Category Archives: Original

Health/Environment, Original

2017 Toronto Mumps Outbreak : Nearly half of infected population was fully vaccinated

AlternativeFreePress.com

Toronto is experiencing a Mumps outbreak. All of the currently confirmed cases have been in adults between 18 and 35. CBC reports that “About 60 per cent” of them had not received the two recommended doses of the MMR vaccine. Lab results have confirmed that 14 people have become infected with the virus, so “about 60 per cent” is most likely 57% or 8 out of 14 people. That means that 6 of the 14 people or 43% were completely vaccinated.

The MMR vaccine is ineffective. This recent outbreak in Toronto is far from the first time that vaccinated people have fallen ill . In 2014 we wrote about outbreaks in Massachusetts, Ohio and New York which were infecting vaccinated populations.

15 out of 15 students infected with whooping cough last month at Falmouth High School in Massachusetts had been vaccinated.

At Fordham University in New York City all students are required to be vaccinated including the vaccination for mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR), but as of February 21st, 13 cases of the mumps had been reported with 100% of those infected having already been vaccinated.

In Ohio, as of March 24th there were 63 reported cases & 97% of those infected had been vaccinated.

Dr Tetyana Obukhanych is an Immunologist who earned her PhD in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York and did postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. and Stanford University in California. In an interview with Catherine Frompovich, Dr Obukhanych explains why these outbreaks are occurring among the vaccinated population:

“I think this is happening because vaccination does not engage the genuine mechanism of immunity. Vaccination typically engages the immune response—that is, everything that immunologists would theoretically “want” to see being engaged in the immune system. But apparently this is not enough to confer robust protection that matches natural immunity. Our knowledge of the immune system is far from being complete.”

Dr Obukhanych describes natural immunity as: “in a way, a tautological expression because immunity can only be acquired naturally at this point, only through the exposure to an infected individual, although occasionally such exposure would go asymptomatic while still establishing immunity. Nevertheless, because there is a common misconception that vaccines also confer immunity, it is sometimes necessary to use a qualifier “natural,” when referring to immunity, to distinguish it from vaccine-based protection.”

In the following video Dr Obukhanych explains how protective serum titers drop very quickly after the second MMR dose, meaning some vaccinated people do not receive any lasting protection from the MMR vaccine.

Here is a screenshot of the chart in the video highlighting the data which shows the MMR booster is not very effective & provides at best, leaky immunity.

Dr. Russell Blaylock, a board-certified neurosurgeon, author and lecturer who attended the LSU School of Medicine and completed his internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina explains how herd immunity is only truly obtainable through natural immunity:

“In the original description of herd immunity, the protection to the population at large occurred only if people contracted the infections naturally. The reason for this is that naturally-acquired immunity lasts for a lifetime. The vaccine proponents quickly latched onto this concept and applied it to vaccine-induced immunity. But, there was one major problem – vaccine-induced immunity lasted for only a relatively short period, from 2 to 10 years at most, and then this applies only to humoral immunity. This is why they began, silently, to suggest boosters for most vaccines, even the common childhood infections such as chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella.

Then they discovered an even greater problem, the boosters were lasting for only 2 years or less. This is why we are now seeing mandates that youth entering colleges have multiple vaccines, even those which they insisted gave lifelong immunity, such as the MMR. The same is being suggested for full-grown adults. Ironically, no one in the media or medical field is asking what is going on. They just accept that it must be done.”

Drugs, Health/Environment, Original

Government of Canada Ramps Up Failed Prohibitionist Tactics In Futile Effort To Stop Fentanyl

AlternativeFreePress.com

The Government of Canada continues to double down on failed prohibitionist policies in it’s fight against opioid overdoses, despite overwhelming evidence that such tactics are ineffective.

Within the past couple of weeks we have been told that Health Canada has published regulations controlling six chemicals used in the production of fentanyl, and that the RCMP and China’s public security ministry have agreed to increase their efforts to interrupt the flow of fentanyl and other opioids. However, these are just more of the same prohibitionist policies which created this problem.

If the government actually wants to help stop this crisis, they do have the means. It is only a question of will. Last month a Justice Department research paper was publicized which states that decriminalizing drugs could result in lower rates of use, addiction, and overdoses. The study says that “It is becoming more challenging to justify the criminalization of drug users,”

Earlier this year, prescription heroin became available to addicts in Canada. That is a step in the right direction, and that access should be promoted and encouraged. Most addicts will not buy street drugs if they can get their fix legally and more affordably from a pharmacist or doctor. Fentanyl is much stronger than heroin, so unfortunately the act of legalizing heroin may have occurred too late as most of the street heroin is apparently cut with fentanyl. Some fentanyl addicts may be able to switch to prescription heroin, but also providing access to legal fentanyl would certainly help reduce the black market demand further.

Increasing law enforcement efforts and tightening regulations has never succeeded at stopping illegal drugs, and in fact has only made the drugs more dangerous. The increased use of illicit synthetic opioids is a direct result of prohibitionist policies. Even if law enforcement did somehow manage to stop the flow of fentanyl, it would just be replaced by more carfentanyl or W-18, which are a hundred times more potent. Prohibition doesn’t work.

Sources:
RCMP to work with China to fight flow of fentanyl to Canada
Health Canada Regulates Chemicals Used to Make Fentanyl “Report”
Drug decriminalization would lead to fewer overdoses, addiction: federal study

Geopolitics/War, Original

Donald Trump Wins Presidential Election

AlternativeFreePress.com declares Donald Trump the winner of the 2016 US Presidential Election.

While much of the mainstream media seem reluctant to call a Trump victory, it’s pretty much a sure thing at this point. While we are sure that if Clinton had a 244 to 215 lead in electoral votes, the press would be calling it for Clinton…. it’s likely going to take the mainstream media a little more time to admit that their darling candidate has failed to secure enough votes.

America has spoken, and believes the lesser of two evils to be Donald Trump. It’s a roll of the dice as opposed to the corrupt status quo…. and a reminder to never believe the mainstream media or their nonsense polling.

Corporate Welfare, Geopolitics/War, Original

Belgium’s Walloons Are Right; All Canadians & Europeans Should Also Reject CETA

AlternativeFreePress.com

3.5-million French-speaking Walloons of Belgium are standing up for all the people of Europe & Canada. The Wallonia region has an effective veto over CETA because Belgium’s constitution gives them that power….and we should all be thanking them for using it.

The Huffington Post reports the apparent 5 reasons that the Walloons are blocking CETA, and they are pretty fucking good reasons:

1. Too much corporate power

While the Walloons are worried their agriculture sector will suffer under the deal, they are increasingly concerned about the investor-state dispute settlement system as well. The region’s socialist government has adopted many of the concerns of the civil society groups that oppose the free trade deal: they say it gives multinational corporations too much power to sue governments if they make regulations that affect their ability to turn a profit.

2. Trade tribunals

The Walloons want changes to the ISDS provisions of the treaty, specifically the tribunals that would settle disputes. They want them to be more transparent to eliminate the possibility of bias or conflict of interests by the people appointed to adjudicate disputes.

3. Loophole for U.S. corporations

The Walloons want to see loopholes closed that they say would allow U.S. multinationals with offices in Canada to use the treaty to sue governments in Europe, says Osgoode Hall law professor Gus Van Harten.

4. National courts vs. tribunals

Van Harten also says the Walloons want stronger language in the treaty that would preserve the jurisdiction of domestic courts in individual countries to hear disputes, instead of turning them over to the new tribunal system envisioned by the treaty.

5. We don’t know what we’re getting

In a parliamentary debate last week, Wallonian President Paul Magnette used an interesting metaphor to describe what he says is the opaque nature of the tribunals. He said it was like buying “a cat in a bag.”

As we have mentioned previously, investor-state dispute settlement provisions provide corporations with the ability to loot the public purse when they make poor business decisions and hinders governments ability to protect citizens and the environment. We should all be very grateful to the Walloons and let the world know that if the rest of us had the choice, we would VETO CETA as well.

Drugs, Original

Canadian Medical Association likes gangs selling pot to kids

AlternativeFreePress.com
September 8, 2016

Canada’s doctors are calling for strict limits on legalized pot smoking, saying the minimum age should be 21, while home growing and smoking non-medical marijuana in public places should be prohibited, the Toronto Star reports. They also want the amounts and potency of products sold to those under 25 to be tightly controlled.

Of course, if the federal government listens to these suggestions, it will simply encourage the continuation of the black market, particularly among youth.

Prohibition doesn’t work, that’s a big part of why Cannabis is about to be legalized in Canada. The Canadian Medical Association is encouraging policy which will maintain the black market for Cannabis in schools and continue to criminalize kids for doing what kids do.

Not only would such asinine policy continue to subject our kids to unnecessary police harassment, but the cost of enforcing these policies would negate much of the economic benefit of legalization. How many taxpayers want to pay for police officers to hunt down pot smokers to verify their age and test potency? How many taxpayers want teens arrested for enjoying a joint instead of alcohol?

Cannabis is a plant, with lower toxicity than a tomato plant. Children can become ill and in extreme cases die if they consume too much tomato plant leaves. Children can also die from consuming energy drinks, in fact an international research team, led by Dr. Fabian Sanchis-Gomar of Madrid, Spain, has concluded that energy drinks are the cause of many sudden cardiac deaths in young, healthy individuals. Cannabis has never killed anyone, it is safer than alcohol, it is safer than energy drinks, it is safer than tomato plants.

The Liberal government has promised repeatedly to “regulate and control” cannabis, so I have no doubt that they will adopt most of these asinine prohibitionist policies.

Sources:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/09/07/doctors-say-pot-smoking-should-be-banned-for-canadians-under-21.html
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-900-tomato.aspx?activeingredientid=900&activeingredientname=tomato#vit_sideeffects
http://www.onlinecjc.ca/article/S0828-282X(14)01667-5/fulltext

Corporate Welfare, Original

Canada’s internal free-trade deal is a gift to corporations, paid for with your tax dollars

AlternativeFreePress.com

They are calling it an “internal free-trade deal” between provinces, supposedly it’s purpose is to apparently remove protectionist barriers which inhibit competition….. of course they could just actually remove protectionist barriers which inhibit competition, but instead they are creating more regulations. Governments rarely repeal laws, instead they write new ones. Repealing laws would mean the government ceding power, while creating new laws provides them with more power.

This new Agreement on Internal Trade will likely have some positive results, but at what cost? It’s clear that the biggest change will be “a strengthened dispute settlement mechanism with increased monetary penalties”… meaning corporations will have increased ability to sue provincial governments for things like an environmental assessment that concludes a project is likely to cause significant and adverse environmental effects.

Investor-state dispute settlement provisions provide corporations with the ability to loot the public purse when they make poor business decisions and hinders governments ability to protect citizens and the environment.

Sources:
1. Provinces negotiating final details of free-trade deal Globe & Mail

2. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 42: The Risks of Investor-State Dispute Settlement michaelgeist.ca

Geopolitics/War, Original, Tyranny

Democratic Party Names Scapegoat in New York Primary Voter Suppression

AlternativeFreePress.com

The purge of over 100,000 Brooklyn voters from the rolls is being pinned on Diane Haslett-Rudiano, the Board of Election’s chief clerk. The establishment is calling the incident “an epic screw-up”, but this is clearly targeted voter suppression driven by malicious intent.

Brooklyn lost 102,717 — or 8% — of its active voters from Nov. 1, 2015, through April 1, 2016, according to state stats. That appears to be a deliberate and successful attempt to purge Bernie Sanders supporters.

Now that the Democratic establishment has named it’s scapegoat, they expect us just to forget about calling it voter suppression. Apparently, we should accept this was just one person’s “epic screw up” and blindly accept Clinton as the Democrat nominee, regardless of whether the process was fair or rigged.

Sources:
NY daily news

Drugs, Original

RCMP ignorant of reality, wasting tax dollars researching useless roadside pot tests

AlternativeFreePress.com

Police across Canada will be testing three roadside devices on suspected drug-impaired drivers, despite the fact that none of the three devices can measure impairment.

It seems the RCMP are either ignorant of, or ignoring reality. Proving that someone has consumed cannabis does not determine if someone is driving while impaired. A recreational user may have a strong enough tolerance to not be impaired, and a medical marijuana user may actually need their medication to drive safely.

Courts in other jurisdictions have already found that testing for Cannabis consumption does not prove impairment. Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled that while state statute makes it illegal for a driver to be impaired by marijuana, the presence of a non-psychoactive compound does not constitute impairment under the law.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party claims to support science, but if that claim is in any way true, they will drop this silly notion that measuring THC levels can determine a driver’s ability.

In 1983 a study by the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) tested drivers on simulators, and concluded that the only statistically significant effect associated with marijuana use was slower driving.

A NHTSA study in 1992 found that marijuana is rarely involved in driving accidents, except when combined with alcohol, concluding, “the THC-only drivers had an [accident] responsibility rate below that of the drug free drivers. While the difference was not statistically significant, there was no indication that cannabis by itself was a cause of fatal crashes.”

A separate NHTSA study from1993 tested Dutch drivers high on THC on real Dutch roads, concluding, “THC’s adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small.”

In 1998 a study by the University of Adelaide and Transport South Australia analyzed blood samples from 2,500 accidents, and found that drivers with cannabis in their system were less likely to cause accidents than those without.

A University of Toronto study from 1999 found that cannabis users typically refrained from passing cars and drove at a more consistent speed than sober drivers.

A 2014 study concluded “Cannabis smoking history plays a major role in cannabinoid detection. These differences may impact clinical and impaired driving drug detection.”

In 2015 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a study concluding that driving after smoking marijuana does not make you more likely to get into a car crash — especially when compared to driving after alcohol consumption.

Source links for all of these studies can be found within our previous articles:

Study Shows THC Blood Tests Can’t Test Impairment

Arizona Supreme Court Rules Cannabis Drug Test Does Not Prove Impairment

Marijuana Doesn’t Make You More Likely To Crash Your Car

Drugs, Health/Environment, Original

Prohibition kills 5 people at music festival in Argentina

AlternativeFreePress.com

At least five people have died and five others are in critically condition caused by drug use at a music festival in Buenos Aires say Argentine health officials.

At the Time Warp festival two people died on Friday, followed by three more deaths in an ambulance or at a hospital.

Repealing prohibition so that people can legally access drugs of verified purity, would likely prevent these types of death. Without a legal market, consumers will continue to be killed by lethal adulterants.

Sources:
The Associated Press