European Nations Are Dismantling the COVID State Before Our Eyes. Will the U.S. Follow?

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Denmark took the lead in Europe this week, scrapping virtually all pandemic restrictions as the Scandinavian country of 5 million announced it no longer considers COVID-19 “a socially critical disease.”

Denmark’s move came the same week that health ministers in the United Kingdom announced plans to terminate an order forcing all NHS staff to get vaccinated against COVID, a move The Guardian said is designed to “prevent an exodus of thousands of frontline health workers.” The move came days after the UK scrapped its school mask mandate.

Not to be outdone, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin recently told reporters the country would be retiring COVID passports and, according to Reuters, aims “to remove all restrictions at the start of next month.”

Meanwhile, public health officials in Norway also said the country would be lifting nearly all of its COVID restrictions, including COVID tests at the border. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told reporters that even though COVID infections remain high, hospitalizations have stabilized and most citizens have some protection from the virus because of previous infections and vaccination.

“Even if many more people are becoming infected, there are fewer who are hospitalised,” Stoere explained. “We’re well protected by vaccines. This means that we can relax many measures even as infections are rising rapidly.”

The Czech Republic, meanwhile, recently scrapped its vaccine mandate, while several provinces in Spain also ditched virtually all COVID restrictions after a study conducted by the Public Health Observatory of Cantabria found vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals transmit the virus at similar rates.

Not all European nations have scrapped their COVID policies, however. In fact, some appear intent to move in the opposite direction.

Austria, for example, is becoming the first European country to make COVID vaccination compulsory for all adults. Greece, meanwhile, has announced it will fine adults over 60 who do not comply with vaccination; and Germany’s incoming chancellor, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, has indicated he will support a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

In Belgium, authorities have only grudgingly begun to rollback COVID restrictions, despite protests in Brussels of some 50,000 who gathered to oppose the state’s mandates.

“I’m angry about the blackmail that the government is doing,” protester Caroline van Landuyt told Reuters.

The rally in Brussels ended with police using tear gas and a water cannon to disperse those who’d assembled in protest, culminating in 60 people being arrested and 12 protesters being taken to hospital (as well as three police officers).

Why are many European nations dismantling their COVID restrictions while others are ramping up new mandates? While many are loath to admit it, it’s becoming increasingly clear that state attempts to control the virus have failed miserably.

A new Johns Hopkins metaanalysis, for instance, found that the lockdowns many countries embraced were a massive failure, resulting in “little to no effect” on COVID mortality, even though they came with immense collateral damage. A United Nations report published last year noted that COVID disruptions resulted in some 239,000 “maternal and child deaths” in South Asia alone, while the US saw a record number of drug overdoses, a surge in youth suicide, and an unprecedented drop in cancer screenings that will be felt for years to come.

While the vaccines have helped reduce COVID deaths and hospitalizations, they have done little to slow the spread of COVID, in large part because of the nature of Omicron, which is highly transmissible.

A committee of scientists who advised the regional government of Catalonia pointed out that Omicron, which has a high rate of transmission even before carriers experience an onset of symptoms, has rendered vaccine passports largely ineffective at reducing transmission because vaccinated individuals spread the virus at similar rates to unvaccinated ones.

“The effectiveness of the compulsory use of the Covid certificate is reduced as an extra level of security,” the scientists noted.

In other words, vaccines can protect individuals because they can reduce the likelihood of hospitalization or death from COVID, but they do little to slow or stop transmission. This makes vaccines primarily a matter of personal health, not public health.

It takes incredible arrogance for lawmakers and bureaucrats to assume they know what is best for individuals. But that quality—arrogance—is precisely what we’ve seen since the very beginning of this pandemic.

“To think one can [suppress] a very contagious respiratory virus is stupid and arrogant,” Harvard epidemologist Martin Kulldorff recently noted on Twitter. “We need leaders that are smart and humble.”

The last word there—humble—is important.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize entitled The Pretense of Knowledge, the economist F.A. Hayek warned that a lack of humility could lead modern man “to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order.” With the power of the state at his fingertips, combined with his command of the sciences, Hayek feared modern man would fail to realize that there are limits to his knowledge and to his ability to shape society effectively.

“There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, ‘dizzy with success’, to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will,” Hayek noted.

Hayek concluded his remarks with a warning. The student of society should learn “a lesson of humility” by recognizing “the insuperable limits to his knowledge.” If he failed this test of humility, the fatal striving to control society stood to make man “a tyrant over his fellows…[and] the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.”

Hayek’s fear, one presumes, was of socialism. The COVID state, however, was born of the same hubris—the belief that central planners could use the power of the state to suppress and vanquish a highly contagious respiratory virus, something never tried before in human history.

Regrettably, yet predictably, the COVID state failed, and its mad experiment caused grave damage to society and science. Many European countries are finally accepting this reality, at least tacitly. But as for the Biden administration, it’s still unclear whether they understand the crux of the problem.

On Wednesday, the US Army announced soldiers who refuse vaccination for COVID-19 will be discharged—regardless of whether they’ve already had COVID (which the CDC admits offers powerful protection from the virus).

Many US Army soldiers will be left with a bitter choice, just like Katharina Teufel-Lieli, an Austrian musician who is one of tens of thousands in that country who have joined demonstrations to resist making the COVID vaccine compulsory.

Austrians face fines up to $4,100 if they don’t comply with the government’s order, but Teufel-Lieli says she’ll not bow to the pressure.

“I have the right to decide over my body… to simply say ‘no,'” the harpist recently told Agence France-Presse at her home near Salzburg.

Fortunately, more and more people in Europe and beyond are beginning to agree with her.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

SISSY WATCH USA: VICE, University of Cambridge, PLoS ONE and Pantyhose Masks

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A reader sent us a February 3, 2022 VICE article titled “Scientists Find Putting Pantyhose on Your Head Makes Your Mask Safer” by staff writer Samantha Cole. Samantha wrote:

In 2020, researchers from the University of Cambridge started testing out some of the ways people might adjust face masks to make them fit better on their faces. Their findings were finally released as a peer-reviewed study this week in the journal PLoS ONE. [Emphasis added]

At first we thought this was political satire but after reading the article we decided to add VICE, the University of Cambridge, the journal PLoS ONE and pantyhose masks to our growing list of Sissy Watch USA members.

The journal PLoS ONE concluded:

Fit hacks can be used to effectively improve the fit of surgical and KN95 masks, enhancing the protection provided to the wearer. However, many of the most effective hacks are very uncomfortable and unlikely to be tolerated for extended periods of time. The development of effective fit-improvement solutions remains a critical issue in need of further development. [Emphasis added]

QUESTION: Fit hacks? Pantyhose Masks Really?

Perhaps Samantha got it right when she ended here column with,

If someone can figure out how to combine the fetish market for crotch-scented masks with the improved safety of a better fit, they would have a real seller on their hands.

Are Masks and Mask Mandates Effective?

James D. Agresti, the president and cofounder of Just Facts, a think tank dedicated to publishing rigorously documented facts about public policy issues, in a column titled “Coming to grips with the facts about masks” wrote:

Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.

But scientific research shows that masks and mask mandates don’t work at all.

Dr. Vinay Prasad—an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco—has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:

  • “most of the masks worn by most kids for most of the pandemic have likely done nothing to change the velocity or trajectory of the virus.”
  • “there are downsides to face coverings for pupils and students, including detrimental impacts on communication in the classroom.”
  • “masking is now little more than an appealing delusion.”
  • decisions to mask schoolchildren are “ignorant, cruel, fearful, and cowardly.”

Dr. Chad Roy, who specializes in airborne infectious diseases and is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine, has told the Washington Examiner that:

  • “cloth and surgical masks do absolutely nothing for protection from ambient virus.”
  • “all this song and dance of wearing cloth masks with some presumption that you’re being protected from ambient virus is completely and positively 100% counter to how masks and respirators work.”

Anew study published in the The Southern Medical Journal (SMJ) found that a county-wide mask order in Bexar County, Texas, did not lead to a reduction in COVID-19 hospitalization rates or deaths.

The study, which was peer reviewed, analyzed data before and after mandates were imposed at both the state level (July 3, 2020) and in Bexar County (July 5, 2020), Texas’s fourth largest county.

“We defined the control period as June 2 to July 2 and the postmask order period as July 8, 2020–August 12, 2020, with a 5-day gap to account for the median incubation period for cases; longer periods of 7 and 10 days were used for hospitalization and ICU admission/death, respectively,” the study authors wrote. “Data were reported on a per-100,000 population basis using respective US Census Bureau–reported populations.”

Authors of the study, which was reviewed by the US Army Institute of Surgical Research, analyzed the daily average number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, ICU visits, patients on ventilators, and deaths, and concluded the policy did not reduce any of these metrics.

“All of the measured outcomes were higher on average in the postmask period as were covariables included in the adjusted model,” the researchers said. “There was no reduction in per-population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed, or ventilator occupancy of COVID-19-positive patients attributable to the implementation of a mask-wearing mandate.”

The Bottom Line

Masks don’t work to stop a virus like Covid. Period.

To understand please read COVID-19 Masks: How Effective and How Safe?

WATCH: Dan Ball with Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe, COVID Corruption Exposed

On December 12th, 2020 the National Library of Medicine released a study titled “COVID-19: smoke testing of surgical mask and respirators” by J D M Douglas, N McLean, C Horsley, G Higgins, C M Douglas E Robertson which concluded:

Results: The Fluid Resistant Surgical Mask gave no protection to inhaled smoke particles. Modifications with tape and three mask layers gave slight benefit but were not considered practical. FFP3 gave complete protection to inhaled smoke but strap tension needs to be ‘just right’ to prevent facial trauma. Facial barrier creams are an infection risk.

Conclusions: Surgical masks give no protection to respirable particles. Emerging evidence on cough clouds and health care worker deaths suggests the implementation of a precautionary policy of FFP3 for all locations exposed to symptomatic or diagnosed COVID-19 patients. PPE fit testing and usage policy need to improve to include daily buddy checks for FFP3 users.

So there you have it. But, if you have a fetish for crotch scented masks then go for it. Otherwise, just wash your hands frequently.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Coming to grips with the facts about masks

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Public health advice has not caught up with the latest research.

Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.

In recent weeks, however, more medical scholars and media outlets are coming to grips with facts about masks that Just Facts has been documenting for more than a year and painstakingly compiled in a September 2021 article sourced with more than 50 peer-reviewed science journals. Here’s a sample of people who are speaking up about the facts and their implications:

Dr. Vinay Prasad—an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco—has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:

  • “most of the masks worn by most kids for most of the pandemic have likely done nothing to change the velocity or trajectory of the virus.”
  • “there are downsides to face coverings for pupils and students, including detrimental impacts on communication in the classroom.”
  • “masking is now little more than an appealing delusion.”
  • decisions to mask schoolchildren are “ignorant, cruel, fearful, and cowardly.”

Dr. Chad Roy, who specializes in airborne infectious diseases and is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine, has told the Washington Examiner that:

  • “cloth and surgical masks do absolutely nothing for protection from ambient virus.”
  • “all this song and dance of wearing cloth masks with some presumption that you’re being protected from ambient virus is completely and positively 100% counter to how masks and respirators work.”

The Atlantic has published an analysis of school masking policies by three medical scholars—including Dr. Margery Smelkinson, a specialist in infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health—in which they wrote:

  • “We reviewed a variety of studies—some conducted by the CDC itself, some cited by the CDC as evidence of masking effectiveness in a school setting, and others touted by media to the same end—to try to find evidence that would justify the CDC’s no-end-in-sight mask guidance for the very-low-risk pediatric population, particularly post-vaccination. We came up empty-handed.”
  • The “overall takeaway from these studies—that schools with mask mandates have lower Covid-19 transmission rates than schools without mask mandates—is not justified by the data that have been gathered.”
  • “As with our existing school-mask policies, no real-world data indicate that these [N95] masks decrease transmission in school settings—data that matter greatly, as these masks require a very tight fit to function effectively, and that may not be possible for many kids.”
  • “Over the past 21 months, slowly and with much resistance, the layers of mythology around Covid-19 mitigation in schools have been peeled away, each time without producing the much-ballyhooed increases in Covid-19. Schools did not become hot spots when they reopened, nor when they reduced physical distancing, nor when they eliminated deep-cleaning protocols. These layers were peeled away because the evidence supporting them was weak, and they all had substantial downsides for children’s education and health.”
  • “Covid-19 hospitalizations have “remained extremely low among children, on par with pediatric flu hospitalizations during a typical season.”
  • “Imposing on millions of children an intervention that provides little discernible benefit, on the grounds that we have not yet gathered solid evidence of its negative effects, violates the most basic tenet of medicine: First, do no harm.”

In an article published on Christmas Eve, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen confessed that “cloth masks are little more than facial decorations” and “this is what scientists and public health officials have been saying for months, many months, in fact.” Yet, she fails to tell the entire truth and instructs people to wear N95 masks without conveying their harms or the fact that gold standard studies have only found inconsistent benefits from N95s in healthcare settings, much less community settings.

Fox News has published an article about how YouTube suspended Rand Paul for questioning the effectiveness of cloth masks and that the CDC is edging closer to Paul’s view. The article then links to Just Facts’ research on masks to document the fact that “several studies have shown” cloth masks “are not effective in stopping the spread of viruses like the coronavirus.”

Still leading people astray

Some of the most powerful proponents of masking continue to spread destructive fictions and withhold genuine facts from people. For a prime example, Google-owned YouTube recently censored a video from Just Facts about the dangers of N95 masks. Even though every fact in the video is documented with data from peer-reviewed science journals, OSHA, and the CDC—YouTube purged it with callous disregard for the health of people, especially children.

Likewise, the New York Times recently reported that Google-owned YouTube suspended conservative talk show host Dan Bongino “after he posted a video saying cloth and surgical masks were useless in stopping the spread of Covid—a false claim that violated the company’s misinformation policy.”

In reality, those “misinformation” policies and other pronouncements of tech giants, government officials, media outlets, and fact checkers often flout basic principles of academic integrity, spread deadly falsehoods, and suppress facts that could help people.

The cracks that are opening in the dogma that “masks work” are just the tip of that iceberg.

COLUMN BY

James D. Agresti

James D. Agresti is the president and cofounder of Just Facts, a think tank dedicated to publishing rigorously documented facts about public policy issues. More by James D. Agresti

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Joe Rogan affair is not about ‘misinformation’ but narrative control

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Only time will tell if Rogan’s critics have the last laugh and see him gone completely.

Comedian Joe Rogan is the biggest name in podcasting. His show, the Joe Rogan Experience, attracts an estimated 11 million listeners per episode. Since 2020, Spotify has enjoyed an exclusive deal with JRE for an estimated US$100 million. With three to four episodes per week, each of which run for hours at a time, he has a lot of influence — and a lot to lose.

And don’t his detractors know it!

“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” Neil Young wrote to his management team and record label last week. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.” Spotify sided with Rogan — and then removed Young’s catalogue from their service.

Young’s decision followed the release of an open letter, penned by a 270-strong “coalition of scientists, medical professionals, professors, and science communicators,” who called Rogan out for “misinformation” and “promoting baseless conspiracy theories”. They were particularly referring to his recent interviews with Drs Robert Malone and Peter McCullough.

(As it turns out, fewer than 100 of the signees were medical doctors, most of whom work at universities and do not practice medicine. The remainder included teachers, psychologists, engineers, podcasters, a dentist, and a vet.)

Others have since followed the lead of Rogan’s frontrunner critics. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell soon announced she would remove her music from Spotify, followed by guitarist Nils Lofgren.

According to the Los Angeles Times, there are rumours that the Foo Fighters, Barry Manilow, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle “will be the next to walk”. Indeed, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex released a statement denouncing a “global misinformation crisis” and telling of their heroic efforts to hold Spotify accountable.

More recently, even the White House has urged Spotify to tighten the screws of censorship, first amendment be damned.

While Joe Rogan is a giant, he is certainly not uncancellable. And Spotify is no charitable organisation. Shareholders and company executives factor profits into any major decision — which may be why Spotify has already quietly cancelled over 40 past JRE episodes. They have also announced their decision to add a content advisory label to any podcasts that discuss Covid-19.

It may not end there. Only time will tell if Rogan’s critics have the last laugh and see him gone completely.

Just what is so threatening about this former UFC commentator and psychedelics enthusiast?

Decorated journalist Glenn Greenwald — whose centre-left libertarian outlook closely aligns with Rogan’s — minces no words on the controversy:

“Censorship — once the province of the American Right during the heyday of the Moral Majority of the 1980s — now occurs in isolated instances in that faction. In modern-day American liberalism, however, censorship is a virtual religion. They simply cannot abide the idea that anyone who thinks differently or sees the world differently than they should be heard.“

Warns Greenwald: the woke’s focus until recently was to “expand and distort the concept of ‘hate speech’ to mean ‘views that make us uncomfortable,’ and then demand that such ‘hateful’ views be prohibited on that basis.” Now, he says, their target is “misinformation” or “disinformation” — terms that “have no clear or concise meaning”. And the lack of definition is deliberate. “Like the term ‘terrorism,’ it is their elasticity that makes them so useful,” he writes.

To prove the point, Greenwald provides a laundry list of clear-as-day misinformation that outlets like CNN, NBC, The New York Times and The Atlantic have disseminated through the Trump era. He cites the Russiagate hoax, the bounties on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan hoax, and the Hunter Biden emails are Russian disinformation hoax, among many.

“Corporate outlets beloved by liberals are free to spout serious falsehoods without being deemed guilty of disinformation,” Greenwald notes, “and, because of that, do so routinely.”

It’s not Rogan’s alleged “misinformation” that worries these outlets. It’s their loss of control over the narrative being believed by the masses. They too have much to lose — and they are losing. Rogan’s stats dwarf the viewership of America’s popular cable news channels, even in primetime.

For further proof that “misinformation” is not Joe Rogan’s crime, consider that Neil Young previously released an entire album, The Monsanto Years (2015), which sowed major popular distrust towards genetically modified cropping.

Young released a short anti-GMO documentary, and he went on tour “amplifying misinformation about GMOs to large mainstream audiences”. He was also interviewed by Steven Colbert on The Late Show, where he warned of “the terrible diseases and all of the things that are happening” to people who eat genetically modified products.

To Joe Rogan’s credit, he released a nine-minute video via Spotify in which he graciously addresses his critics, admits various failings, and clarifies that he is no expert but enjoys hearing from experts across the ideological divide. His message would disarm all but the most dedicated censorship enthusiasts.

In the video, Rogan addresses the hot potato that is ‘misinformation’, and makes a good case for why his show deserves to stay up:

“The problem I have with the term ‘misinformation’ — especially today — is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact.

“Like for instance, eight months ago if you said, ‘If you get vaccinated you can still catch covid and you can still spread covid,’ you would be removed from social media. They would ban you from certain platforms. Now, that’s accepted as fact.

“If you said, ‘I don’t think cloth masks work,’ you would be banned from social media. Now that’s openly and repeatedly stated on CNN.

“If you said, ‘I think it’s possible that Covid-19 came from a lab,’ you would be banned from many social media platforms. Now that’s on the cover of Newsweek.”

Precisely. “Misinformation” is whatever the cultural imperialists decide it is at any given moment, until they change their mind or the truth catches up with them.

Rather than censoring him, Rogan’s critics would do well to listen to his podcast. By doing so, they may even learn what their future opinions will be.

COLUMN BY

Kurt Mahlburg

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate… More by Kurt Mahlburg

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

One group of Americans has the highest fertility in the world. It doubles every 20 years.

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If you want to be healthy and happy, should you live in an Amish community or in New York City?

In the 1400s the printing press revolutionized Europe, enabling mass distribution of printed material fast. The Reformation roiled Europe in the 1500s, in no small measure due to Gutenberg’s invention. In the wake of Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli came a variety of sects, including the radical Anabaptists, who believed in adult baptism and strict separation of church and state. In 1693 the Anabaptists splintered into three sects, including the followers of one Jakob Ammann. They called themselves Amish.

About the Amish

Amish organize into districts governed by an Ordnung (set of rules) that governs personal attire, domestic life, and work. Today the Ordnung forbids use of electricity, automobiles, telephones and a range of modern labor-saving devices. The Ordnung must be strictly obeyed under penalty of shunning or even excommunication. Implementation of the Ordnung may vary in different communities. It is intended to promote the virtues of hard work, humility, rural life, and separation from the world. Their inspiration comes from James 1:27: “To keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (NIV).

Weary of persecution and the world around them, in the mid-1700s about 500 Amish arrived in the New World, settling mostly in Pennsylvania. In the 1800s about 1500 more came, settling in the Midwest. Most Amish are descended from about 200 families who crossed the Atlantic.

Population and fertility

“Over the last century the Amish population has doubled on average every 19.63 years,” according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Pennsylvania’s Elizabethtown College, which further states:

“The North American Amish population grew by an estimated 183,565 since 2000, increasing from approximately 177,910 in 2000 to 361,475 in 2021, an increase of 103.2 percent.”

In 1992 there were 125,000 Amish in the US. By 2020 there were 350,000, an almost 180 percent increase.  The US population increased approximately 29 percent during that period, thus the Amish population growth rate was six times that of the US (including immigration). That is exponential population growth, though it begins from a very low base.

Today there are 375,000 Amish in America.

Amish live in districts, each comprising roughly 30 families. When a district surpasses that, a new district is formed. A new district is founded every 3.5 weeks. Associated districts form settlements. From 2000 to 2021, the Amish gained 290 new settlements. Present in 31 US states, they have recently established districts in four Canadian provinces and single districts in Argentina and Bolivia.

At home the Amish speak a form of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch. Due to their rural customs, personal privacy (Amish do not keep photographs as they are believed to cultivate vanity) and lack of technology, surveys of the Amish are an inexact science. Several groups may be considered a variant of Amish, but with fertility research the accepted criteria for Amish is that they speak Pennsylvania Dutch and have no household phones. That group consistently averages close to seven births per female.

Were the Amish a separate country, they would be right up there with Niger (6.9) contending for the world’s highest fertility rate. Amish fertility was the basis for demographer Lyman Stone’s 2018 paper “How Long Until We’re All Amish?”

I occasionally encounter Amish in my travels, and once visited a workshop where a father and his four sons made buggy wheels. They were back-ordered for months.

Reasons for population growth

Like other Christians, Amish see children as a gift from God.

Their lifestyle incentivizes having children. Without the efficiency and productivity of technology, children are essential to work the farm, do the chores and look after their parents in old age. (Amish do not participate in Social Security.) Simply put, they value familial cooperation through labour over efficiency and productivity. Requiring more labour (children) engenders cooperation and close familial bonds without the worldly distractions of university, cinema, social media, bars, etc. There is no social atomization among the Amish. They believe that labour-saving technology would breed idleness. Amish are exempt from schooling past the eighth grade by the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Wisconsin v. Jonas Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

Another growth factor is that Amish have the highest retention rate of any religion or denomination in America at almost 90 percent. In adolescence Amish youth are allowed to leave their communities virtually free of constraints in a rite of passage called Rumspringa (jumping or hopping about). Baptism comes after they return.

Conclusion

There is evidence of some very slight decline in Amish fertility, though similar declines have been previously observed. Provided the current Amish growth rate holds, in 215 years their population is projected to be larger than the current US population of 327 million. It would be interesting to stick around and see if that pans out.

Amish farms and businesses are usually quite profitable. They pay cash for farms. Amish have the lowest rates of depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia of any American demographic.

The Amish are not without critics. Some regard them as a cult. Like any population, they are not immune from occasional criminal or deviant behavior. Conformity is expected or demanded, depending on your point of view. Those who stray from the Ordnung are shunned (a traumatic ordeal) or even excommunicated. They keep to themselves and do not proselytize or encourage outsiders to join. They are pacifist and do not serve in the military. A small number leave Amish communities as adults.

After observing life among the Amish, Business Insider published an article headlined, “If you want to be happier, should you be a billionaire or be Amish?”

The Amish are obviously doing something right. Their faith and largely pre-modern lifestyle works for them.

What works for the rest of us?

COLUMN BY

Louis T. March

Louis T. March has a background in government, business and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family… More by Louis T. March

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

CHASING PROFITS NOT PATIENTS: Doctors and Hospitals Are No Longer Practicing Medicine

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In 1990 I went to Tripler Army Medical Center to pick up my medical records and those of my wife and son. I was told by staff that due to HIPAA rules I couldn’t take their medical records, only they could pick them up. In 1990 personal privacy was the #1 priority when it came to medical records.

Fast forward to 2022. Today my medical records are digitized and shared not only between my doctors but also with healthcare information management companies and government agencies, who may be able to access them either in part or in whole.

Your Heath Records

A 2020 court case involving Ciox Health, a healthcare information management company that handles tens of millions of medical requests, has potentially altered the HHS rules.

According to HHS.gov:

This [Medical Records] guidance remains in effect only to the extent that it is consistent with the court’s order in Ciox Health, LLC v. Azar, No. 18-cv-0040 (D.D.C. January 23, 2020), which may be found at https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2018cv0040-51. More information about the order is available at https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/court-order-right-of-access/index.html. Any provision within this guidance that has been vacated by the Ciox Health decision is rescinded.

The Privacy Rule gives you, with few exceptions, the right to inspect, review, and receive a copy of your medical records and billing records that are held by health plans and health care providers covered by the Privacy Rule.

Digitizing Healthcare Records

Confidential medical records are now digitized and federalized. What was a private matter between a doctor and the patient has became a public matter between the doctor, health plans, healthcare information management companies and multiple government agencies.

Many doctors felt they lost control when they were required to digitize their patients medical records. In 1972, the first electronic medical record system was developed by the Regenstrief Institute. Initially, this effort did not take off. However, under President Clinton this changed dramatically.

According to the University of Scranton:

In 1991, the Institute of Medicine made the case that by the year 2000, each physician’s office should be using computers in their practice in order to improve patient care. Although it was not turned into law, the Institute did provide a variety of recommendations to achieve that goal. As the emergence of EMR’s continued, there were also adjustments made to the rules and regulations surrounding privacy and confidentially of medical records. In 1996 the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was introduced in response to growing issues facing healthcare coverage, privacy and security in the United States. To follow disclosure and confidentiality regulations included in HIPPA, organizations have begun to shift to electronic systems to comply with these laws.

[ … ]

During President George W. Bush’s time in the Oval Office, the budget for healthcare IT projects was doubled; a new sub-cabinet position of National Health Information Coordinator was created, as well as the call for an industry-wide adoption of electronic health record systems by 2014. This mandate has been supported by President Obama as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a piece of legislation aimed at directing additional funding and incentives to healthcare professionals who adopt these electronic medical systems and follow the concept of “meaningful use” by the year 2014.

QUESTION: What has happened to doctor patient privacy?

Federalizing Healthcare

Now doctors and hospitals are not practicing medicine rather they’re just chasing profits and enforcing government mandates.

Hospitals and doctors used to focus solely on their patients, today they are focused primarily on profiting from government largess and sharing personal information with health plans and other heath care providers.

Project Veritas revealed a source who works for United Healthcare of Louisiana’s Inpatient Utilization Management Department is blowing the whistle on COVID cases possibly being inflated for financial incentive.

WATCH: The Chief Medical Officer for United Healthcare of Louisiana (Medicaid) opined in a recorded phone conversation that the Medicaid rate for reimbursement of COVID patients, which is faster and significantly higher, could be the motivation for the improper “primary diagnosis” codes.

QUESTION: How did this all begin?

It began when the government first digitized and then federalized healthcare and transferred power from doctors and hospitals to health insurance providers and government agencies like: OSHA, DHS, HHS and Congress.

More recently this power increased under the idea that government must control all aspects of our lives in order to stop Covid from spreading. The idea of “two weeks to flatten the Covid curve” is now entering its second year. Draconian policies have been instituted by politicians at every level, further taking away the important doctor patient relationship and replacing it with a doctor government relationship.

The Bottom Line

Recently, the UVA Hospital denied Shamgar Connors a kidney because he refused to get a Covid vaccine and DJ Ferguson 31, father of two, was refused a heart transplant by Bostin Hospital because he too was unvaxxed. DJ’s dad says he’s on ‘the edge of death’!

QUESTION: Why aren’t doctors standing up for Shamgar Connors and DJ Ferguson?

ANSWER: Follow the money.

A just released Johns Hopkins University study proved that lockdowns do not work and lockdowns have no (i.e. 0.2%) impact on Covid death rates. So why are hospitals demanding their staff get vaxxed and some hospitals have shut down in response to federal Covid mandates?

Today doctors are chasing profits and not patients. This began with the passage of Obamacare. When the U.S. Supreme Court gave legal sanctioning of Obamacare as a “tax” the transition shifted from doctor/patient to doctor/government.

Today Covid is the driving force behind the government’s take over of our healthcare. If you don’t believe me then go to your doctor and ask for a prescription for Ivermectin.

I rest my case.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Three Laws Every American Politician Must Follow

Johns Hopkins Study: LOCKDOWNS DID NOT WORK, No Impact On Death Rate

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A meta-analysis out of John Hopkins shows lockdowns had “little to no public health effects.” This is what many public health experts in academia and private sector had been saying over the past 2 years. And still the Democrats demand more draconian measures.

Johns Hopkins report: Lockdowns did not work.

The Washington Times has a blockbuster story today, on a report from the highly respected Johns Hopkins University, that the draconian lockdowns has little for no impact on the Coronavirus.

“Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies. “We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote.”

CLICK HERE TO: Read the study and judge for yourself.

RELATED PODCAST: KABC’s Armstrong and Getty discussed the shocking ramifications of this report this morning…hear it here

RELATED TWEET:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

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Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

NORWAY: Everyone Should be Exposed to Omicron and Other Viruses in Order to Acquire Immunity

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Look anywhere but America for medical truths. Obamacare politicized and weaponized the once greatest healthcare system in the world.

Translation from this MSN article: 

‘Telling the truth from Norwegian Public Health to the government. Better to open up now so everyone can get infected as the vaccines given have some effect now against severe/ICU/deaths and not later.

Let it rip, which is easy as the virus is anyway unstoppable. This is clear logic. Vaccine protection against severe infection is decreasing every week rapidly. Those with two doses and not elderly/immunosuppressed will have use from the vaccine-induced B cells response, although less than natural infected, will protect them from severe outcome. Those triple vaccinated and elderly/immunosuppressed will also have some protection. The unvaccinated will have live vaccination from omicron from this unstoppable virus.

To vaccinate now is absolutely wrong. To give a booster dose in an ongoing peak will only give you the worst of worlds. The short term reduced general immunity will let you get infected more easily and also very bad to tackle the infection when your immunity is temporary reduced by the powerful vaccines.

THE ONLY SOLUTION IS OPEN UP IMMEDIATELY EVERYTHING, NO MASKS, NO FRONTIER CONTROLS AND NO VACCINATIONS WITH THE NOW USELESS WUHAN VACCINE.’

Translation MSN:

Norska FHI vill öppna upp: ”Är bättre att smittas nu”
5 dagar sedan
”Ojämlikheten ökar – men S är tysta som möss”
Tesla missar att stanna – återkallar bilar
© Tillhandahålls av Omni

Flera miljoner norrmän kommer att smittas av omikronvarianten under vintern och våren, men landet bör ändå häva de flesta restriktionerna. Det skriver norska FHI i en ny riskbedömning enligt NRK.

Myndigheten anser att det är ett bra läge att låta smittan spridas eftersom många nyligen har fått en tredje dos. Att försöka trycka tillbaka smittan skulle kräva mycket kraftfulla åtgärder som skulle vara värre för många än konsekvenserna av att få covid-19.

– Vi har en befolkning som nyligen fått den tredje dosen och har ett bra skydd mot sjukdom och sjukhusinläggning. Det är bättre att bli smittad när man är i den situationen än när vaccineffekten har minskat, säger FHI-chefen Camilla Stoltenberg.

Relaterade länkar:

FHI beräknar att det som mest kommer att vara 175 patienter som behöver respiratorbehandling samtidigt (NRK)

Över 20 000 smittofall registrerades i går (www.dagbladet.no)

Astrid Meland: Det värsta ligger framför oss (Verdens Gang)

RELATED ARTICLE: Ivermectin ‘Effective’ and ‘Safe” for Treating Covid, Japanese company says

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Follow me on Gettr. I am there, click here. It’s open and free.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

Denmark Officially Becomes First EU Country To Drop All Domestic COVID Restrictions

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Denmark lifted all domestic COVID-19 restrictions on Tuesday, becoming the first member of the European Union to do so, BBC News reported.

Cases are still relatively high in Denmark, but officials have said the high vaccination rate in the country means the virus is no longer a “critical threat,” BBC News reported.

“We have an extremely high coverage of adults vaccinated with three doses,” epidemiologist Lone Simonsen of the University of Roskilde told the AFP news agency, BBC News reported. “With Omicron not being a severe disease for the vaccinated, we believe it is reasonable to lift restrictions.”

With the restrictions rescinded, masks are no longer required to enter a store, restaurant or on public transport, and limits on the number of people gathering indoors and mandatory social distancing measures have ended, BBC News reported. The national contact-tracing app is no longer required, though individual event organizers can opt to make it a condition of entry.

Hospitals and care homes will still mandate the use of face masks in hospitals and care homes, and some restrictions remain for unvaccinated travelers attempting to cross Denmark’s borders, BBC News reported.

“Good morning to a completely open Denmark,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wrote on Facebook, BBC News reported.

“No one can know what will happen next December. But we promised the citizens of Denmark that we will only have restrictions if they are truly necessary and we’ll lift them as soon as we can,” Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke told CNN on Monday. “That’s what’s happening right now.”

COLUMN BY

SEBASTIAN HUGHES

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden To Lift Travel Restrictions On Southern Africa

RELATED TWEET:

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

UVA Denies Shamgar Connors a Kidney Because of His Vax Refusal

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Lauren Connors a nurse and the wife of Shamgar from Stafford, Virginia started a GoFundMe page to raise enough to get her husband a kidney after UVA denied his need because he was unvaxxed.

Lauren wrote on the GoFundMe page:

My husband has 5 stage kidney failure and is on dialysis every night waiting for his MUCH NEEDED kidney transplant.

The UVA is DENYING him a kidney and has removed him from the waitlist because he is not vaccinated.

Even though he has already survived covid and has natural immunity. We have serious concern of him taking this vaccine that has imposes risks to him because of the side effects. We desperately need financial to help us pursue legal assistance. This wouldn’t just be helping my husband. It would be helping everyone else that is being denied medical attention for life threatening illnesses. We have to make sure that this does not continue.

Please pray for my husband, Shamgar Connors, that he receives a kidney before it’s too late. Thank you for hearing our story and please help me share so we can start taking action NOW!

The Schilling Show 2/1/22: Shamgar Connors, Mallory Carroll

Shamgar Connors, husband, father, and transplant patient, shares how he was denied by UVA medical center to get a transplant because he would not get the COVID vaccine, plus, how you can help.

Head of Communications at the Susan B. Anthony List, Mallory Carroll discusses the past eight years for Virginia and more on Governor Youngkin’s Pro-Life Actions.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Anti-Vax Canadian Truckers’ GoFundMe Page Throttled

Pfizer Seeking Emergency Vaccine Approval For Infants Following FDA Pressure

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: DJ Ferguson 31, father of two, REFUSED Heart Transplant by Bostin Hospital, dad says he’s on ‘the edge of death’!

Denmark Officially Becomes First EU Country To Drop All Domestic COVID Restrictions

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: DJ Ferguson 31, father of two, REFUSED Heart Transplant by Bostin Hospital, dad says he’s on ‘the edge of death’!

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During an exclusive interview on the American Uncensored News Network we had a chance to speak with the family and friends of DJ Ferguson, an unvaccinated father who was taken off a Boston hospital transplant list despite being on ‘the edge of death’!

DJ  is a 31-year-old father of two with a third child on the way. DJ has a hereditary heart condition that causes his lungs and heart to fill with blood and fluid.  His family said he was in line for a heart transplant but his hospital won’t consider the procedure for a patient who refuses the COVID-19 vaccine.  DJ doesn’t believe in the vaccine, his father David Ferguson told AUN-TV, adding that it is “kind of against his basic principles.”  “My son has gone to the edge of death to stick to his guns and he’s been pushed to the limit,”

After several calls to Brigham and Women’s Hospital from AUN-TV they declined to comment on Ferguson’s case, citing patient privacy laws. When pressed for clarification by AUN-TV Network, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where DJ is being treated, explained in a very broad statement provided to Rick Trader of the AUN-TV Network.  It states, that the vaccine is one of several requirements for transplant candidates.  The statement continues. “Like many other transplant programs in the United States – the COVID-19 vaccine is one of several vaccines and lifestyle behaviors required for transplant candidates in the Mass General Brigham system in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and also the patient’s survival after transplantation,” the statement read.

DJ’s family said he’s gotten great care at the hospital but they don’t agree with the vaccination policy.  DJ’s mother Tracey told American Uncensored News Network (AUN-TV) in an exclusive interview, even the doctors seem very sympathetic!

NOTE: A GIVESENDGO  fundraiser has been set up to support DJ  Ferguson.

“It’s his body. It’s his choice,” his father David told AUN-TV. “It’s a policy they are enforcing and so because he won’t get the shot, they took him off the list of a heart transplant.”

During the interview Tracey Ferguson said her son isn’t against vaccinations but he has concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine because of his heart condition.  “D.J. is an informed patient, he has read and continues to read about the COVID 19 Vaccine and the complications of getting it. Including blood clots which  triggered DJ’s heart to go into Atrial Fibrillation” Tracey Ferguson told AUN-TV. “He wants to be assured by his doctors that his condition would not be worse or fatal with this COVID vaccine.”

D.J”S mother told AUN-TV co-hosts Sharron Angle, George Landrith and Rick Trader, DJ underwent open-heart surgery on Tuesday where a pump was inserted that will “mechanically pump his heart until a donor heart becomes available.” David Ferguson said his son’s surgery took seven hours. “So now my boy has a pump,” he said, “he’s in recovery.”  The heart pump could keep DJ alive anywhere from an extra 2 months to 5 years.

Tracey Ferguson told AUN-TV co-host during the interview, “The family was aggressively pursuing other options, including transferring him from the hospital, but said they worried that DJ may be too weak to move.

During the interview Dr. John Diggs MD the family’s doctor stated,

“What all doctor’s should remember first, is do no harm.  Second, patient autonomy.  The patient should have the right to make the decision. Here we are dealing with a case that is high risk no matter what. For the most part people who are under 50 do very well if they contact COVID. Secondly, there are treatments for COVID that could be employed if he contracted it.  More importantly DJ has made a decision.  If I die trying to save my life, so be it, it is in God’s Hands.”

When asked by Rick Trader the family friend, Joan Quinn Eastman, stated that every dollar of the GIVESENDGO fundraiser has been set up to support DJ  Ferguson, goes to the family, no administration costs are taken out. Also, the family was extremely grateful for all the support and prayers the family is getting from all over.

©American Uncensored News Network. All rights reserved.

SISSY WATCH USA: NIH’s Collins, Columbia U’s Bollinger, Democrat’s Biden

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Sissy: an effeminate man or boy : a timid, weak, or cowardly person.

We are witnessing a national push to turn our boys into timid, weak and cowardly sissies.

This “cultural sissyfication war” is being waged in Washington, D. C., in our universities and public school classrooms across America. The “sissyfication war” is well funded, nefarious and dangerous to the futures of our young boys.

In this edition of Sissy Watch USA we will focus on three individuals who are working to sissify our boys:

  1. Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. 
  2. Lee Carroll Bollinger. President of Columbia University.
  3. Francis Sellers Collins. Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Creating a Culture of the Timid, Weak and Cowardly

The Daily Wire published a column titled “NIH Spends Millions On Study That ‘Recruited’ Minors To Report Homosexual Activity – Including ‘Condomless Anal Sex’ – Without Their Parents’ Permission” by Ben Zeisloft. Zeisloft reported:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent $8 million on a Columbia University research study that asked minors to submit information about their homosexual activities — including whether they participate in “condomless anal sex.”

According to a report from The Washington Free Beacon’s Patrick Hauf, MyPEEPS Mobile — an app developed by Columbia University researchers — offered up to $275 for boys between 13 and 18 to document their sexual behaviors:

The NIH spent more than $300,000 to develop the app in 2012 and 2013, and $7.9 million since 2016 for Columbia researchers to study the data it collects, according to a government spending database. The app for “young men who have sex with men” provides “interactive games and activities” designed to teach participating teenagers how to minimize risk in their sex lives, according to the research grant and resulting study…

According to one of the program’s studies, teenaged participants in the pilot trial were “recruited” to use the app in six different cities and traveled to attend “interventions” to discuss the sex education program, all without parental permission. [Emphasis added]

Read the full column.

The Federalist in a column titled “Under Biden Proposal, Everyone Including Kids Could More Easily Get Transgender Surgery” Eleanor Bartow reported:

The Biden administration is pushing for more insurers, and thus anyone who buys their insurance, to cover transgender surgeries. Such genital, breast, and facial surgery, as well as hormone therapy and more, would be considered “medically necessary” for those wishing to identify with the other sex.

Discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability is prohibited in federally funded health-care facilities under the Affordable Care Act, passed during the Obama administration. A proposed rule, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on January 5, would add “sexual orientation and gender identity” to that list.

The rule “places ideology ahead of sound medicine,” the Ethics and Public Policy Center said in a comment Thursday opposing the rule. It “is without legal support, contradicts long-standing scientific understandings of the human person, attempts to evade court injunctions, promotes harm to patients (especially minors), tramples religious freedom,” and more, according to the EPPC. [Emphasis added]

Read more.

The Bottom Line

Biden, Collins and Bollinger are pushing to create more and more non-binary (gender queer) boys.

Why? Follow the money.

Biden, the National Institute of Health and Columbia University are doing it for the money, the nation be damned.

Science tells is that gender is binary XY (male) and XX (female). To try to artificially create more LGBTQ+ gender confused boys is both dangerous and sick.

Apple promoting pregnant man/pregnant person emojis is laughable. Making insurance companies pay for genital, breast and hormone therapy for boys is the definition of pure evil.

Parents, a.k.a. domestic terrorists, are once again left out of this nefarious process. We the taxpayers are funding the sissyfication of our boys.

America’s taxpayers are now fundamentally transforming our boys into sissies.

How absurd and sick is that?

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Group Dedicated to Destigmatizing Pedophilia Calls for Teaching Kids About Fetishes to Prevent Abuse

YouTube censors pastor for opposing Canada’s ‘conversion therapy’ bill

SISSY WATCH USA: Tim Cook and Apple’s Pregnant Man Emoji

The Catholic Church and Paedophilia: The Story Never Ends

Trump Vows to Ban Men from Women’s Sports

VIDEO: What is Human Trafficking?

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HUMAN TRAFFICKING HAS TRULY BECOME A GLOBAL THREAT to vulnerable men, women, and children worldwide. It is an injustice that affects millions of people every year on every continent and at all socioeconomic levels. Human trafficking is a highly-organized and lucrative business, generating 150 billion USD per year, 99 billion of which is generated by sex trafficking within the prostitution industry.

The latest global estimate according to the International Labor Organization (the United Nations agency that deals with global labor issues), calculates that nearly 21 million people are victims of human trafficking worldwide. Roughly 4.5 million of those victims are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

The most significant number of victims are said to come from Asia and the Pacific region, although human trafficking in Africa continues to grow when compared to its 2005 estimates. The International Labor Organization also estimates that 55 percent of all trafficking victims and 98 percent of sex trafficking victims are women and girls. That is why sex trafficking is often considered a “gender” crime and why Exodus Cry focuses its intervention largely on women and girls.

Defining human trafficking

The most widely accepted definition of human trafficking comes from the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, otherwise known as the Palermo Protocols. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 and accepted by over 150 countries, the Palermo Protocols defines human trafficking as:

“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

Exploitation is at the heart of human trafficking. In the case of sex trafficking, exploitation implies the forced prostitution or sexual abuses of vulnerable men, women, and children. The United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) declares it a crime to coerce, force, or mislead men, women, and children into sex slavery, whether those efforts to coerce are subtle or overt. However, if a victim is a minor (under 18), it is a considered a crime regardless if there is evidence of force, fraud, or coercion.

Victims are trafficked across both national and international borders, infiltrating nearly every part of the world, according to one World Health Organization report. The global scale of the problem is attributed to the various roles nations play in the exploitation of the victims, whether that be recruiting, harboring, transporting, or acting as destinations for victims. One UN report estimates that trafficking victims represent over 130 different nationalities and are present in almost 120 countries. While the problem is clearly of global scale, with some 600,000 to 800,000 victims trafficked across international borders each year, most human trafficking surprisingly still occurs within national borders.

The effects of human trafficking on victims

HUMAN TRAFFICKING HAS A DIRECT EFFECT ON THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELL-BEING OF VICTIMS. During the initial trafficking, victims are coerced and deceived usually through the exploitation of their current circumstances, as most victims have a history of abuse and are already living in precarious circumstances.

Once enslaved, victims typically are forced into unsanitary and stressful living conditions and receive little to no healthcare or basic services. Their movement is often restricted, their personal documentation withheld, and most experience significant physical, emotional, sexual, and psychological violence. Escaping from slavery is extremely difficult and dangerous, putting the victim at great personal risk. If rescued, integration back into society is incredibly difficult because of the shame, stigma, threat of retribution, and trauma experienced during enslavement.

Global efforts to combat human trafficking

There are several international organizations fighting human trafficking at the global level. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime combats human trafficking worldwide through promoting policies that incriminate traffickers and protect victims. The UN agency also produces tools and publications to help train law enforcers and raise awareness of this injustice worldwide.

Additionally, many governments are taking action to protect potential victims from trafficking predators. The United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) was established by the US Department of State and has been highly influential in protecting potential victims worldwide. The TVPA defines, mandates, and funds United States’ anti-trafficking efforts, including producing the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which is the most comprehensive resource of governmental, anti-human trafficking efforts in the world. The United States’ Officer to Combat and Monitor Trafficking in Persons is also combating human trafficking worldwide through three avenues—prevention, protection, and prosecution—which includes activities to raise awareness, identify victims, enforce appropriate laws, and convict traffickers.

However, perhaps some of the greatest work being done to combat human trafficking is performed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These anti-trafficking groups are working hard to prevent human trafficking, protect vulnerable populations, lobby for policy reformation, and even rehabilitate victims both at local and global levels. Exodus Cry is an active part of this global community of abolitionists and involved in these key areas of intervention.

How you can help combat human trafficking

You can join us in our fight to stop human trafficking and end modern-day sex slavery through engaging in any of our three areas of action—shifting culture, changing laws, and reaching out.

Through committing to praying for victims, raising awareness, advocating for policy reform, and donating to organizations like Exodus Cry who are combating this injustice, you are playing a direct part in ending slavery today.

Join the movement. Sign the pledge. Become an Abolitionist.

©The Exodus Cry. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Hospital Covid Death Camps! Docs/Nurses Stunning Testimony

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The mainstream media are ignoring this, the greatest medical catastrophe in world history. Hospitals in the USA are literally killing tens of thousands of Americans. 

In this edition of the Ledger Report, Graham Ledger profiles one brave nurse who has the guts to blow the whistle on coast to coast lethal malpractice that has the approval of both the federal government and medical associations.

Please subscribe free to The Ledger Report by clicking here: www.GrahamLedger.com

©The Ledger Report. All right reserved.

VIDEO: Disadvantaged Populations Receiving Excessive Vaccinations for Money

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*CLICK HERE TO TWEET OUT THE VIDEO*

Project Veritas released Part 2 of our series today featuring homeless and lower-income populations receiving excessive vaccinations for the financial incentive of a $100 gift card.

Here are some of the highlights from today’s video:

  • Project Veritas investigated the practices of DocGo/Ambulnz screeners in the field and obtained undercover footage of employees giving advice on how to circumvent rules to obtain gift cards in exchange for excessive vaccinations.
  • In one instance, an administrator for DocGo/Ambulnz describes how “flipping the names and the date of birth” allows for people to bypass safeguards in the system intended to flag multiple vaccinations.
  • In another instance an RN for DocGo/Ambulnz advises an undercover journalist for Project Veritas to “try something somewhere else where it’s not the same company.”
  • DocGo/Ambulnz employees were also captured on undercover recordings giving anecdotal testimony about how gift cards they distribute are sometimes missing money: “It was in the system that the money was already removed. We’re giving out blank cards.”

You can watch the video by here.

It is an outrage that taxpayer funds are being misused in this way.

Especially concerning is the potential that DocGo/Ambulnz employees appear to be enabling people to commit fraudulent acts by seemingly instructing them on how to get away with receiving a gift card for a vaccination.

Project Veritas will get to the bottom of this. Stay tuned…

EDITORS NOTE: This Project Veritas video report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.