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• Microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project — has discovered massive DNA contamination in the mRNA COVID shots, including simian virus 40 (SV40) promoters

• SV40 has been linked to cancer in humans, including mesotheliomas, lymphomas and cancers of the brain and bone. In 2002, the Lancet published evidence linking polio vaccines contaminated with SV40 to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. According to the authors, the vaccine may be responsible for up to 50% of the 55,000 Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases diagnosed each year

• The level of contamination varies depending on the platform used to measure it, but no matter which method is used, the level of DNA contamination is significantly higher than the regulatory limits in both Europe and the U.S. The highest level of DNA contamination found was 30%

• The finding of DNA means the mRNA COVID shots may have the ability to alter the human genome

• Even if genetic modification does not occur, the fact that you’re getting foreign DNA into your cells poses a risk in and of itself. Partial expression could occur, or it might interfere with other transcription translations that are already in the cell. Cytoplasmic transfection can also allow for genetic manipulation, as the nucleus disassembles and exchanges cellular components with the cytosol during cell division

In the video

above, Dr. Steven E. Greer interviews microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project

— and Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi about the DNA contamination McKernan’s team has found in the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA shots.

As it turns out, spike protein and the mRNA are not the only hazards of these injections. McKernan’s team have also discovered simian virus 40 (SV40) promoters that, for decades, have been suspected of causing cancer in humans, including mesotheliomas, lymphomas and cancers of the brain and bone.

The findings

were posted on OSF Preprints in early April 2023. As explained in the abstract:

“Several methods were deployed to assess the nucleic acid composition of four expired vials of the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent mRNA vaccines. Two vials from each vendor were evaluated … Multiple assays support DNA contamination that exceeds the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 330ng/mg requirement and the FDAs 10ng/dose requirements …”

As noted by Greer,

this means that governments and drug companies “have misled the world to a far greater extent than previously known.” If these findings are correct, it would also mean that “the so-called ‘vaccines’ are actually altering the human genome and causing permanent production of the deadly spike protein,” and this internal production of spike protein would, in turn, “trigger the immune system to attack its own cells,” Greer says.

In the interview, McKernan explains how the DNA contaminants found in the COVID jabs can result in the genetic modification of the human genome, and Bhakti reviews how and why the shots can trigger autoimmune diseases.

In 2002, the Lancet published

evidence linking polio vaccines contaminated with SV40 to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. According to the authors, the vaccine may be responsible for up to half the 55,000 Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases diagnosed each year.

How did this simian (monkey) virus get into the human population? According to the late Dr. Maurice Hilleman, a leading vaccine developer, Merck inadvertently unleashed the virus via their polio vaccine.

It’s unclear exactly when SV40 was eliminated from the polio vaccine. The timing also varies from country to country. For example, SV40-contaminated polio vaccines were administered in Italy as recently as 1999.

As reported in a Lancet book review of “The Virus and the Vaccine: The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Money Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine and the Millions of Americans Exposed”:

“By 1960, scientists and vaccine manufacturers knew that monkey kidneys were sewers of simian viruses. Such contamination often spoiled cultures, including those of an NIH researcher named Bernice Eddy, who worked on vaccine safety … Her discovery … threatened one of the USA’s most important public-health programs …

Eddy tried to get word out to colleagues but was muzzled and stripped of her vaccine regulatory duties and her laboratory … [Two] Merck researchers, Ben Sweet and Maurice Hilleman, soon identified the rhesus virus later named SV40 — the carcinogenic agent that had eluded Eddy.

In 1963, U.S. authorities decided to switch to African green monkeys, which are not natural hosts of SV40, to produce polio vaccine. In the mid-1970s, after limited epidemiological studies, authorities concluded that although SV40 caused cancer in hamsters, it didn’t seem to do so in people.

Fast forward to the 1990s: Michele Carbone, then at NIH, was working on how SV40 induces cancers in animals. One of these was mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the pleura thought in people to be caused mainly by asbestos. The orthodoxy held that SV40 didn’t cause human cancers.

Emboldened by a 1992 NEJM paper that found DNA ‘footprints’ of SV40 in childhood brain tumors, Carbone tested human mesothelioma tumor biopsies at the National Cancer Institute: 60% contained SV40 DNA. In most, the monkey virus was active and producing proteins.

He published his results in Oncogene in May, 1994, but the NIH declined to publicize them … Carbone … moved to Loyola University. There he discovered how SV40 disables tumor suppressor genes in human mesothelioma, and published his results in Nature Medicine in July, 1997. Studies in Italy, Germany, and the USA also showed associations between SV40 and human cancers.”

With that background, let’s get back to McKernan’s findings, which in addition to the featured video are also discussed in Daniel Horowitz’s podcast above. In short, his team discovered elevated levels of double-stranded DNA plasmids, including SV40 promoters (DNA sequence that is essential for gene expression) that are known to trigger cancer development when encountering an oncogene (a gene that has the potential to cause cancer).

The level of contamination varies depending on the platform used to measure it, but no matter which method is used, the level of DNA contamination is significantly higher than the regulatory limits in both Europe and the U.S., McKernan says. The highest level of DNA contamination found was 30%, which is rather astounding.

As explained by McKernan, when using a typical PCR test, you’ll be considered positive if the test detects the SARS-CoV-2 virus using a cycle threshold (CT) of about 40. In comparison, the DNA contamination is detected at CTs below 20.

That means the contamination is a million-fold greater than the amount of virus you’d need to have in order to test positive for COVID. “So, there’s an enormous difference here with regards to the amount of material that’s in there,” McKernan says.

In his Substack article,

he also points out that people who argue that double-stranded DNA and viral RNA is a false equivalency because viral RNA is replication competent, are wrong.

“The majority of the sgRNA you are detecting in a nasal swab in your nose is NOT REPLICATION COMPETENT as shown in Jaafar et al.

It is just an RNA fragment that should have lower longevity in your cells than dsDNA contaminating fragments,” he writes.

In that Substack article, McKernan has also copied a 2009 study discussing how DNA in vaccines can cause cancer and highlighted the most relevant parts. It’s a helpful resource if you want to learn more.

As for how SV40 promoters ended up in the mRNA shots, it appears to be related to poor quality control during the manufacturing process, although it’s unclear where in the development SV40 might have sneaked in. Quality control deficiencies may also be responsible for the high rate of anaphylactic reactions we’ve been seeing. McKernan tells Greer:

“It’s in both Moderna and Pfizer. We looked at the bivalent vaccines for both Moderna and Pfizer and only the monovalent vaccines for Pfizer because we didn’t have access to monovalent vaccines for Moderna. In all three cases, the vaccines contain double-stranded DNA contamination.

If you sequence that DNA, you’ll find that it matches what looks to be an expression vector that’s used to make the RNA … Whenever we see DNA contamination, like from plasmids, ending up in any injectable, the first thing people think about is whether there’s any E. coli endotoxin present because that creates anaphylaxis for the injected.

And, of course … there’s a lot of anaphylaxis going on, not only on TV but in the VAERS database. You can see people get injected with this and drop. That could be the background from this E. coli process of manufacturing the DNA …”

In a May 20, 2023, Substack article,

McKernan points out that Pfizer itself submitted evidence to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) showing sampled lots contained vast differences in the levels of double-stranded DNA contamination.

“The concern that people, even at the FDA, have noted in the past whenever injecting double-stranded DNA, is that these things can integrate into the genome.” ~ Kevin McKernan

The arbitrary limit for dsDNA that the EMA came up with was 330 nanograms per milligram (ng/mg). Data submitted to the EMA by Pfizer shows sampled lots had anywhere from 1 ng/mg to 815 ng/mg of DNA. McKernan adds:

“This limit likely did not consider the potency of this dsDNA contamination if it was packaged in an LNP [lipid nanoparticle]. Packaged dsDNA is more potent as a gene therapy. We now know this DNA is packaged and transfection ready.

Even lower limits should be applied if the DNA is packaged in transfection ready LNPs …

Even with Pfizer being able to cherry pick the data they provided to the EMA for 10 lots, they see a 1 to 815ng/mg variance. If you were to expand this study to 100 or 1000 lots, you’d likely see another order or two of magnitude variance.”

The presence of double-stranded DNA also brings up another major concern, and that is the possibility of genomic integration.

“At least on the Pfizer side of things, it has what’s known as an SV40 promoter. This is an oncogenic virus piece. It’s not the entire virus. However, the small piece is known to drive very aggressive gene expression.

And the concern that people, even at the FDA, have noted in the past whenever injecting double-stranded DNA, is that these things can integrate into the genome,” McKernan says.

While McKernan’s paper does not present evidence of genome integration, it does point out that it’s possible, especially in the presence of SV40 promoters:

“There has been a healthy debate about the capacity for SARs-CoV-2 to integrate into the human genome … This work has inspired questions regarding the capacity for the mRNA vaccines to also genome integrate. Such an event would require LINE-1 driven reverse transcription of the mRNA into DNA as described by Alden et al.

dsDNA [double-stranded DNA] contamination of sequence encoding the spike protein wouldn’t require LINE-1 for Reverse Transcription and the presence of an SV40 nuclear localization signal in Pfizer’s vaccine vector would further increase the odds of integration.”

That said, even if genetic modification does not occur, the fact that you’re getting foreign DNA into your cells poses a risk in and of itself, McKernan says. For example, partial expression could occur, or it might interfere with other transcription translations that are already in the cell.

Bhakti also points out that the SV40 promoters do not need to be present in the nucleus of the cell for problems to occur. Cytoplasmic transfection can, in and of itself, allow for genetic manipulation, because the nucleus disassembles and exchanges cellular components with the cytosol during cell division.

In addition to having DNA floating around and causing potential problems, the RNA in the COVID jab is also modified to resist breakdown. “So, we have TWO versions of the spike protein floating around that can persist longer than anticipated,” McKernan says, and the spike protein, of course, is the most toxic part of the virus that can cause your body to attack itself.

Both McKernan and Bhakti are adamant that ALL mRNA “vaccines” must be immediately stopped, whether for human or animal use, due to the magnitude of the risks involved.

In the video above,

Yusuke Murakami, a professor at Tokyo University, expresses alarm over the finding of SV40 promoters in the COVID jabs. The interview is in Japanese but has English subtitles. I’ve included it because I think he does a good job of putting the problem into layman’s terms:

“The Pfizer vaccine has a staggering problem,” Murakami says. “This figure is an enlarged view of Pfizer’s vaccine sequence. As you can see, the Pfizer vaccine sequence contains part of the SV40 sequence here. This sequence is known as a promoter.

Roughly speaking, the promoter causes increased expression of the gene. The problem is that the sequence is present in a well-known carcinogenic virus. The question is why such a sequence that is derived from a cancer virus is present in Pfizer’s vaccine.

There should be absolutely no need for such a carcinogenic virus sequence in the vaccine. This sequence is totally unnecessary for producing the mRNA vaccine. It is a problem that such a sequence is solidly contained in the vaccine.

This is not the only problem. If a sequence like this is present in the DNA, the DNA is easily migrated to the nucleus. So it means that the DNA can easily enter the genome. This is such an alarming problem.

It is essential to remove the sequence. However, Pfizer produced the vaccine without removing the sequence. That is outrageously malicious. This kind of promoter sequence is completely unnecessary for the production of the mRNA vaccine. In fact, SV40 is a promoter of cancer viruses.”

The more we learn about the COVID jabs, the worse they appear. While they suck as vaccines, they’re truly masterful bioweapons, as they’re capable of destroying health in any number of ways, through myriad mechanisms.

If you got one or more jabs and are now reconsidering, first and foremost, never ever take another COVID booster, another mRNA gene therapy shot or regular vaccine. You need to end the assault on your body. Even if you haven’t experienced any obvious side effects, your health may still be impacted long-term, so don’t take any more shots.

If you’re suffering from side effects, your first order of business is to eliminate the spike protein that your body is producing. Two remedies that can do this are hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Both of these drugs bind and facilitate the removal of spike protein.

The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has developed a post-vaccine treatment protocol called I-RECOVER. Since the protocol is continuously updated as more data become available, your best bet is to download the latest version straight from the FLCCC website at covid19criticalcare.com

(hyperlink to the correct page provided above).

For additional suggestions, check out the World Health Council’s spike protein detox guide,

which focuses on natural substances like herbs, supplements and teas. To combat neurotoxic effects of spike protein, a March 2022 review paper

suggests using luteolin and quercetin. Time-restricted eating (TRE) and/or sauna therapy can also help eliminate toxic proteins by stimulating autophagy.

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

• Quaternary ammonium compounds are also referred to as “QACs” or “quats.” They are a popular ingredient in disinfectant wipes, which Clorox increased production of to 1.5 million packs per day during the pandemic

• One survey suggests 83% of households asked used disinfectant wipes at least one time in the previous week and 29% claimed to use them every day. Researchers found that the chemicals contribute to antimicrobial resistance, pollute the environment and are linked to several health issues

• Serum concentrations of QACs rose from 2019 to 2020 in a sample of 111 participants; although school systems began using wipes to clean student desks after the return to school, the National Pesticide Information Center warns that children should not use disinfectant wipes due to exposure to toxins

• A 2017 animal study revealed exposure to quats could have transgenerational effects in animals that were not exposed to the quats. Animals have also exhibited reproductive dysfunction after respiratory and contact exposure to QACs

• A clean and decluttered home is a sanctuary from the outside world, but when you use harsh chemicals and rubber gloves to get the job done, you’re likely doing more harm than good. Instead, choose nontoxic and multiuse combinations to clean, deodorize and polish your home

Quaternary ammonium compounds are also called “QACs” or “quats.” They are a broad class of several hundred chemicals and are commonly used in wood preservatives, mouthwash, detergents, shampoos, fabric softeners, eye drops and herbicides. QACs are largely used in the U.S.

While the European Union has not banned QACs,

the regulating agency has set a very low maximum residue level (MRL) of 0.01 mg per kilogram (mg/kg) for pesticides used on food or animal feed.

Applications in the U.S. range from industrial, clinical, domestic and agricultural. They can be measured in food production, households, facilities and medical settings. According to data from the University of Massachusetts,

some ready-to-use products, like disinfectant hand wipes, can contain up to 20% active QAC ingredients and industrial concentrations may contain up to 80% of the active ingredients. 

In the University of Massachusetts’ review

they write that, of the disinfectants approved by the EPA

for use during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half are QAC-based. After reviewing the hazards, the Toxics Use Reduction Institute Science Advisory Board recommended some of these chemicals be added to the list of toxic or hazardous substances and policy implications based on this analysis should be considered.

In mid-2020, at the start of the pandemic, researchers

found QAC was an active ingredient in over 200 disinfectants recommended by the EPA. The researchers believed the amount of these compounds had increased and would likely continue to increase. In the past QACs had been found in sediment, surface water and wastewater. These researchers believed that the elevated use of QACs was a reasonable response to the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Some organizations, such as the Chemical Safety Facts

website sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, boldly claim that the EPA and other authorities regulate disinfection products and that “quat-based ingredients undergo rigorous testing to determine that they will not have unreasonable adverse effects on human health and the environment when used as directed.”

Yet, that claim is not substantiated by the EPA or CDC. The CDC states, “a manufacturer must submit specific data about the safety and effectiveness of each product.” and “With respect to disinfectants and sterilants, part of CDC’s role is … to comment about their safety and efficacy …”

According to the EPA website

they “register products that sanitize and disinfect.” In other words, while the chemical industry would like consumers to believe the products sold on the grocery store shelves are regulated and safety tested, the reality is that the safety testing is done by the manufacturer and the data they choose is forwarded to the FDA, EPA, or other regulating agency.

Global use of disinfectant wipes rose dramatically during the pandemic. According to the 2021 annual report from just one company that produces wipes — The Clorox Company

— to meet the demand for disinfectant wipes, they created a new production line that increased the total production capacity to 1.5 million packs per day, which the company anticipated ramping up even further.

A press release

from an industry trade group published at nearly the same time claimed 83% of households had used disinfectant wipes at least one time in the past week and 92% of consumers claim to use a cleaning, disinfecting or sanitizing wipe. Not surprisingly, the same survey revealed 29% of people asked said they used a wipe-type product every day.

Although quats are a common ingredient in popular disinfectant wipes, a 2023 peer-reviewed paper

published in Environmental Science and Technology revealed several disturbing facts. The review of the literature was performed by a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary team of scientists from nonprofit, academic and governmental organizations.

They reviewed the available information on both human health and the environment from exposure to QACs. As The Guardian reported,

the researchers found that chemicals contribute to antimicrobial resistance, pollute the environment and are linked to several health issues.

Strong proponents may argue that if they are effective, these issues may not be as severe as protecting human health against viruses and bacteria. However, the researchers also concluded that they are not particularly effective. Among the health issues associated with exposure to quats are infertility, metabolic disruption, asthma, birth defects and skin disorders, The Guardian says.

These are a high price to pay to use disinfectant products that do not protect against the spread of COVID-19 since it spreads through respiratory transmission.

A 2021 study

published in Environmental Science and Technology looked at serum concentrations of QACs in 111 people. The samples were collected in 2019 and again in 2020 during the pandemic. Researchers found serum levels were significantly higher in the samples collected in 2020 than in the prior samples.

According to the National Pesticide Information Center,

“Children should not apply antimicrobials, including disinfectant wipes,” because of the danger associated with quats. Yet, as The Guardian notes,

children and teachers regularly used disinfectant wipes on classroom desks in a misguided effort to avoid COVID. Instead, children are being exposed to alarming levels of these dangerous chemicals.

A 2023 paper

in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, called the use of disinfectant wipes containing QACs “of significant concern due to their overuse during this pandemic.” Researchers found QACs rose by 331% at wastewater treatment plants when compared to levels before the pandemic.

Researchers also found a 62% increase in the concentration of QACs in residential dust, which leads to higher concentrations in human blood and breast milk. They pointed out that in addition to toxicity to humans and the environment, quats also multiply the threat of antimicrobial resistance.

While the rising contamination of the environment from quats throughout the pandemic was a result of the increased use of disinfectant wipes, disinfectant wipes are not the only product containing quats. Children and adults are exposed to these chemicals from multiple sources, including household and commercial cleaning products and personal care products.

QACs are positively charged ions that bind to the hair shaft. For this reason, they are included in shampoos and conditioners to give hair a slippery feel so fingers glide through the hair and there is less fly-away hair.

QACs are also used as preservatives in hand lotions and cosmetics. Among those are quaternium-15, polyquaternium-9, and cetyl pyridinium chloride, all of which are known to trigger contact dermatitis.

Quaternium-15 is a known formaldehyde releaser

and formaldehyde is carcinogenic with a high probability of causing cancer and a moderate risk of allergic reaction and immunotoxicity.

In 2017, a study

published by Virginia Tech and Washington State University researchers demonstrated that exposure to chemicals that are commonly found in household and commercial cleaning products can lead to birth defects in an animal model. The Environmental Working Group (EWG)

believes the study is “particularly significant” since it is the first known analysis of the impact of combinations of quaternary ammonium compounds on embryos or fetuses.

In 2016,

the same team of researchers published the results of a study in which they analyzed how exposure to a quats mixture may impair fertility. In this earlier animal model study, the researchers found that female and male mice exposed to quats exhibited reproductive dysfunction, including fewer ovulations and implantations, and decreased sperm concentration and motility.

Even ambient and low-dose exposures in male mice had a significant effect on sperm parameters. Both studies analyzed alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride and didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride chemicals, which the EWG determined in 2017 were found in more than 170 products. However, as the EWG writes, “This is a conservative estimate given that many manufacturers may not list these ingredients at all.”

The EWG also notes, one of these products is infant diapers, exposing our most vulnerable population.

In the 2017 study, the researchers exposed animals to a combination of consumption, respiratory and surface residues of the mixtures of disinfectants. The EWG reported

that the scientists found a 150% increase in the rate of neural tube defects.

Neural tube defects are a type of abnormality found in the development of the spinal cord or brain. They can manifest as spina bifida or damage to the development of the brain, such as anencephaly in which part of the brain is missing, encephalocele when there’s an opening to the brain and the membranes or iniencephaly where the spine is exceptionally distorted.

Importantly, they found that respiratory and surface exposure had a greater impact on the development of neural tube defects than on deliberately feeding the animals the quats. They also found that maternal exposure may also trigger transgenerational defects that persist even in animals that are not directly exposed.

In other words, female mice exposed to quats may deliver normal babies who then go on to deliver babies with neural tube defects even though they were not exposed to the quats. The researchers concluded:

“These results demonstrate that ADBAC+DDAC in combination are teratogenic to rodents. Given the increased use of these disinfectants, further evaluation of their safety in humans and their contribution to health and disease is essential.”

A 2018 study

from the University of Bergen in Norway also demonstrated that using cleaning products once a week for 20 years may be the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes a day for 10 to 20 years. The researchers were interested in the long-term effects that cleaning supplies had on health as much of the documented evidence has been on the short-term impact.

The study

compared women who cleaned weekly and those who did not and found the forced vital capacity, or the amount of air a person can forcibly exhale after taking a deep breath, declined by 7.1 ml per year faster in women who worked as cleaners as compared to 4.3 ml per year in women who cleaned it home. Senior study author Dr. Cecilie Svanes, said in a statement:

“While the short-term effects of cleaning chemicals on asthma are becoming increasingly well documented, we lack knowledge of the long-term impact. We feared that such chemicals, by steadily causing a little damage to the airways day after day, year after year, might accelerate the rate of lung function decline that occurs with age.”

A clean and decluttered home is a sanctuary from the outside world, but when you use harsh chemicals and rubber gloves to get the job done, you’re likely doing more harm than good. The good news is you don’t need to buy chemical cleansers to keep your home clean. With a few natural and nontoxic staples, you can save money and keep your house clean.

Baking soda is one of those staples. To prepare for the Statue of Liberty’s 100th anniversary in 1986,

crews were tasked with removing 99 years’ worth of coal tar from the inner copper walls without damaging the structure. More than 100 tons of baking soda was brought in to clean the statue, so there’s a good chance it can remove the dirt and grime from around your house too.

Both lemon peel and juice are good for cleaning and deodorizing. Distilled white vinegar is another cleaning staple with a long history. It makes a good window cleaner and has disinfectant properties. However, do not clean your shower walls with vinegar as it removes the grout sealer, which can let in water and damage the wall behind the tile.

Castile soap is natural, biodegradable and chemical-free and can be used for personal care, house cleaning and laundry. For a list of ways to use these nontoxic products and more, see “Top 8 Nontoxic Cleaners You Can Use at Home.”

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

• Google monopolizes several different markets, including search and advertising. Bing, its closest web search competitor, has just 2% of the market; Google has 90%

• Google also controls 60% of the global advertising revenue on the internet. One of the primary reasons smaller advertisers cannot compete is because they don’t have the user data Google has

• While not the sole threat to privacy, Google is one of the greatest. It catches every single thing you do online when using a Google-based feature, and builds powerful personality profiles of all users

• Evidence suggests Google’s Android operating system circumvents a customer’s decision not to share location data by tracking the addresses of nearby cellular towers instead, and sharing that information with Google

• Monopolies like Google pose a serious threat to democracy and basic liberties. Take back control by boycotting Google-based services, including Gmail, Google search engines, Google Docs and Chrome

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published June 16, 2018.

Google is undoubtedly one of the largest and clearest monopolies in the world. In fact, the company monopolizes several different markets, including search and advertising. Bing, its closest search competitor, has just 2% of the market — hardly a significant threat to Google’s 90%.

Google also controls about 60% of the global advertising revenue on the internet.

One of the primary reasons smaller advertisers cannot compete is because they don’t have the user data Google has. As noted by digital media expert Jonathan Taplin, “They know who you are, where you are, what you just bought, what you might want to buy. And so, if I’m an advertiser and I say, ‘I want 24-year-old women in Nashville, Tennessee, who drive trucks and drink bourbon,’ I can do that on Google.”

Indeed, what many fail to realize is that Google’s primary business is the harvesting of user data, and this data gathering goes far beyond what most people realize was even possible. Google catches every single thing you do online if you’re using a Google-based feature, and this data is then used to build powerful personality profiles that are sold for profit and used in a variety of different ways.

As previously reported by Gawker:

“Every word of every email sent through Gmail and every click made on a Chrome browser is watched by the company. ‘We don’t need you to type at all,’ [Google co-founder Eric] Schmidt once said. ‘We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.'”

If that level of “mind reading” sounds far-fetched, it’s worth considering that Google also owns DeepMind, the world’s greatest artificial intelligence (AI) company, which has more than 700 AI researchers in its employ. With all this AI power on the job, it is not hard for them to sort through all your data with their deep learning algorithms to detect patterns that can be exploited for profit.

As noted by Gary Reback, a prominent antitrust lawyer who has taken up the battle against Google’s monopoly, “People tell their search engine things they wouldn’t even tell their wives. It’s a very powerful and yet very intimate technology. And that gives the company that controls it a mind-boggling degree of control over our entire society.”

Reback is featured in a recent “60 Minutes” report focused on the power of Google — a company currently worth more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars — the power and wealth of which is built on its enormous data gathering capabilities. Alphabet, the holding company that owns Google, has over the past 14 years also acquired more than 200 other companies, further expanding and diversifying its monopoly over our everyday lives. This includes:

• YouTube, the largest video platform on the web

• Android, which operates about 80% of all smartphones

• DoubleClick, one of the largest digital advertising companies

As noted by CBS News, these acquisitions barely raised an eyebrow with regulators in Washington. How come they were not more closely scrutinized by the Department of Justice’s antitrust division? According to Reback, “Some were investigated, but only superficially. The government just really isn’t enforcing our antitrust laws. And that’s what’s happened. None of these acquisitions have been challenged.”

In 2011, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated antitrust complaints against Google. Yelp, Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, Expedia and Yahoo all said their business had suffered due to Google’s anticompetitive behavior.

A confidential memo leaked to the Wall Street Journal reveals FTC staff had recommended filing an antitrust suit against the company, noting that “Google is in the unique position of being able to ‘make or break any web-based business’ and has strengthened its monopolies over search and search advertising through anticompetitive means and forestalled competitors’ and would-be competitors’ ability to challenge those monopolies.”

According to CBS News, “It specifically cited Google for stealing competitors’ content, and imposing restrictions on advertisers and other websites that limited their ability to utilize other search engines.” In the end, the recommendation to litigate was rejected and the case was closed. Reback and others suspect this illogical outcome was due to Google’s political clout.

The company spent more money on political lobbying in 2017 than any other corporation. It has no less than 25 different lobbying firms working on its behalf. Google is also funding 300 trade associations, think tanks and other important groups with influence over government policy.

According to Reback, Google has “a seat at the table in every discussion … They know about developments that we never even hear about. So, their influence, from my perspective, is very, very difficult to challenge.”

Last month, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) urged the FTC to investigate the data collection practices of Google’s Android operating systems. Specifically, they want the FTC to ascertain “whether Google has deceptively collected location data on Android users, even when such services are disabled,” and to examine “the potential deceptive acts and practices used by Google to track and commoditize American consumers.”

The call for an investigation appears to be in response to a November 2017 Quartz Media report,

which discovered Android would circumvent a customer’s decision not to share location data by tracking the addresses of nearby cellular towers instead, and sharing that information with Google — a practice that appears to have begun in early 2017. According to The Hill:

“‘The result is that Google … has access to data about individuals’ locations and their movements that go far beyond a reasonable consumer expectation of privacy,’ the Quartz report says. The report said the inability to turn off the location services in Android poses a risk for individuals who want to conceal their location for security purposes, like law enforcement officials and victims of domestic abuse.”

One brave individual who has taken Google and other monopolies to task is Margrethe Vestager, competition commissioner for the European Union (EU), who during the last four years fined Facebook $122 million for a merger violation, ordered Apple to cough up $15 billion owed in Irish taxes, and fined Google $2.7 billion for illegal anticompetition activities.

Vestager says she wants Google to stop its illegal behavior, saying there’s proof the company is on the wrong side of the law. Using its proprietary search algorithms, Google promotes its own products and services while burying its competitors so far down the list that most people will never find them. According to Vestager, “It is … the algorithm that does it. Both the promotion of Google themselves and the demotion of others … And it is illegal.”

In related news, The New York Times

recently highlighted Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group — two Chinese tech giants vying for title as Top Titan in an ever-growing number of areas of Chinese life, ranging from online education and bicycle rentals to brick-and-mortar supermarket chains.

According to the NYT, the two “have competed in messaging, microblogging and delivering takeout. They go head-to-head in video streaming and cloud computing. Today, their fiercest fight is over digital money kept on smartphones … [I]n the internet realm, China … offers a spooky potential vision of the future, one in which online behemoths like Tencent and Alibaba become the gatekeepers to the entire economy …”

Raj Rajgopal, president of digital business strategy at the consulting firm Virtusa Corporation, predicts the EU’s stricter new privacy laws might encourage the U.S. to follow, in which case Google and Facebook would have to find other ways of making money besides hoarding and selling user data.

Once that happens, they may just decide to follow the playbook of China’s reigning duopoly, the primary goal of which is to lock as many people as possible into their respective payment systems.

In a March 30 article for The Guardian,

Dylan Curran took a deep dive into Google’s data harvesting, and the results are far more extensive than you might have suspected. Here’s a summary list of the kind of information Google collects, tracks and stores on each individual user:

• Extremely detailed location tracking — If you have a Google-enabled device on your person that has location tracking turned on, it will store the exact details of where you are at any given moment, and this data accumulates from the first day you started using Google on the device. To review the details of your own data, see this Google Maps Timeline link.

• Complete search histories on all devices — Google keeps tabs on everything you’ve ever searched for, on any device, including search histories you’ve deleted from an individual device. To check your own search data, see Google’s MyActivity page.

• Personalized advertisement profile — Based on your data profile — location, gender, age, work and private interests, relationship status, income, health concerns, future plans and so on — Google creates personalized advertisements that might interest you.

  Have you ever done a search for a particular product or service and suddenly found yourself flooded with ads for that precise thing? That’s your data profile at work. To see your personalized ad profile, see Google’s Ads Settings.

• App usage — Do you use apps and extensions? If so, Google knows which ones you’re using, how often, when, where and with whom you’re interacting when you do. To see your app usage data, check out Google’s Security Permission Settings.

• YouTube history — Much can be gleaned from the types of videos you’re interested in, and Google keeps tabs on every single one you’ve ever searched for, watched and commented on. To review your own data, see your Youtube Feed History page.

• Clandestine microphone access — Disturbingly, Google (as well as Facebook) has the ability to access your microphone without your knowledge.

  If you suddenly find yourself on the receiving end of ads for products or services you just spoke about out loud, chances are one or more apps are linked into your microphone and are eavesdropping. Below is a video by Safer Tech describing how to disable the microphone on your device to prevent Facebook and Google apps from listening in.

• Clandestine webcam access — Your built-in webcam on your phone, tablet, laptop or computer can also be accessed by various apps. To learn more about app permissions, see “How to Master Your App Permissions So You Don’t Get Hacked — The Full Guide,” by Heimdal Security.

  As noted in this article, “For a long time, app permissions were something the regular PC user had no idea about. When installing new software on a computer, we were never asked if application X could access our web camera, our list of contacts, etc. … App permissions may seem like a nuisance, but the better you know how they work, the safer you can keep your data.”

• Event tracking — By tracking your Google calendar entries, combined with your location data, Google knows what events you’ve attended, when and for how long.

• Your fitness routine — If you use Google Fit, all the details about your fitness routine and workouts, down to how many steps you’ve taken on any given day, are recorded and stored.

• A lifetime of photographic evidence — Twenty years ago, photos were a private matter, reminisced over in photo albums and displayed around the home. Today, people’s lives are on public display online, and Google captures it all. When combined with facial recognition software and other technological identification applications, including metadata detailing the time and place of each snap, your photos are a treasure trove of private information.

• A lifetime of emails — Google also has every single email you’ve ever sent, received and deleted.

• Deleted files and information — You probably delete files and information every now and then for the sake of safety, right? You might decide to delete that list of passwords from your phone, for example, in case you lose it or it gets hacked. Well, Google still has all of that information.

  As noted by Curran, showing a screen shot of his downloaded Google data, “This is my Google Drive, which includes files I explicitly deleted, including my resume, my monthly budget and all the code, files and websites I’ve ever made, and even my PGP private key, which I deleted, that I use to encrypt emails.”

• If you’ve done it or researched it, Google has a record of it — Google allows you to download a copy of the data they have stored on you. Curran’s personal data cache from Google was 5.5GB big, equal to about 3 million word documents. Essentially, your Google account contains a detailed diary of everything you’ve ever done or planned to do, and where you were when you did it. To download your own Google cache, see Google’s Takeout page.

As noted by Curran, “This information has millions of nefarious uses. You say you’re not a terrorist. Then how come you were Googling Isis?” Indeed, the 2013 article, “What Surveillance Valley Knows About You,”

is an eye-opening read that may be well worth your time, describing just how grossly invasive this data collection and distribution is, and how dangerous it can be if you end up on certain lists.

Unfortunately, many still fail to see the problem Google presents. Its services are useful and practical, making life easier in many ways, and more fun in others. Alas, the complete and utter loss of privacy is a high price to be paid for such conveniences.

Who knows how a lifetime cache of personal data might one day be used against you? If you fall into this category, I ask you to give this issue some serious thought, because monopolies threaten our very way of life, and in more ways than one.

Google’s data harvesting is particularly concerning in light of its military connections,

and the fact the company has repeatedly been caught infringing on privacy rights and misrepresenting the type and amount of data it collects and shares on its users. In April 2018, more than 3,100 Google employees signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai, urging him not to go ahead with plans to provide AI technology to the Pentagon’s drone program, known as Project Maven.

As reported by Fox News,

“Google’s AI contribution could … improve the system’s ability [to] analyze video and potential be used to identify targets and civilians.” The letter also urges Pichai to establish a corporate policy that disallows it from participating in “warfare technology.”

Others, including former White House deputy coordinator for international communications and information policy, Scott Cleland, have expressed deep concerns about the plan to combine Alphabet-Google’s data harvesting with a military 5G network.

“What could possibly go wrong with a nationalized, dual-use, military-civilian, secure 5G wireless network to centralize all military and civilian U.S. transportation traffic control and management with Alphabet-Google as the only commercial wireless ISP ‘financing/anchor tenant?’ Way too much,” Cleland writes.

Alphabet, the rebranded parent company of Google and its many divisions, has tentacles reaching into government, food production, health care, education, military applications and the creation of AIs that may run more or less independently. A key component of many of these enterprises is incredibly detailed personal usage data.

Ultimately, your user data and personal details can be used for everything from creating personalized advertising to AI-equipped robotic warfare applications. As noted in previous articles, Google’s involvement in education and health care also has far-reaching ramifications, and in these settings your personal data could potentially be used to influence not only your personal lifestyle decisions but also to shape society at large.

Today, being a conscious consumer includes making wise, informed decisions about technology, and one of the greatest personal data leaks in your life is Google. Here’s a summary of action steps you can take right now, starting today, to protect your privacy. For more information, see Goopocalypse.com’s boycott Google page.

1. Sign the “Don’t be evil” petition aimed at Google, created by Citizens Against Monopoly

2. Avoid any and all Google products:

   1. Stop using Google search engines. So far, one of the best alternatives I’ve found is DuckDuckGo

   2. Uninstall Google Chrome and use the Opera browser instead, available for all computers and mobile devices.

      From a security perspective, Opera is far superior to Chrome and offers a free VPN service (virtual private network) to further preserve your privacy

   3. If you have a Gmail account, close it and open an account with a non-Google affiliated email service such as ProtonMail,

      and encrypted email service based in Switzerland

   4. Stop using Google docs. Digital Trends has published an article suggesting a number of alternatives

   5. If you’re a high school student, do not convert the Google accounts you created as a student into personal accounts

Subscribe to Mercola Newsletter

Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

• The 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) is the instrument that empowers the World Health Organization to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)

• Hundreds of amendments to the IHR are being proposed, and these amendments will empower the WHO to become the de facto governing body of all member states, including the U.S.

• As currently written, the IHR amendments will be legally binding and will supersede local and national laws. They even include enforcement tools to ensure that member nations comply with the WHO’s edicts

• Areas of life that are being added in under the umbrella of “health” include climate, food production and even poverty, so the WHO will be able to claim sole global authority over anything to do with those issues as well

• Importantly, the IHR amendments will abolish bodily autonomy and personal choice and replace these God-given rights and freedoms with one-size-fits-all medicine

In the video above, John Campbell, Ph.D., a retired nurse educator, reviews the proposed amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), which is the instrument that empowers the World Health Organization to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

If these amendments go through, however, the WHO will be empowered to do a whole lot more than that. It will become the de facto governing body of all member states, including the U.S.

Now, according to so-called “fact checkers,” the WHO will have no authority to dictate U.S. health policy under the amended IHR or the proposed pandemic treaty, nor will nations be stripped of their sovereignty.

But they’re completely wrong. The only reason they’re denying these truths is because they don’t want the public to pressure government to reject these proposals, as they should.

As noted by Campbell and others, including bioweapons expert Francis Boyle, Ph.D., and researcher James Roguski,

the pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments are obviously written by experts in both national and international law and appear “airtight.”

There’s simply no doubt that, as currently written, these instruments will be legally binding and will supersede local and national laws. They even include enforcement tools to ensure that member nations comply with the WHO’s edicts.

Another false propaganda angle is that these instruments only apply to infectious disease pandemics, but that isn’t true either. Areas of life that are being added in under the umbrella of “health” include climate, food production and even poverty, so the WHO will be able to claim sole global authority over anything to do with those issues as well.

In his video, Campbell goes through several of the proposed IHR amendments, and how they will impact national sovereignty and public health decisions. The article-by-article compilation of the proposed amendments

can be found here.

Strikethroughs in the text indicate that the text is to be deleted, and the additions or revisions are underlined in bold. The following are some of the most disconcerting amendments, copied with the deletions and insertions of text showing.

Article 1 Definitions — “‘standing recommendation’ means non-binding advice issued by WHO for specific ongoing public health risks pursuant to Article 16 regarding appropriate health measures for routine or periodic application needed to prevent or reduce the international spread of disease and minimize interference with international traffic;

‘temporary recommendation’ means non-binding advice issued by WHO pursuant to Article 15 for application on a time-limited, risk-specific basis, in response to a public health emergency of international concern, so as to prevent or reduce the international spread of disease and minimize interference with international traffic.”

Since the word “non-binding” is removed, this means that any recommendation from the WHO will be binding and member states will be required to follow the WHO’s recommendations.

Article 2 Scope and Purpose — “The purpose and scope of these Regulations are to prevent, protect against, prepare, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of diseases including through health systems readiness and resilience in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risk

all risks with a potential to impact public health, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade, livelihoods, human rights, and equitable access to health products and health care technologies and know how.”

This really opens the door for the WHO to take over for just about any reason. It doesn’t even have to be a real public health threat. It could be a potential, unproven or suspected threat.

Article 3 Principles — “The implementation of these Regulations shall be with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons based on the principles of equity, inclusivity, coherence and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities of the States Parties, taking into consideration their social and economic development.”

In other words, bodily autonomy and personal choice are being replaced by one-size-fits-all medicine that has no regard for human dignity, human rights or fundamental freedoms. The right to so much as an opinion will also be removed on the national level.

Article 10 Verification — “If the State Party does not accept the offer of collaboration within 48 hours , WHO may shall , when justified by the magnitude of the public health risk, immediately share with other States Parties the information available to it, whilst encouraging the State Party to accept the offer of collaboration by WHO, taking into account the views of the State Party concerned.”

So, if the WHO suspects that an outbreak within a nation might pose an international threat, but the nation in question doesn’t want to collaborate with the WHO, the WHO will immediately tell the other members about the suspected threat, which will put pressure on the uncooperative nation, and the views of that nation will be deemed irrelevant.

Other amendments within this and other articles also specifically remove any involvement of the nation in the WHO’s decision-making. Article 13 below is but one example. As noted by Campbell, the director-general is repeatedly specified as the sole authority when it comes to making assessments and decisions. The director-general can also impose sanctions on nations that refuse to follow his dictates.

How can a single person be given the authority to make decisions for the entire world? This kind of authoritarian top-down system can only damage public health, as public health is best served by local decision makers that have access to local data.

Article 12 Determination of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, Public Health Emergency of Regional Concern, or Intermediate Health Alert — “If the Director-General considers, based on an assessment under these Regulations, that a potential or actual public health emergency of international concern is occurring, the Director-General shall notify all States Parties and seek to consult with the State Party in whose territory the event arises regarding this preliminary determination …”

The key problem here is the addition of “potential or actual.” The WHO can take over if the director-general has a mere suspicion that a health emergency might be brewing. The threat doesn’t have to be real or evident.

Article 13 Public Health Response — “At the request of a State Party, WHO shall collaborate articulate clearly defined assistance to a State Party offer assistance to a State Party in the response to public health risks and other events by providing technical guidance , health products, technologies, know-how, deployment of civil medical personals, and assistance and by assessing the effectiveness of the control measures in place, including the mobilization of international teams of experts for on-site assistance …”

Again, input from the member state will not be accepted. It’s no longer about collaborating with the WHO on health emergencies. It’s about obeying it. The WHO will independently decide what’s to be done. The WHO may also send in its own medical personnel to address the situation.

Several new articles have also been added to flesh out and describe the WHO’s authority, and what member states must do to comply with this new top-down order. Here are two telling ones.

NEW Article 13A WHO Led International Public Health Response — “States [sic] Parties recognize WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response during public health Emergency of International Concern and undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health response.”

In other words, member nations shall bow down to the WHO and do as they’re told. A newly added Article 53 goes on to detail how each member nation must implement a compliance committee to ensure the WHO’s directives are adhered to and executed.

New Article 13A Access to Health Products, Technologies and Know-How for Public Health Response — “1. Immediately after the determination of a public health emergency of international concern under Article 12, the Director General shall make an immediate assessment of availability and affordability of required health products and make recommendations, including an allocation mechanism, to avoid any potential shortages of health products and technologies …

3. States Parties shall provide, in their intellectual property laws and related laws and regulations, exemptions and limitations to the exclusive rights of intellectual property holders to facilitate the manufacture, export and import of the required health products, including their materials and components.”

So, once a PHEIC is announced, the director-general will lay claim to all medical resources within the member states. Other additions also spell out that the WHO will control:

• The local production of health products

• Intellectual property

• Cell lines used in the production of biotherapeutics and vaccines

• Allocation of medical resources

• Biosurveillance

• Development of regulatory guidelines for the fast-tracking of health products

• Censorship of “false and unreliable information” about public health events, preventive strategies and pandemic countermeasures

• A global health database (which is required for the implementation of vaccine passports)

The amendments also plainly allow for conflicts of interest that might harm public health. Under Article 9, the WHO can declare a public health emergency based on information from undisclosed sources. Those sources could include Big Pharma, WHO funders such as the Gates Foundation and the Gates-founded-and-funded GAVI Alliance, or any number of other players with conflicts of interest.

As reported by The Defender,

“One of the biggest changes the WHO has seen in its 75-year history is a shift from funding from sovereign nations to funding from private parties.”

At present, the majority of the WHO’s funding comes from Bill Gates, through donations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Gates also funds the World Economic Forum, and his nonprofits are taking money from drug companies.

“The IHR amendments open the door wide to mass medical experimentation on humanity without informed consent, and if the COVID pandemic is any indication, nothing good will come from that.”

What this means is that Gates and drug companies wield enormous power over the WHO. It’s not even close to being independent. A majority of the WHO’s funding is also “specified,” meaning it’s earmarked for particular programs. So, the WHO cannot allocate those funds wherever they’re needed most, and this also massively influences what the WHO does and how it does it.

There’s no getting around this point: The WHO is an organization that does whatever its funders want it to do, and that does not bode well for global health, considering medical errors are already a leading cause of death, and have been for decades. The IHR amendments basically open the door wide to mass medical experimentation on humanity without informed consent, and if the COVID pandemic is any indication, nothing good will come from that.

The amendments also radically expand the situations that can constitute a PHEIC. A PHEIC is currently defined as an “extraordinary event” in one country that constitutes “a public health risk to other states through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.”

Amendments seek to expand and broaden this definition to include things like clusters of infection with potential but unverified human-to-human transmission. The actual risks of such clusters don’t even need to be evaluated. What’s more, the proposed definition of a PHEIC does not specify that it must involve “severe” or “life-threatening” disease, so it could be invoked for just about anything.

One of the amendments also suggests giving the director-general the ability to declare an “intermediate public health alert” when the situation doesn’t fully meet the PHEIC criteria. In such an event, the director-general and/or a regional WHO director would be able to declare a public health emergency of regional concern (PHERC).

As suggested by Campbell, to really understand what they’re trying to do here, browse through the Article by Article Compilation of Proposed Amendments

for yourself. Most definitely, don’t believe the “fact checkers” who say there’s nothing to see here.

As mentioned earlier, when you add in the proposed pandemic treaty, the WHO’s powers expand even further, because in addition to expanding emergency powers during pandemics, the treaty also emphasizes the “One Health”

agenda, and that covers just about everything you can think of.

As illustrated in the graphic

below, the One Health agenda is based on the premise that a broad range of aspects of life and the environment can impact health and therefore fall under the “potential” to cause harm.

This graphic below isn’t comprehensive. The scope of One Health, according to a One Health Commission document,

also includes communications, economics, civil society, global trade, commerce and security, public policy and regulation, research, noncommunicable diseases, agricultural land use (which involves forcing farmers off their land), disaster preparedness and response, disease surveillance, the “human-animal bond” (whatever that means) and much more.

Under the new treaty, the WHO will have unilateral power to make decisions about all of these areas, and its dictates will supersede and overrule any and all local, state and federal laws. For example, under One Health, the WHO will be able to declare climate change as a health emergency and implement climate lockdowns to address it.

One Health basically mirrors The Great Reset agenda. It just uses a different name and justifies all these Great Reset changes as a means to “protect health.” Not surprisingly, One Health is financed and promoted by a long list of Great Reset backers, including the United Nations, the European Union and various U.S. federal agencies,

the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI, the Wellcome Trust, UNICEF, CEPI, the World Economic Forum and the World Bank.

But while these entities are officially funding the pandemic industry, what’s really happening is they’re using taxes to fund wealthy people, who in turn exploit the poor. It’s as far from philanthropic as you can get.

Taxpayers are providing the money while private profiteers are deciding how that money is spent, and it’s being spent in ways that will benefit themselves. So, it’s a private-public “partnership” where the public is being robbed and all the benefits go to the private sector.

As reported by Paraschiva Florescu and Rob Verkerk Ph.D., with the Alliance for Natural Health International:

“The One Health approach is aligned with WHO’s linear and reductionist thinking that seeks to distill all potential solutions to one view of the underlying science, one view on the necessary medicines, and only one truth.

This monolithic approach spells grave dangers for humanity given that it is bottom-up, decentralized, regionally specific approaches to complex health problems that have always been shown to work. Top-down, “one size fits all” approaches, especially ones twisted by conflicted interests, are doomed to failure.

Only those who fail to look at the wider scientific picture are prepared to convince themselves that the WHO’s first global attempt at managing a pandemic, involving masks, lockdowns and genetic vaccines, was a success.

At its core, the WHO’s extended powers will lead to even more censorship and will dismantle the notion of consensus science built on a transparent, scientific method …

Without an international uprising by the grassroots, these amendments will go ahead. Our silence and passivity are our consent. It is, without question, part of the slow descent into totalitarianism, taking us further and further away from principles and values that have characterized many civilizations over recent millennia, namely the right to liberty, the rights of the individual, and the importance of national sovereignty.”

To learn more, check out the Stop Vax Passports Task Force webinar on One Health,

available on NTD.com.

Already, the WHO has launched a global threat detection network, the International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN), to “help protect people from infectious disease threats through the power of pathogen genomics.”

Apparently, it fully expects to be granted all the powers that the IHR amendments and the pandemic treaty will impart.

This network will be used to collect and analyze pathogenic samples, which in turn will drive the WHO’s public health decisions. As described in a press release:

“The IPSN, with a Secretariat hosted by the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, brings together experts worldwide at the cutting-edge of genomics and data analytics, from governments, philanthropic foundations, multilateral organizations, civil society, academia and the private sector.

All share a common goal: to detect and respond to disease threats before they become epidemics and pandemics, and to optimize routine disease surveillance …

COVID-19 highlighted the critical role pathogen genomics plays in responding to pandemic threats. Without the rapid sequencing of the SARS-COV-2 genome, vaccines would not have been as effective, or have been made available so quickly.

New, more transmissible variants of the virus would not have been as quickly identified. Genomics lies at the heart of effective epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response, as well as part of the ongoing surveillance of a vast range of diseases, from foodborne diseases and influenza to tuberculosis and HIV.”

The problem, of course, is that the COVID “vaccines,” developed at warp speed using genomic sequencing, were neither effective nor safe. Many have died within two weeks of getting their jab, and after several months, the effectiveness become negative. This is the technology they now want to use for everything. The risks moving this agenda forward are near-incomprehensible.

So, to summarize and recap, the globalist takeover hinges on the successful creation of a feedback loop of surveillance for virus variants, declaration of potential risk followed by lockdowns and restrictions, followed by mass vaccinating populations to “end” the pandemic restrictions, followed by more surveillance and so on. The funding for this scheme comes primarily from taxpayers, while the profits go to corporations and their investors.

Once the amendments are adopted by the World Health Assembly, nations will have only a limited time to reject them. Any nation that hasn’t officially rejected the amendments will then be legally bound by them, and any attempt to reject them after the six-month grace period will be null and void.

As it currently stands, the IHR amendments will be voted on in the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2024. They only need a majority vote to pass. If that vote happens as planned, then the 10-month deadline for member states to reject the amendments will expire in March 2025, and the amendments will come into force in May 2025. If a member state opts out, then the current 2005 IHR version will apply to that state.

The WHO pandemic treaty will also be voted on by the WHA in May 2024. It requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass, and 30 member countries to ratify it. Thirty days after ratification, the treaty will take force for the countries that signed it.

Fortunately, the U.S. Senate is not entirely clueless about the ramifications of this treaty, and 17 Republican senators, led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., have introduced a bill to thwart the WHO’s power grab.

The “No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act,”

introduced February 15, 2023, would require a Senate supermajority (two-thirds or 67 senators) to pass the pandemic treaty.

However, according to Boyle,

an expert on international laws and treaties, even this bill might not be enough to protect us were President Biden to sign the treaty. The reason for this is because the treaty is written “specifically to circumvent the Senate-approval process.”

A far more effective strategy, he says, would be for Congress to withhold its annual contributions to the WHO — and then withdraw the U.S. from the WHO altogether.

I believe it may be worth supporting all of these strategies. So, please, contact your representatives and urge them to support the “No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act,” to withhold funding for the WHO and, ultimately, support U.S. withdrawal from the WHO.

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

• Data from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows only 40% of children under 12 are considered “fully vaccinated” against COVID-19

• Among children ages 6 months to 4 years, only 5.1% have received two COVID-19 shots, and only 10.1% have received one

• A survey of parents with children 6 and under found 16% to 29% of respondents fell into the “vaccine-hesitant” category, expressing doubts about vaccine safety and efficacy

• Only 39% of parents said they accepted all recommended shots and had no doubts or concerns about vaccinating their child — down from 48% in 2017

• According to the report, 28% of respondents said they do not trust the pharmaceutical industry, causing them to have doubts about shots; 20% were concerned about childhood vaccines because they do not trust the government

Since COVID-19 shots were fast-tracked to the market at an unprecedented rate — and recommended widely to children who were at very low risk from COVID-19 — parents are asking more questions about vaccinations.

A survey prepared for Health Canada by Ekos Research Associates

found that not only have vaccination rates declined since the COVID-19 pandemic, but widespread concerns exist about the shots’ safety.

As it stands, data from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows only 40% of children under 12 are considered “fully vaccinated” against COVID-19.

Among children ages 6 months to 4 years, only 5.1% have received two COVID-19 shots, and only 10.1% have received one.

The vaccination slowdown dates back to at least the fall of 2021, when a study found vaccination rates declined since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, 23% of children had missed or delayed a routine shot.

The Health Canada study followed up in October 2022, surveying 1,035 parents with children 6 and under and 193 people who were pregnant or planning to become pregnant in the next 12 months.

About 16% to 29% of respondents fell into the “vaccine-hesitant” category, expressing doubts about vaccine safety and efficacy. “Further compounding the problem is that a significant proportion of those who accept all vaccines may also harbor concerns about vaccination,” the report found.

Only 39% of parents said they accepted all recommended shots and had no doubts or concerns about vaccinating their child — down from 48% in 2017. Further, 19% said they have refused or delayed getting shots for their child, while 3% said they refuse all vaccines.

The survey revealed parents’ top concerns about vaccinations for their children, with 42% saying they were worried about side effects and 29% raising concerns about potential allergic reactions. Another 29% felt vaccines haven’t been tested enough — a nearly two-fold increase from 15% in 2017.

Parents are right to be concerned. Vaccinations often take years, if not decades, to develop, but COVID-19 shots were brought to market at an unprecedented pace, without adequate testing. Meanwhile, children are at an extremely low risk of serious illness from COVID-19, making the recommendations for COVID-19 shots, and boosters, among this population highly questionable — even ludicrous.

“Research shows that there is no benefit to children receiving a COVID shot, and in fact, the shots can cause potential harm, adverse effects and death. According to Pfizer’s own study trial data, the chance of death in children from the shot is 107 times higher than death from COVID,” Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology,

stated.

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also show that COVID-19 case rates among children who received two COVID-19 shots have been higher than rates in children who did not get the shots.

A lack of trust — in both Big Pharma and the government — was also cited as a major reason why parents were thinking twice about vaccinating their children.

According to the report, 28% of respondents said they do not trust the pharmaceutical industry, causing them to have doubts about shots. Further, the survey revealed, “One in five (20%) are concerned about childhood vaccines because they generally do not trust the government.”

Also cited as points of concern were “a general requirement for too many vaccines” (12%) and the pandemic, including COVID-19 shots (11%).

With more parents asking questions about vaccine safety and reconsidering COVID-19 shots altogether, Bill Gates is teaming up with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to increase vaccines in children. The event is dubbed “The Big Catch-Up” — and described as “the largest childhood immunization effort ever.”

The worldwide effort involves not only CHAI but also WHO, UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will span 18 months. According to WHO:

“While calling on people and governments in every country to play their part in helping to catch up by reaching the children who missed out, The Big Catch-up will have a particular focus on the 20 countries where three quarters of the children who missed vaccinations in 2021 live.”

For some background, it’s important to be aware that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation remains a primary funder of WHO, as Gates contributes via multiple avenues, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the vaccine alliance GAVI, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), UNICEF and Rotary International.

In 2017, Politico wrote a highly-critical article about Gates’ undue financial influence over the WHO’s operations, which Politico said was causing the agency to spend:

“… a disproportionate amount of its resources on projects with the measurable outcomes Gates prefers … Some health advocates fear that because the Gates Foundation’s money comes from investments in big business, it could serve as a Trojan horse for corporate interests to undermine WHO’s role in setting standards and shaping health policies.”

Indeed, as noted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his book “Vax-Unvax,” “The sheer magnitude of his foundation’s financial contributions has made Bill Gates an unofficial — albeit unelected — leader of the WHO.”

And, in that role, Gates is able to ensure that the decisions the WHO makes end up profiting his own interests and those of his Big Pharma partners. He’s been a major proponent of mRNA technology and invested heavily in BioNTech, which developed the COVID-19 shot for Pfizer. He’s since sold a lot of those shares, earning a 10x profit.

As reported by The Hill co-host Briahna Joy Gray, Gates invested $55 million in BioNTech in 2019, and it’s now worth $550 million. He sold some of the stock at the end of 2022, when the share price was over $300 — representing a massive gain.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to add unlicensed COVID-19 shots to the U.S. childhood, adolescent and adult vaccine schedules, paving the way for U.S. schools to require them for attendance.

Pfizer and Moderna, the shots’ makers, will also be granted permanent legal indemnity, which otherwise would have disappeared once COVID-19 shots were no longer protected under emergency use authorization (EUA).

The move is likely to shatter whatever remaining trust Americans had in the CDC — “as it should,” Malone said.

“I am shocked by the malfeasance. I have no trust left at all in our public health. It is broken.”

Even though 60% of U.S. parents oppose adding COVID-19 shots to list of required shots for school,

California and Washington, D.C., have already announced that the shots will be mandatory for students,

and others are sure to follow. If that happens, many more children’s health may be at risk from the experimental shots, while Big Pharma will get out unscathed.

Ron Paul put it simply when he spoke about the CDC on the Liberty Report: “They’re not our friends. They’re not friends of liberty. They’re not friends of medicine. They’re certainly not friends of kids. But do you know who their best friends are? The pharmaceutical companies.”

In a clip on Mikhaila Peterson’s podcast, shared by the Liberty Report, Robert Kennedy Jr. also laid out why the CDC is intent on making COVID-19 shots routine for children:

“So, they’re never going to market a vaccine, allow people access to a vaccine, an approved vaccine, without getting liability protection. And now, the Emergency Use Authorization vaccines have liability protection under the PREP Act and the CARES Act. So as long as … you take an emergency use, you can’t sue them.

Once they get approved, now you can sue ’em, unless they can get it recommended for children. Because all vaccines that are recommended, officially recommended for children get it, liability protection. Even if an adult gets that vaccine. That’s why they’re going after kids.”

While the U.S. continues to recommend COVID shots for children, other countries refuse to give them to youths. In January 2022, Sweden’s Health Agency recommended against COVID-19 jabs for kids aged 5 to 11, stating the benefits do not outweigh the risks.

Denmark also no longer recommends COVID-19 shots for children under 18,

and in September 2022, England announced it would no longer offer COVID-19 shots to children unless they’re high risk.

It’s difficult to see a scenario when the shots’ risks would not outweigh the benefits, not only because COVID-19 is typically mild in children but also because of the shots’ dismal effectiveness. This was, in fact, the reason why a booster dose was initially approved for children ages 5 to 11.

From December 13, 2021, to January 24, 2022, the New York State Department of Health researchers analyzed outcomes among 852,384 children aged 12 to 17 years, and 365,502 children aged 5 to 11 years, who had received two doses of the shots. Effectiveness declined rapidly among 5- to 11-year-olds, falling from 68% to just 12%.

Protection against hospitalization also dropped, from 100% to 48%. Among 11-year-olds alone, vaccine effectiveness plunged to 11%.

The lackluster response was blamed on the dosage discrepancies among the age groups, as 5- to 11-year-olds receive two 10-microgram Pfizer shots, while 12- to 17-year-olds receive 30-microgram shots.

A CDC study also found that the effectiveness of two doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shots against symptomatic COVID-19 infection “was modest and decreased rapidly” from December 2021 to February 2022.

The study found that two to four weeks after the second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shots, effectiveness was 60.1% among 5- to 11-year-olds. This fell to just 28.9% by month two.

A similar trend was seen among adolescents aged 12 to 15 years. Vaccine effectiveness two to four weeks after the second dose of the shots was 59.5%, and this fell to 16.6% during month two.

The CDC’s recommendations have since been changed to advise one updated COVID-19 shot for those 6 and older,

and three doses of COVID-19 shots for children 6 months to 4 years. However, it’s unclear whether the effectiveness will be any better.

The 2022 Vaccine Damage Project

revealed that COVID-19 shots resulted in 300,000 excess deaths, 26.6 million injuries and 1.36 million disabilities.

mRNA-based shots also increased the risk of myocarditis, with a mortality of about 1 to 2 per 200 cases.

Evidence of serious neurological harms, including Bell’s palsy, Guillain-Barré syndrome, myasthenic disorder and stroke, which are likely due to an autoimmune reaction, has also been found.

The addition of COVID-19 jabs to the childhood vaccine schedule, despite these risks, shows the CDC has closed its eyes to public health and is moving forward to protect its friends at all costs. Parents are already doubting the narrative being fed to them and they’re taking steps to protect their children by asking more questions about vaccines and the vaccine schedule.

If your state tries to force any shot on your child, particularly a COVID-19 shot, dissent is one avenue to fight back. Malone also suggests “it’s time for an overhaul of the CDC” and other health agencies. “It is time for parents to take control back from the state,” he says.

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• Symptoms of an uncommon type of heart attack known as spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) are easily overlooked, as few SCAD patients have any history of or risk factors for heart disease

• SCAD is a leading cause of heart attacks in healthy women under 55; the average age of SCAD patients is 42. Eighty percent of SCAD patients are women; 20% have recently given birth

• SCAD occurs when the layers of your blood vessel wall tear apart from each other, trapping blood between the layers. As the blood collects between the layers, your blood vessel gets choked off, triggering a heart attack

• Most SCAD patients are healthy. Risk factors for the condition include underlying blood vessel conditions such as fibromuscular dysplasia, extreme exercise and severe emotional stress

• Common signs and symptoms of a SCAD-induced heart attack, and current treatment recommendations are included

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published March 8, 2018.

The symptoms of an uncommon type of heart attack known as spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD)

are dangerously easy to overlook, as few SCAD patients have any history of or risk factors for heart disease. SCAD is a leading cause of heart attacks in healthy women under 55; the average age of SCAD patients is 42.

ABC News recounts the stories of two women whose sudden heart attacks were triggered by SCAD.

Five weeks after giving birth to a healthy baby girl, Maryn Cox suddenly developed troubling symptoms. “It felt like pressure, possibly gas; acid reflux, I wasn’t sure what it was. One of my arms went numb, I started getting nauseous; cold sweats,” she says. The symptoms, while common, turned out to be SCAD, a condition few have ever heard of.

While SCAD is a cause of heart attack, it’s different from a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease. Essentially, SCAD occurs when the layers of your blood vessel wall tear apart from each other, trapping blood between the layers. As the blood pools and collects between the layers, your blood vessel gets choked off, killing heart muscle tissue downstream from the blockage, thereby triggering a heart attack.

Commonly reported signs and symptoms of SCAD include the following. If you experience these symptoms, call for immediate emergency medical assistance (in the U.S., call 911). It’s important to realize that many who develop SCAD are otherwise quite healthy and most do not have risk factors for heart disease. For this reason, it’s important to seek medical attention if you experience symptoms of SCAD, in order to avoid a lethal heart attack.

Indeed, the No. 1 symptom of a heart attack is sudden death, and the same applies to SCAD. In essence, by the time recognizable symptoms of a heart attack occur, you’re well on your way toward death, so early intervention is crucial.

• Lightheadedness

• Sweating

• Radiating pain in your neck, back or jaw

• Shortness of breath

• Pain, tightness, pressure or discomfort in your chest (some women report feeling like their bra is suddenly too tight, even though they know it’s not)

• Stomach pain

• Fatigue

• Pain radiating down one or both arms

For whatever reason, SCAD tends to be more common in women — especially younger women, and following pregnancy — although it’s a relatively rare condition overall. While the cause for SCAD is unknown, medical experts have theorized the gender difference may have something to do with hormonal variations. Common risk factors for SCAD include:

• Being female (80% of SCAD patients are women)

• Recently giving birth (20% of SCAD patients have recently given birth)

• Underlying blood vessel conditions such as fibromuscular dysplasia (a condition that causes abnormal cell growth in the arteries)

• Extreme physical exercise

• Severe emotional stress

Because the underlying cause of SCAD is still unknown, the best course of treatment has been equally uncertain. However, according to a recent scientific statement by Mayo Clinic researchers, SCAD sufferers tend to benefit the most from “conservative treatment, letting the body heal on its own.”

Dr. Sharonne Hayes, the Mayo Clinic cardiologist who since 2010 has dedicated herself to the study of SCAD (see videos above), says, “It may seem counterintuitive, but we discovered that treating SCAD the same way we treat heart attacks due to atherosclerosis can cause further tearing and damage to the vessel. [T]he initial proper diagnosis is critical in guiding the care.”

The Mayo Clinic consensus statement is a significant step forward, providing health care providers with information about how to diagnose and treat SCAD. Importantly, their findings reveal that, in most patients who were not treated with a stent, the dissection in the blood vessel healed on its own within weeks or months.

In some patients, healing began within mere days. The statement also recommends a tailored cardiac rehabilitation program for patients, and stresses the importance of addressing mental health, as anxiety and depression tend to be quite common in SCAD patients.

In related research,

researchers found women are less likely to report chest pain when having a heart attack. According to the authors, compared to men, “women were more likely to perceive symptoms as stress/anxiety (20.9% versus 11.8%) but less likely to attribute symptoms to muscle pain (15.4% versus 21.2%).” They were also more likely to use terms such as “pressure,” “tightness” or “discomfort” in the chest rather than referring to it as chest pain.

They also found that a significantly greater number of women reported their doctor did not think their symptoms were heart-related. Overall, 53% of female heart attack patients reported this, compared to just 37% of men.

Nearly 30% of women had actually sought medical help prior to being hospitalized with a heart attack, compared to just 22% of men. What these findings suggest is that both women and their doctors tend to misdiagnose or dismiss symptoms of heart attack, placing them at increased risk of death than men. As noted by the authors:

“The presentation of [acute myocardial infarction] symptoms was similar for young women and men, with chest pain as the predominant symptom for both sexes. Women presented with a greater number of additional non-chest pain symptoms regardless of the presence of chest pain, and both women and their health care providers were less likely to attribute their prodromal symptoms to heart disease in comparison with men.”

If you want to reduce your risk of a heart attack, you should absolutely pay attention to your diet and exercise habits. These, along with four other habits, are said to make young women more or less “heart attack-proof,” according to research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Women who adhered to all six guidelines lowered their heart disease risk by 92%. Based on these findings, the researchers estimated that more than 70% of heart attacks could be prevented by implementing the following:

1. A healthy diet discussed in my two most recent books “Effortless Healing” and “Fat for Fuel“

2. Normalizing your body weight (your waist-to-hip ratio being a more reliable risk predictor than body mass index, as it reflects your visceral fat deposits)

3. Getting at least 2.5 hours of exercise each week and moving regularly throughout the day

4. Restricting your TV watching to seven or fewer hours per week

5. Not smoking

6. Limiting alcohol intake to one drink or less per day

These results echo those of a 2014 study,

which concluded that the following five healthy lifestyle strategies could prevent nearly 80% of first-time heart attacks in men. As noted by the authors, “It is not surprising that healthy lifestyle choices would lead to a reduction in heart attacks … What is surprising is how drastically the risk dropped due to these factors.”

• A healthy diet

• Being physically active (walking/bicycling ≥ 40 minutes/day and exercising ≥ one hour/week)

• Maintaining a healthy waist circumference (waist circumference < 37.4 inches or 95 centimeters)

• Moderate alcohol consumption (10 to 30 grams/day)

• No smoking

While SCAD is an exception, most heart attacks are caused by heart disease. Unfortunately, many are still evaluating risk based on the flawed cholesterol hypothesis. In reality, high cholesterol is not a significant risk factor for heart disease or heart attacks at all.

As you evaluate your risk of cardiovascular disease, there are specific ratios and blood level values that will tell you much more than your total cholesterol numbers. The following tests will also give you a better assessment of your potential risk for heart attack or coronary artery disease:

• Cholesterol ratios — Your HDL to cholesterol ratio and triglyceride to HDL ratio are strong indicators of your risk. To calculate your HDL/cholesterol ratio, divide your HDL by your total cholesterol and multiply by 100. That percentage should ideally be above 24%. For your triglyceride/HDL ratio, divide your triglyceride total by your HDL and multiply by 100. The ideal percentage is below 2%.

• NMR LipoProfile — The size of your low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol is more important than your overall total LDL level. Large particle LDLs are not harmful to your health while the smaller, denser LDL particles may create problems as they squeeze through the lining of your arteries, oxidize and trigger inflammation.

  An NMR LipoProfile that measures the size of your LDL particles is a better assessment of your risk of heart disease than total cholesterol or total LDL.

• Fasting insulin level — Sugar and carbohydrates increase inflammation. Once eaten, they trigger a release of insulin, promoting the accumulation of fat and creation of triglycerides, making it more difficult for you to lose weight or maintain your normal weight. Excess fat around your midsection is one of the major contributors to heart disease.

  Your fasting insulin level can be determined by a simple, inexpensive blood test. A normal fasting blood insulin level is below 5 microunits per milliliter (mcU/ml) but, ideally, you’ll want it below 3 mcU/ml. If your insulin level is higher than 3 to 5, the most effective way to optimize it is to reduce net carbs, replacing them with higher amounts of healthy fats, including saturated fats.

• Fasting blood sugar level — Studies have demonstrated people with higher fasting blood sugar levels have a higher risk of coronary heart disease.

  In fact, when your fasting blood sugar is between 100 and 125 mg/dl, your risk of coronary artery disease is 300% higher than having a level below 79 mg/dl.

• Iron level — Iron creates an environment for oxidative stress, so excess iron may increase your inflammation and increase your risk of heart disease. An ideal iron level for adult men and non-menstruating women is between 40 and 60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). You do not want to be below 20 ng/ml or above 80 ng/ml.

Any time you experience any kind of chest pain or discomfort, it’s important to take it seriously and contact your doctor. Keep in mind that not everyone experiences chest pain or discomfort during a heart attack. Other signs and symptoms include:

• Upper body pain or discomfort in your arms, back, neck, jaw or upper stomach

• Shortness of breath

• Nausea

• Lightheadedness

• Cold sweats

You’re far better off getting a diagnosis of heartburn than dying, which is the most common “symptom” of a heart attack. Your chances of survival are greater if you get emergency treatment quickly. Especially if you’re a woman, be extra mindful of troublesome symptoms that might be heart-related, as women are misdiagnosed far more often than men. You may even have to insist on a more in-depth evaluation by your doctor if he or she seems immediately dismissive.

Last but not least, remember that heart attack prevention is primarily lifestyle related, as indicated by the studies above. In addition to the strategies mentioned earlier, consider:

• Reducing, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet. It is vitally important to eliminate gluten-containing grains and sugars, especially fructose. Also consume a good portion of your food raw.

• Replacing harmful vegetable oils and synthetic trans fats with healthy fats, such as olive oil, butter, avocado, organic pastured eggs and coconut oil (remember olive oil should be used cold only; use coconut oil for cooking and baking).

• Also make sure you’re getting plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats.

• Eating more fermented foods. In addition to optimizing your intestinal microflora, which will boost your overall immunity, it will also introduce beneficial bacteria into your mouth. Poor oral health is another powerful indicator of increased heart disease risk.

• Optimizing your vitamin D levels, ideally through appropriate sun exposure as this will allow your body to also create vitamin D sulfate — another factor that may play a crucial role in preventing the formation of arterial plaque.

• Ideally, incorporate high-intensity interval exercises into your fitness routine, as this will also optimize your human growth hormone production.

• Getting plenty of high-quality, restorative sleep.

• Practicing regular stress-management techniques.

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.