Wikipedia is Ruled by Skeptics with Biased Agendas: Wrong on 90% of Medical Advice

You may think Wikipedia — originally funded with revenue from soft-core pornography — is the best thing since Cliff Notes, with quick and easy access to all the facts and news you ever needed to know. Some believe Wikipedia is even better than Encyclopedia Britannica; indeed, Wikipedia’s founders intended it to be a replacement for it. But is Wikipedia really a trustworthy source? Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Interestingly enough, while Wikipedia has become the world's most powerful thought leader — controlling a vast amount of internet information and being used to determine the credibility of experts across most fields — Wikipedia itself warns it is NOT a reliable source. It states: “Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time. This means that any information it contains at any particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong. Biographies of living persons, subjects that happen to be in the news, and politically or culturally contentious topics are especially vulnerable to these issues. Edits on Wikipedia that are in error may eventually be fixed. However, because Wikipedia is a volunteer run project, it cannot monitor every contribution all of the time. There are many errors that remain unnoticed for days, weeks, months, or even years. Therefore, Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source in and of itself.” Despite this blatant admission of unreliability, Wikipedia is the go-to site for Google quality raters to assess the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of an author or website. There’s also evidence showing Wikipedia is edited by people with a very specific agenda, and anyone who tries to clarify or clear up inaccuracies on the site is simply blocked.

Pinterest Censoring Anti-Vaccine Doctors and Pins Related to Vaccine Rights

The popular image-sharing social media website Pinterest is blocking pins that provide safety information about vaccines, or question whether or not legislation should be passed to mandate vaccines. When Health Impact News noticed that some of their pins were no longer showing, we contacted Pinterest to find out why. Someone named "Tina" from Pinterest Help emailed this to Health Impact News: "One or more of your Pins about vaccines has been highlighted as containing medical misinformation. Per our policy, this content will remain available to you, but it will be hidden from circulation on Pinterest as it contains claims that are considered to be misleading or inaccurate by the medical community." The fact is that the "medical community" is not at all unified on their views of vaccines, as increasingly more doctors, scientists and medical professionals are beginning to question the Big Pharma and Government extremist position on vaccines. The extremist pro-vaccine position on vaccine is: ALL vaccines are safe and effective and good for ALL people ALL of the time, by force if necessary. This extremist view probably represents very few in the medical community, as all 50 states currently allow vaccines exemptions be written by medical doctors. Pinterest's "Community Guidelines" was clearly written to protect the interests of Big Pharma: We’ll take action on content spreading medical misinformation that could lead to serious harm to Pinners - for example, claims of curing diseases currently considered by the medical community to be incurable. It would appear that the motivation behind such a policy is to prevent harm to Big Pharma and their profits, not Pinterest users and an informed public.

Snopes and Retraction Watch Fail to Prevent Publication of Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Study

The first-ever study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated American children (and a subset study) published two weeks ago in the peer-reviewed Journal of Translational Science have reappeared online after briefly disappearing while under fire from a small band of Skeptics and the staff at Retraction Watch, an organization that reports Science retraction news. Snopes, the fact-checking website, is still misreporting that the study has been retracted, even while it sits, published, in the science journal’s pages. It is a troubling saga unfolding in the scientific publishing world, and it is worth paying attention to because it’s revealing of powerful forces in that realm that are trying to censor scientific research and to shield important data from public viewing.

Scientist Critical of HPV Vaccine Censored from Commenting on NIH Website

As an employee of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), it is certainly within Dr. Mark Schiffman’s job description to write articles promoting human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines. After all, his employer owns patents on HPV vaccine production technologies and receives licensing fees from the sales of HPV vaccines. The HPV vaccine, Gardasil, based largely on technology developed at NIH and produced by Merck & Co., was approved by the FDA in June 2006. The NIH, funded by taxpayers, also maintains a forum for scientific discourse, called PubMed Commons which hopefully “will leverage the social power of the internet to encourage constructive criticism and high-quality discussions of scientific issues that will both enhance understanding and provide new avenues of collaboration within the community”. In December 2016, Dr. Schiffman and a few industry-paid consultants published an article titled “Carcinogenic human papillomavirus infection.” Dr. Lee responded to Dr. Schiffman saying: "Dr. Schiffman’s responses to my initial comment on the Primer needs a rebuttal to point out its misleading and obfuscating statements." Almost immediately, the discussion was effectively shut down by the removal of Dr. Lee’s comments. Does this not seem like a gross violation of the public trust in an organization such as NIH which has promised to ‘encourage constructive criticism and high-quality discussions of scientific issues’?

To Silence Political Dissent, IRS Issues New Rule to Censor Free Speech on Health Issues

ANH-USA could be targeted—along with your right to political representation. In May 2013, the IRS was caught illegally discriminating against Tea Party groups applying for 501(c)4 nonprofit status. In the wake of the scandal, the IRS worked to eliminate illegal censorship of political dissent—by attempting to legalize it. On Black Friday, under cover of a day when no one follows the news, the IRS issued proposed rules to severely restrict the activities of 501(c)4 nonprofit organizations such as ANH-USA. These rules would place strict limitations on speech, eliminate your voice in the political process, and put consumer advocacy nonprofits like ANH-USA under a gag order, leaving powerful private interests and their government allies free to operate in secret. In short, the new IRS rules are an egregious violation of the First Amendment. Without 501(c)4s—organizations that pool the resources of many like-minded individuals—the only remaining political influences will be the huge industries (Big Pharma, Big Agro, and Big Biotech included), unions, and other special interests that can afford to make enormous contributions and hire expensive lobbyists. The IRS has no business in politics. Tell the agency to rescind this political gag order and protect the right of political dissenters and organizations that represent individuals like you!

As State-sanctioned Licensing Boards Continue to Proliferate, the Trend of Limiting Free Speech is Increasing

State licensing boards are trying to prevent unlicensed citizens from even talking about certain subjects. As these state-sanctioned licensing boards continue to proliferate, the trend of limiting free speech is increasing—almost without exception as a tool for the board to protect the professional turf of licensed practitioners. In the 1950s, only one in twenty US workers needed government permission—for that is what licensure is—to pursue their chosen occupation. Today, it is closer to one in three. Yet there is little evidence that licensing protects public health and safety or improves products and services. It does, however, increase consumer costs and reduce opportunities for workers.

Vaccine Risk Denialism Threatens Censorship on Dangers of Vaccines

British and American researchers have created software to monitor online articles critical of vaccinations in 144 countries. The purpose of this software is reportedly "to create a rapid response to anti-vaccine sentiment." Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center discusses how public access to vaccine risk information is being restricted, and that vaccine injuries and deaths are covered up.

FDA Presumes Itself Omniscient and Consumers Ignorant

Do you think you are intelligent enough to decide for yourself the relative worth of scientific findings concerning the disease treatment and risk reduction effects of nutrients and foods? The FDA thinks you are not and that it must decide such questions for you in the first instance. Indeed, the FDA bans from the grocery store, the health food store, and online all commercial claims associating a food or nutrient with disease, regardless of whether the claims are supported by science. That broad prior restraint on speech contradicts the very premise of the First Amendment.