Monkeypox: Here We Go Again
Many people in this country and world are still traumatized from the last disease panic, still avoiding human contact and still masking up. But for most of the world, normalcy is returning, even in the presence of terrible collateral damage.
And at this very moment, there are two major developments.
First, the World Health Organization is right now finalizing a treaty to codify its preeminent place as the oracle of pandemic response, while instituting regulations that codify a lockdown-style response as public-health orthodoxy.
Second, governments and media have seized on another infectious disease to terrify the public. It’s monkeypox, which has been endemic in Africa for a very long time but which seems to be making appearances elsewhere.
And we are seeing the germ game played out in real time once again. Just this morning, the US president announced that “everybody” should be concerned and stay on guard.
These topics and others have been on the lineup this week, along with a report on Brownstone at One Year.
Germophobes to the Left and Right BY STEVE TEMPLETON. With two years of overreaction to and media obsession with the myriad of ways that COVID-19 can kill or permanently disable people, there’s reason to believe a major subset of the population that was faithfully adherent to public health edicts about non-pharmaceutical interventions will remain mentally scarred.
Monkeypox Was a Table-Top Simulation Only Last Year BY MICHAEL SENGER. The global Monkeypox outbreak—occurring on the exact timeline predicted by a biosecurity simulation of a global Monkeypox outbreak a year prior—bears a striking resemblance to the outbreak of COVID-19 just months after Event 201, a simulation of a coronavirus pandemic almost exactly like COVID-19.
Sweden’s Strategy Once Again Proven Correct BY IAN MILLER. France, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain and Italy all had lockdowns, varying levels of vaccine discrimination, mask mandates and strict entry requirements. All fared worse than Sweden. The lockdown and mask apologists simply offered no explanation for this.
Monkeypox: The Next Big Scare BY JORDAN SCHACHTEL. Health authorities in the two continents have thus far identified only a few dozen cases. And while there’s no reason for concern at the moment, here’s what convinced me to put this on your radar. The U.S. government decided to order millions of doses of monkeypox vaccine.
Fighting Windmills: The DOD’s Battle Against Covid BY SCOTT STURMAN. The DOD mindset of applying obsolete information to contemporary, rapidly changing problems threatens the defense of the country more than Covid 19.
Indiana Attorney General Responds to Call for Covid Misinformation BY BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE. Todd Rokita, Indiana Attorney General, has responded with a detailed report on covid misinformation. To assist in the preparation of this report, he called upon Jayanta Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff. The full report was published on May 2, 2022, and submitted to the Surgeon General’s office.
A Primer on the WHO, the Treaty, and its Plans for Pandemic Preparedness BY DAVID BELL. These proposed rules and structures, if adopted, would fundamentally change international public health, moving the center of gravity from common endemic diseases to relatively rare outbreaks of new pathogens, and building an industry around it that will potentially be self-perpetuating.
The FDA’s Audacious Move to Boost Kids Aged 5-11yrs BY MARYANNE DEMASI. Some members have raised concerns that the drug regulator has repeatedly moved ahead with decisions on booster doses without holding open public discussions and say the agency is relying less and less on its independent experts for advice before approving drugs.
The WHO Changes Guidelines to Favor Lockdowns BY WILL JONES. The report says this recommendation will be incorporated into the WHO’s “normative work,” meaning it will be part of official WHO guidance to states in responding to a pandemic. Worse still, it says it’s already being implemented – it doesn’t need a treaty or the agreement of member states to do this, it’s already happening.
Elites Meet to Plan Your Health: The Role of the Council on Foreign Relations BY KILEY HOLLIDAY. Launching CFR’s global health program provided Gates with the opportunity to market his brand of disease prevention to an audience of America’s most powerful people in business, media, law, and government—to convince these people that his vision of global health should be a national priority. And we have seen the results firsthand.
The FDA/WIC Role in the Baby Formula Debacle BY DANIEL KOTZIN. If the FDA and WIC did what they were established to do, instead of devoting an inordinate amount of time, money, and energy to self-promotion and vaccine-promotion, perhaps there wouldn’t be so many babies in America suffering from malnutrition.
What Does the Pandemic Treaty Do? BY MICHAEL SENGER. The Pandemic Treaty is everything the WHO has already been doing—but more of it. So what’s actually at stake if the treaty is passed? Everything. The real significance of the Pandemic Treaty is that its passage is a ratification and approval of everything the world has experienced over the past two years during COVID-19.
The Covid Stories Project BY SAM WALD. Even if the act was open to preserving the experiences of all Americans, we cannot and should not trust the government to accurately document the fallout of policies created by politicians and bureaucrats, many of whom remain in power. The same government that perpetrated these restrictions cannot impartially determine how we remember them.
Lockdowns, Closures, and the Loss of Moral Clarity BY JEFFREY A. TUCKER. Perpetual decline and fall is not inevitable. It is fixable but every powerful force out there, especially mainstream media, seems to stand against that. It is all designed to demoralize us and cause us to give up. We cannot accept this fate. There is still time, providing that we understand what is happening and the grave consequences of letting it all take place without a fight.
Australia: Champion Covidiot BY GIGI FOSTER. No, Australia’s “trust in institutions” has not served it well during this period. What has happened is that we have seen how corrupt and/or incompetent the people in charge of our institutions really are, and – to our horror – how our misplaced trust in those institutions has led to an abject failure of our systems of democratic oversight and accountability.
The Case Against the CDC as We Know It BY MICHAEL BRYANT. That the CDC isn’t telling the truth to Americans on important matters of public health is in plain sight. It is no surprise that polls show public confidence in the CDC plummeting and, in the minds of many, the agency’s once honorable bubble has burst.
Can We Now See that Economics Does Not Diverge from Public Health? BY JEFFREY A. TUCKER. They wrecked social and market functioning and cannot fathom why we have a demoralized population, a mental health crisis, falling financials, soaring inflation, and shortages of goods and services that are essential to life. This is what the experts recommended and yet here we are today.
Congress and the Pandemic Response: An Interview with Thomas Massie BY BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE. In this interview, Congressman Massie shares the inside story of those absolutely critical first weeks of lockdowns, providing a deep and penetrating look into why he believed what he did and what fallout that brought down on him during a national hysteria.
The Memo that Closed the Nation’s Schools BY BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE. “Just watch kids with runny noses and coughing and sneezing and touching one another (especially the younger ones),” the memo says. “You couldn’t design a better system to spread disease. Schools and daycare centers are clearly amplifiers of disease transmission…. We don’t need to exhaust ourselves searching for perfect solutions to address all these challenges associated with the 2nd and 3rd order consequences of school closure.”
Can We Find Our Way Back to Freedom? BY JULIUS RUECHEL. Even the most inalienable of rights will shatter like thin glass if a righteous majority feels morally justified in stampeding over them to reach for some utopia beckoning on the horizon. Even the clearest of principles will be rationalized away if an indebted majority becomes dependent on a morally bankrupt system.