Opinion
Premier Scientific Journal Nature Takes on ‘Climate of Fear’ Surrounding Research on Sex and Genr
From Heartland Daily News
“These articles are using phrases like ‘a person’s sex assigned at birth’. I find that phrase amusing. I don’t think sex is assigned at birth. Biological sex is a fact. It’s not assigned. It’s observed.”
Nature, one of the world’s premier scientific journals, has acknowledged the importance of studying sex and gender differences and officially denounced the “climate of fear and reticence” that is stymying research on the topic.
To that end, the journal in May launched “a collection of opinion articles” on the topic to be published over the coming months to foster honest and courageous discussions on a topic that many scientists shy away from due to fears of professional and personal repercussions.
“Some scientists have been warned off studying sex differences by colleagues. Others, who are already working on sex or gender-related topics, are hesitant to publish their views,” read the editorial introducing the series.
“…In time, we hope this collection will help to shape research, and provide a reference point for moderating often-intemperate debates.”
Headlines that kicked off the series include “Neglecting sex and gender in research is a public-health risk,” “Male–female comparisons are powerful in biomedical research” and “Heed lessons from past studies involving transgender people: first, do no harm.”
What the collection of articles represents and whether it will ease tensions surrounding this area of research remains to be seen.
Jeffrey Mogil, a neuroscientist and pain researcher at Mcgill University, as well as the co-author of one of the articles in Nature’s sex and gender series, told The College Fix there is an effort underway in biological research to do away with or minimize the importance of the concept of sex and sex as a binary variable.
This is problematic, Mogil said in a recent telephone interview, because sex in mammals is “either binary or it rounds to binary and in doing so it always has been useful and continues to be and any conception of it that isn’t binary would then impose practical difficulties on how science is done.”
Moreover, he noted, discarding the notion of binary sex in mammals would set back important advancements in how many biomedical researchers now do their work.
“There are sex differences in all kinds of traits that we’re interested in and where we didn’t know they existed,” Mogil said. “The reason we didn’t know they existed [is] because until extremely recently, essentially all biology pre-clinical experiments were done with males only.”
“Since regulatory agencies, funding agencies, have demanded that people start using both sexes [in research],” he said, “lo and behold, we’re finding sex differences.”
“We’re finding that what we thought was the biology of a thing was only the biology of the thing in males and the female biology is completely different,” he added.
“This is in our minds,” he said, “an incredible scientific advance and that advance is at risk of stopping and reverting if, you know, people start to believe…dividing animals into males and females is inappropriate.”
Although Mogil stated he did not know how Nature made editorial decisions regarding the selection of articles for their sex and gender collection, he said that he felt the article he and his co-authors wrote was intended to defend the status quo against those “advocating…either that gender is much more important than sex or that sex is more complicated than people have made it seem.”
The College Fix reached out to a senior communications manager from Springer Nature in early June regarding the selection process for the series, as well as how sex was presented in some of the other commentaries, but did not receive a response.
Daniel Barbash, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University, was more skeptical than Mogil of Nature’s sex and gender op-ed collection when he spoke to The College Fix in a late-May phone interview.
Although he said he generally held a positive view of the article Mogil co-authored and appreciated that it explicitly stated “there are only two sex categories in mammals,” he noted that he also felt the authors of other commentaries in the series were to some extent “further conflating sex and gender.”
“There’s little things that sometimes give the game away,” he said. “These articles are using phrases like ‘a person’s sex assigned at birth’. I find that phrase amusing. I don’t think sex is assigned at birth. Biological sex is a fact. It’s not assigned. It’s observed.”
“[For] the vast majority of humans, from the moment they’re born,” he said, “there is zero ambiguity whether they’re a male or a female.”
Furthermore, the “overall tone” of the collection, Barbash said, was that “there needs to be more research on gender variation and that there is more complexity to biological sex than a binary.”
According to Barbash, neither of these notions are “universally accepted” among biologists.
He said he believes the series has “the potential to drive funding agencies and other agencies that are involved in the intersection between politics and research in a particular direction that I don’t think would always be helpful.”
“I don’t think any serious biologist would deny that sex is a hugely important factor in both basic research and in biomedical research,” said Barbash. “Of course, any study on the effect of drugs should be tested separately in males and females, otherwise it’s a hugely confounding factor if you ignore that.”
Yet, he said, “the notion that we need to do the same thing for gender…is really not supported,” and may not be very feasible.
“Half the population is male and half the population is female,” Barbash said. “We see all kinds of estimates for gender nonconforming and transgender individuals but, no doubt, they’re much less frequent than males and females.”
On account of this, he said, even if research questions regarding gender divergence and transgender individuals are worthwhile, “it would be problematic, for example, to necessitate that all NIH studies of humans include males, females and gender nonconforming individuals or transgender individuals.”
However, he said, he feared “this series of articles could have that kind of impact in influencing policy.”
Originally published by The College Fix. Republished with permission.
The Vigilant Fox
This conversation with startle you, infuriate you—then lift your spirits
It’s not every day an active HHS Secretary sits down for 90 minutes straight with Tucker Carlson.
But that’s exactly what happened, and Kennedy instantly seized Carlson’s attention with a chilling story of CDC corruption.
He revealed that the health agency buried a 1999 internal study led by researcher Thomas Verstraten, which showed an alarming 1135% increase in autism risk from the hepatitis B vaccine.
Kennedy said the researchers were “shocked” by the findings.
So what did they do? They covered it up, according to Kennedy.
“They got rid of all the older children essentially and just had younger children who are too young to be diagnosed [with autism].”
RFK Jr. then explained the real reason why your pediatrician will kick you out of their practice for refusing vaccines.
“There’s a published article out there now that says that 50% of revenues to most pediatricians come from vaccines.”
It’s all about the money. The higher the vaccination rate, the bigger the bonus.
“And that’s why your pediatrician, if you say I want to go slow on the vaccines… will throw you out of his practice because you’re now jeopardizing that bonus structure.”
To the claim that the vaccine–autism link has been “debunked,” Kennedy had a message for Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, and everyone who smugly insists on it.
“None of the vaccines given to children in the first six months of life have ever been studied for autism.”
Let that sink in.
He went further, revealing that the CDC actually did find a link when they studied the DTaP vaccine.
But they dismissed it. Kennedy said they claimed it “didn’t count” because the data came from VAERS—the very system they use to track vaccine injuries.
So when the evidence pointed to harm, they simply claimed their own system wasn’t reliable enough and took no steps to fix it.
The vaccine corruption didn’t end there. Kennedy attested that the CDC killed off a vaccine injury reporting system that actually worked—because it worked too well.
It showed that 1 in 37 vaccines caused an injury.
Tucker was stunned.
“Of all vaccines?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Kennedy confirmed.
RFK Jr. explained that the CDC funded a study led by researcher Ross Lazarus. It compared a sophisticated machine-counting system to VAERS.
What did they find? VAERS was failing to catch over 99% of vaccine injuries.
The new system also revealed that 2.6% of all vaccinations resulted in an injury.
So what did the CDC do? They shut it down in 2010. And they’re still using VAERS today—even though it’s a completely inadequate system.
But Kennedy didn’t stop at old vaccine scandals. He also broke down Pfizer’s own COVID vaccine trial data. That trial showed a 23% higher death rate in the vaccinated group.
• Pfizer gave 21,720 people the vaccine and 21,728 the placebo.
• One vaccinated person died of COVID. Two placebo recipients died. They used this tiny difference to claim “100% effective” based on relative risk reduction.
• But in absolute terms, it took 22,000 vaccinations to save one life.
• Over six months, 21 vaccinated participants died of all causes, compared to 17 in the placebo group—a 23.5% higher death rate.
And then there’s vaccine spokesperson Paul Offit, often seen on CNN and other mainstream networks.
Kennedy shared an infuriating story about how he literally “voted himself rich” on the rotavirus vaccine.
While serving on the CDC’s ACIP committee, Offit voted to add rotavirus vaccination to the childhood schedule—even as he was developing his own competing vaccine. He guaranteed demand for his product.
The first approved rotavirus vaccine, RotaShield, was yanked from the market for causing dangerous intussusception. Offit’s vaccine, RotaTeq, eventually replaced it.
He and his partners later sold their rights to Merck for $186 million. As RFK Jr. said, Offit literally “voted himself rich.”
When Carlson mentioned Fauci, Kennedy revealed how Fauci funded research that helped scientists hide evidence of lab-made viruses.
The technique, called “seamless ligation,” allowed researchers to engineer viruses in a lab without leaving telltale genetic fingerprints.
RFK Jr. explained:
“One of his fundees, Ralph Baric, from the University of North Carolina, developed a technique called the seamless ligation technique, which is a technique for hiding the laboratory origins of a manipulated virus.”
“… normally if there’s a virus manipulated, researchers can look at the DNA sequences and they can say this thing was created in a lab. Ralph Baric had developed a technique that he called the no-see technique and its technical name was seamless ligation, and it was a way of hiding evidence of human tampering.”
He called it the exact opposite of what real public health work should be. Carlson cut in, saying, “That’s what you would do if you’re creating viruses for biological warfare.”
The conversation shifted to Trump, leading to one of the biggest highlights of the entire interview.
First, Kennedy explained that Trump chose his cabinet in an unorthodox way: he wanted to see three clips of each candidate performing on TV before considering them for the job.
“One of the things with President Trump is that he really knows how to pick talent… For every one of the positions that he picked, he wanted to see three clips of them performing on TV. He’s very conscious of the fact that these people are going to be out selling his program to the public,” Kennedy said.
That’s when Kennedy ended the interview with a bang, sharing his genuine thoughts about Trump for three straight minutes. It was one of the standout moments of the entire conversation.
If you’re on the fence about Trump, listen to Kennedy here. It might just change how you see him.
“I had him pegged as a narcissist, when narcissists are incapable of empathy. And he’s one of the most empathetic people that I’ve met,” Kennedy said.
“He’s immensely curious, inquisitive, and immensely knowledgeable. He’s encyclopedic in certain areas that you wouldn’t expect,” he continued.
Kennedy added that Trump genuinely cares about soldiers who go to war, citing how Trump “always talks about the casualties on both sides” of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.
“Whether it’s vaccines or Medicaid or Medicare, he’s always thinking about how this impacts the little guy. And the Democrats have him pegged as a guy who’s sort of sitting in the Cabinet meeting talking about how can we make billionaires richer. He’s the opposite of that. He’s a genuine populist,” Kennedy said.
There’s so much more in this conversation, and it might change the way you think about vaccines forever.
For the full picture, watch the entire interview below.
I also wanted to let you know I’m sharing a lot more than just posts like this throughout the day.
For quick clips and updates, check out my Substack Notes page.
Alongside my top 10 daily roundup, it’s one of the best ways to keep up with the news cycle.
Just download the Substack app and follow my page there to see content that doesn’t appear on this main page.
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With the Americans winning the first game 3-1, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact.
“It’s also more political than the (1972) Summit Series was, because Canada’s existence wasn’t on the line then, and it may be now. You’re damn right Canadians should boo the (U.S.) anthem.” Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur before Gm. 1 of USA/ Canada in The 4 Nations Cup.
The year 2025 is barely half over on Canada Day. There is much to go before we start assembling Best Of Lists for the year. But as Palestinian flags duel with the Maple Leaf for prominence on the 158th anniversary of Canada’s becoming a sovereign country it’s a fair guess that we will settle on Febuary 21 as the pivotal date of the year— and Canada’s destiny as well.
That was the date of Game 2 in the U.S./Canada rivalry at the Four Nations Tournament. Ostensibly created by the NHL to replace the moribund All Star format, the showdown of hockey nations in Boston became much more. Jolted by non-sports factors it became a pivotal moment in modern Canadian history.
Set against U.S. president Donald Trump’s bellicose talk of Canada as a U.S. state and the Mike Myers/ Mark Carney Elbows Up ad campaign, the gold-medal game evoked, for those of a certain age, memories of the famous 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. And somehow produced an unprecedented political reversal in Canadian elections.
As we wrote on Feb. 16 after Gm. 1 in Montreal, the Four Nations had been meant to be something far less incendiary. “Expecting a guys’ weekend like the concurrent NBA All Star game, the fraternal folks instead got a Pier Six brawl. It was the most stunning beginning to a game most could remember in 50 years. (Not least of all the rabid Canadian fanbase urging patriotism in the home of Quebec separation) Considering this Four Nations event was the NHL’s idea to replace the tame midseason All Star Game where players apologize for bumping into each other during a casual skate, the tumult as referees tried to start the game was shocking.
“Despite public calls for mutual respect, the sustained booing of the American national anthem and the Team Canada invocation by MMA legend Georges St. Pierre was answered by the Tkachuck brothers, Matthew and Brady, with a series of fights in the first nine seconds of the game. Three fights to be exact ,when former Canuck J.T. Miller squared up with Brandon Hagel. (All three U.S. players have either played on or now play for Canadian NHL teams.)
“Premeditated and nasty. To say nothing of the vicious mugging of Canada’s legend Sidney Crosby behind the U.S. net moments later by Charlie McEvoy.”
With the Americans winning the game 3-1 on Feb. 15, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact. As we wrote in the aftermath, a slaughter was avoided.
“In the rematch for a title created just weeks before by the NHL the boys stuck to hockey. Anthem booing was restrained. Outside of an ill-advised appearance by Wayne Gretzky— now loathed for his Trump support— the emphasis was on skill. Playing largely without injured Matthew and Brady Tkachuk and McAvoy, the U.S. forced the game to OT where beleaguered goalie Craig Binnington held Canada in the game until Connor McDavid scored the game winner. “
The stunning turnaround in the series produced a similar turnaround in the Canadian federal election. Galvanized by Trump’s 51st State disrespect and exhilarated by the hockey team’s comeback, voters switched their votes in huge numbers to Carney, ignoring the abysmal record of the Liberals and their pathetic polling. From Pierre Poilievre having a 20-point lead in polls, hockey-besotted Canada flipped to award Carney a near-majority in the April 28 election.
The result stunned the Canadian political class and international critics who questioned how a single sporting event could have miraculously rescued the Liberals from themselves in such a short time.
While Canada soared because of the four Nations, a Canadian icon crashed to earth. “Perhaps the most public outcome was the now-demonization of Gretzky in Canada. Just as they had with Bobby Orr, another Canadian superstar living in America, Canadians wiped their hands of No. 99 over politics. Despite appeals from Orr, Don Cherry and others, the chance to make Gretzky a Trump proxy was too tempting.
We have been in several arguments on the subject among friends: Does Gretzky owe Canada something after carrying its hockey burden for so long? Could he have worn a Team Canada jersey? Shouldn’t he have made a statement that he backs Canada in its showdown with Trump? For now 99 is 0 in his homeland.”
Even now, months later, the events of late February have an air of disbelief around them, a shift so dramatic and so impactful on the nation that many still shake their heads. Sure, hockey wasn’t the device that blew up Canada’s politics. But it was the fuse that created a crater in the country.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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