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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Missouri v. Biden

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From the Brownstone Institute

BY Aaron KheriatyAARON KHERIATY  

The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over the Fifth Circuit’s grant of a preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden. As I mentioned in previous posts, the injunction would bar officials from the White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Surgeon General’s office from coercing or significantly encouraging social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech.

My fellow plaintiffs and I welcome this opportunity to defend the First Amendment rights of all Americans in the U.S. Supreme Court. We expect to hear from the Court soon regarding the hearing dates—it could be in February or March.

The Fifth Circuit panel of judges last month upheld the key components of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 preliminary injunction order, prohibiting named federal officials from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to suppress legal speech.

That decision vindicated our claims that we—and countless other Americans—were blacklisted, shadow-banned, deboosted, throttled, and suspended on social media as part of the government’s years-long censorship campaign orchestrated by the federal government.

The Biden Administration’s censorship regime has successfully suppressed perspectives contradicting government-approved views on hotly disputed topics such as whether natural immunity to covid exists, the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, the virus’s origins, and mask mandate efficacy.

Beyond covid, the documents we’ve obtained on discovery demonstrate that the government was also censoring critiques of its foreign policy, monetary policy, election infrastructure, and lighting rod social issues from abortion to gender ideology.

The vast, coordinated, and well-documented effort has silenced influential, highly qualified voices including doctors and scientists like my co-plaintiffs Dr. Bhattacharya and Dr. Kulldorff, as well as those like Jill Hines who have tried to raise awareness of issues. Though the US Supreme Court temporarily stayed the Fifth Circuit’s injunction until they make a ruling, I believes the Justices are ultimately unlikely to permit the egregious First Amendment abridgements our case has exposed.

The Fifth Circuit recognized that the Plaintiffs did “not challenge the social-media platforms’ content-moderation policies.” Rather, Plaintiffs challenged the government’s unlawful efforts to influence “enforcement of those policies.” The government gravely harmed the ability of Americans to convey their views to the public, and it deprived Americans of their right to hear opinions that differ from the government’s. Judge Doughty strikingly described the Administration’s conduct as “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history” and “akin to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.” He was right, and the US Supreme Court must not permit it.

Here are some reactions to the news from our lawyers at NCLA:

“NCLA is thrilled to have the opportunity to vindicate the First Amendment rights of our clients, and all Americans, in the nation’s highest court. We are confident that after a thorough review of the disturbing facts in this important case—which involves unprecedented government-imposed, viewpoint-based censorship—the Court will recognize the grievous, unconstitutional nature of the government’s conduct and enjoin it.”
— Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel, NCLA

“We are disappointed Americans’ First Amendment rights will be vulnerable to government infringement until this case is decided. But we are confident this Court, as strong as it is on First Amendment issues, will rule against the government and uphold our clients’ rights and liberties.”
— John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

“If anything, the Fifth Circuit’s decision did not go far enough in enjoining the reprehensible conduct exposed in this case. The facts of this case show government agencies censored speech in a deliberate effort to control the narrative on several controversial topics ahead of the last election. The First Amendment forbids such censorship, and the Supreme Court must never allow such mischief again, if we are to keep our democracy.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President, NCLA

Republished from the author’s Substack

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  • Aaron Kheriaty

    Aaron Kheriaty, Senior Brownstone Scholar and 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is a psychiatrist working with the Unity Project. He is a former Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine, where he was the director of Medical Ethics.

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COVID-19

Japan’s most senior cancer doctor: COVID shots are ‘essentially murder’

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Dr. Masanori Fukushima

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

The most senior medical oncologist in Japan recently slammed the COVID-19 mRNA shots as “the work of evil” that has caused “essentially murder.”

In an interview published April 19, Dr. Masanori Fukushima, who spearheaded the first cancer outpatient clinic at Kyoto University and launched the first course in pharmacoepidemiology there, listed a slew of problems with the COVID mRNA jabs, evidencing what he called an evil “abuse of science.”

He pointed out that “turbo cancers,” a kind “previously unseen by doctors” that progress extremely quickly and are typically in stage four by the time they are diagnosed, have started to appear after the jab rollouts. These “turbo cancers” are emerging along with excess mortality due to cancer in general, which Dr. Fukushima says cannot be explained only by lost opportunities for screenings or treatment during the COVID outbreak.

As a tragic example of the fatal danger of the COVID shots, the oncologist shared the story of a 28-year-old man who was found dead by his wife when she tried to wake him in the morning, five days after he received his second Pfizer shot.

“The doctor who did the autopsy said that when he tried to remove the heart, it was soft and had disintegrated,” Dr. Fukushima said. “And even just one case like this shows how dangerous this vaccine can be.”

He pointed out that these severe harms, including death, have been afflicting people — post-jab — who have a history of good health.

“It’s serious. It’s essentially murder. In the end, I want to state clearly that this is my view,” the doctor said.

He lamented that the media, including newspapers, generally have not reported on these harms, and that in fact those who question the safety of the COVID shots — just as with the flu shots — have been characterized as anti-science “heretics.” He described the attitude of those who shut down the voices COVID “vaccine” critics, however, as far from scientific, and “more akin to faith, hysteria or even cult behavior.”

He highlighted the fact that countries that most aggressively pushed the COVID shot, such as Israel, saw the highest rates of death and infection, as shown by studies comparing Middle Eastern countries, including Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

“Israel led in early and widespread vaccination but also had the highest death and infection rates. The less aggressively vaccinated areas saw less harm,” said Dr. Fukushima, noting that “Israel was quick to halt the vaccine.”

There were problems, moreover, with the very technology used to administer the mRNA — the lipid nanoparticles — that the doctor said result in “off-target effects” on various organs, including the ovaries, brain, liver, and bone marrow.

Worse, the spike proteins produced by the mRNA have been detected in the human body more than a year after the administration of the COVID shot, noted the oncologist, indicating “a severe problem.”

The doctor took aim at the World Health Organization (WHO) for “hastily” pushing the COVID shots without proper investigation, and moreover for trying to enforce a one-size-fits-all approach in countries with widely varying “medical circumstances, habits, and systems,” calling it “somewhat absurd.”

He argued that it is “crucial” that the WHO take responsibility for the harms of the COVID shots, which he called “an abuse, a misuse of science and an evil practice of science, to be frank.”

Dr. Fukushima pointed out that the WHO is “aware” of harms from the so-called vaccines because they are compensating for these damages in certain countries, and yet they are not properly addressing the COVID shot-induced death and injury through an investigation and report.

“Imagine finding your spouse dead in the morning. It’s no joke. A vaccine that causes such outcomes, even a single death, is unacceptable,” said Dr. Fukushima, adding that in Japan alone, the government has documented 2,134 deaths reported due to the COVID shot, which is likely a low estimate.

“There are tens of thousands of people who must see a doctor because of vaccine-related issues,” he continued, asserting that a big chunk of them — 30% — are “suffering from ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) or chronic fatigue syndrome.”

This is just the beginning, according to Dr. Fukushima, because the rates of all sorts of diseases have been spiking since the COVID shot rollout, including “autoimmune disease, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and infections.”

“It’s as if we’ve opened Pandora’s box … We must take these damages seriously and address them earnestly. Any efforts to dismiss these damages as if they didn’t happen are frankly the work of evil. This is a quintessential example of the evil practice of science,” Dr. Fukushima said.

He called on scientific and medical institutions, led by the WHO, to directly confront these outcomes through research efforts in order to “shine the light of science” on the shots.

“We should never again use such vaccines,” he said. “This is a shame for humanity. It’s a disgrace that we did this.”

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Health

Private Footage Reveals Leading Medical Org’s Efforts To ‘Normalize’ Gender Ideology

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By MEGAN BROCK AND KATE ANDERSON

 

I have developed a part of my brain that’s very fluid around with some of my folks asking them each week, what name are you going by? What pronouns are we using today? So it keeps us flexible to be doing this work.

This is the seventh article in the “WPATH Tapes” series on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the gender medical industry. Read the overview of our investigation here.

Members of the world’s most prominent transgender medical organization encouraged fellow doctors to push transgender ideology beyond the healthcare field into schools and their communities, according to internal recordings obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In September 2022, the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Global Education Institute (GEI) hosted an event that included a series of education sessions for certification in transgender medicine. The event coincided with the release of WPATH’s updated medical guidance, called the Standards of Care Version 8 (SOC 8), and provided additional insights on its clinical applications.

During the sessions WPATH members were encouraged to “normalize” preferred pronoun use as a way to “create societal change” and behave in a way that “affirms” their patients’ gender identity, such as by asking female patients if they have a penis.

Psychologist Ren Massey, the co-chair of WPATH GEI, said clinicians should be ready to act as advocates for “gender diversity” in school settings. Massey earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from University of South Florida and is not a physician.

“We want to have the skills to negotiate multiple roles,” Massey said. “Because I have both had to be the therapist and then go talk to the school and be an advocate, or do a talk to the whole community of a school. So, I’m in multiple hats that we get to navigate, if we are advocating and helping and supporting our trans and gender diverse folks we are working with.”

Massey did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did Massey’s psychology practice.

Transgender ideology includes the belief that a person’s sex can be different from their “gender identity,” which SOC 8 defines as “a person’s deeply felt, internal, intrinsic sense of their own gender.” It’s a rejection of long-established scientific understanding of biology that there are only two sexes based on the fact there are only two types of reproductive cells — sperm and ova.

The term “gender identity” was popularized in the 1960s by controversial sexologist John Money, who’s most high-profile experiment involved advising parents of a boy whose penis was damaged in a botched circumcision to cut the rest of it off and raise him as a girl. At age 15, the boy — who was raised as “Brenda” — discovered the truth and rejected further hormone treatments. He eventually committed suicide at age 38.

The very concept of “gender identity” creates the possibility of changing one’s sex — a biological impossibility — through medical interventions, therefore creating a demand for medical sex reassignment interventions.

SOC 8 recommends that gender dysphoric minors be given the opportunity to “change” their sex through medical interventions. The guidance has been used to inform government regulations, insurance policies, and recommendations by numerous medical organizations, increasing minors access to sex reassignment procedures.

‘We Will Facilitate Changes’

The call for clinicians to be involved in local schools was echoed by WPATH-affiliated psychologist Dr. Wallace Wong in a presentation titled “Foundations in Gender Affirming Mental Health Care in Childhood and Adolescence.” Wong explained how therapists can play a pivotal role in facilitating change by helping schools embrace transgenderism and explained that schools need to embrace the use of preferred pronouns.

“A lot of time we will facilitate changes. It’s not unusual that you will go to the school with the parents together and educate the school what to do,” said Wong. “A lot of the times, some school they say, ‘we don’t know what to do.’ You say, ‘that doesn’t fly, I will teach you how to do,’” Wong said.

Wong did not respond to requests for comment, and the Diversity and Emotional Wellness Centre, where Wong works, provided additional contact information but did not provide comment.

SOC 8 recommends that “health care professionals work with families, schools, and other relevant settings to promote acceptance of gender diverse expressions of behavior and identities of the adolescent.”

“Using different pronouns for children is a step towards their social transition. It is now well established that social transition leads to the medicalization of their care,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm, a watchdog organization focused on keeping identity politics out of healthcare and medical schools, told the DCNF.

“It is inappropriate for anyone to advocate gender transition in gender dysphoric children unless they have had extensive psychological counseling and are part of some formal research protocol,” Goldfarb said. “This is the new policy in the United Kingdom and in multiple European countries.”

Without naming a specific doctor, Goldfarb said that “for a physician to speak to untrained personnel given the psychological difficulties that these children often experience along with their gender dysphoria, is bordering on malpractice.”

‘The Face Of The Enemy’

As European nations such as NorwaySweden, Denmark, and the U.Khave restricted or halted the use of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers in minors, WPATH has rallied against similar bans in the United States.

The WPATH GEI educational event dedicated an entire session to transgender legal and policy issuesPaula Neira, a biological man who identifies as a woman and is program director of LGBTQ Equity & Education at Johns Hopkins Medicine, gave a presentation titled “Legal Issues & Policy.” During the talk, Neira criticized legislative efforts aimed at stopping child sex changes and protecting women’s sports.

“Numerous states have either engaged in having litigation and legislation proposed or the government has taken actions that are targeting the LGBTQ+ community broadly, and then at least half of these bills are specifically targeting transgender people, particularly transgender youth. The way that these bills are being played out is, one is attempts to ban gender affirming care,” Neira said.

“In Alabama they’re trying to criminalize, by making it a felony, to provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth. The bill is called the “Alabama Child Compassion and Protection Act” so the height of cynicism and hypocrisy,” Neira said.

Neira ended the session by calling on WPATH members to band together and stand firm against “attacks” on the transgender community.

“Being defiant in the face of the enemy is not something that’s unfamiliar to me,” Neria said. “It’s going to take a lot of resolve. It’s going take a lot of resilience. It’s going take a lot of mutual support, to stand firm under these attacks. And that’s what we have to do. And we have to do it with a clear strategic eye. And that means banding together. It means being strategic in how we challenge policy, how we advocate and make persuasive arguments.”

“And together we’re gonna get back to making progress no matter how bleak it looks now, as long as we never give in. And we never surrender,” Neira told the audience, prompting applause.

Neira did not respond to requests for comment. Johns Hopkins Medicine, where Neira works, responded but did not provide comment.

‘Helps All Humans’

Throughout the 30 hours of WPATH GEI recordings reviewed by the DCNF, speakers cast a vision of moving gender ideology beyond sex change procedures and promoting it in other domains such as schools, communities and public policy.

Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a WPATH board member and SOC 8 co-author, said it “helps all humans” to promote the acceptance of transgender ideology in a diversity of settings.

“We recommend health care professionals who work with families. They should work with families, schools, and other relevant settings to promote acceptance of gender diverse expressions of behavior and identities of the adolescent,” Leibowitz said.

“Notice, we don’t say: ‘work with these settings to promote acceptance of transgender people,’” Leibowitz told the audience. “We actually think it’s broader than that because by helping promote acceptance of gender diversity as a whole, we believe that helps all humans, including trans people. It doesn’t reinforce the notion of boxes, which is what we’re trying to move away from.”

Leibowitz declined an interview request through a Nationwide Children’s Hospitals spokesperson.

WPATH’s commitment to social change is captured in its own guidelines.

“WPATH recognizes that health is not only dependent upon high-quality clinical care but also relies on social and political climates that ensure social tolerance, equality, and the full rights of citizenship,” the guidelines read. “Health is promoted through public policies and legal reforms that advance tolerance and equity for gender diversity and that eliminate prejudice, discrimination, and stigma. WPATH is committed to advocacy for these policy and legal changes.”

‘Creating Change By Using Different Language’

WPATH members were also encouraged to use preferred pronouns in healthcare practices, with Massey describing the use of preferred pronouns as a way to create social change.

“I would encourage you in your practices to have universal approaches to correct pronouns. So, training your staff so they’re aware and have good interaction skills. Maybe even have role plays with them,” Massey said.

“We are creating change by using different language,” said Massey.

Massey, who maintains an active psychology practice, said it’s “good clinical practice” to let clients dictate terminology used to describe their sex and gender.

“I’ve had folks that within the same day or within the same week may shift from feeling masculine, feminine, both, neither,” Massey said.

“And so that’s a thing like I have developed a part of my brain that’s very fluid around with some of my folks asking them each week, what name are you going by? What pronouns are we using today? So it keeps us flexible to be doing this work. There is so much evolution and so much exciting work developing.”

SOC 8 recommends that healthcare professionals use the “language or terminology” preferred by the patient.

‘Normalize It’

Dr. Jennifer Slovis, the medical director of the Oakland Kaiser Permanente Gender Clinic, promoted the use of an electronic medical database that collects sexual orientation and gender identity information for all patients. On the form, healthcare providers were expected to indicate a patient’s preferred pronouns and gender identity, as well as take an “organ inventory” for the patient.

The organ inventory asks both men and women to indicate their reproductive organs on a list that includes the cervix, breasts, uterus, vagina, testes, prostate and penis. Clinicians were also asked to indicate which organs were present at birth, had been surgically constructed, or developed by hormones.

Slovis explained that to “normalize” the organ inventory, this data needs to be collected for all patients, including “cisgender” patients.

“Cisgender people too, we should be doing this for everybody. That’s the only way we’re going to normalize it, if we do it for everybody,” said Slovis.

Slovis did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did Kaiser Permanente, where Slovis works.

In a presentation titled “Foundations in Primary Care,” Dr. Erika Sullivan said organ inventories needed to be constantly taken because patients’ organs “change.”

“One of the things I always like to illustrate with this is that you don’t just ask this question once, right? Because this changes. And so sexual practices change, pronouns change, organs change,” said Sullivan.

“You kind of have to constantly take that inventory to find out like, what’s what, what’s where, what are we doing?” Sullivan said.

WPATH’s SOC 8 supports the use of organ inventories.

“In electronic health records, organ/anatomical inventories can be standardly used to inform appropriate clinical care, rather than relying solely on assigned sex at birth and/ or gender identity designations,” the guidelines read.

Sullivan also explained the importance of using preferred pronouns and not assuming a patient’s pronouns based on outward appearance.

“I should be asking this of everybody and introducing myself this way, ‘Hi, I’m Erica, I use she/her pronouns,’” Sullivan said. “Because I think if we are going by sort of presentation, we are taking so much bias and so much judgment into that space. It’s really important to just wipe that away. So asking everyone’s pronouns is important because really, ultimately, you have to question your assumptions.”

Sullivan did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did the University of Utah, where Sullivan works.

Goldfarb said doctors should focus on patient care, not promoting gender ideology.

“It is not the job of physicians to create a culture of gender ideology. The job of physicians is to care for ill people,” Goldfarb said. “The proper care for children with gender dysphoria is intensive psychological treatment. The idea that all this should be normalized represents pure ideology and is not based on hard science or valid clinical research.”

WPATH did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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