Tag: secrecy

Despite progress in data transparency, the FDA still keeps its data secret

History shows that hiding clinical trial data can be deadly.

Vioxx is a well-known example of how the US drug regulator withheld important information about the harms of the drug for over three years, before it was withdrawn from the market and tens of thousands of people died as a consequence.

Numerous initiatives have been launched over the past two decades to improve access to trial data after it became evident that what was reported in peer-reviewed journals was often cherry-picked and misleading.

Eminent scientists have succeeded in gaining access to trial data from the European and Canadian drug regulators, but a recent analysis published in the Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics, found that the US FDA still lags behind others when it comes to data transparency.

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Top senators believe the US secretly recovered UFOs

Has the U.S. government secretly retrieved exotic craft of “non-human” origin? Newly declassified documents, along with extraordinary legislation, illustrate how two successive Democratic Senate majority leaders appear to have believed so.

Notably, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the late Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) were not alone in their focus on UFOs. The Democratic heavyweights received critical support and encouragement from a bipartisan group of high-profile senators over the years, including former fighter pilot and famed astronaut John Glenn (D-Ohio); Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who observed a UFO as a  World War II pilot; Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), then-chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; 2008 GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.); Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.); Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.).

In late 2011, for example, the top scientist at the Department of Homeland Security met with Lieberman, then chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Reid to discuss the establishment of an ultra-secret UFO program.

As outlined in remarkable detail in newly released documents, the intent of the proposed program was to “gain access to and inventory” UFOs secretly under “investigation in National Laboratories, government organizations and/or contractors.”

From there, the program would engage in “laboratory experimentation” and “scientific investigation” to foster “technology exploitation” of the recovered materials.

In short, Reid and Lieberman were advocating, “with some sense of urgency,” for the establishment of a formal UFO reverse-engineering program.

Startling as it may be, the notion that shadowy elements of the U.S. government or defense contractors secretly possess retrieved UFOs is treated as fact in the documents.

Notably, the Reid- and Lieberman-backed proposal included an “Oral History Initiative” to interview a pre-identified “list of retired, previously highly placed government, armed services, contractor, and intelligence community individuals” with knowledge of the “location of advanced aerospace technology and biological samples.”

Even though the Department of Homeland Security’s top scientist was advocating for the establishment of the UFO program and the “very serious science involved with” it, department leadership ultimately quashed the proposal in late 2011.

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War, Secrecy, and Lies

You know an American war is going poorly when the lies come swiftly, as with the Afghan War, or when it’s hidden under a cloak of secrecy, which is also increasingly true of the Afghan War.

This is nothing new, of course.  Perhaps the best book I read in 2019 is H. Bruce Franklin’s Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War.  Franklin, who served in the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s before becoming an English professor, cultural historian, and an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, is devastating in his critique of the military-industrial complex in this memoir.  I recommend it highly to all Americans who want to wrestle with tough truths.

Let’s consider one example: Franklin’s dismissal of the “stab-in-the-back” myth (or Rambo myth) that came out of the Vietnam War.  This was the idea the U.S. military could have won in Vietnam, and was indeed close to winning, only to be betrayed by weak-kneed politicians and the anti-war movement.

Franklin demolishes this argument in a paragraph that is worth reading again and again:

One widespread cultural fantasy about the Vietnam War blames the antiwar movement for forcing the military to “fight with one arm tied behind its back.”  But this belief stands reality on its head.  The American people, disgusted and angry about the Korean War, were in no mood to support a war in Vietnam.  Staunch domestic opposition kept Washington from going in overtly.  So it went covertly.  It thereby committed itself to a policy based on deception, sneaking around, and hiding its actions from the American people.  The U.S. government thus created the internal nemesis of its own war: the antiwar movement.  That movement was inspired and empowered not just by our outrage against the war [but] also by the lies about the war, lies necessitated by the war, coming from our government and propagated by the media.  Although it was the Vietnamese who defeated the United States, ultimately it was the antiwar movement, especially within the armed forces, that finally in 1973 forced Washington to accept, at long last, the terms of the 1954 Geneva Accords, and to sign a peace treaty that included, word for word, every major demand made by the National Liberation Front (the so-called Viet Cong) back in 1969…

The truth was that for three decades our nation had sponsored and then waged a genocidal war against a people and a nation that had never done anything to us except ask for our friendship and support [during and after World War II].

This is well and strongly put.  The American people had no interest in intervening in Vietnam in the 1950s; the Korean debacle had been enough.  But the U.S. government intervened anyway, lying about its involvement until it could no longer lie.  Then a bigger lie was concocted, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to justify a larger commitment of troops in the mid-1960s, which led to near-genocidal destruction in Vietnam.

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Proof aliens exist? Federal agencies must now deliver all UFO reports for public disclosure – including classified material

Federal agencies have until October 20th to deliver every document, audio and video they have about UFOs to the US government for distribution to the public.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) issued the instructions this month — putting into action the UFO disclosure amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), as signed into law last December.

The guidelines reveal the latest strategy to compel unwilling parts of the US military and the intelligence community into revealing everything they know about the mysterious airborne events, now called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). 

The move comes two months after the Pentagon‘s UFO office issued a controversial report to Congress, claiming it ‘found no verifiable evidence that the US government or private industry has ever had access to extraterrestrial technology.’

NARA archivists have issued guidelines mandating that all UFO or UAP documents be delivered in electronic formats with detailed metadata for inclusion a new searchable database to be made available to the public. 

The database will include classified material that the NARA will store independently, safe keeping the records until they can be declassified for the public.

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House Takes Steps to Hold Attorney General in Contempt

Two top lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on May 13 took steps to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recommended the lower chamber hold Mr. Garland, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), meanwhile, scheduled a hearing this week to advance a resolution to hold Mr. Garland in contempt.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) did not respond to a request for comment.

The actions come after the DOJ, Mr. Garland’s department, declined to provide the House with audio tapes of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, despite subpoenas being issued for the tapes. The department also refused to hand over recordings of President Biden’s ghostwriter speaking with Mr. Hur, who was appointed by Mr. Garland.

Mr. Hur said in his report that President Biden intentionally kept and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency ended. President Biden repeatedly consulted the documents after leaving office for a book, one of the “strong motivations” to not comply with rules governing retention of materials marked classified, according to the report.

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Senator Tom Cotton Demands Secret Service Release ALL Info Related to Cocaine Found in White House

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is demanding that the Secret Service turn over all information regarding the cocaine recently discovered in the White House.

The story about where the drugs were found keeps changing and Tom Cotton rightly calls this a national security issue. If someone can sneak illegal drugs into the White House, what is to stop someone from sneaking a much more dangerous substance into the building?

The media is preparing to drop the story and move on because they want to protect Biden. Cotton is not letting it go away.

The Daily Mail reports:

Top Republican Senator demands Secret Service release ALL information on White House cocaine – including lists of guests who avoided screenings – to determine if President’s home is secure

Sen. Tom Cotton wants more clarity after the Secret Service found cocaine inside the White House over the weekend – and is demanding Americans and Congress receive their well-deserved answers.

Cotton, the top Republican on the Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism Subcommittee, wrote a letter to U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Director Kimberly Cheatle on Wednesday with six questions he wants answered.

He demanded that Cheatle schedule a briefing with his staff.

‘Congress and the American people deserve to know how cocaine got into the White House,’ he said in a tweet along with an image of the letter…

‘According to public reports, the Secret Service has not yet confirmed where in the West Wing the cocaine was found,’ Cotton wrote in his Wednesday letter. ‘I urge you to release that information quickly, as the American people deserve to know whether illicit drugs were found in an area where confidential information is exchanged.’

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NIH Refuses To Release Details Of COVID-19 Vaccine Royalty Agreement

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is refusing to release additional information about an agreement it reached over a COVID-19 vaccine that has earned it at least $400 million.

The NIH declined to provide any materials in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Epoch Times.

“The NIH withholds the entirety of the records as they are protected from release,” Gorka Garcia-Malene, an NIH officer, told The Epoch Times in a letter.

She cited an exemption outlined in the act that allows government agencies to partially or fully withhold information.

“In this case, exemption 3 incorporates 35 U.S.C. 209 (f), which reads in relevant part, ‘No Federal agency shall grant any license under a patent or patent application on a federally owned invention unless the person requesting the license has supplied the agency with a plan for development or marketing of the invention, except that any such plan shall be treated by the Federal agency as commercial and financial information obtained from a person and privileged and confidential and not subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5,’” Ms. Garcia-Malene wrote.

“Exemption 4 protects from disclosure trade secrets and commercial or financial information that is privileged and confidential,” she added.

In February 2023, Moderna announced that it had paid $400 million to the NIH and would make additional payments in the future as part of a licensing agreement for spike proteins used in the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. The Epoch Times obtained a copy of the contract, which confirmed the payment but redacted details of the future payments.

The Epoch Times then lodged a new request, seeking more details about the future payments, which are said to be based on how many COVID-19 vaccines are sold.

Ms. Garcia-Malene was responding to the new request.

James Love, director of the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International, said the information should be made public.

“The NIH put out several press statements about the royalty dispute with Moderna, and they should not now claim it is some secret confidential information. And when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, the public interest in transparency is large too,” Mr. Love told The Epoch Times in an email.

“There are a lot of NIH officials who resent transparency,” he added.

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Publicly Funded LGBT Group Asks Teachers Not To Inform Parents About ‘Transitioning’ Children

A government funded LGBT lobbyist ‘charity’ is encouraging teachers in Scottish schools not to communicate with parents if their children express a desire to ‘transition’ to a different gender.

The Telegraph reports that one school issued such guidance to teachers based on the ‘inclusion scheme’ advice of LGBT Youth Scotland, a radical activist group that receives almost £1 million per year in taxpayer funding.

In a second school, concerns were raised that there could be “problems” with parents discovering their child had changed their name when reports were sent home.

The report notes that more than half the secondary schools in the country are signed up to the LGBT Youth Scotland scheme, costing £850 and offering “charter status” if schools abide by their ‘inclusivity’ guidelines.

A further 40 primary schools in the country are signed up. Primary schools are for children aged 4-11.

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Why Nashville school shooting victims’ families don’t want the handwritten confession of killer Audrey Hale from ever being released

Grieving families of the Covenant Christian School shooter’s six victims have claimed they own copyright of the full handwritten confession of the killer.

They are arguing before a Nashville judge that the confession, and other documents, should never be publicly released because no good can come from it. 

The families’ claims comes as both city police and the FBI fight to stop the confession, and potentially information about mysterious notes and numbers found on Hale’s body, from being made public. 

Audrey Hale, 28, was a transgender artist, who identified as a male named Aiden, shot her way into the Tennessee elementary school in March 2023, killing three adults and three nine-year-olds, before responding officers killed her.

Following the shooting, Nashville’s Metropolitan Police Chief John Drake said his force had recovered the shooter’s manifesto, as well as hand-drawn maps in her car, and said they would eventually be made public. 

Now, both city police and the FBI say the material shouldn’t be released because the information could damage any potential  investigation.

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Fauci Adviser Secretly Messaged Zoologist Who Funneled Money to Chinese Lab: Emails

A top adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci secretly messaged a zoologist who funneled money from Dr. Fauci’s agency to a laboratory in the Chinese city where the first COVID-19 cases appeared, according to newly disclosed emails.

Dr. David Morens, the adviser, sent at least four messages to Peter Daszak, the zoologist, the emails show. Images of the email headers were obtained and released by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Dr. Morens, who was messaging from his personal email, wrote to Mr. Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, and others on April 26, 2020; July 13, 2020; and Feb. 20, 2022. At least three of the messages were about a grant from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to EcoHealth to study bat coronaviruses. Money from that grant was funneled by EcoHealth to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Please read and acknowledge receipt — Actions needed regarding 2R01AI110964-06,” the subject line of one message stated.

In another, Dr. Morens was responding after Mr. Daszak told him an NIAID grant officer said “he’s unable to talk with me anymore about our suspended [grant].”

The grant was suspended on April 24, 2020, by former President Donald Trump’s administration after the COVID-19 pandemic started. President Joe Biden’s administration restored funding in 2023, although it suspended and later banned the Wuhan lab from receiving money.

An inspector general determined in a 2023 report that EcoHealth and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) failed to properly monitor research being done in Wuhan. EcoHealth also failed to obtain documents the NIH requested following the emergence of COVID-19, which EcoHealth blamed on a lack of cooperation from Chinese officials. The NIH is the NIAID’s parent agency.

Dr. Morens in a previously released email said that he “retained very few emails or documents” on the origins of COVID-19 “and continue to request that correspondence on sensitive issues be sent to me at my gmail address.”

He said in another email that “I try to always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly“ and that ”I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.”

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