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Censorship Industrial Complex

Ivermectin’s Victory Over the FDA

Published

10 months ago

13 minute read

From the Brownstone Institute

BY Sonia ElijahSONIA ELIJAH 

Over 60 studies around the world have, for the most part, found positive findings; however, the mainstream media embraced the handful that are neutral or had data problems, for example. Regardless of position, a disinformation campaign was initiated by the FDA and others to deter the use of the off-label treatment. See the email here.

FDA loses its war on ivermectin and agrees to remove all social media posts and consumer directives regarding ivermectin and [Covid], including its most popular tweet in FDA history. This landmark case sets an important precedent in limiting FDA overreach into the doctor-patient relationship.

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden

On March 21, a settlement was reached, leading to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreeing to remove social media posts and webpages discouraging the use of ivermectin for treating Covid-19.

This landmark case was initiated by plaintiffs Drs. Mary Talley Bowden, Robert I. Apter, and Paul E. Marik, who filed a lawsuit against the agency under the leadership of Commissioner Robert Califf, MD. The lawsuit was prompted by the FDA’s dissemination of misleading information about ivermectin, a Nobel Prize-winning anti-parasitic drug with a long history of use and inclusion in the World Health Organization’s essential list of medicines.

An FDA spokesperson told the Epoch Times that the agency “has chosen to resolve this lawsuit rather than continuing to litigate over statements that are between two and nearly four years old.”

In light of the FDA’s unprecedented loss in their war against ivermectin, I thought it was fitting to bring to my readers’ attention my Trial Site News report from November 2021 on the agency’s “most successful” viral tweet, which can be read below.

FDA’s Smoking Gun: Disinformation Campaign Targeting Ivermectin

It recently came to my attention that communication within the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) evidences the Gold Standard agency’s explicit involvement in the Ivermectin disinformation war. While the agency approves ivermectin as an anti-parasite medicine, physicians have increasingly embraced it as an off-label treatment for early-onset Covid-19. Over 60 studies around the world have, for the most part, found positive findings; however, the mainstream media embraced the handful that are neutral or had data problems, for example. Regardless of position, a disinformation campaign was initiated by the FDA and others to deter the use of the off-label treatment. See the email here.

In my investigative report about how ivermectin became a target for the ‘fraud detectives,’ published in TrialSite, I highlighted the relentless smear campaign against this life-saving generic drug by a certain group of scientists/bloggers, which has been amplified in the mainstream media. My report included the overtly biased and controversial ‘You’re not a horse’ tweeted by the FDA. However, the revelatory email communication within the FDA exposes the insidious nature of this government agency’s deep involvement as one of the major planners of this disinformation war against ivermectin.

The definition of disinformation is:

‘Deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government or especially by an intelligence agency in order to influence public opinion or the government in another nation.’

Conflating Veterinary and Human Versions

Secured via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by investigative reporter Linda Bonvie, the email involves esteemed members of the world’s top regulatory body bragging and boasting about how many tweets the “You’re not a horse” tweet did with engagement.

Showcasing the agency’s front and central role in promoting propaganda, the author, Erica Jefferson, an associate commissioner for the FDA’s external affairs, boasts to Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s acting commissioner, how the “Not a Horse Tweet” got 14.5 million tweets. (See below)

Jefferson expresses her excitement of the ‘FDA ivermectin/[Covid]-19 tweet’ going viral. She writes, ‘needless to say the straightforward and clever (humourous) communication…saw the tweet quickly going viral and being shared across multiple social medium platforms (where it was amplified by other influencers) and resulted in additional news coverage by: NYT, CNN, NBC News and Rolling Stone to name but a few.’

FDA as Social Media Manipulator

Jefferson’s reference to ‘other influencers’ on social media amplifying the message and helping it go viral is very revealing, including the role of mainstream media. It can be said that this speaks to a larger network of entities involved in the disinformation campaign against ivermectin- like the Trusted News Initiative, a consortium of Big Tech (Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft) and Big Media set up to combat anti-vaccine ‘disinformation’ and from what is becoming evidently clear, early-treatments for Covid-19, too.

The tweet posted by the FDA (see below) was published on August 21, 2021, with the email from Erickson to Woodstock sent the following day. Copied in were many high-ranking FDA officials, such as Julia Tierney, acting chief of staff, Melissa Safford, senior advisor to the commissioner.

FDA Purposely Creating Confusion Among Consumers

Yes, a version of ivermectin is used for veterinary purposes, but the massive increase in prescriptions that concerned the FDA was the human variety, prescribed by licensed physicians with consent from their patients. But the messaging was meant to confuse people to think that they were one and the same. Of course, those people who were involved with self-medication needed education, but what the FDA does here is try to kill two birds with one stone. The FDA doesn’t go out of its way to educate but instead spread disinformation.

Jefferson reveals in her email that the Office of External Affairs (OEA) team had spent ‘the past several weeks’ planning in how to effectively use their social media platforms ‘to share important public health information.’ She references the news coming out of Mississippi regarding the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19 ‘and the increase in adverse events (poisonings).’

It seems the FDA seized the opportunity in the Mississippi State Department of Health’s network alert sent out on August 20 stating that ‘70% of the recent calls have been related to the ingestion of livestock formulations of ivermectin.’ This is confirmed in her email, as Jefferson writes, ‘I’m sure you saw some of the news coming out of Mississippi on Friday night [August 20]…I expressed to the team late Friday night that we take the opportunity to remind the public of our warnings for ivermectin…’

What is very alarming is not only the level the FDA has stooped to in planning and executing a smear campaign against ivermectin, but the fact that the ‘poisonings’ could be based on inaccurate data.

Nonetheless, the mainstream media jumped on the ‘poisonings’ bandwagon, citing the Mississippi department of health data. The Guardian ran with the headline, ‘A human is not a horse. So why is a livestock drug sweeping America?’ However, the department later clarified it was only 2% of calls that were made to the state’s poison control center that related to the ingestion of animal formulations of ivermectin, not 70%.

The Rolling Stone (which turned out to be a fraudulent piece), the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, and indeed, the Guardian all had to print corrections regarding the false information.

Both the CDC and FDA also pointed to data from the Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) that purported to show a three-fold increase in calls involving ivermectin. TrialSite secured that data and found that the number of calls went from 435 to 1,143, and the overwhelming number of them were harmless. TrialSite disclosed that 11 of the calls, or about 1%, involved a serious matter. However, it’s not clear if they were associated with any hospitalization.

TrialSite found that at least by September, there were no deaths from ivermectin—although since then, there have been a few reported. Billions of doses of ivermectin have been administered by the Mectizan program, evidencing an extraordinary safety record. Of course, self-medication without physician oversight with any drug is wrong. Still, the FDA’s social media engagement sought to appropriately dissuade the veterinary variety’s use while inappropriately confusing the consumer by making them think all of the medication is for animals.

Why Wouldn’t the FDA Also Share the Truth With Consumers?

Over 60 studies have produced some overwhelmingly positive data points for ivermectin. While the FDA and others have discounted many of those studies, the drug is used by several countries as an emergency use authorized treatment—albeit in mostly low-income countries. But the important studies demonstrated potential, including the ICON case series study in America.

The National Institutes of Health now sponsors ACTIV-6, a major clinical trial involving ivermectin. Led by Duke Clinical Research Institute, this is clear evidence that the government has enough interest in the drug to at least invest (finally) to evaluate. Although, some advisors of TrialSite have suggested the study is underdosed. The University of Minnesota, along with UnitedHealthcare, also funds an ivermectin study called Covid-Out.

Why didn’t the FDA take the time to educate the public about this and instead ‘create a unique viral moment?’ Why just the singular message that served to conflate the illicit use with legitimate use by licensed physicians and consenting patients?

Regulatory agencies should be educating people not engaging in social medial disinformation campaigns. It was this same message that was used, for example, by CNN. TrialSite covered that interview on the Joe Rogan Show where Sanjay Gupta called this kind of tactic done by the FDA as “snarky.”

If this is how the FDA hopes to ‘reach the “everyday” American to “brand” FDA’ with a disinformation campaign targeting this life-saving drug, then the American public is in deep trouble, and so are the rest of us.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

  • Sonia Elijah
    Sonia Elijah

    Sonia Elijah has a background in Economics. She’s a former BBC researcher and now works as an investigative journalist.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

WEF ranks ‘disinformation’ as greater threat to world stability than ‘armed conflict’

Published on January 21, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

Misinformation and disinformation, along with societal polarization, are catalysts that amplify all other global risks, including armed conflict and climate change, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).

On Wednesday, the WEF published its annual Global Risks Report with very few changes from last year’s edition.

For the second year in a row, the number one global risk over the next two years is misinformation and disinformation, which have cascading effects on other leading risks, according to the WEF “Global Risks Report 2025”:

Similar to last year, Misinformation and disinformation and Societal polarization remain key current risks […] The high rankings of these two risks is not surprising considering the accelerating spread of false or misleading information, which amplifies the other leading risks we face, from State-based armed conflict to Extreme weather events

According to the Global Risks 2025 report, polarization “continues to fan the flames of misinformation and disinformation, which, for the second year running, is the top-ranked short- to medium-term concern across all risk categories.”

“Efforts to combat this risk are coming up against a formidable opponent in Generative AI-created false or misleading content that can be produced and distributed at scale,” which was the same assessment given in the 2024 report.

Apart from inflation and economic downturn, there isn’t much of a difference in global risks between 2024 and 2025.

Compare the top 10 short-term and long-term global risks from 2024 with those for 2025 in the images below.

WEF Top 10 Global Risks 2025

WEF Top 10 Global Risks 2024

Rising use of digital platforms and a growing volume of AI-generated content are making divisive misinformation and disinformation more ubiquitous. — WEF Global Risks Report 2025

The Global Risks Report 2025 says that misinformation, coupled with algorithmic bias, leads to a situation where you and I should accept giving up some of our privacy for convenience, which subsequently makes it easier for us to be monitored and controlled:

Despite the dangers related to false or misleading content, and the associated risks of algorithmic bias, citizens need to strike a balance between privacy on one hand and increased online personalization and convenience on the other hand.

While data governance and regulation vary worldwide, it is becoming easier for citizens to be monitored, enabling governments, technology companies and threat actors to reach deeper into people’s lives.

Those with access to rising computing power and the ability to leverage sophisticated AI/GenAI models could, if they choose to, exploit further the vulnerabilities provided by citizens’ online footprints.

What else can we blame on misinformation?

I know! Climate change:

The accelerating spread of false or misleading information […] amplifies the other leading risks we face, from State-based armed conflict to Extreme weather events.

WEF Global Risks 2025

While the term “climate change” is mentioned several times in the Global Risks Report 2025, it does not appear anywhere in the actual list of 33 global risks.

Instead of using the term “climate change,” the full list of global risks uses several climate-adjacent terms, such as:

  • Extreme weather events
  • Pollution
  • Critical change to Earth systems
  • Natural resource shortages
  • Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse
  • Involuntary migration or displacement

The unelected globalists are now lumping terms like the ones above to push their climate policies and agendas, and they even go so far as to claim that misinformation amplifies extreme weather events, which actually might be true, just not in the way they imagined:

For example, on Tuesday WEF president and CEO Børge Brende blamed the California fires, which we may consider to be examples of extreme weather events or biodiversity loss, to climate change while not addressing how the state cut funding to fight fires, how the Los Angeles fire chief said the city failed her agency, or the role of arsonists.

By blaming the fires on just climate change while ignoring the rest, could Brende himself be engaging in disinformation?

Climate change is also an underlying driver of several other risks that rank high. For example, Involuntary migration or displacement is a leading concern. — WEF Global Risks Report 2025

The WEF Global Risks Report 2025 lumps many global risks together with the belief that they are all interconnected.

For example, it says that misinformation and polarization amplify armed conflict, extreme weather events, involuntary migration or displacement, and all the risks in-between.

It’s the same tactic the unelected globalists use when they conflate misinformation and disinformation with hate speech, so they can use one as an excuse to go after the other.

For the WEF and partners, global problems require global solutions with global governance through public-private partnerships – the merger of corporation and state, which is also known as fascism or corporatism.

In the end, the global risks report is just a survey, and the risks may or may not materialize.

In January 2023, the WEF announced the results of a survey of cyber leaders that said a “catastrophic cyber event” was likely to occur within the next two years.

Here we are exactly two years later and that never happened.

For the unelected globalists, misinformation and disinformation are words they throw out to try to crush narratives that don’t align with their own, and they will use any threat, whether real or perceived, to advance their agendas and policies.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Carbon tax tripping up Liberal leadership hopefuls

Published on January 21, 2025

By

The Liberals and progressives everywhere were so close.  At the height of their influence, no one, certainly anywhere in the English speaking world could make this claim: “Climate change IS NOT an existential threat to planet earth.” Those who did were immediately sidelined, ostracized by their cohorts, dismissed by corporate media and social media behemoths. Sure the battle still rages, but only in their information world where you still see phrases like “climate change denialist”.

You see their information world has not yet realized something new has happened.  History writers will say Elon Musk stopped the progressives in their tracks by buying Twitter, releasing the Twitter files and eventually with Donald Trump, swinging the information world in the direction of X.  If you have doubts just look at this picture.  While the Twitter files reveal the new information world was under the, let’s say ‘secret influence’ of the White House, this photo shows those same tech power brokers are publicly, and happily celebrating the man they worked secretly to bring down.  Or at least they’re not ashamed to publicly text their friends about it. The fact they’re not hiding probably reveals their eager support.

Sometimes we find it’s the people we look down our noses at who make all the difference.  Like those overweight beer-guzzling hunter types who wear the red hats. (No not the Roman Cardinals, but the Appalachian trailer house occupants). These conspiracy theorists started to proclaim that the world would in fact not burn up by next weekend.  Sure many of these seemed to be the same people who claim the world is flat and their neighbor is from another planet.  But then more people stepped forward.  Not about ‘pancake Earth’, but about the existential threat of climate change.

Family members and friends scorned and ridiculed them, and many still do.  They were outraged that a regular citizen would dare to share information from a completely sane climate scientist or researcher who did not agree with the majority. They’d lose their marbles on those silly enough to cite a peer reviewed scientific paper.  IF anyone was bold enough to take the time to read an entire report from NASA or Environment Canada, well you’d certainly hear someone say “You fool! You can’t do your own research!! You’re not a scientist!!”

Fortunately, funny man podcaster Jimmy Dore has the perfect comeback for these situations.  Dore says when his own friends warned him only a Conspiracy Theorist would do his own research, he replied “You know before COVID doing your own research used to be called… reading”.  It’s really worth two minutes to check this out.  If you don’t find it funny, really funny, then I’m sorry. One day you will.

Speaking of reading, in the days before the printing press the Church and various wildly wealthy monarchs had a stranglehold on information sharing.  Those who contradicted the party line could have their heads chopped off by a guillotine bought and paid for with their meagre tax offerings, or, they could expect to be publicly shamed and eternally condemned by their local preacher.  Sure some of them probably deserved it but who am I to judge?

Then the printing press was invented. At first the Church leaders said, “Great now everyone can be educated, learn to read and even write themselves, and study the Bible on their own!”  Eventually some of those same leaders said, “THIS IS A DISASTER! Everyone can be educated, learn to read and even write themselves, and study the Bible on their own!”  After a few centuries the power structures in Europe completely changed.  The Church divided into thousands of Protestant movements and the Catholic Church forever lost the political clout it never should have appreciated.  Universities sprung up around libraries. Monarchs handed over power to early democratic governments. Books about science lead to scientific innovations. Average Joe’s eventually moved from underground mud huts to middle class condos in the sky.

Well the same thing is happening now with the internet.  Except at breakneck  speed.  What took the printing press hundreds of years to accomplish, takes the internet a few months.  The emergence and re-emergence of Trump Presidencies, revolutions against power structures, could not have been accomplished without the way we get information on the internet.

Sure there’s a lot of murky confusion as corporate media used to their powerful podiums of the printing press and cable tv are moving their content over to the new medium.  But they’re being (sorry it’s all over, they have been) overtaken by the new form of information sharing.  We’ve gone from headlines and ten second sound bites, to three hour long conversations with plenty of time for explaining and context.  That’s something cable tv just didn’t have enough bandwidth to deliver.

So what does this mean for people trying to buy 1,200 square foot condos in Canada today?

Well we get to watch the power brokers struggle to retain their grip on / over our lives.

Those running to replace the son of … Hmm. Here’s a perfect example. Depending upon where you get your information from he’s either the son of Pierre, or he has an incomprehensively uncanny and impossibly accidental resemblance to a close personal family friend.

Those running to replace Liberal Leader Justin (let’s leave the last name out until the DNA results are back) definitely believe his father is Pierre. They believe Russians are our enemies.  They think COVID vaccines saved the world. They think NATO is protecting Ukraine. And they certainly believe if we pay higher taxes in Canada we’ll save the world from the temperatures many of us pay thousands of dollars to escape to for a few days for six months of the year.

Carney, Gould, and Freeland don’t seem to realize everyday Canadians are simply done with the idea that a Carbon Tax in any form is going to save the world.  Thanks to the internet, regular folks/voters have had time to do a little reading and listen to a few long conversations about this.  Average people are understanding that CO2 makes up not 40% or 60% of the atmosphere, but .04%.  Of that .04%, less than 4% is caused by humans. Mathematically it’s silly to think that paying more for food and groceries and everything else in Rosetown, Saskatchewan or Red Deer, Alberta is going to stop, slow down, or make any difference at all to global temperatures in 20 years.

It’s ironic that it’s the modern progressive movement who are stuck in the old information age.  You’d think the slower thinking conservatives would hold on to the old ways and they’d be the ones trying to enforce restrictions on the new communication movement.  Somehow the self proclaimed forward looking progressives are the ones trying to censor.  Maybe it does make sense.  Conservatives are more likely to read their history.  They know the ones who censor are always trying to retain their failing grasp on power.  New information consumers are ready, willing, and annoyingly attempting to debate.  But there’s no debate for those who say “The science is settled.” I guess that means they’re all finished learning things.

Sorry to the Liberal Leadership hopefuls.  They haven’t heard the news.  Well actually they have and that’s the problem.  Instead of paying attention to what’s really happening, they’re dismissing everything and everyone who doesn’t appear on the cable news channels.. other than to be ridiculed that is.

I leave you with this short video from Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.  Franco explains how those vying for control of the PMO are tripping over their new versions of an old and failed Carbon Tax. Pity them. They don’t realize voters have moved on.

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