Enemy of the People?

I submitted this column to the The Union, our local paper, in February and was told they would publish it. They published two previous columns I wrote but thus far, not this one. Given it is now April, I decided to publish it myself. What I write may be disturbing to readers who may simple dismiss the ideas. Don’t accept what I wrote. Check out the links.

On February 17TH, at a press conference, President Trump declared the “fake news” media to be an “enemy of the people.” I don’t know much about politics, but I know that thousands have died or been disabled due to media misinformation in the mental health care system alone. How can I make such a claim? I spent years researching this issue while writing three books exploring new paradigms for assessment and treatment. In my last book, I coined the term “perilous symbioses,” a mutually beneficial relationship in which the corporations and media win and the public loses.

Pick any of the following topics and you will mostly find “fake” news: mercury, vaccinations, cancer treatments, psychotropic medications, genetically modified foods, electromagnetic magnetic frequencies, glyphosate (in Roundup), A1 milk, proton pump inhibitors, lawn chemicals, MSG, food additives, food colorings, aspartame, various insecticides and herbicides. This fake news is often characterized by denial, obfuscation and outright falsehoods.

Is the fake news media our enemy? Let me count the ways.

On February 16, Robert Kennedy Jr, Robert De Niro and others held a press conference asking the media to report on the dangers of mercury in the environment and in vaccines. Kennedy announced a $100,000 dollar challenge to anyone who could prove that mercury is safe. The Huffington Post and Washington Post did mention the press conference. However, they debunked the story, didn’t provide any direct links, and failed to report relevant information.

Using heretofore-suppressed data made available by a CDC whistleblower, a study demonstrated that male African American children in Atlanta who got their measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination on schedule experienced a 240 percent increase in autism compared to those who got them late. Doesn’t the press share some complicity for the plight of those children, whose parents, had they known, would have chosen to wait on the vaccine? To be fair, in 2014, CNN did mention alleged CDC corruption. But it failed to mention that CDC personnel destroyed the records. One would think that the public has a right to know that CDC committed fraud when employees destroyed the incriminating data. CNN rehashed the oft-repeated allegation that Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s study hypothesizing a link between the MMR and autism was discredited. Interestingly the Post article mentioned above also cited the much-maligned Dr. Wakefield. His peer-reviewed findings on the links between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, the gut and autism have been replicated 28 times in scientific publications. Mainstream media ignored these studies just as many times, but has been quick report that he was discredited and he lost his medical license.

Where were CNN and Fox News when the Texas Medical Board begrudgingly announced in the fall of 2016 “Respondent’s (Burzynski’s) treatments have saved the lives of cancer patients, both adults and children, who were not expected to live”? USA Today was quick to report “Doctor accused of selling false hope to families,” but not so quick to report this finding. Where was the headline “Board concludes Dr. Burzynski saves terminal cancer patients”?

Where was Fox News when their investigative reporters wanted to broadcast a well-documented expose on the health risks of Monsanto’s rBSt milk? Their lawyers, who, after being threatened by Monsanto, made 80 different rewrites of the show before Fox executives refused to broadcast it.

All-too-often, the “fake news” media is our enemy. The Union and other small town presses appear to be relatively free from these corporate influences. Still, I would have preferred if The Union had written an article with direct links to Kennedy’s Press Conference Video so people could decide for themselves.

In the late 1800’s, New York Times editor John Swinton said, “If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it…. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”