Posts Tagged Corruption in Government
Amish Farmer Raided (again)
Feb 23
AMISH FARMER RAIDED (again) 2024 | Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture v Amos Miller Organic Farm
PREVIOUS VIDEOS ON AMOS MILLER FEDERAL CASE:
https://youtu.be/JXfkX6_jM9g?si=Brcpq…
https://youtu.be/avyYvd_Ffs8?si=bjIKY…
CONTACT THE SHEPHERDESS: shepherdess(at)shepherdess.com
Videos Cited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRS7e…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZES2b…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHugZ…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfWk_…
Articles Cited:
https://www.thelancasterpatriot.com/p…
https://www.thelancasterpatriot.com/s…
https://www.thelancasterpatriot.com/s…
Assist with Amos Miller’s Legal Fees:
https://www.givesendgo.com/supportamo…
Timestamps:
0:00: Recap of Miller Organic Farm Federal Lawsuit
2:55: 2024 State Raids and Sues Miller Organic Farm in 2024
Pennsylvania: State Raids Amish Organic Farm that Sells Raw Foods to Private Buyers
Pennsylvania State Troopers executed a search warrant and confiscated products at the Miller’s Organic Farm owned by Amish farmer Amos Miller. Miller’s all-natural farm, which only sells to people in its private member association (PMA), has been targeted by state and federal agencies in recent years for operating outside of agricultural regulations. The Millers do not pasteurize their raw milk, they don’t inject their animals with vaccines or other chemicals, and they don’t use fertilizer to grow crops. Raw milk from the Millers Organic Farm was blamed in 2016 for a listeria “outbreak” in 2014 that sickened one person in California and another in Florida, with the latter dying supposedly from the illness. Activists are concerned that the government is interfering in transactions between sellers of nutritious raw foods and private buyers who are in a private membership association (PMA) that operates in the private domain versus the public domain.
Footage out of Bird-in-Hand filmed by The Lancaster Patriot’s Chris Hume shows state agents executing a search warrant and confiscating products at the Millers Organic Farm owned by Amish farmer Amos Miller.
As reported by Hume on a GoFundMe page created in support of the Millers, “Under the watchful eye of Pennsylvania State Troopers, and the backing of a search warrant, agents of the state entered Amos’ property, spent hours inside his buildings, and then hauled off some of his products. The remaining products they are forbidding Amos from selling, effectively ending his business until further notice.”
While a precise reason for the latest raid has not been given, Miller’s all-natural farm, which only sells to people in its private member association, has been under the microscope of state and federal agencies in recent years for operating outside of agricultural regulations.
For instance, the Millers do not pasteurize their raw milk, they don’t inject their animals with vaccines or other chemicals, and they don’t use fertilizer to grow crops.
“The farm raises its animals and other pure foods the way nature intended and we are proud to be entirely chemical, cruelty and GMO-free,” the Miller’s website states.
“The animals are born and raised without antibiotics or hormones and they spend their entire lives naturally and stress-free out on pasture. All of the farm’s food is traceable, pure and grown on nutrient dense soil, under traditional time-honored methods.”
Raw milk from the Millers Organic Farm was blamed in 2016 for a listeria “outbreak” in 2014 that sickened one person in California and another in Florida, with the latter dying supposedly from the illness.
Miller has also been targeted by the USDA for slaughtering cattle without the proper federal permits and inspections, leading to fines and threats of imprisonment.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on X Thursday criticized the state for raiding the farm, writing, “With all of the problems in society today, this is what the government wants to focus on? A man growing food for informed customers, without participating in the industrial meat/milk complex?” adding, “It’s shameful that it’s come to this.”
Multiple government agencies executed a search warrant on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania on Thursday. Government employees are seen on video hauling away several coolers of products from the organic farm. However, the lawyer for the farmer in question argues that the seizure of food was “patently illegal.”
Three Pennsylvania State Troopers and seven employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture conducted an hours-long search of a farm in Upper Leacock Township. Police are seen on video ordering a reporter from the Lancaster Patriot to exit the building while the search was conducted.
Video of the raid shows government employees seizing multiple coolers from the Lancaster County dairy farm owned by Amos Miller.
The news outlet reported that the search warrant was issued by Magisterial District Judge B. Denise Commins on Wednesday. The search warrant purportedly included an affidavit of probable cause completed by Sheri Morris – acting Bureau director of food safety with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture said it executed a search warrant as part of an investigation into two food-borne illness cases, according to Lancaster Online.
The potential cases stem from two underage individuals in Michigan and New York suffering illness after consuming raw eggnog and other raw dairy products from the Miller Organic Farm. Health officials in both states noted that the sickened individuals tested positive for Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.
The raid of Miller’s farm “sought, among other things, illegal raw milk and raw milk products, including eggnog,” the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture said.
The government agency declared, “Miller has never licensed his retail operation.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said of the raid on the X social media platform: “Looks like Amos Miller’s farm is being raided. With all of the problems in society today, this is what the government wants to focus on? A man growing food for informed customers, without participating in the industrial meat/milk complex? It’s shameful that it’s come to this.”
Massie is the co-author of the PRIME Act bill that “makes it easier for small farms and ranches to serve consumers.”
“Consumers want to know where their food comes from, what it contains, and how it’s processed. Yet, federal inspection requirements make it difficult to purchase food from trusted, local farmers,” Massie said. “It is time to open our markets to give producers the freedom to succeed and consumers the freedom to choose.”
Miller’s attorney, Robert Barnes, proclaimed that the seizure of food was “patently illegal.”
Today, the Department of Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania suddenly came, without notice, raided Amos’ farm, and detained everything Amos had in the farm’s freezer. They did so in a lawless manner, without appropriate authority, in violation of their own rules and regulations, despite never objecting to the prior resolutions reached with the federal government, and despite a complete failure by the state to even reach out to Amos’ known counsel, Robert Barnes. The state’s own rules require advance notice, reasonable time frames for inspections, and a showing of credentials, none of which occurred here. Instead, the state unlawfully obtained a search warrant, based on materially false statements in an affidavit by a high-ranking state official in an agency with a known grievance against independent farmers like Amos, and, after the raid and finding no evidence of wrongdoing, then illegally ordered detained every item of food in one of Amos Miller’s coolers, including buffalo meat not even subject to federal regulation. The detention order is patently illegal under Pennsylvania law. Despite the constant harassment, Amos will continue to do all he legally can to provide the food his members deeply need. Amos thanks you for your continued support at this critical time for food freedom in America.
Barnies issued a statement after the search was conducted:
Miller has been in legal battles with the government for years.
In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration scrutinized Amos over selling raw milk.
Two individuals suffered from listeriosis – one of whom died. Health officials traced the raw milk back to Miller’s Organic Farm.
The USDA came down hard on Miller for slaughtering farm animals without federal inspections of his operation. Miller argued that his farm only sold the meat to those with private club memberships to Miller’s Organic Farm, which he believed exempted him to federal regulations.
According to the Foundation for Economic Education, “The story reached a climax in March 2022 when a federal judge ordered Miller to cease and desist all meat sales and authorized armed U.S. Marshals to use ‘reasonable force’ to gain access to Miller’s farm so a court expert could inspect it.”
The expert and the U.S. Marshals took an inventory of all Miller’s meat on the premises.
Federal inspectors continue to investigate Miller’s farm every few months. However, Miller has often been in a standoff with the federal government over allowing inspectors on his farm.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil action requiring Miller’s farm to comply with federal meat and poultry food safety statutes.
The Amish farmer initially faced fines from the government of $250,000.
Amish Farm Fined $250K, Facing Jail Time for Humanely Raising and Selling Food to Willing Customers
Mar 1
Amish Farm Fined $250K, Facing Jail Time for Humanely Raising and Selling Food to Willing Customers
Amos Miller and his family has been running Miller’s Organic Farm for over a century, providing willing and highly satisfied customers with milk, chicken, beef, and eggs. All of the food coming from Miller’s farm is beyond organic, humanely raised in a non-factory setting and the animals treated with dignity as they spend their entire lives naturally and stress-free out on pasture. By any moral standard, Miller’s farm is the leading example of what farming in America should look like.
Unfortunately, because Miller uses humane techniques and treats his animals well, this has put a government target on his back. Recently, federal Judge Edward G. Smith, imposed sanctions on his farm, ordering the family farm to pay over $250,000 in fines or go to jail. Because the Millers don’t use the USDA factory farm methods, this makes them non-compliant and thus an enemy of the state.
“In order to effect defendants’ future compliance, by making them aware of the seriousness of their violations and the consequences for future violations, defendants are ordered to pay to the United States, within 30 days of the date of entry of this Order — and pursuant to written instructions that the United States will provide to defendants—a fine of $250,000, or face further monetary and other penalties, possibly including imprisonment of Amos Miller,” the order says.
“Smith also ordered Miller to reimburse USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for its enforcement costs, totaling $14,436.26. Miller has 60 days to make the reimbursement,” according to Food Safety News.
According to the USDA, the farm is not complying with USDA regulations on how to label and process their food. But Amos says the methods which they use pre-date the USDA and the farm and its members have a right to free assembly and the right to choose how their food is processed without the USDA dictating to them on how to do it.
Amos Miller and his family has been running Miller’s Organic Farm for over a century, providing willing and highly satisfied customers with milk, chicken, beef, and eggs. All of the food coming from Miller’s farm is beyond organic, humanely raised in a non-factory setting and the animals treated with dignity as they spend their entire lives naturally and stress-free out on pasture. By any moral standard, Miller’s farm is the leading example of what farming in America should look like.
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Unfortunately, because Miller uses humane techniques and treats his animals well, this has put a government target on his back. Recently, federal Judge Edward G. Smith, imposed sanctions on his farm, ordering the family farm to pay over $250,000 in fines or go to jail. Because the Millers don’t use the USDA factory farm methods, this makes them non-compliant and thus an enemy of the state.
“In order to effect defendants’ future compliance, by making them aware of the seriousness of their violations and the consequences for future violations, defendants are ordered to pay to the United States, within 30 days of the date of entry of this Order — and pursuant to written instructions that the United States will provide to defendants—a fine of $250,000, or face further monetary and other penalties, possibly including imprisonment of Amos Miller,” the order says.
“Smith also ordered Miller to reimburse USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for its enforcement costs, totaling $14,436.26. Miller has 60 days to make the reimbursement,” according to Food Safety News.
According to the USDA, the farm is not complying with USDA regulations on how to label and process their food. But Amos says the methods which they use pre-date the USDA and the farm and its members have a right to free assembly and the right to choose how their food is processed without the USDA dictating to them on how to do it.
To be clear, not a single one of the farm’s customers has filed a complaint. The USDA is unilaterally going after the farm for failing to use their approved slaughter houses which stress and harm the animals before they are killed. Even if an animal is pasture raised and cared for, the USDA requires it be loaded into a truck and hauled to one of its approved slaughter houses where it spends its last moments alive surrounded by death and corralled into tiny pens with other animals before being killed by a person who never raised it.
On the contrary, Amos, who is Amish, prays with the animals before they are sacrificed in peace on his farm.
According to the farm, their human and chemical-free methods are the reason people seek them out and join their private food club.
The ever increasing environmental toxins from the overuse of synthetic chemicals makes modern farming very questionable. The ethical part, consuming animal foods, leaves doubts in the minds of many. Members of our community have joined us because they have chemical sensitivities and only started to heal and thrive once they began consuming REAL nutrient dense foods. They depend on our farm foods. Members with a vegan background started enjoying animal foods again once they realized that the death of an animal doesn’t have to be cruel.
Now, Amos has been forced into a corner, facing the possibility of spending time behind bars and losing the farm which has been in his family for decades. The farm has to spend tens of thousands on an attorney to fight for them in court and have since launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise those funds.
If you’d like to help this farm continue to provide safe and human food to his many willing and happy customers, you can do so here.
Source/Credit : https://thefreethoughtproject.com/
Dr. W. Ron DeHaven is CEO of the American Veterinary Medical Assn.
USDA Sec. Vilsack announced during the morning of Feb. 5 that NAIS was over, ended, no more.
His customary emotionless announcement was fairly brief, but the detailed USDA Factsheet (Click here for factsheet) released simultaneously required seven pages of small print describing the animal ID “will do’s” and “won’t do’s”–all of which will be enforced at some future date in a to-be-determined manner.
The New York Times reported this based on information from an “unidentified USDA informant.”
At once thousands of emails flew from around the globe with nearly as much excitement outside the US as the home land.
Ranch and cattle producers smiled and nodded.
But it seems the victory may be short lived.
Now comes a lone government employee saying he cannot endorse Sec. Vilsack’s new announcement.
Dr. W. Ron DeHaven is CEO of the American Veterinary Medical Assn. The US veterinarian head count is 100,728 licensed practitioners; of which 930 are Federal Veterinarians, employed by APHIS, and 23 are Homeland Security staff veterinarians.
DeHaven has always been a verbal supporter of mandatory NAIS. He says Vilsack “… has been caving to this public resistance…”
DeHaven’s “public resistance” is the overwhelming majority of livestock producers who opposed the NAIS for a list of reasons that would choke a giraffe.
According to DeHaven, the mag-daddy of veterinarians, none of these “resistors” should have had any voice in the NAIS’s demise, and Secretary Vilsack should not have listened to them.
One gets the feeling he would like to see Vilsack go away, and himself take control.
Then again, DeHaven has shot his mouth off before, under oath. He showed his out-of-touch thinking March 11, 2009 when he testified to the House Committee on Agriculture as a hand picked presenter. He stated, “If the US is to remain competitive or grow export markets, an effective NAIS will be required.”
Evidently unknown to DeHaven, the US has been a net importer of beef for the last 21 years. Last year, the country exported $2,183,977,168 in beef and imported $4,857,454,008.
We haven’t produced enough beef to feed the nation in 21 years, yet DeHaven confidently testified that future exports are imperative.
USDA released their NAIS Fact Sheet February 5. It states:
“What is certain is that animal disease traceability will be required for animals moving in interstate commerce. . .To ensure interstate compatibility and connectivity, APHIS will work with States and Tribal Nations in establishing standards and guidelines where free or low-cost tags will be incorporated as options.”
DeHaven says the AVMA cannot endorse the Vilsack new approach:
“As I understand it, they will let each state and tribal nation more or less develop their own program? So, I’m concerned about interoperability between fifty or more different systems. Will one state be able to talk to another state as an animal moves through interstate commerce?”
DeHaven’s Audio: “Click Here”
From this statement, it would appear DeHaven has never processed an interstate veterinarian animal health certificate.
Here is how it works, and has for every veterinarian’s lifetime:
- An animal is sold into another state.
- The state receiving the animal has “states rights” and determines the rules of entry.
- The owner of the sold animal contacts their local veterinarian.
- The vet has an “Entry Permit Acquisition Book” with phone numbers of every US state and tribe, provided by the USDA.
- They call the state vet office of destination, talk to an authorized person, receive the required protocol, do what ever health tests are required for entry, complete a standard animal health certificate, receive a permit number to enter the state, and the critter is ready to travel.
This health certificate has four copies of different colors.
- One copy goes with the hauler,
- One stays with the local vet,
- Two go to the state vet of origin, and
- They forward one copy on to the receiving state vet.
The receiving state has a staff of people who check these incoming certificates every day, and may actually go and inspect the animals after arrival if they have concern.
It has always been required that a permanent ID be on each departing critter. This can be a:
- Fire brand number,
- Tattoo,
- Cheap government metal ear clip,
- OCV clip, or
- Other approved ID.
This has been established and is already done.
No animals travel across state lines without ID and a health certificate, and nothing is new about that.
This is a system that has worked for a lifetime, and Vilsack understands the total cost to USDA is zero to continue this process.
This system has been used successfully during every major outbreak of livestock disease in our history.
Currently a huge weight of mistrust hangs over DeHaven, Vilsack, and the USDA. Vilsack says he is well aware of “. . .the downward confidence level NAIS has caused.”
The attempt to shove NAIS down the throat of every livestock producer in the U.S. will-not-be-forgotten, and the USDA may try to resurrect and rename it again–the Every Animal Traceability Tax, (EATT), or the No Cow Left Behind (NCLB)–but the results will be the same.
And another bureaucrat like DeHaven will stand up before some Congressional committee and pretend there is this huge, dangerous, animal disease mountain to climb and that without a NAIS, the food safety of the nation will be imperiled.
Hopefully, that bureaucrat will have enough sense to know we already have a successful interstate commerce system in place, and that all it takes for a producer to comply is to make a phone call to the destination state and do what the receiving state asks.
It’s that simple.
USDA Pretends to Kill NAIS
Feb 10
USDA Signals NAIS is Dead
2/8/2010
 |
| Max Thornsberry |
After a long-fought six-year battle, independent cattle producers have finally succeeded in stopping the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which was an onerous plan conceived by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and promoted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), domestic and multinational ear tag companies, as well as multinational meat packers and their closely aligned trade associations.
The battle was extremely lopsided. USDA had millions of dollars of taxpayer money — over $140 million to be precise — to develop and promote NAIS and to persuade state departments of agriculture and cattle industry trade associations to recruit as many independent cattle producers as possible into the ill-fated NAIS program. According to the Web site www.usaspending.gov, the National Cattlemen’s Foundation, part of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), received over $2.1 million from the federal government in 2008 to promote NAIS.
Armed with millions of dollars and six years worth of joint government and processing-industry planning, how did NAIS get stopped?
The answer is that NAIS was stopped by the persistent, relentless pressure applied by a handful of non-conventional organizations that exclusively represented the interests of cattle farmers and ranchers, not the interests of the industrialized sectors of the U.S. beef supply chain. This was a David versus Goliath battle in which David won and the interests of independent cattle producers came out on top.
These recent victories by independent cattle producers, with far less political clout and economic power than their conventional beef industry trade association counterparts, strongly suggests that there remains a genuine reason for hope that independent cattle producers can reverse the present course of their industry — a course that is fast leading toward more and more corporate control over the U.S. cattle industry by beef packers that are capturing control over the live cattle supply chain, just as they have already captured control over both the poultry and hog supply chains.
The beef packers are now focusing their efforts on the feeding sector of the cattle industry by purchasing more and more feedlots (JBS recently purchased the nation’s largest feedlot company, Five Rivers Ranch Cattle Feeding, L.L.C.) and gaining increased control over the fed cattle market through the use of new cattle procurement tools, such as certain marketing agreements and formula-type contracts that effectively reduce the competitiveness of the fed cattle cash market.
As with every major policy issue victory, the real work begins now.
Now that NAIS has been scrapped, a new program needs to be developed to achieve improvements in the United States’ ability to quickly contain and control animal diseases. Independent cattle producers must remain directly involved in the development of this new program to ensure that it does not infringe upon their rights and privileges as did NAIS.
It is encouraging that when Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced he was going to pursue a new approach to animal disease traceability, he also announced that the U.S. must strengthen its import controls to prevent the introduction of animal diseases at our borders. This is a high priority for independent cattle producers who intrinsically understand that we cannot continue importing diseases like BSE, bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis if we desire to maintain our industry’s reputation of producing the healthiest cattle in the world — a reputation that is the U.S. cattle industry’s competitive advantage in both the domestic market and the global market.
I encourage every cattle producer to take a new look at the relatively new organizations that have amassed uncanny successes for independent cattle producers despite seemingly impossible odds. Each of the organizations that brought us to where we’re at today is not likely to lead us in a new direction. But some of these new organizations will and they need your support to continue winning their fight to restore for the U.S. cattle industry the opportunity for U.S. cattle producers to maintain independent and profitable cattle-producing businesses all across the United States.
The future of the U.S. cattle industry is in your hands and will be determined by which organization you choose to support.
The NAIS that USDA was attempting to force down the throats of independent U.S. cattle producers, utilizing our own tax dollars, would have completely changed the way cattle farmers and ranchers do business.
While obtaining a premises ID number — the first step to a nationwide NAIS — required no effort, the second and third steps in the onerous WTO-mandated system would have been costly, difficult, and, I believe, would have generated rebellion on the range. Reporting the movement of every animal, once it left its birth farm of origin, was a completely unworkable system for producers, especially those operating in our most populous cow states, where the average cowherd size is 30 to 40 mother cows.
Imagine having to get your cattle in a chute, read the tags electronically, and report the numbers to USDA every time you moved a set of calves to another pasture, your Dad’s place, or sent a group of calves to the sale barn. Not only were you going to be required to read the tags electronically, but you were going to be required to report the tag numbers to the appropriate authorities within 48 hours of that movement, or you would be out of compliance and subject to enforcement fines: A range rebellion in the making, and completely unnecessary for a first world country like the United States.
At least for the time-being, the government has listened to the people. A spike has been driven into the heart of a one-world government’s dictatorial rule.
Maybe our Constitution is not dead?
Note: NAIS has won the award for 2009’s most DASTARDLY USDA IDEA. In Ag Sec Vilsack’s listening sessions, designed to find some common ground of appreciation for the USDA brain child, the bribe-riddled NAIS found accumulations of increasing retch with each of 16 town hall style meetings. Livestock people increased dislike with each interpretive spin from USDA. Although the livestock press, USDA state veterinarians and USDA universities defend full-blown NAIS, livestock producers were not willing to relinquish their meager profits for the red tape of a new government enforcement program.
When NAIS was not palatable federally, the USDA split the troops and provided over $150,000,000 in incentives for each state to take NAIS as a state enforcement project. When that costly idea slammed head-on to more resistance, in court and otherwise, now the USDA troops are dividing more. NAIS surveillance is becoming mandatory for certain disease studies. To try and forget the flawed thought of NAIS, new names are now being invented like “animal ID”, “information systems”, “food safety”, “animal health emergency management”, “animal security” and a host of other invented terms, just to sell the same old NAIS enforcement.
Beyond the millions spent to swallow NAIS, now many more millions are being spent to huddle government employees around new brain schemes to sugar-coat livestock surveillance enforcements. The article below is filled with costly processes that will be paid for by livestock owners and create more government jobs.
At a unique time in the history of agriculture production, when cost of goods are increasing, profits are reducing, the USDA is working at mach-speed to increase red tape and cost of doing business. Now, here it comes again, “One Health.”
NIAA meeting examines ‘One Health’
By Drovers news source | Monday, January 04, 2010
“One Health: Implications for Animal Agriculture” is the theme of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA), March 15-17 in Kansas City, Mo.
“One Health is a worldwide initiative focused on the interdependencies of human, animal and ecosystem health, and, with this concept comes significantly expanded roles and expectations placed on animal agriculture and professionals within animal agriculture,” states Dr. Tony Forshey, co-chair of NIAA’s Annual Meeting. “The general sessions and committee meetings at NIAA’s Annual Meeting will explore how the initiative may impact the various species and segments within production animal agriculture and animal health management.”
NIAA’s opening general session speakers will look at how the One Health initiative and strategies shift the focus from surveillance to intervention and prevention and how challenges need to be faced collectively rather than in individual silos and disciplines. The lineup of speakers will represent active members on the One Health Commission, representatives from the veterinary and human health community and representatives of animal agriculture.
NIAA’s 11 species-based and issue-based committees–which are open to NIAA members and non-members–will meet on Tuesday afternoon, March 16, and Wednesday, March 17. Issue-based committee meetings include animal care, animal health emergency management, animal health and international trade, animal production food safety and security, emerging diseases, and animal identification and information systems. Species-based committees include cattle, swine, poultry, equine, and sheep and goat. Each committee meeting features its own line-up of nationally recognized speakers.
“NIAA’s annual meeting is an ideal place for producers, animal health and management professionals, animal agriculture extension specialists and all of those involved in animal agriculture–cattle, swine, sheep, goats, poultry and equine–to gather and become better informed and involved regarding One Health,” Forshey adds.
A schedule of events for NIAA’s 2010 annual meeting, meeting registration, list of NIAA committees and hotel information are available at the NIAA Web site. Individuals are also welcome to call NIAA at (719) 538-8843 for information.
Ed note: Found this article today and was amazed that the facts are all just laid out bare. Where is the news media on this story. Just yesterday, I saw on Breitbart that the Swine Flu has become such a pandemic that 1 in 6 people in the US have ALREADY had it according to the CDC.
How bad can a pandemic be if you have the disease and don’t even know it? Get over it naturally in a few days, and the death loss is no greater than the average flu?
I would say that the pandemic scare was a bunch of hokum peddled by nanny-state government bureaucrats who endlessly try to justify their jobs by micromanaging our lives.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CGKOEO0&show_article=1
WHO ‘Mr Flu’ under investigation
for gross conflict of interest
author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order
by F. William Engdahl
December 8, 2009
The man with the nickname “Dr Flu”, Professor Albert Osterhaus, of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam Holland has been named by Dutch media researchers as the person at the center of the worldwide Swine Flu H1N1 Influenza A 2009 pandemic hysteria. Not only is Osterhaus the connecting person in an international network that has been described as the Pharma Mafia, he is THE key advisor to WHO on influenza and is intimately positioned to personally profit from the billions of euros in vaccines allegedly aimed at H1N1.
Earlier this year the Second Chamber of the Netherland Parliament undertook an investigation into alleged conflicts of interest and financial improprieties of the well-known Dr. Osterhaus. Outside Holland and a mention at the time in the Dutch media, the only note of the sensational investigation into Osterhaus’ business affairs came in a tiny note in the respected British magazine, Science.
Osterhaus’s credentials and expertise in his field were not in question. What is according to a short report published by the journal Science, are his links to corporate interests that stand to potentially profit from the swine flu pandemic. Science carried the following brief note in its October 16 2009 issue about Osterhaus:
“ For the past 6 months, one could barely switch on the television in the Netherlands without seeing the face of famed virus hunter Albert Osterhaus talking about the swine flu pandemic. Or so it has seemed. Osterhaus, who runs an internationally renowned virus lab at Erasmus Medical Center, has been Mr. Flu. But last week, his reputation took a nosedive after it was alleged that he has been stoking pandemic fears to promote his own business interests in vaccine development. As Science went to press, the Dutch House of Representatives had even slated an emergency debate about the matter.”1
On November 3, 2009 it appeared that Osterhaus emerged with at least the damage somewhat under control. An updated Science blog noted, “The House of Representatives of the Netherlands today rejected a motion asking the government to sever all ties with virologist Albert Osterhaus of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who had been accused of conflicts of interest in his role as a government adviser. But Dutch health minister Ab Klink, meanwhile, announced a “Sunshine Act” compelling scientists to disclose their financial ties to companies.” 2
The Minister, Ab Klink, reportedly a personal friend of Osterhaus,3 subsequently issued a statement on the ministry’s website, claiming that Osterhaus was but one of many scientific advisers to the ministry on vaccines for H1N1, and that the Ministry “knew” about the financial interests of Osterhaus.4 Nothing out of the ordinary, merely pursuit of science and public health so it seemed.
More careful investigation into the Osterhaus Affair suggests that the world-renowned Dutch Virologist may be at the very center of a multi-billion Euro pandemic fraud which has used human beings in effect as human guinea pigs with untested vaccines and in cases now emerging resulting in deaths or severe bodily paralysis or injury.
The ‘Bird Shit Hoax’
Albert Osterhaus is no small fish. He stands at the global nexus of every major virus panic of the past two decades from the mysterious SARS deaths in HongKong, where current WHO Director Margaret Chan got her start in her career as a local health official. According to his official bio at the European Commission, Osterhaus was engaged in April 2003, at the height of the panic over SARS (Severe Acquired Respiratory Syndrome) in Hong Kong. The EU report states, “he again showed his skill at moving fast to tackle a serious problem. Within three weeks he had proved that the disease was caused by a newly discovered coronavirus that resides in civet cats, other carnivorous animals or bats.” 5
Then Osterhaus moved on, this time publicizing dangers of what he claimed was H5N1 Avian Flu. In 1997 he already began sounding the alarm following the death in Hong Kong of a three-year-old who Osterhaus learned had had direct contact with birds. Osterhaus went into high gear lobbying across Holland and Europe claiming that a deadly new mutation of avian flu had jumped to humans and that drastic measures were required. He claimed to be the first scientist in the world to show that H5N1 could be transferred into humans. 6
In a BBC interview in October 2005 on the danger of Avian Flu, Osterhaus declared, “…if the virus manages indeed to, to mutate itself in such a way that it can transmit from human to human, then we have a completely different situation, we might be at the start of the pandemic.” He added, “there is a real chance that this virus could be trafficked by the birds all the way to Europe. There is a real risk, but nobody can estimate the risk at this moment, because we haven’t done the experiments.”7 It never did manage to mutate, but he was ready to “do the experiments,” presumably for a hefty fee.
To bolster his frightening pandemic scenario, Osterhaus and his lab assistants in Rotterdam began assiduously assembling and freezing samples of, well, bird shit, in an attempt to build a more scientific argument. He claimed that at certain times of the year up to 30% of all European birds acted as carriers of the deadly avian virus, H5N1. He also claimed that farmers working with hens and chickens were then exposed. Osterhaus briefed journalists who dutifully noted his alarm. Politicians were alerted. He wrote papers proposing that the far away deaths in Asia from what he termed H5N1 were coming to Europe. He claimed that migratory birds were carrying the deadly new disease as far west as Rügen and Ukraine.8
Osterhaus’ Avian Flu alarm campaign really took off in 2003 when a Dutch veterinary doctor became ill and died. Osterhaus claimed the death was from H5N1. He convinced the Dutch government to order slaughter of millions of chickens. Yet no other infected persons died from the alleged H5N1. Osterhaus claimed that that was simply proof of the effectiveness of the preemptive slaughter campaign.9
Osterhaus claimed that bird feces were the source, via air bombardment or droppings, onto populations and birds below, of the spread of the deadly new Asian strain of H5N1. There was only one problem with the now voluminous frozen samples of diverse bird excrement he and his associated had collected and frozen at his institute. There was not one single confirmed example of H5N1 virus found in any of his samples. At a May 2006 Congress of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Osterhaus and his Erasmus colleagues were forced to admit that in testing 100,000 samples of their assiduously saved bird feces, they had discovered not one single case of H5N1 virus. 10
At a WHO conference in Verona in 2008 titled “Avian influenza at the Human-Animal Interface,” in a presentation to scientific colleagues undoubtedly less impressed by appeals to pandemic emotion than the non-scientific public, Osterhaus admitted that “A proper risk assessment of H5N1 as the cause of a new pandemic cannot be made with the currently available information.” 11 By then, however, his sights were already firmly on other possible pandemic triggers to focus his vaccination activities.
Swine Flu and WHO corruption
When no mass wave of human deaths from Avian Flu materialized and after Roche, maker of Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline had banked billions of dollars in profits from worldwide government stockpiling of their dangerous and reportedly ineffective antiviral drugs, Tamiflu by Roche, and Relenza by GlaxoSmithKline, Osterhaus and other WHO advisers turned to other greener pastures.
By April 2009 their search seemed rewarded as a small Mexican village in Veracruz reported a case of a small child ill with what had been diagnosed as “Swine Flu” or H1N1. With indecent haste the propaganda apparatus of the World Health Organization in Geneva went into gear anth statements from the director-general Dr Margaret Chan, about a possible danger of a global pandemic. Chan made such irresponsible statements as declaring “a public health emergency of international concern.” 12 The further cases of outbreak at La Gloria Mexico were reported on one medical website as, “a ‘strange’ outbreak of acute respiratory infection, which led to bronchial pneumonia in some pediatric cases. According to a local resident, symptoms included fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm.” 13
Notably those were symptoms which would make sense in terms of the proximity of one of the world’s largest pig industrial feeding concentrations at La Gloria owned by Smithfield Farms of the USA. Residents had picketed the Smithfield Farms site in Mexico for months complaining of severe respiratory problems from the fecal waste lagoons. That possible cause of the diseases in La Gloria apparently did not interest Osterhaus and his colleagues advising the WHO. The long-awaited “pandemic” that Osterhaus had predicted ever since his involvement with SARS in the Guandgong Province of China in 2003, was now finally at hand.
On June 11, 2009 Margaret Chan of WHO made the declaration of a Phase 6 “Pandemic Emergency” regarding the spread of H1N1 Influenza. Curiously in announcing she noted, “On present evidence, the overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a rapid and full recovery, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment.” She then added, ”Worldwide, the number of deaths is small…we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump in the number of severe or fatal infections.”
It later was learned that Chan acted, following heated debates inside WHO, on the advice of the scientific advisory group of WHO, or SAGE, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts. One of the members of SAGE at the time and today was Dr. Albert “Mr Flu” Osterhaus. Not only was Osterhaus in a key position to advocate the panic-inducing WHO “Pandemic emergency” declaration. He was also chairman of the leading private European Scientific Working group on Influenza, which describes itself as a “multidisciplinary group of key opinion leaders in influenza [that] aims to combat the impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza.” Osterhaus’ ESWI is the vital link as they themselves describe it “between the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and the University of Connecticut, USA.”
What is more significant about the ESWI is that its work is entirely financed by the same pharma mafia companies that make billions on the pandemic emergency as governments around the world are compelled to buy and stockpile vaccines on declaration of a WHO Pandemic. The funders of ESWI include H1N1 vaccine maker Novartis, Tamiflu distributor, Hofmann-La Roche, Baxter Vaccines, MedImmune, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Pasteur and others.
Not to lose the point, the world-leading virologist, official adviser on H1N1 to the governments of the UK and Holland, Dr Albert Osterhaus, head of the Department of Virology at the Erasmus MC of Rotterdam, also sat on the WHO’s elite SAGE and served as chairman at the same time of the pharma industry-sponsored ESWI which urged dramatic steps to vaccinate the world against the grave danger of a new Pandemic they insisted could rival the feared 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.
The Wall Street bank, JP Morgan estimated that in large part as a result of the WHO pandemic decision, the giant pharma firms that also finance Osterhaus’ ESWI work, stand to reap some €7.5 to €10 billion in profits. 14
A fellow member of WHO’s SAGE is Dr Frederick Hayden, of Britain’s Wellcome Trust and reportedly a close friend of Osterhaus. Hayden also receives money for “advisory” services from Roche and GlaxoSmithKline among other pharma giants involved in producing products related to the H1N1 panic.
Chairman of WHO’s SAGE is another British scientist, Prof. David Salisbury of the UK Department of Health. He also heads the WHO H1N1 Advisory Group. Salisbury is a robust defender of the pharma industry. He has been accused by UK health citizen health group One Click of covering up the proven links between vaccines and an explosive rise in infant autism as well as links between Gardasil and palsy and even death.15
Then on September 28, 2009 the same Salisbury stated, “Professor David Salisbury, the department of health’s director of immunisation, said: “There is a very clear view in the scientific community that there is no risk from the inclusion of Thiomersal.” The vaccine being used for H1N1 in Britain is primarily produced by GlaxoSmithKlilne and contains the mercury preservative Thiomersol. Because of growing evidence that Thiomersol in vaccines might be related to autism in children in the United States, in 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service called for it to be removed from vaccines.16
Yet another SAGE member at WHO with intimate financial ties to the vaccine makers that benefit from SAGE’s recommendations to WHO is Dr. Arnold Monto, a paid consultant to vaccine maker MedImmune, Glaxo and ViroPharma.
Even more the meetings of the “independent” scientists of SAGE are attended by “observers” who include, yes, the very vaccine producers GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Baxter and company. In the past decade the WHO, in order to boost funds at its disposal entered into what it calls “public private partnerships.” Instead of receiving its funds solely from member United Nations governments as its original purpose had been, WHO today receives almost double its normal UN budget in the form of grants and financial support from private industry. The industry? The very drug and vaccine makers who benefit from decisions like the June 2009 H1N1 Pandemic emergency declaration. As the main financiers of the WHO bureaucracy, naturally the Pharma Mafia and their friends receive what has been called “open door red carpet treatment” in Geneva.17
In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine in Germany, epidemiologist Dr. Tom Jefferson of the Cochrane Collaboration, an organization of independent scientists evaluating all flu related studies, noted the implications of the privatization of WHO and the commercialization of health:
“…one of the extraordinary features of this influenza — and the whole influenza saga — is that there are some people who make predictions year after year, and they get worse and worse. None of them so far have come about, and these people are still there making these predictions. For example, what happened with the bird flu, which was supposed to kill us all? Nothing. But that doesn’t stop these people from always making their predictions. Sometimes you get the feeling that there is a whole industry almost waiting for a pandemic to occur.
SPIEGEL: Who do you mean? The World Health Organization (WHO)?
Jefferson: The WHO and public health officials, virologists and the pharmaceutical companies. They’ve built this machine around the impending pandemic. And there’s a lot of money involved, and influence, and careers, and entire institutions! And all it took was one of these influenza viruses to mutate to start the machine grinding…18
When asked if the WHO had deliberately declared the Pandemic Emergency in order to create a huge market for H1N1 vaccines and drugs, Jefferson replied,
“Don’t you think there’s something noteworthy about the fact that the WHO has changed its definition of pandemic? The old definition was a new virus, which went around quickly, for which you didn’t have immunity, and which created a high morbidity and mortality rate. Now the last two have been dropped, and that’s how swine flu has been categorized as a pandemic.”19
Conveniently enough, the WHO published the new Pandemic definition in April 2009 just in time to allow WHO, on advice of SAGE and others like Albert “Dr Flu” Osterhaus and David Salisbury, to declare the mild cases of flu dubbed H1N1 Influenza A to be declared Pandemic.20
In a relevant footnote, the Washington Post on December 8 in an article on the severity, or lack of same, of the world H1N1 „pandemic“ reported that “with the second wave of H1N1 infections having crested in the United States, leading epidemiologists are predicting that the pandemic could end up ranking as the mildest since modern medicine began documenting influenza outbreaks.” 21
Russian Parliamentarian and chairman of the Duma Health Committee, Igor Barinow has called on the Russian Representative to WHO in Geneva to order an official investigation into the growing evidence of massive corruption of the WHO by the pharmaceutical industry. “There are grave accusations of corruption within the WHO,” said Barinow. “An international commission of inquiry is urgently required.” 22
Endnotes:
1 Martin Enserink, In Holland, the Public Face of Flu Takes a Hit, Science, 16 October 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5951, pp. 350 – 351; DOI: 10.1126/science.326_350b.
2 Science, November 3, 2009, Roundup 11/3 The Brink Edition, accessed on ScienceMag.org.
3 Article from Dutch, De Farma maffia Deel 1 Osterhaus BV, 28 november 2009, accessed in Hetonderzoek.blogspot.com.
4 Ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport, Financiële belangen Osterhaus waren bekend Nieuwsbericht, 30 september 2009, accessed in Minvws.nl
5 European Commission, „Research“, Dr Albert Osterhaus, accessed in Ec.europa.eu
6 Ibid.
7 Jane Corbin, Interview with Dr Albert Osterhaus, BBC Panorama, 4 October, 2005.
8 Karin Steinberger, Vogelgrippe: Der Mann mit der Vogelperspektive, Seuddeutsche Zeitung, 20 October, 2005, accessed in Seuddeutsche.de.
9 Ibid.
10 Schweinegrippe—Geldgieriger Psychopath Auslöser der Pandemie?, accessed in Polskaweb.eu
11 Ab Osterhaus, External factors influencing H5N1 mutation/reassortment events with pandemic potential, OIE, 7-9 October 2008, Verona, Italy, accessed in Oie.int
12 WHO Health Advisory, April 2009, accessed in Swine-flu-vaccine.info/.
13 Biosurveillance, Swine Flu in Mexico- Timeline of Events, April 24, 2009, accessed in Biosurveillance.typepad.com.
14 Cited in Louise Voller, Kristian Villesen, Stærk lobbyisme bag WHO-beslutning om massevaccination , Information, Copenhagen, 15 November 2009 accessed in . Information.dk/215355.
15 Jane Bryant, et al, The One Click Group Response: Prof. David Salisbury Threatens Legal Action, 4 March, 2009, accessed in Theoneclickgroup.co.uk.
16 Prof. David Salisbury cited in, Swine flu vaccine to contain axed additive, London Evening Standard, 28 September 2009, accessed in . Gulf-times.com
17 Bert Ehgartner, Schwindel mit der Schweinegrippe Ist die Aufregung ein Coup der Pharmaindustrie? Accessed in Profil.at.
18 Tom Jefferson, Interview with Epidemiologist Tom Jefferson: ‘A Whole Industry Is Waiting For A Pandemic’ Der Spiegel, 21 July 2009, accessed in Spiegel.de.
19 Ibid.
20 Louise Voller, Kristian Villesen, Mystisk ændring af WHO’s definition af en pandemi,Copenhagen Information, 15 November 2009, accessed in Information.dk/215341.
21 Rob Stein, Flu Pandemic Could Be Mild, Washington Post, December 8, 2009.
22 Polskanet, Russland fordert internationale Untersuchung, 5 December 2009, accessed in Polskaweb.eu
Copyright © 2009 F. William Engdahl
Editorial Archive
*F. William Engdahl is author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca). He also authored A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press). His newest book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press) is now in print and will be available by mid-June. He may be contacted over his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
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Ohio Issue #2
Dec 9
I just read this article here: http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/h/4047-is-hsus-going-buckeye-hunting
I am still disgusted by the passage of Issue #2 in Ohio. We are going to regret this, I promise you.
Here is my letter to their editor:
Dear Center for Consumer Freedom:
Reading the Issue #2 article. Everybody has this totally wrong. Issue #2 is what HSUS wanted. They only put up a token fight against it. In fact, I personally saw Pro Issue #2 signs right on the lawn in front of the Clark County HSUS headquarter building over near Springfield Ohio.
HSUS will end up with sympathizers or actual HSUS members on the new board because our governor will appoint them.
Your article said “Livestock farmers can expect a slow death by costly regulation”,
I agree, and that costly regulation will come from the board that is supposed to be farmer friendly.We have one of the largest free range cattle ranches in Ohio, and this bill was shoved down our throats and people were blinded to the actual consequences that this bill will cause. We fought it, but couldn’t seem to get through to people.
This is how I see this bill,
–we changed our constitution so that our elected representatives can no longer vote on laws to regulate the represented.
–we put in a board of unknown people
–we put in a board of unelected people who can’t be voted out of office
–the new board can’t be appealed
–we don’t have a clue what rules they will make for us
–there never was a problem with “Safe Local Food”, I completely trust everything I purchase at the farmers market, it is the food that I get at Sams or Kroegers that could come from China and falsely relabeled by the USDA that I don’t trust.
Tell me the last food recall from a farmers market!
–I suspect that the board will be either controlled by the large packers and turkey farmers, or the HSUS, either way it will spell bad news for the little guy who can’t afford to comply with onerous rules.
This is a BAD bill and time will prove that to us. It will drive out the “Safe Local Food” in favor of the big packers, importers, GMO food etc..
Amendment #2 is nothing about “Freedom”
WW II Battleship sailor tells Obama to shape up or ship out !
This venerable and much honored WW II vet is well known in Hawaii for his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes all over the country. A humble man without a political bone in his body,he has never spoken out before about a government official, until now. He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to the president.
Dear President Obama,
My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor, allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.
One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.
So here goes…
I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.
I can’t figure out what country you are the president of.
You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:
- We’re no longer a Christian nation”
- America is arrogant” – (Your wife even
announced to the world,”America is mean-spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching
that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who
died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and
hopelessness.)I’d say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
After 9/11 you said, “America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”
Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.
I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.
Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts, who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.
You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.
You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.
And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.
Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes
When a 95 year old hero of the “the Greatest Generation” stands up and speaks out like this, I think we owe it to him to send his words to as many Americans as we can. Please pass it on.