‘Fact Checkers’ Should Not Censor Science
Our world is ruled by a conflict of interest. In global health, a single person is the top donor of the World Health Organization (WHO)1, directly through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation1 and indirectly through the GAVI vaccine alliance1, which is almost entirely funded by the same charity2.
The director-general of the WHO, a former Health Minister and Foreign Minister of Ethiopia, was previously a board director of GAVI3. In the last year on record1, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated to the WHO 228,970,196 US$ directly and 158,545, 964 US$ indirectly through GAVI. The second donor to the WHO is the United States of America with 281,063,159 US$, then the United Kingdom, with 205,262,406 US$. and Germany with 154,539,249 US$. While no other donor is above 100,000,000 US$, the list of (smaller) donors includes many pharmaceutical companies and other corporations. Regarding GAVI, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated to the GAVI alliance’s 2016-2020 strategic plan 1,560,000,000 US$2.
As the ID2020 Digital id Alliance4 is sponsored indirectly by the same Charity (through GAVI) and has one of the major players in Microsoft5, in this context, each “conspiracy theory” of forced “vaccination and microchipping” promoted by one individual1,2,3,4 may also become a “conspiracy reality”. In global health, corruption is a problem from the top to the bottom. As outlined in The Lancet article “Corruption in global health: the open secret,” every health professional knows this, but no one addresses it6.
While conflicts of interest are spreading rapidly across our society, with the 0.01{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} controlling the 99.99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}, and global health affected not less, but likely more than every other aspect of our society, “fact-checkers” paid by the wealthiest individuals are pretending to check that the inconvenient science is solid.
It is not surprising that these “fact-checkers” are targeting Prof. Didier Raoult (photo, below) for his works on Chloroquine/HydroxyChloroquine, a drug that costs almost nothing, is off-patent, and may work under specific circumstances also for Covid19 patients, making less relevant the forced “vaccination and microchipping” or even the social distancing being promoted by the wealthy.
“Retraction Watch”7 and “PubPeer”8 have thus been unleashed on Prof. Didier Raoult. A search for publication with the keyword “Raoult” in PubPeer8 returns 35 (thirty-five) recent papers that are under scrutiny. Retraction Watch is not less interested in the smearing campaign. The Mainstream Media in the west is not less interested in joining the efforts to bias science.
The most questioned work, also targeted by Retraction Watch, is a paper published in the International Journal of antimicrobial agents19. One of the main arguments against the work is the fact that the editor of the journal is coauthor of the manuscript. There has never been in the peer review prohibition for an editor to be the author of one paper published in the same journal. Another argument is that the editor and Prof. Didier Raoult work in the same public hospital. This is again not something forbidden by the rules of the peer review. The list of personal arguments is endless. The anonymous “scientists” using these two web sites are questioning the messengers more than the message. The more than legitimate question is therefore who is behind them.
Both these organizations are funded by the wealthy men, actually the same wealthy man. Tracing this conflict of interest is as easy as a Wikipedia search9 of “Retraction Watch” under the section on funding states about this limited liability corporation (LLC) that they “received grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.
”Regarding the MacArthur Foundation, again it only takes a Wikipedia search10 to learn that “John D. MacArthur owned Bankers Life and Casualty and other businesses, as well as considerable property holdings in Florida and New York.” and “Their attorney, William T. Kirby, and Paul Doolen, their chief financial officer, suggested that the family create a foundation to be endowed by their vast fortune.
One of the reasons MacArthur originally set up the Foundation was to avoid taxes.” Another open secret is that charities are often tax-dodging schemes, and they serve their interests and not the interest of the people. Regarding the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, again it is quite easy to uncover the facts, in Wikipedia11 where it is written: “Arnold Ventures formerly known as The Laura and John Arnold Foundation is run by John D. Arnold, a former Enron trader, and American hedge fund manager.” (photo, below)
Additionally, “The organization has also been described as “another example of billionaire donors becoming ever more sophisticated about using private wealth to influence public policy—wielding exponentially more power in American life than ordinary citizens of more modest means.”
The other open secret is that charities are used to bias in favor of their owner every function of our society. Also, PubPeer is sponsored by the same Laura and John Arnold Foundation. This fact is missing on Wikipedia page12 which does not include any details of this other LLC established in the United States by an American citizen employed by the French Government Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)13,14,15,16.
If not Wikipedia, somebody else published some facts on these other “fact-checkers”17. “In 2015, The PubPeer Foundation was created as a charitable organization to receive funding in the USA, and at the end of 2016, the PubPeer Foundation received funding (US$ 412,000) from a philanthropic organization, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. Several of these details were not indicated in the older version of the “About” page at PubPeer.
Other aspects of that page are opaque.” 17. Regarding Enron, as written in Wikipedia18 “At the end of 2001, it was revealed that Enron’s reported financial condition was sustained by an institutionalized, systemic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known since as the Enron Scandal. Enron has since become a well-known example of willful corporate fraud and corruption.”
In conclusion:
We believe Prof. Didier Raoult, an honest man, and a great scientist, who decided to put his reputation on the line for something that he believes, deserves more respect. He is trying his best to help humanity, and this must be acknowledged. It should also be recognized that there is no need for “fact-checkers” playing pretending to defend the integrity of science but receiving money by wealthy men. In a just world, these web sites simply would not exist, and as it is, the scientific community should ignore them.
Under legitimate peer review, papers satisfying the proper professional protocol should be published, with readers more than welcome to raise questions after publication and get answers through the proper avenue of comments and replies. In a just world, people having a conflict of interest should be prevented from taking a position on a subject in which they have vested interests and will reap profit or gain power from one outcome vs. the other.
The papers published by Prof. Didier Raoult in general, and the specific paper19 published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents on Chloroquine, must not be removed in response to the pressure of fact-checkers, or by the compromised judgments by putatively independent but, in fact, openly dependent supranational organizations.
There are too many narratives in our society that serve to confuse issues rather than inform. There are too many charities that care more for themselves than the people they ought to be serving. There are too many pharmaceutical companies that care too little about science and too much about their patented products. Organizations funded by individuals serve selective agendas and do not serve the interests of the people. We, the 99.99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}, we do not need these narratives funded by the 0.01{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of billionaires controlling our lives.
If we want not only good science but freedom, equality, and fraternity, within our society, the solution is simple. Start asking big corporations and wealthy men to pay taxes rather than using tax-dodging schemes to destroy our society and promote their interests through charities. Crackdown on these charities that pursue their interests, rather than the interests of the people. If we also make lean, efficient, transparent, and accountable public administration, there will be only advantages for humanity. Maybe not the 0.01{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}, but certainly the 99.99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}.
References
1 www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/reports/A72_INF5-en.pdf?ua=1
3 www.gavi.org/gavi-welcomes-election-of-new-who-chief
6 García, P.J., 2019. Corruption in global health: the open secret. The Lancet. 394(10214), pp.2119-2124. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32527-9
7 retractionwatch.com/2020/04/12/elsevier-investigating-hydroxychloroquine-covid-19-paper/
9 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retraction_Watch
10 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Foundation
11 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Ventures_LLC
12 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PubPeer
13 www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/pubpeer-s-secret-out-founder-controversial-website-reveals-himself
14 www.nature.com/news/pioneer-behind-controversial-pubpeer-site-reveals-his-identity-1.18261
16 Ramirez, J.E. and Stell, B.M., 2016. Calcium imaging reveals coordinated simple spike pauses in populations of cerebellar purkinje cells. Cell reports, 17(12), pp.3125-3132.
17 www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/OIR-06-2017-0191/full/html
18 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron
19 Gautret, P., Lagier, J.C., Parola, P., Meddeb, L., Mailhe, M., Doudier, B., Courjon, J., Giordanengo, V., Vieira, V.E., Dupont, H.T. and Honoré, S., 2020. “Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial.” International journal of antimicrobial agents, p.105949. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105949
About the authors:
Albert Parker PhD: Received his MSc and PhD in Engineering before the age of the commercial universities. After 30 years working in industry and teaching in universities Albert took to researching and writing about climate change in his retirement in Australia.
John O’Sullivan John is CEO and co-founder (with Dr Tim Ball) of Principia Scientific International (PSI). John is a seasoned science writer and legal analyst who assisted Dr Ball in defeating world leading climate expert, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann in the ‘science trial of the century‘. O’Sullivan is credited as the visionary who formed the original ‘Slayers’ group of scientists in 2010 who then collaborated in creating the world’s first full-volume debunk of the greenhouse gas theory plus their new follow-up book.
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giordano bruno
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I like this other sentence written in the Wikipedia page for the “Charity” behind Retraction Watch and Pub Peer (and other organization biasing the proper functioning of our society).
The foundation has funded various politically-oriented 501(c)4 organizations, including Engage Rhode Island. Many of these organizations advocate pension fund reform, encourage state and local governments to reduce benefits to workers and to invest assets in riskier investments such as hedge funds. Some have criticized the foundation’s efforts, saying that hedge fund managers (like John Arnold) collect generous sums in fees for managing the funds, while the workers are left with reduced pensions.
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