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COVID-19

Mandating COVID shots ‘one of the greatest mistakes,’ former CDC chief says

Published

11 months ago

12 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By John-Michael Dumais, The Defender

In a Senate hearing July 11, ex-CDC Director Robert Redfield said mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are ‘toxic’ and should not have been mandated. He also called for a pause on gain-of-function research.

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield confirmed the dangers of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in a U.S. Senate hearing on July 11, calling them “toxic” and saying they should never have been mandated.

Redfield’s admissions came during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on government oversight of taxpayer-funded high-risk virus research.

The late admission of vaccine injuries underscores the failure of public health agencies and the medical establishment to provide informed consent to the billions of vaccine recipients worldwide.

“It’s important that he is telling the truth now,” vaccine researcher Jessica Rose, Ph.D., told The Defender. “Adverse events were hidden and still are being hidden to prevent injection hesitancy.”

Redfield, who led the CDC from 2018 to 2021, didn’t stop there. He declared biosecurity “our nation’s greatest national security threat,” calling for a halt to gain-of-function research pending further debate.

The hearing, which featured contentious exchanges between senators and witnesses, also touched on controversial topics such as the COVID-19 origins lab-leak theory and allegations that health agencies suppressed data.

mRNA vax ‘should have been open to personal choice’

During the hearing Redfield, who oversaw the CDC during the crucial early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, elaborated on his recent statements about mRNA vaccine safety.

Redfield went further, admitting that the spike protein produced by mRNA vaccines is “toxic to the body” and triggers “a very strong pro-inflammatory response.”

He noted that in his own medical practice, he doesn’t administer mRNA vaccines, preferring “killed protein vaccines” instead.

Redfield’s statements stand in stark contrast to the CDC’s official stance during his tenure, which strongly promoted mRNA vaccine uptake as safe and effective.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) pressed Redfield on the issue, highlighting concerning data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Johnson presented figures showing over 37,000 deaths reported following COVID-19 vaccination, with 24 percent occurring within two days of injection.

Redfield acknowledged there was “not appropriate transparency from the beginning about the potential side effects of these vaccines.” He criticized attempts to “underreport any side effects because they argued that would make the public less likely to get vaccinated.”

‘FDA should release all of the safety data’

Redfield’s criticism of data withholding extended beyond vaccine side effects. He expressed disappointment in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration‘s (FDA) handling of vaccine safety information.

“The FDA should release all of the safety data they have,” Redfield said. “I was very disappointed to hear that they were planning to hold on to that until 2026. That really creates a sense of total lack of trust in our public health agencies towards vaccination.”

Johnson echoed these concerns, revealing his frustration with the lack of follow-through by health agencies and the committee itself.

“I’m not getting cooperation out of the chairman of the permanent subcommittee investigation to issue subpoenas to get this,” Johnson said, referring to unreleased data and documents.

The senator displayed a chart comparing adverse event reports for various drugs, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, to those for COVID-19 vaccines. The stark contrast in reported deaths from these therapeutics – with COVID-19 vaccines showing significantly higher numbers – fueled Johnson’s demand for more transparency.

“As important as the cover-up of the origin story is, there’s a lot more that’s being covered up,” Johnson asserted. “The public has a right to know. We pay for these agencies. We pay their salaries. We fund these studies.”

Redfield agreed with Johnson’s assessment, stating that withholding the information is “counterproductive.”

Redfield doubtful of ‘any benefit from [gain-of-function] research’

Redfield’s testimony took another controversial turn when he called for a pause on gain-of-function research, experiments that involve making pathogens more infectious or deadly.

“I’m not aware of any advanced therapeutic or vaccine that has come to pass because of gain-of-function research,” Redfield said. “I do think there has to be a very aggressive debate of whether there’s any benefit from that research.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) seized on this point, introducing his Risky Research Review Act. The bill aims to establish an independent board within the executive branch to oversee federal funding for high-risk life sciences research.

“If the Risky Research Review Act had been in place, it might have prevented the COVID-19 pandemic,” Paul said, citing Redfield’s endorsement.

MIT’s Kevin Esvelt, Ph.D., inventor of a technique for rapidly evolving proteins and other biomolecules who was also instrumental in developing CRISPR gene-editing technology, reinforced these concerns.

Highlighting gaps in current oversight, he described an experiment where his team – with FBI approval – successfully ordered DNA fragments of the 1918 influenza virus from 36 of 38 providers.

“Everything that we did and the companies did was entirely legal,” Esvelt said, underscoring the potential for misuse. “There are no laws regulating DNA synthesis, even though the industry group, the International Gene Synthesis Consortium, has requested congressional regulation.”

The hearing revealed a growing consensus among witnesses for stricter oversight of potentially dangerous research, with Redfield suggesting such studies should be “highly regulated” to protect national security.

Redfield reaffirms COVID lab-leak theory

The hearing reignited debate over the origins of COVID-19, with Redfield reaffirming his belief in the lab-leak theory.

“Based on my initial analysis, I believe then, and I still believe today, that the COVID infections were the direct result of a biomedical research experiment and subsequent lab leak,” Redfield stated.

This assertion led to a heated exchange between Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Carrie Wolinetz, Ph.D., former chief of staff to then-director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Francis Collins. Hawley accused NIH officials of deliberately suppressing the lab-leak theory.

“Your office, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci and others tried to actively censor them,” Hawley said. “There was a propaganda effort that this paper was the center of, and now everybody says, ‘Oh, well, we just weren’t sure at the time.’”

Hawley referred to the 2020 “Proximal Origin” paper that argued against the lab-leak hypothesis.

Wolinetz defended the NIH’s actions. “I do not believe censorship took place, sir.” She maintained that discussions about the virus’s origins were part of normal scientific discourse.

Redfield, however, criticized the lack of thorough investigation into both natural origin and lab-leak hypotheses. “Unfortunately, this didn’t happen,” he said, adding that four years later, he believes there’s no meaningful evidence supporting a natural origin.

The former CDC director also revealed that he did not learn about concerning biodistribution studies of the vaccine’s lipid nanoparticles until as late as the summer of 2021, suggesting a delay in critical information reaching top health officials.

‘Biosecurity is our nation’s greatest national security threat’

Redfield emphasized the critical importance of biosecurity in national defense.

“In 2024, 2025, biosecurity is our nation’s greatest national security threat,” Redfield stated. “You need to think of it the same way we thought about the verge of nuclear atomic [sic] in the late ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s.”

He called for a proportional response to the threat, suggesting the creation of a dedicated agency within the U.S. Department of Energy to address biosecurity concerns.

“We have a $900 billion Defense Department for the threat of China, North Korea, and Russia,” Redfield noted. “We don’t have really any systematic agency or network of private sector contractors to help us with the biosecurity threat.”

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) echoed this sentiment. “In my humble mind, a viral biosecurity issue is a bigger issue than China’s military threat to us.”

Gerald Parker, DVM, Ph.D., associate dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M University, supported the call for enhanced oversight, recommending “an independent authority to consolidate secure functions in a single entity with a dedicated mission.”

The hearing also touched on the potential for future pandemics, with Redfield repeating his warnings about the potential spread of H5N1 bird flu.

As the hearing concluded, senators from both parties expressed concern over the lack of transparency and oversight in high-risk research.

Paul summarized the sentiment: “We cannot stand idly by. We must demand accountability, strive for transparency, and ensure the safety of our citizens is never again compromised by negligence or deceit.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

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Pentagon agency to simulate lockdowns, mass vaccinations, public compliance messaging

Published on June 12, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

With lockdowns, mass vaccination campaigns, and social distancing still on the table from the last around, it appears that AI and Machine Learning will play a much bigger role in the next.

DARPA is getting into the business of simulating disease outbreaks, including modeling interventions such as mass vaccination campaigns, lockdowns, and communication strategies.

At the end of May, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) put out a Request for Information (RFI) seeking information regarding “state-of-the-art capabilities in the simulation of disease outbreaks.”

The Pentagon’s research and development funding arm wants to hear from academic, industry, commercial, and startup communities on how to develop “advanced capabilities that drive technical innovation and identify critical gaps in bio-surveillance, diagnostics, and medical countermeasures” in order to “improve preparedness for future public health emergencies.”

As if masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and vaccination mandates under the unscientific guise of slowing the spread and preventing the transmission of COVID weren’t harmful enough, the U.S. military wants to model the effects of these exact same countermeasures for future outbreaks.

The RFI also asks participants “Fatality Rate & Immune Status: How are fatality rates and varying levels of population immunity (natural or vaccine-induced) incorporated into your simulations?“

Does “natural or vaccine-induced” relate to “population immunity” or “fatality rates” or both?

Moving on, the RFI gets into modeling lockdowns, social distancing, and mass vaccination campaigns, along with communication strategies:

Intervention Strategies: Detail the range of intervention strategies that can be modeled, including (but not limited to) vaccination campaigns, social distancing measures, quarantine protocols, treatments, and public health communication strategies. Specifically, describe the ability to model early intervention and its impact on outbreak trajectory.

The fact that DARPA wants to model these so-called intervention strategies just after the entire world experienced them suggests that these exact same measures will most likely be used again in the future:

“We are committed to developing advanced modeling capabilities to optimize response strategies and inform the next generation of (bio)technology innovations to protect the population from biological threats. We are particularly focused on understanding the complex interplay of factors that drive outbreak spread and evaluating the effectiveness of potential interventions.” — DARPA, Advanced Disease Outbreak Simulation Capabilities RFI, May 2025.

“Identification of optimal timelines and capabilities to detect, identify, attribute, and respond to disease outbreaks, including but not limited to biosensor density deployment achieving optimal detection timelines, are of interest.” ­— DARPA, Advanced Disease Outbreak Simulation Capabilities RFI, May 2025.

With lockdowns, mass vaccination campaigns, and social distancing still on the table from the last around, it appears that AI and Machine Learning will play a much bigger role in the next.

For future innovation, the DARPA RFI asks applicants to: “Please describe any novel technical approaches – or applications of diverse technical fields (e.g., machine learning, artificial intelligence, complex systems theory, behavioral science) – that you believe would significantly enhance the state-of-the-art capabilities in this field or simulation of biological systems wholistically.”

Instead of putting a Dr. Fauci, a Dr. Birx, a replaceable CDC director, a TV doctor, a big pharma CEO, or a Cuomo brother out there to lie to your face about how they were all just following The ScienceTM, why not use AI and ML and combine them with behavioral sciences in order to concoct your “public health communications strategies?”

When you look at recently announced DARPA programs like Kallisti and MAGICS, which are aimed at creating an algorithmic Theory of Mind to model, predict, and influence collective human behavior, you start to get a sense of how all these programs can interweave:

“The MAGICS ARC calls for paradigm-shifting approaches for modeling complex, dynamic systems for predicting collective human behaviour.” — DARPA, MAGICS ARC, April 2025

On April 8, DARPA issued an Advanced Research Concepts (ARC) opportunity for a new program called “Methodological Advancements for Generalizable Insights into Complex Systems (MAGICS)” that seeks “new methods and paradigms for modeling collective human behavior.”

Nowhere in the MAGICS description does it mention modeling or predicting the behavior of “adversaries,” as is DARPA’s custom.

Instead, it talks at length about “modeling human systems,” along with anticipating, predicting, understanding, and forecasting “collective human behavior” and “complex social phenomena” derived from “sociotechnical data sets.”

Could DARPA’s MAGICS program be applied to simulating collective human behavior when it comes to the next public health emergency, be it real or perceived?

“The goal of an upcoming program will be to develop an algorithmic theory of mind to model adversaries’ situational awareness and predict future behaviour.” — DARPA, Theory of Mind Special Notice, December 2024.

In December 2024, DARPA launched a similar program called Theory of Mind, which was renamed Kallisti a month later.

The goal of Theory of Mind is to develop “new capabilities to enable national security decisionmakers to optimize strategies for deterring or incentivizing actions by adversaries,” according to a very brief special announcement.

DARPA never mentions who those “adversaries” are. In the case of a public health emergency, an adversary could be anyone who questions authoritative messaging.

The Theory of Mind program will also:

… seek to combine algorithms with human expertise to explore, in a modeling and simulation environment, potential courses of action in national security scenarios with far greater breadth and efficiency than is currently possible.

This would provide decisionmakers with more options for incentive frameworks while preventing unwanted escalation.

We are interested in a comprehensive overview of current and emerging technologies for disease outbreak simulation, how simulation approaches could be extended beyond standard modeling methods, and to understand how diseases spread within and between individuals including population level dynamics.

They say that all the modeling and simulating across programs is for “national security,” but that is a very broad term.

DARPA is in the business of research and development for national security purposes, so why is the Pentagon modeling disease outbreaks and intervention strategies while simultaneously looking to predict and manipulate collective human behavior?

If and when the next outbreak occurs, the same draconian and Orwellian measures that governments and corporations deployed in the name of combating COVID are still on the table.

And AI, Machine Learning, and the military will play an even bigger role than the last time around.

From analyzing wastewater to learning about disease spread; from developing pharmaceuticals to measuring the effects of lockdowns and vaccine passports, from modeling and predicting human behavior to coming up with messaging strategies to keep everyone in compliance – “improving preparedness for future public health emergencies” is becoming more militaristically algorithmic by the day.

“We are exploring innovative solutions to enhance our understanding of outbreak dynamics and to improve preparedness for future public health emergencies.” — DARPA, Advanced Disease Outbreak Simulation Capabilities RFI, May 2025.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.

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Audit report reveals Canada’s controversial COVID travel app violated multiple rules

Published on June 11, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Canada’s Auditor General found that government procurement rules were not followed in creating the ArriveCAN app.

Canada’s Auditor General revealed that the former Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed multiple times by violating contract procurement rules to create ArriveCAN, its controversial COVID travel app.

In a report released Tuesday, Auditor General Karen Hogan noted that between April 2015 to March 2024, the Trudeau government gave out 106 professional service contracts to GC Strategies Inc. This is the same company that made the ArriveCAN app.

The contracts were worth $92.7 million, with $64.5 million being paid out.

According to Hogan, Canada’s Border Services Agency gave four contracts to GC Strategies valued at $49.9 million. She noted that only 54 percent of the contracts delivered any goods.

“We concluded that professional services contracts awarded and payments made by federal organizations to GC Strategies and other companies incorporated by its co-founders were not in accordance with applicable policy instruments and that value for money for these contracts was not obtained,” Hogan said.

She continued, “Despite this, federal government officials consistently authorized payments.”

The report concluded that “Federal organizations need to ensure that public funds are spent with due regard for value for money, including in decisions about the procurement of professional services contracts.”

Hogan announced an investigation of ArriveCAN in November 2022 after the House of Commons voted 173-149 for a full audit of the controversial app.

Last year, Hogan published an audit of ArriveCAN and on Tuesday published a larger audit of the 106 contracts awarded to GC Strategies by 31 federal organizations under Trudeau’s watch.

‘Massive scandal,’ says Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said Hogan’s report on the audit exposed multiple improprieties.

“This is a massive scandal,” he told reporters Tuesday.

“The facts are extraordinary. There was no evidence of added value. In a case where you see no added value, why are you paying the bill?”

ArriveCAN was introduced in April 2020 by the Trudeau government and made mandatory in November 2020. The app was used by the federal government to track the COVID jab status of those entering the country and enforce quarantines when deemed necessary.

ArriveCAN was supposed to have cost $80,000, but the number quickly ballooned to $54 million, with the latest figures showing it cost $59.5 million.

As for the app itself, it was riddled with technical glitches along with privacy concerns from users.

LifeSiteNews has published a wide variety of reports related to the ArriveCAN travel app.

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