Glaxo Smith Kline prepares to deploy flu vaccine with squalene-like adjuvant [updated]

The US Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smith Kline are conducting human H1N1 vaccine trials using GSK’s proprietary oil based adjuvant, AS03.

“Adjuvants” are chemicals designed to increase the body’s immune response to the vaccine antigen.  “Antigens” are generally viruses or irradiated virus fragments, toxoids, bacteria, or proteins derived from the disease being vaccinated against. Preservatives are often included to increase shelf life.  All these components are suspended in a solution (usually saline) for injection.

Fats/oils are found naturally in the human body, including the insulating myelin sheath around nerve cells.  Squalene is a natural and vital part of the synthesis of cholesterol, steroid hormones, and vitamin D in the human body. [1]  There is ample evidence in animal models that injecting oil-based adjuvants can confuse the immune system into thinking these types of oils are also foreign invading pathogens, triggering an auto-immune attack against the body’s own oils [2,3,6].

The effectiveness of squalene-like oils as adjuvants has been known for many years, but their use may result in auto-immune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and Guillan-Barre syndrome.  Currently, oil-based adjuvants are not used in vaccines for civilians in the US.  Instead, aluminum salts (phosphate, hydroxide), and thimerosal (ethyl mercury) adjuvants are used.  Some scientists believe “Gulf War Syndrome” was caused at least in part by Anthrax vaccines containing an oil-based adjuvant.

To dissolve an oil in water, a surfactant (detergent) chemical, such as octoxinol in the case of GSK’s H1N1 vaccine, must also be used.  Little research is avaialble on the synergistic effects of injecting oils, surfactants, aluminum, and mercury together.

In spite of evidence contraindicating the use of oil adjuvants, governments and drug companies are conspiring to scare populations into taking a poorly tested vaccine, risking widespread auto-immune disease. Drug companies stand to make massive profits and thanks to legislation enacted in 1986, will enjoy zero liability for adverse reactions [4].  Not surprisingly, a 2008 GSK study found no evidence for autoimmune disorders caused by it’s AS04 oil and aluminum adjuvant [5].

Clinicaltrials.gov will be recruiting volunteers if you would like to be a guinea pig for GSK’s new flu vaccine with the experimental adjuvant cocktail, mercury, and formaldehyde.  There are just a few reasons you might be excluded from the trial:

If you…

Have a known allergy to eggs or other components of the vaccine (including squalene based adjuvants, gelatin, formaldehyde, octoxinol, thimerosal, and chicken protein)
.…
Have a history of Guillain-Barré Syndrome.

Any takers?

More info:

GSK press release: HHS purchases vaccine components.

HHS purchases oil based adjuvant for use in vaccines.

References:

[1] Wikipedia entry for Squalene (Yes, really)

[2] Autoimmunity induced by adjuvant hydrocarbon oil components of vaccine [pdf]. Yoshiki Kuroda, Dina C. Nacionales, Jun Akaogi, Westley H. Reeves. and Minoru Satoh

[3] Protracted, relapsing and demyelinating experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in DA rats immunized with syngeneic spinal cord and incomplete Freund’s adjuvant [pdf]. Johnny C. Lorentzen, Shohreh Issazadeh, M. Starch, Maha I. Mustafa, Hans Lassman, Christopher Linington, Lars Klareskog, Tomas Olsson.

[4]  From PUBLIC LAW 99-660-NOV. 14, 1986 [pdf]: “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after the effective date of this subtitle if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”

[5]  Analysis of adverse events of potential autoimmune aetiology in a large integrated safety database of AS04 adjuvanted vaccines [pdf]. (All authors work for Glaxo Smith Kline) Thomas Verstraeten, Dominique Descamps, Marie-Pierre David, Toufik Zahaf, Karin Hardt, Patricia Izurieta, Gary Dubin and Thomas Breuer

[6] Arthritis induced in rats with adjuvant oil is a genetically restricted, alpha beta T-cell dependent autoimmune disease. R Holmdahl, T J Goldschmidt, S Kleinau, C Kvick, and R Jonsson

National Security Study Memorandum 200: World Population Growth And U.S. Security

Only problem is… NSM 200 has not been ignored at all.   Sterilants abound in our food and water.

population-security.org

National Security Study Memorandum 200: World Population Growth And U.S. Security delineates the development and major findings of this important study. Author Stephen D. Mumford reveals:

“In March, 1970, the U.S. Congress created The Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, which completed its work in March 1972. Its final report offered more than 70 recommendations. Collectively, they constituted a detailed blueprint for a superb national population policy.”

And uncovers why this commission’s final report was ignored.

“In the words of a Commission member, Congressman James Scheuer (D.-NY): “The reasons were obvious — the fear of attacks from the far right and from the Roman Catholic Church because of our positions on family planning and abortion. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that this obstruction was the first of many similar actions to come from high places.”

Then he goes on to describe the commissioning of the NSSM 200 study, its major findings and the Vatican’s responsibility in the failure to implement the study’s recommendations.

National Security Study Memorandum 200:

World Population Growth And U.S. Security

by Stephen D. Mumford

Stephen D. Mumford has his doctorate in Public Health. He has decades of international experience in fertility research and has recently returned from Vietnam where he spent a month studying a new technique of female sterilization. In 1981 he received the Margaret Mead Leadership Prize in Population and Ecology.

We must help break the link between spiraling population growth and poverty….Where they have been tried, family planning programs have largely worked. .Many pro-life advocates .. .contend that to condone abortion even implicitly is morally unconscionable. Their view is morally shortsighted. . ..if we provide funds for birth control . . .we will prevent the conception of millions of babies who would be doomed to the devastation of poverty in the underdeveloped world.

Richard M. Nixon

Seize the Moment

(Simon & Schuster, 1992)

President Nixon has recently reasserted his belief that overpopulation gravely threatens world peace and stability. He ranks assistance in population growth as the most important effort the United States can undertake to promote peace and stability. During his presidency he authorized the study that came to be known as NSSM 200 — National Security Study Memorandum 200. In order to effectively examine the content and fate of NSSM 200, we need to backtrack a bit to the Rockefeller Commission which was discussed in the Summer 1992 issue of this journal.

From his first days in office, President Nixon understood the grave dangers of high rates of population growth — more than any other president. He responded appropriately when he perceived that his people and their way of life were gravely threatened. Seven months into his first term, in a rare move for a president, he delivered his Special Message to the Congress.1

The message set forth a far-reaching commitment to limiting population growth. It set in motion a broad range of government activities, both domestic and international. It called for the creation of the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future to collect and analyze data that would make possible the formulation of a comprehensive United States population policy.

In March, 1970, the U.S. Congress created The Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, which completed its work in March 1972. Its final report offered more than 70 recommendations. Collectively, they constituted a detailed blueprint for a superb national population policy.

WHY WAS THE COMMISSION’S FINAL REPORT IGNORED?

1972 was a presidential election year and President Nixon was facing a difficult reelection bid, so when a delegation of the Commission presented the Final Report to him on May 5, 1972, six months before election day, he sharply condemned the most important recommendations.2 Why was he attempting to distance himself from the report? In the words of a Commission member, Congressman James Scheuer (D.-NY): “The reasons were obvious — the fear of attacks from the far right and from the Roman Catholic Church because of our positions on family planning and abortion. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that this obstruction was the first of many similar actions to come from high places.”3

During the following two-year period, it became increasingly clear that there would be no response to the Commission’s recommendations. In May 1974, a group of pioneer population activists acknowledged this inaction and asked Ambassador Adolph Schmidt to speak with his friend, Commission Chairman, John D. Rockefeller III. They met in June, 1974 in New York City. Schmidt noted his own disappointment and that of his colleagues because no program had been mounted as a result of the recommendations. What had gone wrong? Rockefeller responded: “The greatest difficulty has been the very active opposition by the Roman Catholic Church through its various agencies in the United States.”4

“…a definitive interagency study of the threat of overpopulation to U.S. security … NSSM 200 details how and why world population growth threatens U.S. and global security.”

None of the Commission’s 70 recommendations were ever implemented. It is tragic that the American people have been kept in the dark about this bold opposition by the Vatican and other pronatalist groups. Lay Catholic Americans desire the same number of children as non-Catholic Americans,5 use contraceptives6 and obtain abortions7 in the same proportions, support school-based population information and sex education8 for their children, and advocate a halt to illegal immigration9 into the U.S. in the same proportions. No doubt, both Catholic and non-Catholic Americans would have strongly counter-balanced this bold obstruction of American policy had they been aware of it. The quality of life for all of us has been significantly diminished by this change in policy, in substantial measure at the behest of pronatalist pressures from the Vatican.

PRESIDENT NIXON MAKES A BOLD MOVE

Despite the intense opposition of the Catholic hierarchy he encountered in the wake of the Rockefeller Commission, President Nixon’s assessment of the gravity of the overpopulation problem and his desire to deal with it remained unchanged. On April 24, 1974, in an effort to contend with this crisis, in National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200), Nixon directed that a study be undertaken to determine the “Implications of World Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.”10 Its findings would be momentous indeed.

I can only speculate, but the President must surely have been aware that this new document would meet with the same intense opposition from the Vatican and others as the earlier one. However, perhaps he felt that a definitive study of the national and global security implications of overpopulation, revealing that the very security of the United States was seriously threatened, would generate public demand for action to curb growth. That might serve to overcome the pressures being exerted by the opponents. Why else would he have undertaken this study, given his painful experience after the Rockefeller Commission?

NSSM 200

To implement NSSM 200, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, acting for the President, directed the Secretaries of Defense and Agriculture, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Deputy Secretary of State and the Administrator of the Agency for International Development (AID), to jointly undertake “a study of the impact of world population growth on U.S. security and overseas interests.” This work was completed on December 10, 1974 and circulated to the designated Secretaries and Agency heads for their review and comments.

Meanwhile, on August 9, 1974, Gerald Ford had succeeded to the presidency. Revisions to the study continued until July, 1975. On November 26, 1975, the 227-page report and its recommendations were endorsed by President Ford in National Security Decision Memorandum 314: “The President has reviewed the interagency response to NSSM 200…,” wrote the new National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft. “He believes that United States leadership is essential to combat population growth, to implement the World Population Plan of Action and to advance United States security and overseas interests. The President endorses the policy recommendations contained in the Executive Summary of the NSSM 200 response…”

President Ford, recognizing the gravity of the situation, assigned responsibility for further action to the National Security Council (NSC): “The President, therefore, assigns to the Chairman, NSC Undersecretaries Committee, the responsibility to define and develop policy in the population field and to coordinate its implementation beyond the NSSM 200 response.”

NSSM 200 was intended to be and is a definitive interagency study of the threat of overpopulation to U.S. security. NSSM 200 details how and why world population growth gravely threatens U.S. and global security. It also provides a blueprint for the U.S. response to this burgeoning problem, reflecting the deep concern of those who produced the report. Because of the bold nature of the suggested initiatives, the authors recommended that the report remain classified for 5 years in order to provide time to educate the American public as to the necessity of these initiatives. The NSSM 200 report actually remained classified for 14 years.

Both the findings and the recommendations are as relevant in 1992 as they were in 1975, but too numerous to list here in their entirety. To mention a selected few:

NSSM 200 reports:

There is a major risk of severe damage [caused by continued rapid population growth] to world economic, political, and ecological systems and, as these systems begin to fail, to our humanitarian values [Executive Summary, page 10].

The sense of near emergency is electric:

…world population growth is widely recognized within the government as a current danger of the highest magnitude calling for urgent measures [Page 194]. …it is of the utmost urgency that governments now recognize the facts and implications of population growth, determine the ultimate population sizes that make sense for their countries and start vigorous programs at once to achieve their desired goals [Page 15].

The threat to security briefly summarized,

…population factors are indeed critical in, and often determinants of, violent conflict in developing areas. Segmental (religious, social, racial) differences, migration, rapid population growth, differential levels of knowledge and skills, rural/urban differences, population pressure and the spatial location of population in relation to resources – in this rough order of importance — all appear to be important contributions to conflict and violence… Clearly, conflicts which are regarded in primarily political terms often have demographic roots. Recognition of these relationships appears crucial to any under standing or prevention of such hostilities [Page 66].

The report gives three examples of population wars: the El Salvador-Honduras “Soccer War,” the Nigerian Civil War, and the Pakistan-India-Bangladesh War, 1970-7 1. (With hindsight, we can see that the two-decade-long civil war in Lebanon is another classic example, and that the civil wars in The Sudan, Somalia and other countries on the African continent are realizations of the projections made in NSSM 200. South Africa is on the brink. War between Israel and Arab countries fueled by population growth is all but inevitable.)

Where population size is greater than available resources, or is expanding more rapidly than the available resources, there is a tendency toward internal disorders and violence and, sometimes, disruptive international policies or violence [Page 69].

(This was a vital element, surely, in the 1991 U.S.-Iraq War, much more costly than decades of

successful worldwide population growth control.)

In developing countries, the burden of population factors, added to others, will weaken unstable governments, often only marginally effective in good times, and open the way to extremist regimes [Page 84].

(The Sudan is a vivid recent example.)

The depth of concern for this ominous and progressive threat to national security is reflected in the objectives and goals outlined in the report:

The World Population Plan of Action and the resolutions adopted by consensus of the 137 nations at the August 1974 U.N. World Population Conference, though not ideal, provide an excellent framework for developing a worldwide system of population/family planning programs [Executive Summary, page 19].

At the UN World Population Conference, only the Vatican opposed the Plan:

. . .the Conference adopted by acclamation (only the Holy See stating a general reservation) a complete World Population Plan of Action [Page 87].

SUGGESTED GOALS AND MEANS

Our objective should be to assure that developing countries make family planning information, education and means available to all their peoples by 1980 [Page 130]. …intense efforts are required to assure full availability by 1980 of birth control information and means to all fertile individuals, especially in rural areas [Executive Summary, page 9].

While specific goals in this area are difficult to state, our aim should be for the world to achieve a replacement level of fertility, (a two-child family on the average), by about the year 2000. . ..Attainment of this goal will require greatly intensified population programs … U.S. leadership is essential [Executive Summary, page 14].

It is now all too clear how crucial this leadership was. The U.S. withdrew from this role shortly after the election of President Carter, just one year after the initiation of public policy based on the report. Initiatives for curtailment of population growth have been deteriorating ever since.

After suitable preparation in the U.S., announce a U.S. goal to maintain our present national average fertility no higher than replacement level and attain stability by 2000 [Executive Summary, page 19]. Only nominal attention is [currently] given to population education or sex education in schools… [Page 158] … Recommendation: That U.S. agencies stress the importance of education of the next generation of parents, starting in elementary schools, toward a two-child family ideal. That AID (the Agency for International Development) stimulate specific efforts to develop means of educating children of elementary school age to the ideal of the two-child family…[Page 159].

Despite the Helms Amendment, which clearly ruled out abortion assistance in U.S. foreign aid programs, there was a clear consensus that continued widespread use of abortion would be required to meet/attain the objective.

While the agencies participating in this study have no specific recommendations to propose on abortion, the following issues are believed important and should be considered in the context of a global population strategy. . ..Certain facts about abortion need to be appreciated:

– No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion [Page

182].

– Indeed, abortion, legal and illegal, now has become the most widespread fertility control method in use in the world today [Page 183].

– It would be unwise to restrict abortion research for the following reasons: 1) The persistent and ubiquitous nature of abortion. 2) Widespread lack of safe abortion techniques… [Page 185].

An important goal in NSSM 200 dealt with leadership:

These programs will have only modest success until there is much stronger and wider acceptance of their real importance by leadership groups. Such acceptance and support will be essential to assure that the population information, education and service programs have vital moral backing, administrative capacity, technical skills and government financing [Page 195].

The report recommended spending whatever could reasonably be absorbed to achieve these goals:

We recommend increases in the AID budget requests to the Congress on the order of $35-$50 million annually through FY 1980 (above the $137.5 million requested for FY 1975)… However, the level of funds needed in the future could change significantly, depending on such factors as major breakthroughs in fertility control technologies and LDC receptivity to population assistance [Executive Summary, page 24].

A ONE-CHILD FAMILY POLICY FOR THE U.S.

We know that even after a country reduces fertility to the replacement level, that, thanks to the phenomenon of momentum, the population continues to grow for another 70 years before stability is achieved. A goal of NSSM 200 was to attain this stability here by the year 2000. One of the chief coordinators of the NSSM 200 study recently acknowledged that the government recognized the one-child family norm would be necessary to achieve this goal and was under obligation to encourage Americans to limit family size.

NO ACCOMMODATION TO THE VATICAN

The study frankly dismissed the arguments that have been raised by the Vatican to counter efforts to reduce population growth. The position of the Roman Catholic Church on population growth centers on the need for economic development in Third World countries as a way to bring growth rates down. NSSM 200 takes an entirely different tack:

We cannot wait for overall modernization and development to produce lower fertility rates naturally since this will undoubtedly take many decades in most developing countries… [Executive Summary, page 7]. Clearly development per se is a powerful determinant of fertility. However, since it is unlikely that most LDCs will develop sufficiently during the next 25-30 years, it is crucial to identify those sectors that most directly and powerfully affect fertility [Page 137].

There is also even less cause for optimism on the rapidity of socio-economic progress that would generate rapid fertility reduction in the poor LDCs, than on the feasibility of extending family planning services to those in their populations who may wish to take advantage of them [Page 99].

This directly opposes the Vatican position.

But we can be certain of the desirable direction of change and can state as a plausible objective the target of achieving replacement fertility rates by the year 2000

[Page 99].

These statements manifestly rule out any accommodation to the Vatican on the issue of population growth control.

IMPLEMENTATION OF NSSM 200 IS BROUGHT TO A HALT

During 1976, Catholic activists worked diligently to undermine population growth control efforts. Dr. R.T. Ravenholt, who directed the global population program of the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Department of State from 1966 to 1979, tells the story. On March 4, 1991, he addressed the Washington State Chapter of Zero Population Growth (ZPG) on “Pronatalist Zealotry and Population Pressure Conflicts: How Catholics Seized Control of U.S. Family Planning Programs,” and described some of these activities:

Following a meeting of Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and his campaign staff with fifteen Catholic leaders at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on August 31, 1976, on which occasion they pressed Carter to deemphasize federal support for family planning in exchange for a modicum of Catholic support for his presidential race… Joseph Califano became Secretary of HEW… When Father Hesburgh [President of Notre Dame University] declined the role of AID Administrator, the appointment was given to John J. Gilligan, a Notre Dame graduate and a former governor of Ohio… John H. Sullivan moved from Congressman Clement Zablocki’ s office into AID… Congressman Zablocki and Jack Sullivan had persistently worked to curb AID’s high powered family planning program. In 1973, Jack Sullivan and allied zealots helped Senator Jesse Helms develop the Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act.”

AN IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: TIME MAGAZINE TELLS IT LIKE IT IS

The headline on the cover of the February 24, 1992 issue of TIME magazine was: “Holy Alliance: How Reagan and the Pope Conspired to Assist Poland’s Solidarity Movement and Hasten the Demise of Communism,” referring to an article written by prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein.

He reports:

The Catholic Team: The key Administration players were all devout Roman Catholics – CIA chief William Casey, [Richard] Allen [Reagan’s first National Security Advisor], [ William] Clark [Reagan’s second National Security Advisor], [Alexander] Haig [Secretary of State], [Vernon] Walters [Ambassador at Large] and William Wilson, Reagan’s first ambassador to the Vatican. They regarded the U.S.-Vatican relationship as a holy alliance: the moral force of the Pope and the teachings of their church combined with their notion of American democracy.

In a section of his TIME article headed, “The U.S. and the Vatican on Birth Control,” Bernstein writes three very revealing paragraphs:

In response to concerns of the Vatican, the Reagan Administration agreed to alter its foreign aid program to comply with the church’s teachings on birth control. According to William Wilson, the President’s first ambassador to the Vatican, the State Department reluctantly agreed to an out-right ban on the use of any U.S. aid funds by either countries or international health organizations for the promotion of…abortions. As a result of this position, announced at the World Conference on Population in Mexico City in 1984, the U.S. withdrew funding from, among others, two of the world’s largest family planning organizations: the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities.

‘American policy was changed as a result of the Vatican’s not agreeing with our policy,’ Wilson explains. ‘American aid programs around the world did not meet the criteria the Vatican had for family planning. AID [the Agency for International Development] sent various people from [the Department of State to Rome, and I’d accompany them to meet the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, and in long discussions they finally got the message. But it was a struggle. They finally selected different programs and abandoned others as a result of this intervention.’

‘I might have touched on that in some of my discussions with [CIA director William] Casey,’ acknowledges Pio Cardinal Laghi, the former apostolic delegate to Washington. ‘Certainly Casey already knew about our positions about that.’

Bernstein makes clear what the cadre of devout Catholics in the Reagan Administration did to protect the papacy and Catholic teaching from the potential fall-out from NSSM 200. He quotes the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, William Wilson, who reveals that during the Reagan Administration, papal policy on birth control and abortion replaced the policy set forth by NSSM 200; and so the 21st century will be irredeemably less livable because of “this intervention.”

A CODE OF SILENCE CLOAKS THE FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF NSSM 200

Immediately after President Ford adopted the recommendations of NSSM 200 on November 26, 1975, a peculiar silence fell over the whole matter. The report was never printed. There are only a handful of photocopies. Those who wrote the report recommended that it be classified for 5 years. Werner Fornos, President of the Population Institute, with the aid of several members of Congress, succeeded in getting the NSSM 200 report declassified for a brief period in 1976. Despite his best efforts, and the explosiveness of this report detailing major changes in the lives of every American, he was unable to achieve any press coverage whatsoever. Instead, he found the report reclassified as a result of the objections of “members of the national security establishment” to the early declassification.

In the end, as noted, the document remained classified for 14 years, rather than the recommended 5 years. Declassification in 1989 apparently resulted from application of the Freedom of Information Act.

THE SILENCE EXTENDS BEYOND NSSM 200

The Vatican must be confronted on this issue. Says Representative Scheuer: “The Roman Catholic Church and its allies cannot be allowed to dictate the rules of the game when it comes to preservation of life on this planet at some level of decency.”12

Clearly, Carl Bernstein’s article in TIME has been the most important development in revealing the influences of the Vatican on American policy. Rep. Scheuer’s article, published in this journal, and Ravenholt’s speech to ZPG were both major advances.

Congressman Scheuer has put it succinctly: “The issue of population growth is too crucial to the future welfare of our nation and of the world to be left to the Roman Catholic hierarchy and it allies in the fundamentalist movement.”3 The pressures must be countered so that the rational and measured policies proposed by the Rockefeller Commission and NSSM 200 can be implemented as rapidly as possible.

NOTES

1 Nixon, R. “Special Message to the Congress on Problems of Population Growth,” July 18, 1969. Public Papers of the Presidents, No. 271, p. 521, Office of the Federal Register, National Archives, Washington, DC, 1971.

2 Nixon, R. “Statement About the Report of the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future,” May 5, 1972. Public Papers of the Presidents, No. 142, p. 576, Office of the Federal Register, National Archives, Washington, DC, 1974.

3 Scheuer, J. “A Disappointing Outcome: United States and World Population Trends Since the Rockefeller Commission,” The Social Contract, Summer 1992, pp. 203-206.

4 Schmidt, A.W., Personal communication, August 28, 1992.

5 National Security Council, National Security Study Memorandum 200, Washington, DC, April 24, 1974.2 pp.

6 National Security Council, “NSSM 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests,” Washington, DC December 10, 1974, 227 pp.

7 National Security Council, “National Security Decision Memorandum 314,” Washington, DC, November 26, 1975. 4 pp.

8 NSSM 200, Executive Summary, p. 10.

9 Ibid, p. 194.

10 Ibid, p. 15.

11 Ravenholt, R.T., “Pronatalist Zealotry and Population Pressure Conflicts: How Catholics Seized Control of U.S. Family Planning Programs,” Center For Research on Population and Security, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, May 1992, 27 pp.

12 Scheuer, J., op. cit., p. 206.

13 Ibid, p. 205.

BIRTH CONTROL PERCEIVED AS A THREAT TO PAPAL AUTHORITY

Why is the Roman Catholic Church obliged to halt legalized abortion and contraception despite the strong wishes of Americans?

In Papal Power: A Study of Vatican Control Over Lay Catholic Elites (The University of California Press, 1980), Jean-Guy Vaillancourt, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Montreal, closely examines the sources of papal power. It is derived in significant part from papal AUTHORITY. If the Pope’s AUTHORITY is diminished, papal power is diminished. However, some AUTHORITY is derived from papal power and if papal power is diminished, then AUTHORITY is undermined. The relationship is circular. Less AUTHORITY means less power which means even less AUTHORITY. With diminishing power, survival of the institution of the Roman Catholic Church in its present hierarchical form is gravely threatened. Thus, the very survival of the Vatican is threatened by programs to control population growth.

In April, 1992, in an exceedingly rare public admission of this threat, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, delivering a major address to the Franciscan University of Steubenville, acknowledged, “The fact is that attacks on the Catholic Church’s stance on abortion — unless they are rebutted — effectively erode Church AUTHORITY on all matters, indeed on the AUTHORITY of God himself.”

This threat was recognized decades ago by the Papal Commission on Population and Birth Control which met from 1964 until 1966. According to Commission member Thomas Burch, the Pope himself assigned the Commission the task of finding a way of modifying the Church’s position on birth control without destroying papal AUTHORITY, which is absolutely essential for the continued survival of the Vatican and the Catholic Church as we know it today. The Commission failed to find a way and the result was the encyclical Humanae Vitae which banned the use of contraception.

The Vatican clearly believes that if solutions to the population problem are applied, the teaching of the church will be undermined and the dominance of the papacy will be vitiated. Thus, it is convinced that it cannot compromise on the issue of birth control, regardless of our national policy. NSSM 200 forthrightly opposes Rome on population strategy, family planning and abortion in the interest of national security.

– Stephen Mumford

from:

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

Vol. III, No. 2

Winter 1992-93

1993

The Social Contract

3161/2 E. Mitchell St., Suite 4

Petoskey, MI 49770

A Social Contract Reprint

Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures

PrisonPlanet.com
Paul Joseph Watson
Saturday, July 11, 2009

In 1977 book, John Holdren advocated forced abortions, mass sterilization through food and water supply and mandatory bodily implants to prevent pregnancies

President Obama’s top science and technology advisor John P. Holdren co-authored a 1977 book in which he advocated the formation of a “planetary regime” that would use a “global police force” to enforce totalitarian measures of population control, including forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply, as well as mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children.

The concepts outlined in Holdren’s 1977 book Ecoscience, which he co-authored with close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, were so shocking that a February 2009 Front Page Magazine story on the subject was largely dismissed as being outlandish because people couldn’t bring themselves to believe that it could be true.

It was only when another Internet blog obtained the book and posted screenshots that the awful truth about what Holdren had actually committed to paper actually began to sink in.

This issue is more prescient than ever because Holdren and his colleagues are now at the forefront of efforts to combat “climate change” through similarly insane programs focused around geoengineering the planet. As we reported in April, Holdren recently advocated “Large-scale geoengineering projects designed to cool the Earth,” such as “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays,” which many have pointed out is already occurring via chemtrails.

Ecoscience discusses a number of ways in which the global population could be reduced to combat what the authors see as mankind’s greatest threat – overpopulation. In each case, the proposals are couched in sober academic rhetoric, but the horrifying foundation of what Holdren and his co-authors are advocating is clear. These proposals include;

- Forcibly and unknowingly sterilizing the entire population by adding infertility drugs to the nation’s water and food supply.

- Legalizing “compulsory abortions,” ie forced abortions carried out against the will of the pregnant women, as is common place in Communist China where women who have already had one child and refuse to abort the second are kidnapped off the street by the authorities before a procedure is carried out to forcibly abort the baby.

- Babies who are born out of wedlock or to teenage mothers to be forcibly taken away from their mother by the government and put up for adoption. Another proposed measure would force single mothers to demonstrate to the government that they can care for the child, effectively introducing licensing to have children.

- Implementing a system of “involuntary birth control,” where both men and women would be mandated to have an infertility device implanted into their body at puberty and only have it removed temporarily if they received permission from the government to have a baby.

- Permanently sterilizing people who the authorities deem have already had too many children or who have contributed to “general social deterioration”.

- Formally passing a law that criminalizes having more than two children, similar to the one child policy in Communist China.

- This would all be overseen by a transnational and centralized “planetary regime” that would utilize a “global police force” to enforce the measures outlined above. The “planetary regime” would also have the power to determine population levels for every country in the world.

The quotes from the book are included below. We also include comments by the author of the blog who provided the screenshots of the relevant passages. Screenshots of the relevant pages and the quotes in their full context are provided at the end of the excerpts. The quotes from the book appear as text indents and in bold. The quotes from the author of the blog are italicized.

Page 837: Compulsory abortions would be legal

“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”

As noted in the FrontPage article cited above, Holdren “hides behind the passive voice” in this passage, by saying “it has been concluded.” Really? By whom? By the authors of the book, that’s whom. What Holdren’s really saying here is, “I have determined that there’s nothing unconstitutional about laws which would force women to abort their babies.” And as we will see later, although Holdren bemoans the fact that most people think there’s no need for such laws, he and his co-authors believe that the population crisis is so severe that the time has indeed come for “compulsory population-control laws.” In fact, they spend the entire book arguing that “the population crisis” has already become “sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”

Page 786: Single mothers should have their babies taken away by the government; or they could be forced to have abortions

“One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.”

Holdren and his co-authors once again speculate about unbelievably draconian solutions to what they feel is an overpopulation crisis. But what’s especially disturbing is not that Holdren has merely made these proposals — wrenching babies from their mothers’ arms and giving them away; compelling single mothers to prove in court that they would be good parents; and forcing women to have abortions, whether they wanted to or not — but that he does so in such a dispassionate, bureaucratic way. Don’t be fooled by the innocuous and “level-headed” tone he takes: the proposals are nightmarish, however euphemistically they are expressed.

Holdren seems to have no grasp of the emotional bond between mother and child, and the soul-crushing trauma many women have felt throughout history when their babies were taken away from them involuntarily.

This kind of clinical, almost robotic discussion of laws that would affect millions of people at the most personal possible level is deeply unsettling, and the kind of attitude that gives scientists a bad name. I’m reminded of the phrase “banality of evil.”

Not that it matters, but I myself am “pro-choice” — i.e. I think that abortion should not be illegal. But that doesn’t mean I’m pro-abortion — I don’t particularly like abortions, but I do believe women should be allowed the choice to have them. But John Holdren here proposes to take away that choice — to force women to have abortions. One doesn’t need to be a “pro-life” activist to see the horror of this proposal — people on all sides of the political spectrum should be outraged. My objection to forced abortion is not so much to protect the embryo, but rather to protect the mother from undergoing a medical procedure against her will. And not just any medical procedure, but one which she herself (regardless of my views) may find particularly immoral or traumatic.

There’s a bumper sticker that’s popular in liberal areas which says: “Against abortion? Then don’t have one.” Well, John Holdren wants to MAKE you have one, whether you’re against it or not.

Page 787-8: Mass sterilization of humans though drugs in the water supply is OK as long as it doesn’t harm livestock

“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.”

OK, John, now you’re really starting to scare me. Putting sterilants in the water supply? While you correctly surmise that this suggestion “seems to horrify people more than most proposals,” you apparently are not among those people it horrifies. Because in your extensive list of problems with this possible scheme, there is no mention whatsoever of any ethical concerns or moral issues. In your view, the only impediment to involuntary mass sterilization of the population is that it ought to affect everyone equally and not have any unintended side effects or hurt animals. But hey, if we could sterilize all the humans safely without hurting the livestock, that’d be peachy! The fact that Holdren has no moral qualms about such a deeply invasive and unethical scheme (aside from the fact that it would be difficult to implement) is extremely unsettling and in a sane world all by itself would disqualify him from holding a position of power in the government.

Page 786-7: The government could control women’s reproduction by either sterilizing them or implanting mandatory long-term birth control

Involuntary fertility control

“A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.

The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”

Note well the phrase “with official permission” in the above quote. John Holdren envisions a society in which the government implants a long-term sterilization capsule in all girls as soon as they reach puberty, who then must apply for official permission to temporarily remove the capsule and be allowed to get pregnant at some later date. Alternately, he wants a society that sterilizes all women once they have two children. Do you want to live in such a society? Because I sure as hell don’t.

Page 838: The kind of people who cause “social deterioration” can be compelled to not have children

“If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns—providing they are not denied equal protection.“

To me, this is in some ways the most horrifying sentence in the entire book — and it had a lot of competition. Because here Holdren reveals that moral judgments would be involved in determining who gets sterilized or is forced to abort their babies. Proper, decent people will be left alone — but those who “contribute to social deterioration” could be “forced to exercise reproductive responsibility” which could only mean one thing — compulsory abortion or involuntary sterilization. What other alternative would there be to “force” people to not have children? Will government monitors be stationed in irresponsible people’s bedrooms to ensure they use condoms? Will we bring back the chastity belt? No — the only way to “force” people to not become or remain pregnant is to sterilize them or make them have abortions.

But what manner of insanity is this? “Social deterioration”? Is Holdren seriously suggesting that “some” people contribute to social deterioration more than others, and thus should be sterilized or forced to have abortions, to prevent them from propagating their kind? Isn’t that eugenics, plain and simple? And isn’t eugenics universally condemned as a grotesquely evil practice?

We’ve already been down this road before. In one of the most shameful episodes in the history of U.S. jurisprudence, the Supreme Court ruled in the infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the State of Virginia had had the right to sterilize a woman named Carrie Buck against her will, based solely on the (spurious) criteria that she was “feeble-minded” and promiscuous, with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes concluding, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Nowadays, of course, we look back on that ruling in horror, as eugenics as a concept has been forever discredited. In fact, the United Nations now regards forced sterilization as a crime against humanity.

The italicized phrase at the end (”providing they are not denied equal protection”), which Holdren seems to think gets him off the eugenics hook, refers to the 14th Amendment (as you will see in the more complete version of this passage quoted below), meaning that the eugenics program wouldn’t be racially based or discriminatory — merely based on the whim and assessments of government bureaucrats deciding who and who is not an undesirable. If some civil servant in Holdren’s America determines that you are “contributing to social deterioration” by being promiscuous or pregnant or both, will government agents break down your door and and haul you off kicking and screaming to the abortion clinic? In fact, the Supreme Court case Skinner v. Oklahoma already determined that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment distinctly prohibits state-sanctioned sterilization being applied unequally to only certain types of people.

No no, you say, Holdren isn’t claiming that some kind of people contribute to social deterioration more than others; rather, he’s stating that anyone who overproduces children thereby contributes to social deterioration and needs to be stopped from having more. If so — how is that more palatable? It seems Holdren and his co-authors have not really thought this through, because what they are suggesting is a nightmarish totalitarian society. What does he envision: All women who commit the crime of having more than two children be dragged away by police to the government-run sterilization centers? Or — most disturbingly of all — perhaps Holdren has thought it through, and is perfectly OK with the kind of dystopian society he envisions in this book.

Sure, I could imagine a bunch of drunken guys sitting around shooting the breeze, expressing these kinds of forbidden thoughts; who among us hasn’t looked in exasperation at a harried mother buying candy bars and soda for her immense brood of unruly children and thought: Lady, why don’t you just get your tubes tied already? But it’s a different matter when the Science Czar of the United States suggests the very same thing officially in print. It ceases being a harmless fantasy, and suddenly the possibility looms that it could become government policy. And then it’s not so funny anymore.

Page 838: Nothing is wrong or illegal about the government dictating family size

“In today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?”

Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?

Why?

I’ll tell you why, John. Because the the principle of habeas corpus upon which our nation rests automatically renders any compulsory abortion scheme to be unconstitutional, since it guarantees the freedom of each individual’s body from detention or interference, until that person has been convicted of a crime. Or are you seriously suggesting that, should bureaucrats decide that the country is overpopulated, the mere act of pregnancy be made a crime?

I am no legal scholar, but it seems that John Holdren is even less of a legal scholar than I am. Many of the bizarre schemes suggested in Ecoscience rely on seriously flawed legal reasoning. The book is not so much about science, but instead is about reinterpreting the Constitution to allow totalitarian population-control measures.

Page 942-3: A “Planetary Regime” should control the global economy and dictate by force the number of children allowed to be born

Toward a Planetary Regime

“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.”

“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”

In case you were wondering exactly who would enforce these forced abortion and mass sterilization laws: Why, it’ll be the “Planetary Regime”! Of course! I should have seen that one coming.

The rest of this passage speaks for itself. Once you add up all the things the Planetary Regime (which has a nice science-fiction ring to it, doesn’t it?) will control, it becomes quite clear that it will have total power over the global economy, since according to Holdren this Planetary Regime will control “all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable” (which basically means all goods) as well as all food, and commerce on the oceans and any rivers “that discharge into the oceans” (i.e. 99% of all navigable rivers). What’s left? Not much.

Page 917: We will need to surrender national sovereignty to an armed international police force

“If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization.”

The other shoe drops. So: We are expected to voluntarily surrender national sovereignty to an international organization (the “Planetary Regime,” presumably), which will be armed and have the ability to act as a police force. And we saw in the previous quote exactly which rules this armed international police force will be enforcing: compulsory birth control, and all economic activity.

It would be laughable if Holdren weren’t so deadly serious. Do you want this man to be in charge of science and technology in the United States? Because he already is in charge.

Page 749: Pro-family and pro-birth attitudes are caused by ethnic chauvinism

“Another related issue that seems to encourage a pronatalist attitude in many people is the question of the differential reproduction of social or ethnic groups. Many people seem to be possessed by fear that their group may be outbred by other groups. White Americans and South Africans are worried there will be too many blacks, and vice versa. The Jews in Israel are disturbed by the high birth rates of Israeli Arabs, Protestants are worried about Catholics, and lbos about Hausas. Obviously, if everyone tries to outbreed everyone else, the result will be catastrophe for all. This is another case of the “tragedy of the commons,” wherein the “commons” is the planet Earth. Fortunately, it appears that, at least in the DCs, virtually all groups are exercising reproductive restraint.”

This passage is not particularly noteworthy except for the inclusion of the odd phrase “pronatalist attitude,” which Holdren spends much of the book trying to undermine. And what exactly is a “pronatalist attitude”? Basically it means the urge to have children, and to like babies. If only we could suppress people’s natural urge to want children and start families, we could solve all our problems!

What’s disturbing to me is the incredibly patronizing and culturally imperialist attitude he displays here, basically acting like he has the right to tell every ethnic group in the world that they should allow themselves to go extinct or at least not increase their populations any more. How would we feel if Andaman Islanders showed up on the steps of the Capitol in Washington D.C. and announced that there were simply too many Americans, and we therefore are commanded to stop breeding immediately? One imagines that the attitude of every ethnic group in the world to John Holdren’s proposal would be: Cram it, John. Stop telling us what to do.

Page 944: As of 1977, we are facing a global overpopulation catastrophe that must be resolved at all costs by the year 2000

“Humanity cannot afford to muddle through the rest of the twentieth century; the risks are too great, and the stakes are too high. This may be the last opportunity to choose our own and our descendants’ destiny. Failing to choose or making the wrong choices may lead to catastrophe. But it must never be forgotten that the right choices could lead to a much better world.”

This is the final paragraph of the book, which I include here only to show how embarrassingly inaccurate his “scientific” projections were. In 1977, Holdren thought we were teetering on the brink of global catastrophe, and he proposed implementing fascistic rules and laws to stave off the impending disaster. Luckily, we ignored his warnings, yet the world managed to survive anyway without the need to punish ourselves with the oppressive society which Holdren proposed. Yes, there still is overpopulation, but the problems it causes are not as morally repugnant as the “solutions” which John Holdren wanted us to adopt.

SCREENSHOTS OF PAGES FROM ECOSCIENCE (CLICK FOR ENLARGEMENTS)

Front cover	Back cover	Title page
Page 749	Page 786	Page 787
Page 788	Page 789	Page 837
Page 838	Page 839	Page 917
Page 942	Page 943	Page 944
Page 1001	Page 1002	Page 1003