks ago, but your system kept giving me an error, claiming I hadn’t entered a subject! I sent a fax instead, but have received no response. If I do not get a satisfactory response within two weeks, I will assume there is no source and that Dr. Rima Laibow is exaggerating for effect, to frighten people into donating to this organization.

I still have received no response, and I’m out of patience. Can anyone document those statements, or am I to conclude they are exaggerations that cannot be documented? Dr. Laibow and her attorney Ralph Fucetola were prominently featured in Vaccine Nation, at least in the version premiered at the So. Calif. Health Support Group meeting on 12/09/2007. I think it’s detrimental to the credibility of the alternative health movement to have such people posing as authorities making outrageous statements that cannot be backed up about CODEX. Is that the intention? If not, what is the intention?

This was my update.

It has now been six months since I requested documentation of these claims. I did receive some responses shortly after I posted here, but these responses fall far short of what I’d consider documentation.

This was the first response, on Feb. 2:

Hi Alex! Certain foods are already being irradiated in this country, even without Codex and, as you must know, cows in many dairies have been getting the BST shot for years, though some dairies have stopped using it because of the problems it creates. Dr. Rima is in Africa at a Codex meeting and will be returning in a week. All you have to do is use the internet and google information on irradiation of foods, gm foods, foods that are sprayed with virusses, pasteuration of almonds, the list goes on and on! At our site at www.healthfreedomusa.org you can click on the tab along the heading about Codex and learn what is in the planning there! Or you can google Codex and learn a lot on the net. As for us trying to scare people into donations, we operate on a shoestring budget and most of the people on our mailing list are very aware of the power of the FDA/Feds/Pharmaceutical Companies. They are not scared by us– they are aware, educated and concerned about the monster the U.S. government is becoming. If you trust Big Pharma with your health, then by all means, stop using nutrients and enjoy their chemical mixes! But we choose the organic, non-irradiated, non gm foods that have NOT been sprayed with virusses! And we do not like the laws that the Powers that Be try to pass to keep us from having them. And frankly, we volunteers do not have the many hours it would take to see to your personal education. At the last Codex meeting, several small nations argued that GM foods should be labelled. The United States delegation insisted that they NOT be labelled because Americans won’t eat food that they know is GM. In other words, we should not have choices. This particular labelling issue is still up in the air. I am sorry if there are sometimes problems with the site- when we can afford to, we will have it upgraded. But you are wrong about the money. It is the PRO-Codex people who have lots of money- and they get it from the government and your taxes! -Kathy Greene for the Natural Solutions Foundation

I responded:

Thank you for the belated response. I asked for a source, not an education. I already knew most of that. This answer is evasion, not a satisfactory response. Dr. Laibow used the words all and every, not some. She was quite emphatic about it. I’m referring to her video Nutricide – Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs, about 16 minutes in. You are insulting my intelligence. I searched for anything to corroborate these claims. I found nothing. I did find on the blog, “All fruit and veggies imported into the US must be irradiated.” That’s not what Dr. Laibow said on the video, unless she means by locally grown, grown in the USA, and that all food is fruit or veggie. I also found something on your site noting that Europe and Canada have banned rBST. How does CODEX intend to get around that?

A week ago, tired of waiting, I transcribed the section of the video to post on the Gary Null Forum asking for corroboration of these claims. Nobody has volunteered any information. These are the exact quotes I posted there:

“Let me tell you about Codex Alimentarius. Let me define it for you. Let me help you understand the enemy. And let me assure you, that absolutely nothing that I’m going to tell you is exaggerated, is interpolated, or is imagined. Everything I’m going to tell you is documented, and a great deal of it is documented on my web site.”

“Let’s talk about milk. We have recombinant bovine growth hormone, and now we can choose milk with it or milk without it, butter with it, butter without it, right? Not under CODEX. Because under CODEX, every dairy cow on the planet must be treated with Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone. Furthermore, under CODEX, every animal used for food on the planet, whether it has fins, feet, or feathers, every animal on the planet must be treated with sub-clinical antibiotics, must be treated with sub-clinical antibiotics and must be treated with exogenous growth hormones. CODEX requires, mandates, that all food be irradiated, unless it’s eaten locally and raw. All food, including organic food, of course.”

Nothing is exaggerated, and everything is documented? I want a reliable source. It should not take you hours to find me that source, if it exists. If I don’t get one soon, I’ll be blogging about this. Maybe for the benefit of Gary Null’s readers, Dr. Laibow should post her response to my post at his forum.

I note that in my original request, I left out the qualifier for cows, “dairy” (which should have been obvious), and for all food, “unless it’s eaten locally and raw” (which covers a great deal more than imported fruit and veggies).

Alexander Wren
AKA Angry Scientist

Ms. Greene responded on Feb. 9:

Hi Alex! Dr. Rima is still in Africa and will not be back for at least another week. I personally cannot give you the “very precise” info you seem to think is necessary, so I will forward this to her for answer when she can take time away from the Codex fight to make you happy. Since she does not carry files with her when travelling, you may simply have to develop some patience. I was not at all evasive in my answer to you- I do not personally save all the research I read and thus cannot quote it directly to you- Personally, I suggest that you go ahead and trust Big Pharma and the FDA and eat everything that the government tells you is safe– and then remember to take the stick out, so it can pass through! -Kathy

I waited until Feb. 28, then responded:

My patience is wearing thin. Once it gets to be three months since I asked for a source, about two weeks from now, I’ll post these insulting evasive replies from Kathy on Gary Null’s message board as evidence of your bad faith. Then I’ll think about what to write on my blog. Maybe you don’t realize many bloggers consider themselves journalists. Stalling a request for a source is highly suspicious.

Alexander Wren
AKA Angry Scientist

Ralph Fucetola JD responded on March 2:

Dear Mr. Wren,

Dr. Laibow is unavailable to answer your inquiry. She asked me to help you find the information you seek. She has reviewed, by her estimate, over 16,000 pages of Codex information and concluded that the results of those regulations would be to effectively mandate food irradiation and the use of rBST additives.

I just Googled “rBST Codex” and got a number of references from about ten years ago: rBST was the subject of Codex rule making, but the final decision has not been concluded, thus leaving rBST allowable in any amount for the world food trade as may be acceptable to the receiving country.

http://www.foodcomm.org.uk/animal_rBST.htm

“Consumers win rBST delay at Codex

“In a landmark decision by the international food standards agency, Codex, an application to have a standard set for the residue limits of rBST was rejected, following appeals by Consumers International at a Codex meeting in June 1997. The USA had requested an international standard for minimum residue limits for the hormone, which would have effectively given it a trading licence by Codex.”

There is a book on Google Book Search that talks about later developments:

Case Studies in US Trade Negotiations where the footnote on page 308 says that JECFA “concluded that bST residual levels in milk were very low and that bST naturally found in milk is nontoxic. According to JECFA no MRL was necessary when rbST was administered properly.”

According to Food Chemical News $1 No. 21, July 12, 1999, the Codex regs are being held at step 8, which is the step before finalization.

But, of course, US FDA policy is to “harmonize” with such regulations “even when not finalized…” (see Code of Federal Regulations, October 11, 1995 (60 FR 53078) so it is fairly clear that Codex permits rBST products to be sold in countries such as the US.

We are dealing here with the World Food Code, not our Anglo-American common law, so this is a situation where what ever is permitted may very well become deemed obligatory.

Here is a good overview of Codex and food irradiation:

“Within Codex, food irradiation is classified as an additive. Thus, food irradiation falls under the jurisdiction of the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). CCFAC depends on several sources of information in evaluating food additives. In the case of irradiation, CCFAC draws from the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committees on Food Additives (JECFA) as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Consultative Group on Food Irradiation (ICGFI). As shown in an October 2002 report by Public Citizen, Bad Taste: The Disturbing Truth About the World Health Organisation’s Endorsement of Food Irradiation,2 the WHO has relied on a very small number of faulty studies in declaring food irradiation safe; this unscientific and shoddy work is the foundation of acceptance of food irradiation across the world. *** Codex has become an instrument of the liberalization of international trade, instead of a method to protect the food supplies of peoples across the world.”

“Codex weakened the international food irradiation rule to allow any food to be irradiated at any dose, regardless of how high. The new Standard contains no maximum radiation dose to which foods can be ‘treated.’ The previous limit was 10 kiloGray, a dose of radiation equivalent to 330 million chest X-rays. At such doses, the chemical composition of foods can be altered; vitamins, proteins and other nutrients can be destroyed; and flavor, odor and texture can be corrupted.”

“Since Codex standards are enforceable through the World Trade Organization, member nations that have food irradiation laws stricter than the new Codex Standard could have their laws challenged and overruled.”

A number of web sites have interpreted the allowance of irradiated foods to be tantamount to requiring such processes. See: http://www.care2.com/news/member/410531040/649659

“If FDA and Codex has its way, all food will be irradiated…”

In my view, that which is permitted under Codex, and to which the US FDA will harmonize, becomes mandatory under the SPS Agreement (Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) and under WTO dispute resolution.

The process by which “voluntary” standards become WTO mandatory requirements is stated in many places:

“The Codex General Standard for Irradiated Foods (CAC/RS 106-1979) was adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission at its 13th Session in 1979 and was subsequently revised in 1983 by the 15th Session. This Standard has been submitted to all Member Nations and Associate Members of FAO and WHO for acceptance in accordance with the General Principles of the Codex Alimentarius.”

http://www.caobisco.com/doc_uploads/legislation/STAN106-EN.pdf

I believe it is fair to conclude that the norm for international trade is routine irradiation of foods moving in international trade, and certainly those produced by the largest global food companies, where the economics of the situation dictate treating all food substances alike.

Thus, while I cannot say that 100% of all foods moving in international trade are now irradiated, I believe it appropriate to assert that nearly all of the bulk food supplies upon which the world relies for wholesome nutrition are likely to be irradiated. Of course careful producers of organic foods, herbs and spices will do their best to avoid irradiation, that that hardly amounts to a couple percents of the world food trade.

In a world of non-finalized but domestically binding international standards, routine practices of the food industry are international law in practice and confirm Dr. Laibow’s concerns.

Ralph Fucetola, JD
The Vitamin Lawyer.com Consultancy
http://www.vitaminlawyer.com/
http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/
All Rights Reserved . . .

—— Original Message ——
Received: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:14:59 AM EST
From: “Rima E. Laibow” (dr.laibow@gmail.com)
To: “Ralph Fucetola JD” (ralph.fucetola@usa.net)
Subject: Fwd: Contact: CODEX

Ralph, Dr. Laibow would appreciate it if you could respond to Mr. Wren.
Kathy

Finally an in depth response! I responded:

Thank you for your detailed response. However, I’m not buying your arguments. Here’s why. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FDA finds some excuse like CODEX to mandate rBST, but Dr. Laibow stated, “Because under CODEX, every dairy cow on the planet must be treated with Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone.” Our FDA doesn’t govern every dairy cow on the planet. You know as well as I the European Union would never go along with that. They’re pissed off enough as it is with US pressure to accept our genetically modified crops, and they’re not alone. Your argument is at best inconclusive. Dr. Laibow’s concerns may be justifiable, but that’s a far cry from claiming to have documentation that a worldwide requirement is already mandated, waiting for the right moment to spring it on an unwary world.

Regarding food irradiation, the link you cite at care2.com is to a posting from healthfreedomusa.org, hardly an independent source. You speak of “foods moving in international trade.” Dr. Laibow stated: “CODEX requires, mandates, that all food be irradiated, unless it’s eaten locally and raw. All food, including organic food, of course.” That goes a good deal further than “foods moving in international trade.” Besides, how could authorities know whether food will be eaten locally and raw, unless it is consumed at the premises it is sold, or originally produced? Are you implying eaten locally means the food doesn’t cross any international borders? I know most, if not all, imported foods are already required by US Customs to undergo irradiation or fumigation. You’re implying organic food might escape, but that’s not what Dr. Laibow said. At best, Dr. Laibow is jumping to conclusions about what might happen in a worst case scenario. You haven’t cited anything to document her outrageous statements, merely reasons why her concerns might be valid. This is not documentation. I’m a scientist. If you think you can snow me with your legal mumbo-jumbo, think again. So, is this the best you can do to document Dr. Laibow’s claims?

Evidently, that was supposed to be sufficient documentation; I’ve heard nothing since. I leave it to the reader to judge if my assessment is unfair or inaccurate.

This is an example of why the alternative health movement isn’t taken seriously. This woman and her lawyer go around making these eye-popping statements about what that nefarious CODEX is up to, but when asked to back them up, I got this crap. I don’t doubt CODEX is a threat to health freedom, but making these kinds of statements just gives the orthodoxy ammunition to say the alternative health movement is all quackery and doesn’t know what it’s talking about. They can point to Dr. Laibow as an example of someone well respected in the movement, supposedly an expert on CODEX, who makes outrageous unsubstantiated claims trying to scare people, and thus deserves no credibility. She may indeed be an expert on CODEX, but such easily disproven statements make her sound like she’s gone off the deep end. The medical orthodoxy is eager to exploit any weak link in the chain to cast doubt on the credibility of the alternative health movement. Is Dr. Laibow deliberately making that easier? If not, what’s her game? What’s the point of making claims she must know are exaggerated after making such a big point of saying

…absolutely nothing that I’m going to tell you is exaggerated, is interpolated, or is imagined. Everything I’m going to tell you is documented…

Like hell it is. She knows better. She’s doing this for a reason. Is it just to raise money from people naive enough to believe her? Or is her purpose more nefarious? Is she a spy on the alternative health movement, a plant to weaken it from within? The movement has enough trouble with unscrupulous profiteers who are in it for the money, not to help people. The quackbusters paint the entire movement with a broad brush, as if it’s nothing but a bunch of con artists selling snake oil. There are a few, along with some others who do help people, but think their particular remedy is a cure-all, or charge too much. All of this gets blown out of proportion, giving everyone questioning the orthodoxy a bad name. The last thing the movement needs is people making wild charges they can’t back up. The scientific truth isn’t on the side of the orthodoxy, but it can maintain its power as long as it can undermine the credibility of its critics. Critics who undermine their own credibility are doing the orthodoxy a big favor. I must question, whose side are they on?

What is going on with the medical establishment? Is HIV the cause of AIDS, a more or less significant co-factor, or related to any disease at all? Why is HIV/AIDS diagnosed differently in different countries? This documentary by Gary Null blows the lid off the idea AIDS is settled science. Where is the cure? The latest vaccine trial backfired. The dissenters have their say, though censored in professional journals for their heresy, challenging all the hocus pocus, intolerance of questions, money changing hands. AIDS has become a big business, with all the attendant shady dealing.

HIV is the elusive immunity destroying retrovirus nowhere to be found in blood or tissue, except in viral fragments reconstructed by PCR, the polymerase chain reaction technique invented by Kary Mullis, winning him the Nobel Prize. He has plenty to say in this movie, about questions the AIDS community won’t, or can’t answer, like a reference paper proving HIV the cause of AIDS. There’s evidence HIV isn’t sexually transmitted. AIDS pioneer Robert Gallo never proved or discovered anything. He stole the credit for this virus from Luc Montaigner, who loaned him a sample for research. Virus expert Peter Duesberg also raises disturbing issues about AIDS, and how his opinions cost him, the heretic whistleblower virtually ostracized by his academic peers.

Is everything we are told about AIDS wrong? Why is that so hard to believe? Nothing new for the medical orthodoxy, and as usual, the drug companies are cleaning up while people die. Is AIDS another medical Vietnam? The scale of this scam may be comparable. These days, what’s real in science, true to life, uncorrupted by conflict of interest? Is there no respect left for reality, or theory that stands up under all critical scrutiny?

The theory that HIV is the cause of AIDS leaves out too many factors. Immune deficiency has so many possible causes in this toxic poverty-ridden world, same with low white blood cell counts. It can be short or long term, or due to collapse under stress overload. Especially in poor nations, it doesn’t take much to overwhelm the immune system, but it used to be that AIDS was blamed for rare opportunistic diseases, not common ones like tuberculosis and malaria in Africa! What could possibly be the point of reassigning deaths due to those diseases to AIDS? Money! Money flows for AIDS, not much else, so real diseases and causes are overlooked, as funding dries up. When people are treated for their diseases, they get better. When they get AIDS drugs, they might get better, for awhile, but chemotherapy drugs are not meant for continuous use. If the dose is low enough, they may not be fatal for quite awhile. The dose of AZT when it was the only or primary treatment was a quicker death sentence.

This is a bad science fiction horror story about medical science run amok! Somebody wake me up from this nightmare! You can try, tell me Gary Null, and other experts in this movie, are all wet. The movie is available on Google video as well as his earlier documentary, Deconstructing The Myth Of AIDS. From this nightmare, there is no awakening, though as I noted in my previous blog entry about the curious study finding no link between viral load and how sick the study participant was, JAMA suggested looking for contributing factors was exciting.

The study challenges the current belief that the degree to which the virus replicates itself is the trigger for the loss of CD4 cells, white blood cells that are a key component of the body’s immune system.

An accompanying editorial in the journal said the findings were exciting because they suggested that researchers should look for and target non-viral factors that set off the eventual decline in the immune system.

What’s really going down with immune system collapse? If HIV is not the problem, what’s the point of taking these cocktails? They might, as a side effect, kill the opportunistic disease, so people might feel better for awhile, but it’s no cure for what ails them, whether poverty or other causing immune overload. The movie shows a center in Africa treating sick children by feeding them properly and treating their diseases. Those kids get better. AIDS in Africa is a distraction, a fearsome name to cover for old problems, like the local infestations, civil wars, malnutrition, drought, industrial and agricultural pollution, climate change, outsider meddling. none of that is important because AIDS is The Problem! Unaids just last Nov. had to defend its overestimation of HIV in Africa against charges of deliberate alarmist inflation.

HIV is not the problem. The so-called AIDS test is protected by a curious disclaimer in its package insert that it’s not meant to establish a diagnosis of HIV infection. It’s a non-specific antibody test that can cross react with all sorts of unrelated things, so the common tests are riddled with false positives. When Dr. Gallo originally submitted that test, it showed too many people positive, so it was rejected. He got it to pass muster by reducing the sensitivity. The drug treatment is more deadly than HIV, quite capable of causing AIDS or liver failure, now a primary cause of death from AIDS, and treating people for what is making them sick is their best chance to recover.

I invite debate on this subject. I am not a doctor, but I am a scientist and logic expert, and this stinks of bad science. If you think HIV causes immune system collapse, explain that study I cite. The AIDS establishment has plenty to answer for. I think this film should be shown as evidence in a trial. What is happening to people diagnosed with HIV is criminal, if not murder. The average doctor may not realize how the science of HIV doesn’t hold up, but anyone who watches this film, if your faith in conventional wisdom is unshaken, you are no scientist. I challenge anyone with that faith to defend this way of hastening people to death who could have lived.

This past Tuesday night Roy of Hollywood asked Gary Null for his opinions about the trouble KPFK, and Pacifica in general, is having raising funds. Gary has lots of opinions about that, having been kicked off the New York Pacifica station WBAI, despite being their top fund-raiser. One fact Gary revealed that I didn’t know, one of the network’s biggest expenses is paying off sexual harassment judgments and the associated legal fees! He said Pacifica has been trying to sweep this under the carpet, denying everything, promoting instead of firing the perpetrators! I did a little research and found this press release published at Indymedia from July this year. If you think Pacifica deserves its billing as free speech radio, you might want to read the whole thing, and weep.

Pacifica Radio Network – Rocked by Discrimination
by Its about time for change
Friday Jul 13th, 2007 5:00 PM

Progressive Radio Network Rocked
By Violence, Discrimination, and Sexual Harassment

Five women in legal actions against radio stations in the progressive Pacifica Radio Network have encountered stunningly “un-progressive” practices in the network’s handling of women’s complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Women at all five of Pacifica’s major market stations have fought to compel Pacifica Radio Foundation and its member stations, including Berkeley’s KPFA, to immediately end physical threats, harassment, discrimination, and sexual assaults against women, as well as their retaliation against the women who report the misconduct.

Recurring allegations are that Pacifica refused to investigate the women’s complaints, refused to discipline the perpetrators, fostered an environment of impunity, refused to prevent further harassment, hampered the women’s ability to perform their jobs, and subjected them to retaliation and, in some cases, termination.

Among those who claim they have been victimized are senior managers, investigative reporters, hosts, a station news director, and administrative employees. And these women all claim that they have found the disconnect between the network’s progressive rhetoric and its handling of discrimination within its own ranks to be startling.

For shame, Pacifica. For shame. No wonder many feminists are so suspicious of the male left.

An unholy alliance of California Child Protective Services (CPS) with a hostile doctor and judge is attempting to railroad Laurie Jessop, framed as a threat to her son and the establishment for finding a way to cure him of malignant melanoma. She is now on trial, under a gag order, since she had gone to the press. When she was arrested, she was put in maximum security, solitary confinement, in the Orange County, CA jail. They claim that everything about. her says anti-Establishment, so she was told, as she was considered a threat in starting a riot.

On the morning of Sept. 12, Gary Null read on KPFK, a Pacifica station in Los Angeles, an e-mail from Ron Miller, who had met Ms. Jessop at the Cancer Control Society annual convention during the Labor Day weekend. They had discussed this persecution by Big Brother in the guise of saving her son from this evil mother who has failed to protect him! She disobeyed doctor’s orders and found a natural way to cure her son. These forces arrayed against her and insisted he must have the cancer removed surgically and attacked with the standard chemical fare. The cancer is gone, but nobody in authority will accept that because her doctor doesn’t believe that’s possible.

The initial biopsy of the mole was done in February. Their regular doctor was on leave when test results came in. A nurse informed them of the bad news. On May 8, Chad Jessop had a follow up appointment with a medical group doctor, by the name of Dr. Masciana, who insisted he needed surgery to excise the site within a week, or he could die any day now! This doctor is a general practitioner, not an oncologist or qualified to do cancer diagnosis or surgery. Chad and his mom decided to pursue holistic treatment for him. Incensed, the doctor reported her to Child Protective Services on the grounds of gross negligent child endangerment. She yelled at Laurie “all of you Jehovah’s Witnesses are all the same,” never mind Laurie and Chad are not Jehovah’s witnesses. Dr. Masciana also told Laurie, with her son present, that his death was imminent. At the close of the appointment, Dr. Masciana informed Laurie that she was referring the case to Social Services. In further investigation, Child Protective Social Services is a misnamed government agency whose employees get paid bonuses every time they take children away from their parents.

That evening Laurie called an attorney who advised her that she had 48 hours or less before Social Services showed up. If she could not prove she was following doctor’s orders, they’d take her son. Since Dr. Masciana had created such a traumatic experience for Chad, he feared the doctors and threatened to run away. In honoring Chad’s wishes for continued holistic care, Laurie took her son to San Diego to continue holistic care using a number of various alternative treatments such as: ozone, hyperbaric oxygen chamber, hydrogen peroxide, energy work, Rife, nutritional supplements, and deep emotional work. Laurie also used “black salve” that she purchased from Canada to remove the mole tissue. Black salve was developed by Native American Indians more than 200 years ago, and used in the treatment of skin lesions, cancers, warts, and moles. Figures our FDA banned it, because it works.

When Chad insisted on hitting the road to continue alternative therapies and getting further diagnostics, that left a question as to where Laurie’s daughter Crystal would go. A close friend of the family and Crystal’s best friend agreed, and this felt like a perfect fit under the circumstances, so Laurie legally signed Crystal over to the family and gave them all the necessary medical insurance information. On May 22, the local sheriff and CPS had taken her daughter out of class, interrogating her mercilessly, telling her lies about her mother, trying to force her to reveal where Laurie and Chad had gone, and then forced her to go on a police joy ride and show them where they reside. All of this was done against her will and carried on for six hours!

They applied “Black Salve” directly to the area in question, thus giving Chad a holistic version of a large border excision. It took about two and a half weeks for the wound to heal. When it was healed Laurie took Chad to a Del Mar dermatologist for a biopsy. The test results were negative of any signs of melanoma! The next two weeks were concentrated on once again healing the tissue to get another biopsy. Upon the wound site being healed, a melanoma specialist did a punch biopsy and a complete lab analysis on Friday, June 15. Again, no sign of cancer could be found in the biopsy and the blood work was in healthy ranges with no distinguishing markers that would otherwise be present in a patient that would have advanced stage four melanoma, as had been previously reported! Was it a miracle, or an activated immune system in a healthy young man, with some useful help, that healed the melanoma?

The following Monday, June 18th, Laurie and Chad turned themselves in to the San Diego Social Services office, with all of their documentation. They were detained for 4 hours, then told that arrest warrants for Laurie and Chad were issued from Orange County. Chad was locked up at the Palenskie Center in San Diego for one night. He had 2 guards watching him around the clock, since he was considered a flight risk. When Laurie went to visit Chad they could not have any privacy, as both guards listened to every word that was said. Laurie spent over nine thousand bucks in San Diego for the treatments done over the five week period of time, and has all the receipts as proof. A new social worker, David Harper, was put on the case. He picked Chad up in San Diego transporting him to Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange County for the next two weeks, where he got fed spaghetti and meat balls, food not fitting one healing from cancer. One aspect of Chad’s treatment was a healthy diet of living foods, but Ms. Jessop’s requests of this social worker that Chad get proper food fell on deaf ears. He did tell her she was allowed to see her daughter graduate from Junior High School. She told him nobody could keep her away without a court order, and that she would be there! The social worker informed Laurie that he completed the paper work to lift the warrant order on her.

After her daughter’s graduation, on June 21st Laurie went to make academic arrangements for her son, having missed five weeks of school. Laurie showed the documentation to the principal and vice principal. The Vice Principal knew Chad well, as Chad did his Eagle Scout project for him at the high school. Chad is now an advanced Eagle Scout. No matter, the VP called police to arrest Laurie at the school and haul her off to the county jail. The arresting deputy harassed her. When Laurie protested, the officer told her she didn’t have to like her or be nice to her. After arriving at the county jail, her first telephone call had been to the social worker, David Harper, although he did nothing to get her out of jail, nor was he willing to help correct the record. Laurie was physically abused, they spread her legs twisting her knee, when she complained they called out “Resisting…Resisting” then they pushed her violently to a cell wall (behind the cameras) causing her to twist her neck, shoulder and arm. After being worked over, they took away her jacket, shoes, socks, and toilet paper, and locked her up. Her holding cell was extremely cold and she was deliberately denied toilet paper. She asked for toilet paper, only to be answered it must have been taken for good reason and she was not getting any. She was denied toilet paper from approximately 3:30pm until 11:00pm. One has to wonder, what was she going to do with the toilet paper, hang herself? By 11:00 pm Laurie got taken to be assessed. She asked “is this a madhouse run by animals, who is running this place?” Laurie told this officer her story for half an hour. He let her talk, then said he sees all kinds of characters, his job is to ascertain threats. He told her she has the fire, the spirit and the power to overturn the system and create a riot. He informed her she’d be put in solitary confinement, but she might get a roommate, probably a drug offender. She was forced to take a chest X-ray against her will, without any explanation and ridicule from the officers. Laurie and her two children have never been in any type of trouble with the law, but were treated like hardened criminals. She was shocked to learn women taking showers have no privacy, that male guards are watching. The next night she got a 58-year old roommate charged with kidnapping her children from her husband 20 years ago, after being extradited from Tennessee on outdated bogus charges tagged with 200 thousand bail. It would appear that Orange County is desperately trying to maintain job security at the expense of the innocent!

Laurie was released on the streets of Santa Ana after midnight, in an unsafe area of Southern California for a woman, after five days of incarceration. Upon Laurie’s arrest, officers impounded her van and turned it upside down looking for drugs. She had to pay over 300 dollars in impound fees to get the van back.

As Laurie was seeking legal counsel, she was told that Paul Wallin Attorney at Law was one of California’s leading attorneys for litigating against Child Protective Social Services. Laurie eagerly faxed over documentation on the case, and they spoke for more than forty-five minutes. In the course of the conversation, Paul Wallin claimed to be reasonably supportive to alternative therapies, as his mother had been cured of cancer and wrote a book “I Beat Cancer.” The attorney jokingly mentioned that he had spent the entire day in court with the very Judge Carolyn Kirkwood who will be ruling on the case, and the very same senior social worker David Harper, that has been re-assigned to the Jessop case. The attorney went on to explain that he is also a Judge Pro Tem, and his position was both of a Judge and an attorney.

Paul Wallin began to verbally shred Laurie, and the course that she took! Paul indicated that Laurie did it all wrong, citing that she did not respond quick enough, and that she was negligent in not forcing her son to see an oncologist at that time. Paul Wallin said that he would be willing to take the case at the tune of $14,000 and double that if it would go to trial. There was a condition however, and that was that Laurie Jessop throw herself on the mercies of the court and tell the court that she suffered from “temporary insanity,” and lost her mind when she was informed of Chad’s diagnosis of melanoma. Paul Wallin indicated that Laurie Jessop would probably be placed in parenting classes and community service and that she MIGHT get her kids back. Paul Wallin again reminded Laurie that he would only take the case if she’d follow his advice, and tell the court that “she did it all wrong!” This is a classic example of the kind of money motivated characters out there. Laurie was paying attention to what this attorney told her! In the very opening dialogue he informed Laurie that he had been in court with the very same social worker and Judge that would be deciding the case. Based on his response, it seems that he was more interested in protecting the back side of his courtroom comrades, than in the interest of justice!

Social Services approved the foster families that Laurie had arranged for Chad and Crystal. Now Laurie is on trial, forbidden to speak under a gag order, by the very judge that had issued the bench warrant for her arrest, because she refused to go along with orthodox medicine. The dermatologist, appointed by Social Services, testified in court that the melanoma is playing hide and go seek, that they’d have to subject Chad to unnecessary and dangerous further biopsies and medical procedures to find where it migrated to. The dermatologist further stated that the melanoma had become even more deadly, claiming it has now traveled to different organs. The prescription for surgery is a large border excision to the skullbone. Chad says he is old enough to defend this country’s freedoms, but he is denied that same freedom of choice when it comes to his own health and he is also under gag order. Ms. Jessop intends to sue anyone who touches her son against their wishes. All Chad’s blood tests are consistent with a healthy 17 year old 6′2″ young man. They refuse to tolerate anyone trying to clear their conscience at his expense. Laurie says her record stands, she will not back down, and she wants parents to know they do not have to be intimidated by this system! The judge has stated twice that she doesn’t want Chad to die while she is on the bench; which sounds like she has bias in the case! Surgery and chemotherapy had been intended for the following week. The doctor is still of the mind Chad could die any day now. When giving testimony, the dermatologist was asked if he could perform surgery on Chad, knowing that Chad would not cooperate with any Western medical butchery. His answer was emphatic No, he could not perform an operation on anyone against their will.

What Big Brother has been doing to Ms. Jessop and her children is unconscionable, beyond outrageous, a gross miscarriage of justice and an abuse of authority. Many families have been torn apart by lesser abuses of CPS and modern medicine. The Jessop family is very united and strong in their convictions, very aware of their constitutional rights, and will not give up to our corrupt system. Being a single parent for the last 11 years, Laurie has done herself proud raising her children and is extremely close to both of them. Laurie and her children have stood the test and this hellish ordeal has brought them closer together as a family. She said at the press conference, “I am a mama bear and no one is messing with my cubs!”

Laurie’s deadbeat ex-husband, Marcus, has never voluntarily paid for child support or any of the children’s medical bills, even though he is legally bound to pay for half according to their divorce agreement. She has had to drag him into court to get a judgment and garnish his wages in order to collect on past due medical bills. It so happens Marcus is in agreement with the state, he wants his son, (having had no contact for the last 10 years) to be butchered and drugged to eliminate this incredible cancer, that refuses to carry out its death sentence and is too clever to show up on tests. Marcus is in court with his own public defender, pushing for this even though he has no legal or physical custody, not even any visitation rights. If he was in agreement with Laurie’s medical beliefs, this court probably wouldn’t allow him in the courtroom. Our tax dollars, hard at work!

In the state of Virginia, a brilliant 17 year old young man went through a very similar ordeal, but won his battle with CPS. Once his case was over, he was instrumental in passing a new law in the state of Virginia. Abraham’s Law, that gives a minor the right to make their own medical decisions when they are bright and understand their choices. Laurie wants to get her story out and push through a similar bill in California, called “Chad’s Law,” so that other families do not have to go through the abusive nature of a department that is supposed to be protecting our children. As “Roy of Hollywood” stated on KPFK recently, who is protecting us from the Child Protective Social Services Department? Pushing through a bill like this may be very expensive, but once Laurie makes up her mind that she is doing something, she is all steel, determined, and will persevere to find a way to make this happen. If you can help her in any way, please contact me via e-mail.

Orthodox medicine is unwilling to admit it does not know everything, and it hates competition. Its methods of treating cancer are not the only ways that can work. Ms. Jessop believed she could find another way, and her son, given a diagnosis of imminent death, is now free of cancer. Never mind, the doctor is sure it’s still there, so Big Brother intends to make an example of her as an unfit mother for disobeying her doctor, putting her son in mortal danger. That’s not happening, but truth often doesn’t matter to Big Brother, as is apparent in most government policy. If Chad were actually endangered by not getting conventional treatment, the authorities might have a leg to stand on, but in this case, it’s not his mother putting him in jeopardy, it’s the system! The doctor has egg on her face, because she was sure Chad would die quickly without aggressive conventional treatment, and she has been proven wrong! Instead of learning from her error, she wants to make Ms. Jessop and her son pay for showing her up!

I’m helping her get her story out. One newspaper did a story, but in general, very little has been reported so far. I tried to find the story online, but no luck. A press conference was held on Sept. 6th, just before court. Two of the major TV news stations and one of the largest AM radio all news stations showed up. KNX radio ran the story immediately that day. As soon as court started the judge announced that there was a gag order on this case and threatened jail time and contempt of court to anyone (including the minor in question), that spoke to the press or anyone else for that matter. One of the TV news stations didn’t want to run the story without interviewing Chad and getting his viewpoints. The judge denied a continuance six different times, ignoring all six times valid reasons for the requests. The judge also denied Laurie the right to hire her own attorney! She retained a law firm with her own money, but the judge insisted she has to keep her Public Defender, presumably as a public servant easier to control than a private attorney not so dependent on the system.

If anyone reading this wants to help get the story out, feel free to blog away. I could give out phone numbers for Ms. Jessop or Mr. Miller if you send me a note at alexwren@pacbell.net This blog is angryscientist.wordpress.com. Laurie can’t risk violating the gag order, but she’d appreciate your prayers and support in her very difficult time of fighting our corrupt system in order to keep her family together. Thanks for taking the time to read this long story. Now that you know what sort of injustice masquerades as protecting children, you can do something to help wake up sleepwalking friends and neighbors, trusting “The System” to know what’s best for the children, and adults too.

This sentence of misspelled names is to assist searchers to have a better chance to find this information: Lori Jessop; Lori Jessup; Laurie Jessup; Chad Jessup; L. Jessop; L. Jessup; Lauri Jessup; Lauri Jessop; Laura Jessup; Laura Jessop.

Update:

There is deep gratitude for all the many angels who stepped up, and put their lives and careers on the line to assist in the healing of a young teen. Although many individuals have been honored with anonymity, below are named some of the angels that have assisted in Chad’s recovery:

Abundant Life International, Inc.
Mark Lawson
905 E. Twain Ave. A-1
Las Vegas, NV 89109
www.abundantlifeintl.com

Alternative Health Center
9225 Chesapeak Dr.
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 467-1500
www.althealthcenter.com

Life Center for Health
Calvin Ross, D.C.
31882 Del Obispo
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
(949) 661-9476
www.drrossdc.com

Gary Null talked about this case on his daily show September 13, 2007, starting at 11 minutes and 45 seconds into the broadcast, for over five minutes. That show was available for listening or downloading at http://garynull.ws/2007/09/13/the-gary-null-show-91307.aspx but Null has moved his archives to Itunes.

Chuck Aubrey aka “The Baron” interviewed Laurie Jessop on his Gnosis show on KJLL in Tucson, Arizona on November 03, 2007 between 6 and 7 PM. If anyone wants to get a copy of the show, send a request with your snail mail address to dashoak@netzero.net.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

Laurie is committed to being an instrument in legislative reform, enacting a minor’s bill of rights and to assist those who are experiencing similar intimidation tactics by social services. Laurie is looking for the best vehicles to educate and inform the masses, as to the importance of standing up for our “Sovereign Rights.” Any suggestions that you may have with media contacts would be greatly appreciated. Laurie is in the final stages of setting up a non profit organization called the CHAD FOUNDATION (Choosing Health Alternatives Deliberately). If you have any ideas or suggestions, please send e-mail to chadfoundation@gmail.com, or if would like to make a tax deductible donation to assist in reform and help with legal expenses for the cause, you may do so by mailing to:

Laurie Jessop
C/O Chad Foundation
P.O. Box 808
Lake Forest, CA 92609

This entry is for the trolls to sound off, explain what makes them tick, why they do what they do, if they can write something with actual content possible to discuss. I’m including a couple of examples from hostile commenters. From my limited understanding, the trolls call themselves the Legion, the followers of lulz, who choose to attack certain web sites and blogs for reasons I wish to explore, since in my eyes these guys have a real problem with radfems, and a minor one with me. I got lots of subtle hate porn story spam, but no threats like what these raeped women are getting. The Obvious Troll sent me lots of crap in the initial invasion, but the level of threat of his “Eat shit and die traitor” doesn’t come close to what they throw at women. Most of my new visitors come from a Wikipedia spoof site with particular venom toward feminazis like Heart and her friends.

Note, if you find or know of that site, it mentions sites shut down by this lulz crew. It had precise instructions on how to shut down each target, since deleted. A publicly hosted blog is a harder nut to crack, though they could still make a blog exceed its traffic limit, unless the blog host is protected. I’ll miss reading the womensspace board, though I have to say, that was a space where what men would think didn’t seem to stop those women from saying anything. I have no idea what they were saying in private, though I did read a few allusions to forums not open to the public. It’s all closed down now, and I doubt it will come back as a board the public, or I, can read. Great victory? What was that about freedom of speech? My part in this is peripheral. Evidently a mother’s post about frustration with her teenage son’s propensities got taken way out of proportion and context, as an excuse to locate her and torture her with threats, in an epic battle with feminazis. One issue they seem to think works only in their favor is freedom of speech, deliberately suppressed by lulz. I’d be interested in any explanation of why a self-respecting man would stoop to such tactics preventing women from having their say in a safe space. For this particular blog entry, I’m suspending most of my rules. What is the harm in women talking freely? Do they shut you down? What is wrong with this picture, guys? The truth you can play fast and loose, laughing all the way, but it’s not on your side here!

You must think I’m totally off my rocker, huh? If a man had a teenage son who told him to fuck off and die, is there any man who might not think, I wish I hadn’t fathered this boy? That mother loves her son, despite major issues with the father. Humans have this faculty called better judgment that can prevent them from acting on harsh feelings. She is alarmed at her son’s behavior. Maybe you think it’s no big deal that young teens get to view what is supposed to be adult material. If she didn’t intervene, she might be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, in some states. Am I mistaken? A mother can’t win, as usual. Whether she lets her adolescent son view adult material or tries to stop him, she is a bad mother in the eyes of the law or this strange gang, if not both. I don’t get why this gang isn’t trying to change the law if they care so much about a mother trying to stop her son from breaking it. Where is the beef? The beef seems to be with the law defining adult material off limits for children, but the mother gets death threats. This doesn’t compute to me. Explain. I’m dead serious. I want to know why a gang of men is picking on this particular mother. Tell me how what she said is worse than how you would react if your son told you to fuck off and die. Maybe this son didn’t use those exact words, but think about it. What would be going through your mind?

She didn’t specify what kind of porn she caught her son viewing, or if he got his hands on a credit card. We all know there is wide variety in what is called porn. Some of what is called porn is just plain nudity, which if portrayed artistically might not bother a feminist. On the other end of the spectrum is sexualizing women getting hurt, more or less. Rape, snuff, S/M, lots of variety, but the principle is not about sex, it’s about men dominating and/or hurting women. That may seem harmless to men, but I’m old enough to remember before Hustler came on the scene and busted all the rules, so men could take desperate women on a sleigh ride, paying them money to submit to torture. I don’t know what was on the black market, but Hustler broke the ground for normalizing sexualizing men’s vicious feelings towards women. I know, most guys think this is harmless, but I have to disagree. Women are raped, battered, harassed, terrorized, or worse on a routine basis. This society is in big trouble for lots of reasons, but one is its acceptance of such vicious feelings as normal for males. I’ve got nothing against male lust for women expressed appropriately, though it isn’t a casual thing for me. Humans also have this faculty called imagination. A normal straight male libido is not dependent on degrading women. Guys who try harder find out, sex can be be fun for women too.

Before my minor slice of troll invasion, I got this comment buried in Akismet from Anonymous at ebaums world. I decided to rescue it, because it raises a point I’m curious about.

Heart is a moron who blames problems on arbitrary stuff, just like any racist or bigot.

I don’t see why somebody like you supports her.

Somebody like me, meaning what? A man? A scientist, perhaps, who specializes in a branch of logic? I disagree heartily with this characterization. What men do to women is not arbitrary stuff. Heart knows not all men are like the lulz legion or get off on hurting women. Heart lets me comment on her blog, sometimes. One comment got me deigned a challenger to lulz, thus fair game. I recognized one troll from lurking at another board long defunct. Sorry, guys, to get on my blog you have to raise some issue, like the above, calling Heart moronic. Is that a reason to crash her site? What is the reason? I’m asking for an explanation, if you are reading here still thinking how to torpedo me for sticking up for her right to get her ideas out. She may make you mad as hell, but that’s no excuse for this dishonorable gangpile behavior. Is this done to everyone who expresses views that piss you guys off, or only if they appear to lack power to retaliate? High tech gang rape, no? Yes, the lulz gang openly recommends rape or raep of its declared enemies.

Why? What does it benefit you, to shut down discourse? Or is all a big joke, temporary amusement? I’d like to know, because I don’t get the joke. Is threatening rape and murder funny? It is criminal, by the way, anonymous or not. What’s so horrible about a mother regretting a child, when her feelings for him clearly outweighed her frustration? Her son is not in any danger because of her frustration. Can she say the same? What’s the reason for torturing her? Laughs? Why is this funny? I don’t get it. Why is she fair game for torture, because she fears her son will learn women are fair game to rape, batter, humiliate? Is that not what most porn is all about these days?

Is this an epic witch hunt, or a warning? I understand why men might want to satirize Heart, since she is running for President, but why these foul threats? And why pick on her friends? I understand this is part of a long-running campaign against women bloggers. Correct me if I am wrong. Most movements have factions, hangers-on, rogues, intrigues perturbing their common purposes. I don’t get what the gang is after with this rescuing the brother business. Her son should learn the truth about his mother being so distraught over his defiance of her that she wrote about it, and how he was conceived, and that she sometimes has wished he hadn’t been born? Why is it anybody’s business? That’d be hard on her and her son, but not as hard as if some anonymous guy pops up and tells him lies or wild exaggerations about it. He can rebel against his mother without any help. Where is the need or right to intervene? Nonexistent, but somehow that doesn’t matter, the lost brother must be rescued. You expect me to be on the side of that? Illogical mania based on deliberate distortion? Give it up guys, you’re making all men look really bad. If you want a fight, fight with me, with actual content, not wasting bandwidth with silly stories or poetry by someone calling himself Stalin. I believe in free speech. I have to object when I see it getting squashed. I object to any kind of thought police. I also object to the views of the inventor of that word, feminazi. I disagree with Rush Limbaugh just about 100%, but you don’t see me trying to shut him down.

This comment was posted on womensspace:

on 10 Aug 2007 at 6:19 am

91 Neuromancer

I can scarecly believe it. You’ve been given everything. EVERYTHING. And you still think that this is about feminism. Open your eyes for fuck’s sake, just close your mouth and pay attention. It’s not that hard. It’s like you willfully ignore information that contradicts your preconceptions. You can’t be that obtuse, noone is.

—

Yes, heart, I know you’re not going to post this, I wrote it in the off chance that you would let a differing opinion in. This isn’t about you, and it never really was, you should know that. Just lie low and it’ll blow over in a couple of days. Bring your website back up and start where you left off. Noone’s going to come after you, we don’t care. Radical opinion is necessary in any society, as it keeps it fresh and healthy, and the world knows that the american empire needs that now more than ever. I don’t agree with a thing you say, but that doesn’t mean that I want to stop you from saying it.

Is this true of more than Neuromancer? Is the lulz gang just sending a message, blowing off steam until it gets bored? Or is it determined to pursue a war to silence radfems? I know a bunch of you lulz guys have visited here. Sound off! What’s motivating you? Why are you picking on these women, really? Isn’t your real beef with the law, or the empire? What do you intend to do to them? Where do you draw the line? What does freedom of speech mean to you? How is it compatible with threats?

ETA: Follow the links of the commenters at your own risk.

Oh, those poor transgender folks, feeling oppressed by a film created by acclaimed lesbian filmmaker Catherine Crouch, because her film makes a point they don’t want to hear. This article from the Bay Area Reporter I found linked at Womensspace. Heart said she would be blogging about it shortly. Crouch says:

Things are getting very strange for women these days. More and more often we see young heterosexual women carving their bodies into porno Barbie dolls and lesbian women altering themselves into transmen. Our distorted cultural norms are making women feel compelled to use medical advances to change themselves, instead of working to change the world. This is one story, showing one possible scary future. I am hopeful that this story will foster discussion about female body modification and medical ethics.

Not if the transgender activists have their way! They say Crouch and her film are peddling transphobic stereotypes! That’s news to her. At least one of the outraged transmen is torn about the idea of censoring her, but such qualms didn’t stop more than 130 people from signing a petition denouncing her film and Frameline’s decision to screen it. I have to ask, who is oppressing whom here? She is worried about this trend of women who don’t fit the female stereotype feeling they have to change into men. Who sold them that bill of goods, I’d like to know. I’ve had more than a few women friends. None of them fit the female stereotype. What the hell does taking testosterone and going through such drastic surgery have to do with being a gender outlaw? Nothing. That’s just trading one stereotype for another, not to mention probable cancer or other major health problems to look forward to. I think it’s important to discuss the compromised medical ethics involved, but to these outraged transpeople, that’s just more of the same old transphobia!

Why would women do this to themselves? I think it has everything to do with the way culture indoctrinates everyone to see women as inferior to men. One would think women rebelling against stereotyping wouldn’t fall for this deceptive solution to their issues with how females are supposed to be. What does it buy them, a ticket to validate female inferiority from the other side? I don’t know, but it sounds like a hell of a way to rebel, becoming a man to prove to oneself one is not like a typical woman? There is no such thing as a typical woman anyway, at least not from my point of view.

Men are different in that respect, because we men are highly rewarded for conforming, and most men don’t have the balls to defy how men are supposed to be. In a sense, women are also rewarded for conforming, but that reward is more like hollow societal approval for accepting their place as inferior beings, which offers no protection from being harassed, raped, or battered. Typical men don’t have to deal with such threats. Transmen do, especially when discovered.

I’m not going to claim to understand why women do this to themselves. I have my suspicions, but no way of knowing. I can sort of comprehend the MTF phenomenon, because the male stereotype makes me want to distance myself, at least psychologically. As a man who respects and cares about women, I find it abhorrent and incredibly sad that women would feel this is a viable way to escape oppression. Maybe they feel changing the world is hopeless. I could certainly understand that pessimism, though I don’t share it. I’m not in their shoes, though I’m a gender outlaw myself, considering myself a straight androgynous man. I’m fascinated by women, but I have no desire to alter my biochemistry. I’m weird, and like it that way, despite the flak I catch for it.

It’s one thing for a convicted murderer to confess while doing hard time, another for OJ who got away with murder virtually scot-free. A Boston Globe editorial says a couple thousand was seized so far against the 33 million judgment, expecting he would find some sleazy way to keep the money he makes off this book. This is first-class brazen effrontery marketed as a tell-all book. Anyone who believed he was innocent, OJ sure had you fooled. Now he is laughing all the way to the bank. If I did it, this is how it would go? Who are you kidding, OJ? Safe from criminal prosecution, you might as well revel in your infamy?

He hasn’t had enough of his power trip, which led him to batter, terrorize, then murder his ex-wife. The criminal jury somehow managed to find him innocent. He never admitted guilt, maintaining he was put through hell for nothing. It’s hardly unusual for a batterer to kill a woman who leaves him. Such a jealous fit of violent rage, unless determined to be premeditated, is called a crime of passion, the least severely punished type of intentional murder. OJ was rich enough to get sharp lawyers to make the most of evidence rules and prosecution mistakes. He may be less rich now, after paying off his lawyers, though who knows where he stashed his money. His book will probably make him plenty more. There will be efforts to seize the profits, but good luck.

What a sick ego trip, describing his take on the deed, knowing it would torture everyone else involved. Hasn’t he caused enough anguish? Apparently not, he wants to rub salt in the wound. Could he be any more the brazen ass murderer who got away with it? He scoffs at the civil lawsuit he lost, which seems not worth the paper it’s written on.