“My Research and Testimony Will Withstand Time. Will Yours?”

Veteran Alternative Health Advocate and Media Producer Gary Null Responds to KPFA’s Censorship

- By Gary Null

On May 8 MHB carried news of Pacifica Network station KPFA’s decision to censor an interview of alternative health advocate, broadcaster, and independent media producer Gary Null conducted by Bonnie Faulkner and scheduled to air on May 6. The discussion centered on the vaccines and California’s SB277 legislation targeting families that question or choose to have their children opt out of the federally recommended vaccine schedule. Shortly thereafter KPFA program director Laura Prives issued a statement seeking to justify KPFA’s decision by attacking Null through a number of unfounded and inflammatory statements. Below is Null’s recent response to Prives.-JFT  

 

Dear Ms. Prives:

I had a chance to read your recent public statements about me, as well as Steve Brown’s reply to you, both of which were forwarded to me. I concur with Mr Brown’s assessment, and with his warning that your statements constitute libel, and that a lawsuit against you and the foundation would almost certainly be successful. My attorneys agree.

Lewis Hill would have been appalled at the blatant censorship imposed upon Bonnie Faulkner and myself, especially in light of the California senate’s recent passage of a bill that destroys Californians’ freedom of health choices for their children. Had I been allowed the opportunity to present the independent science opposing Big Pharma’s spurious claims for vaccine efficacy and safety, there might have been enough support from KPFA listeners to have delayed or thwarted the bill’s sponsors from passing it.

For someone who evidently has no accurate knowledge of either me or my work, I am deeply disappointed that you did not reach out to me privately to address your concerns, but instead accepted as true the slanderous and libelous accusations of individuals with their own political and ideological — and possibly financial — agendas. As a result, your public statements about me were remarkably naïve and immature. They were also, according to my attorneys, libelous — because I have on numerous occasions sent compelling evidence to all Pacifica stations that the attacks against me, fabricated by a small group of Act Up members for reasons unrelated to their stated mission, are without merit. Therefore, I can only assume that your unfounded public statements against me represent malice (in the legal meaning of the term), which exposes you, Margie Wilkinson, KPFA, and the Pacifica Foundation to punitive damages.

It is curious that you would quote a Wikipedia article almost verbatim for information to discredit me. There are many trusted, objective and quality resources that expose Wikipedia’s biases, lack of objectivity, and infiltration by editors who have been paid to create preferential statements for some and denigrating statements for others. So severe and widespread is Wikipedia’s lack of credibility that universities, including Harvard, advise students not to use it. As the program director of KPFA, I would have expected you to be aware of this.

Regarding my credentials that you disparage, let me set the record straight.

Over the past 40 years I have published over 600 articles on science, medicine and the environment, including over 300 investigative reports. Dozens of these became cover stories for national magazines. I have won numerous awards for investigative reporting, journalism and radio broadcasting on these matters. You can review my articles yourself because many are posted on my website in the archives.

I have also been a leader for many social and healthcare movements and was among the first journalists to publish national articles exposing the unsavory financial and political agendas behind cancer, heart disease, AIDS, psychiatry, and the AMA, FDA and CDC. My work has been used by 60 Minutes, and 20-20 earned two Emmys using my work. I have been invited as a keynote speaker at numerous national and world conferences on anti-aging medicine and alternative health to present insights into the health impacts of lifestyle and behavior. My reputation is solely the result of the work I do. I do not promote myself, nor do I have a marketing person, because I spend seven days a week, every day of the year, engaged in social issues.

For those who state I am a so-called “AIDS denier,” that is a blatant lie (as well as being a term slyly fabricated by pharmaceutical industry PR consultants to stigmatize those with alternative viewpoints by subliminally linking them to Holocaust deniers). I have worked with one of America’s leading gay physicians, Dr. Steven Caiasa, for many years. Together we counseled more than 1200 persons with full blown AIDS, many of whom — instead of dying as predicted — are still alive today.

While serving as the director of the Tri-State Healing Center, I arranged for over a 1,000 persons with AIDS to be treated — at no charge — by physicians using holistic protocols. I published a series of articles about natural non-toxic therapeutic protocols for helping AIDS patients. All of this work led eventually to a national press conference in New York City. The conference featured 100 AIDS victims who were in full recovery or had completely reversed their conditions, as demonstrated by their physicians and medical records. New York’s future governor and an eminent panel of scientists reviewed the records of these patients and concluded that the results were both astonishing and significant, and deserved a public hearing.

During this 6-hour event, each person told his story. Eighty-eight AIDS survivors explained how their physicians used detoxification modalities, Louise Hay’s method, and other metabolic therapies. The remaining 12 reversed all their illnesses and their diagnosis reversed to HIV-negative under my care. However, not a single AIDS group, medical doctor or major media member attended the conference — it was a complete and deliberate media blackout even though thousands of invitations had been sent out. The public relations firm that handled the event reported back that they never saw anything like that before.

During my journalist career, my stories have always been vetted by either a scientist or an attorney to assure accuracy and proper scientific citation. Throughout the entire period of the height of the AIDS epidemic I was lecturing within the gay community on lifestyle and behavior modification. I also worked closely with Charles Ortleib, the editor of the nation’s number one gay publication, New York Native.

It was the opinion of the Native’s award winning journalist, Nina Ostrom, that AIDS was due to multiple causes including the Herpes-6 virus. Charles, Nina and others appeared on my radio programs frequently to present their first hand experiences and investigations that differed from those of the emerging gay faction that became aligned with, and to a great extent financed by, the medical industry. Burroughs Wellcome, the manufacturer of AZT, was one of the largest funders of individuals in the AIDS movement, such as Act Up, who targeted myself and other journalists and activists who questioned the belief that AIDS could ONLY be treated with anti-viral drugs, such as they manufactured and sold at predatory markups as high as (literally) 2,000 percent and more.

As the death toll rose parallel to higher AZT doses, the pharmaceutical industry and Act Up continued to promote the pharmaceutical approach to treat AIDS — even though it was not curing, but instead killing off thouusands of the afflicted. As a result, we witnessed a tragic mass-die off of those using high doses of retrovirals. In order to silence those of us — physicians, scientists, journalists and activists, straight or gay — who spent thousands of hours trying to bring this deadly mis-application of drugs to public attention, a smear campaign was launched to call us “AIDS denialists.” This was intended to produce an effect similar to calling someone a holocaust denier, and it destroyed people’s careers. Today, there are over 3000 scientists, researchers and multiple Nobel laureates who challenge the existing AIDS paradigm. None of them deny AIDS as an illness. Instead, what they request is an open debate about other methods of diagnosis and treatment that have proven both effective and safe — but do not rely on dangerous drugs. And that is why the pharmaceutical industry works so hard to stigmatize those such as myself, who are a threat to their huge profit machine, since research into HIV and AIDS today is larger than that for cancer and cardiovascular disease combined.

Regrettably, censorship such as yours help shut off public and open debate on the dangers of unsafe vaccines, as well as on alternative treatments for AIDS. And your statements attacking me as an AIDS denialist by listening to disturbed propagandists flies in the face of simple fact-checking. I have repeatedly invited my attackers on my KPFK and WBAI programs in the past to debate me, but they refuse. However, on my program I did debate the two most prominent people in the field of AIDS: Drs. Robert Gallo and Luc Montaigner (who won the Nobel prize for first identifying HIV).

My first documentary film on health was released in 1986. Since then I have received approximately 300 film awards and official festival entries. I have directed three award-winning documentaries focusing on vaccines, including the one you censored.

During the 2010 faux swine flu scare my producer and I submitted a 100 page white paper to the New York State Governor and Health Commissioner, as well as testifying under oath to the NY health commission, scientific arguments opposing the state’s bill to mandate the H1N1 flu vaccine. I did this on behalf of nurses and healthcare workers whose health would have been threatened by a vaccine that was fast-tracked and improperly reviewed for its safety and efficacy.

If you had taken a moment to listen to any of my broadcasts on WBAI or the Progressive Radio Network, you would quickly realize that the health news I report and comment upon is based on the most recent peer-reviewed medical findings from universities and medical institutions throughout the world, and that there is a huge body of sound science supporting alternative health prevention and treatment for physical and mental illnesses. I present such vital information daily on my programs.

Your personal attack on my motives — by accusing me of profiting from the use of my products and supplements as Pacifica premiums — is grossly unfounded, and one of the typical lies that prevails among the ideologues and enemies of free speech at KPFA. I have instructed my publishers, such as Seven Story press, to offer books to WBAI at such a low cost that my royalties were reduced so the station could earn more money.

The great irony is that for almost 35 years I refused to promote any of my products on WBAI or Pacifica. Only in recent years did that change, when WBAI’s then-Program Director Tony Bates and General Manager Berthold Reimers pleaded with me to do so, and I acceded to their wishes. My personal preference is to not pitch any of my own products as premiums, as former and current station managers of WBAI, KPFK and WPFW can verify.

Your assumption that I am in some kind of “racket,” and that I work only for financial gain, is delusional and an outright lie. During the past 45 years I have privately counseled tens of thousands of individuals without ever charging a penny. Rarely do I accept money for public lectures and appearances. For 31 years I hosted a weekly 6-hour program on KPFK, for 30 years a daily program on WPFW and every weekday for 39 years a program on WBAI. Although I was offered a producer’s salary, I did not accept it, because I was more committed to Pacifica’s mission of free speech than to personal financial gain. But had I chosen to accept producer’s salaries for all those years, Pacifica would have owed me approximately $2.7 million. In addition, I have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of free premiums over the years to Pacifica stations. Even in 2014, I donated engineering equipment for WBAI’s studio as well as office furnishings.

Unfortunately, you have been taken in by the medical industry’s highly paid dissimulators, such as the Quackbusters, who wrote the Wikipedia entry about me, as well as by those who unthinkingly accept such disinformation as true, and then go on to thoughtlessly repeat it, without making the slightest effort to verify its accuracy. My degree in human nutrition and public health science is from a fully accredited university. My thesis and laboratory research was performed through the highly respected Institute of Applied Biology, a non-profit cancer research institution that dates back to the 1940s.

Therefore, I ask you: If you yourself are not personally knowledgeable about medical and scientific matters, and if you yourself have not performed any first-hand medical or scientific research of your own — what basic humanistic values can possibly justify your mean-spirited attack on someone like myself, who has 45 years worth of scientific and medical experience, and whose findings are supported by (literally) thousands of eminent doctors and scientists? Moreover, if you then refuse to offer a person an opportunity to respond — how then should your moral integrity be viewed?

In conclusion, the number of vaccines that people will legally be forced to allow into their bodies and into the bodies of their even more vulnerable children will soon escalate significantly. Even as you read this, over 270 new vaccines are being developed in the pharmaceutical industry’s pipeline. It is becoming ever more likely that the state of California will pass one of the most draconian and dangerous state vaccine laws in America, and that Governor Brown will sign it into law. Parents who refuse vaccination will be demonized. We can only imagine the holocaust of vaccine-induced injuries these bills will cause in the future.

Your anti-feminist stance, aside from censoring critical information to your KPFA listeners, is an attack on all mothers whose children have been damaged by vaccines. You have further disempowered them. That is your legacy. That is the legacy of KPFA. Your censorship has been a gift to the pharmaceutical industry and the pro-vaccine cartel that Pacifica’s founder Lewis Hill would have denounced.

So before you challenge my credibility, understand I have been leading major social causes for over 45 years. My research and testimony will withstand time. Will yours?

Since you have already had the chance to express your contempt for me through your libelous public statements, I now invite you to substantiate those statements — to transform them from mere unfounded assertions into solid verified fact — by coming on my program to debate me. Refusal to do so will destroy your personal and professional credibility, and further tarnish the institutional credibility of KPFA and the Pacifica network.

Sincerely,

Gary Null

Pacifica’s KPFA Bans Gary Null Interview on Vaccines

- By James Tracy - May 8, 2015

Network’s Flagship Station Falls in Lockstep Behind CA’s March Toward Mandatory Vaccination

Submitted by John Doe

On May 6th Gary Null was scheduled to appear on Bonnie Faulkner’s program Guns and Butter, regularly broadcast over the Pacifica Network’s flagship station KPFA in Berkeley CA. He was scheduled for the full hour to speak on vaccine efficacy and safety, and address issues concerning the California vaccine bills. The station censored Faulkner from doing the broadcast, Null’s producer and assistant Richard Gage reports. This is the first time Guns and Butter has been censored in 11 years.

The program is syndicated and airs on other land stations around the nation, and is particularly popular in California. KPFA and other Pacifica stations pride themselves in being the last bastions of free-speech and commercial free broadcasting in the nation. In fact, Null himself has hosts a daily program, The Gary Null Show, on New York City Pacifica affiliate, WBAI.

Yet the network has become increasingly controlled by ideologues with political agendas trumping the public interests it claims to champion. Anyone who wishes to file complaints to KPFA management and express the station’s disservice to California residents may do so by sending a brief email to either the general manager Quincy McCoy This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or better yet the station manager Laura Prives who was responsible for banning the broadcast, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

More here: http://www.gunsandbutter.org

Host Bonnie Faulkner and Gary Null must have been right over the target (California’s looming totalitarian elimination of personal exemptions from vaccinations), because the flak they took was KPFA’s shutting down their speech!

Contrast KPFA’s censorship of Null with the integrity of WMNF 88.5 FM (Tampa, FL), which recently broadcast a pro/con debate about mandatory vaccination. But guess what happened? The “pro” vaccination speaker cancelled on short notice. To WMNF’s credit, the station’s management went ahead with the broadcast, allowing a leading vaccination-choice attorney (Alan Phillips) to present his information.

Hazardous Chemicals In Cell Phones, Pizza Boxes, Backpacks Said To Be Health Threat

- By Amy Capetta - May 1, 2015

Think the only bad-for-you ingredient in this box of pizza is the pepperoni? Think again. (Photo: Getty Images)

Hundreds of environmental scientists have joined forces to begin a public campaign to urge countries around the world — including the United States — to limit their use of a class of chemicals known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs.

While one type of this chemical has been banned for years — studies had shown that the PFAS formerly found in Teflon products may have contributed to higher risks of cancer — scientists have reason to believe that the replacement PFASs could also be toxic.

And, according to the scientists, this is a huge cause for concern, since these chemical are found in thousands of products used in everyday life by millions of consumers.

PFASs enable objects to be resistant to high temperatures, ultimately increasing durability and in some cases, preventing fires in wiring and gauges found in vehicles such as cars and planes. A few of the other items that contain these PFASs include pizza boxes, sleeping bags, electronics (like cell phones and hard disk drives), as well as backpacks, footwear and even hospital equipment (it can be found in stents, needles and pacemakers, along with hospital gowns and divider curtains). A complete list can be found here.

Related: Why Ramen Noodles Could Cut Your Life Short

“Research is needed to understand the potential for adverse health effects from exposure to the short-chain PFASs, especially regarding low-dose endocrine disruption and immunotoxicity,” wrote the authors Linda S. Birnbaum, from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program and Philippe Grandjean, from the Harvard School of Public Health, in an article published in the recent edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

“In parallel, research is needed to find safe alternatives for all current uses of PFASs. The question is, should these chemicals continue to be used in consumer products in the meantime, given their persistence in the environment? And, in the absence of indisputably safe alternatives, are consumers willing to give up certain product functionalities, such as stain resistance, to protect themselves against potential health risks? These conundrums cannot be resolved by science alone but need to be considered in an open discussion informed by the scientific evidence,” wrote the authors.

Related: Can Makeup And Cleaning Products Really Mess With Your Hormones?

However, the American Chemistry Council states that these chemicals were deemed safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. “But we just believe based on the 10-year history of extensive studies done on the alternatives, that the regulatory agencies have done their job of determining that these things are safe for their intended uses,” Thomas H. Samples, DuPont’s head of risk management for the division that manufactures these chemicals, told The New York Times, posted below. DuPont is one of the lead manufacturers of this chemical.

“It’s likely they’re going to have some health effects, it just may take us a while to figure out what it is,” said Thomas F. Webster, a professor of environmental health at Boston University’s school of public health, also told The New York Times. “It might take five or 10 years to really do the research.”

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Commonly Used Chemicals Come Under New Scrutiny

 

- By ERIC LIPTON and RACHEL ABRAMSMAY 1, 2015

A top federal health official and hundreds of environmental scientists on Friday voiced new health concerns about a common class of chemicals used in products as varied as pizza boxes and carpet treatments.

The concerted public campaign renews a years-old debate about a class of chemicals known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs. After studies showed that some PFASs lingered in people’s bodies for years, and appeared to increase the risks of cancer and other health problems, the chemical manufacturer DuPont banned the use of one type of PFAS in its popular Teflon products, and other companies followed suit.

At issue now are replacement chemicals developed by those manufacturers and used in thousands of products, including electronics, footwear, sleeping bags, tents, protective gear for firefighters and even the foams used to extinguish fires.

The companies assert that the alternatives are safe and vehemently contest the scientists’ contentions, pointing to extensive studies conducted in the last decade or so.

But two separate salvos fired on Friday question whether enough research has been done to justify the chemical industry’s confidence in the safety of this crop of PFASs.

“Research is needed to find safe alternatives for all current uses of PFASs,” Linda S. Birnbaum, the head of the national toxicology program for the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in a commentary piece published Friday in Environmental Health Perspectives. “The question is, should these chemicals continue to be used in consumer products in the meantime, given their persistence in the environment?”

The journal, published by the National Institutes of Health, devoted several pages to the issue, with articles from researchers and from the industry trade group.

A statement signed by 200 international scientists — environmental health experts, toxicologists, epidemiologists and others — urged countries around the world to restrict the use of PFASs.

“We call on the international community to cooperate in limiting the production and use of PFASs,” the statement said.

In a counterpoint, the American Chemistry Council, the industry trade association, argued that the statement ignored the fact that such chemicals use “essential technology for many aspects of modern life,” and that tests, reviewed by the Environmental Protection Agency, concluded that these alternatives were safer than the chemicals they were replacing.

The PFAS family of chemicals represents an important part of DuPont’s $34.7 billion in sales last year.

Thomas H. Samples, the company’s head of risk management for the division that manufactures these chemicals, rejected the scientists’ concerns.

“We don’t dismiss the right of folks to debate this,” Mr. Samples said. “But we just believe based on the 10-year history of extensive studies done on the alternatives, that the regulatory agencies have done their job of determining that these things are safe for their intended uses.”

This business sector, the fluoro-technology industry, is considerable and reached $19.7 billion in sales in 2013, according to the most recent estimate from the FluoroCouncil, a division of the American Chemistry Council.

This class of chemicals is known for its durability. PFASs have strong water-resistant properties. Cardboard pizza boxes treated with the chemicals, for example, stay sturdy even when grease seeps into them.

But some of these same features worry environmental health specialists because traces of the chemicals linger and have been detected in the bloodstream of a large segment of the population, although typically at low levels. In some cases, detectable levels of the older class chemicals have been declining as major manufacturers have developed alternatives they say are safer.

Some researchers cite lingering concerns about a chemical spill more than a decade ago. The health of residents of Parkersburg, W.Va., is still monitored related to a spill of an older form of PFAS from a nearby chemical plant. A class-action lawsuit accused DuPont, which owned the plant, of knowingly contaminating the residents’ groundwater, and the company faces new accusations, in a separate report being issued Friday by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, that it is not living up to the terms of a court settlement.

Mr. Samples, from DuPont, which is based in Delaware, disputed any suggestion that it was not complying with those terms.

But Dr. Paul Brooks, who helped conduct a study in the West Virginia case that found probable links between the chemical and health issues like thyroid disease and kidney cancer, said DuPont needed to do more to ensure that local residents were participating in the monitoring program. He said he was not convinced that the alternative chemicals that DuPont and other companies were selling would eliminate the health threat.

“When you have something that is a first cousin or brother-in-law to a chemical that we are certain is carcinogenic, you have to somehow prove that it is safe before you use it — that it is not injurious,” he said. “You just have to be cautious.”

Some environmental scientists point to a chemical called GenX as an example of a newer but questionable alternative. Some studies have linked GenX to short-term symptoms like eye and skin irritation in humans, as well as liver damage in animals. Mr. Samples, of DuPont, which manufacturers GenX, said that the tests involved exposing animals to levels so concentrated that they were intended to cause health complications. He also said the chemical was used in industrial settings, not as an ingredient in consumer products.

Still, environmental and health specialists are urging consumers to avoid products containing PFASs “whenever possible.”

“It’s likely they’re going to have some health effects, it just may take us a while to figure out what it is,” said Thomas F. Webster, a professor of environmental health at Boston University’s school of public health who was an author of a paper seeking more scrutiny of PFASs. “It might take five or 10 years to really do the research.”

Correction: May 1, 2015

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article reversed the identifications of the two men shown. Dr. Paul Brooks was on the left and Joe Kiger on the right.