Life would be an anxious journey without trust. We are geared to be trusting; without any second thought, we place our confidence onto figures (doctors, teachers, pilots etc.) socially established to summon trust. Often it is placed on several different actors who play key roles in our lives; government, media, and the pharmaceutical companies which, in the current context, are now viewed almost as heroes, saving the world from the nasty SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus. Although trust is absolutely needed, blind trust can be dangerous.

Trust must be earned and must be maintained. Without being overly suspicious, we must know that we always have the right to removed trust from those who betray. Trust cannot be obtained out of manipulations, half truths, lies or coercion. Sometimes, as individuals, we have to be reminded of past reprehensible behaviors towards us to realize how precious is our trust. We have to hold the recipient of such precious sentiment accountable for any opaque behavior resulting in emerging distrust.

Past behaviors are the predictors of future behaviors. Media, governments, pharmaceutical companies alike were involved in quite reprehensible behaviors. This is a reminder not to trust blindly and to do your personal due diligence. For instance, we have to keep in mind the power the media has over the public views. The Media was instrumental in the public negative portrayal of black people in general, with a particular emphasis towards the worthlessness of the black man. It is common knowledge that media can brake or make reputations, trials, elections. Whomever controls the media will control the world.

As for the government and the scientific world, the lengthy track record is quite spotty.

1939 – The monster experiment, in an orphanage in Iowa

A study by Dr. Wendell Johnson, the country’s most prominent speech pathologist at the time, subjected 22 children to the ”monster experiment”. Dr. Wendell wanted to verify one of his theories about the cause of stuttering.

1940 – In Chicago, 400 prisoners are infected with malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust. (Life Magazine, Life 2nd photo, Wikipedia)

2000 – Experimental artificial blood is transfused into research subjects across the United States without their consent. The 720 patients could not give consent due to their traumatic situation (hemorrhagic shock). The study itself contained numerous ethically questionable practices; secrecy of the specifics of the experimental protocol and research methodologies relevant to the study,  the study protocol itself was not disclosed at community meetings. Later studies show that the artificial blood causes a significant increase in the risk of heart attacks and death. (ABC News, 2nd ABC News article, NCBI )

2007 – Texas governor Rick Perry makes the vaccine Gardasil mandatory for all Texan schoolgirls. Via an executive order, the governor avoided the usual approval process through the Texas state legislature. The vaccine is designed to prevent the sexually transmitted cervical-cancer virus, yet even girls not sexually active are forced to take the new vaccine. Perry defends his relationship with Merck & Co., makers of the vaccine. The safety of the vaccine is also increasingly questioned. (MSNBC/AP, Los Angeles Times, NCBI)

2008 – Nanotechnology, with risks to health still unknown, is being widely used in consumer products. Some experts say the microtubules which can easily enter our bodies may pose health and environmental risks. Researchers in Scotland say we may be facing the same health risks as asbestos. Yet, industry is rapidly embracing this risky technology with little oversight. (New York Times, Project Censored, Science News)

2010 – While doing research on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Susan Reverby, Professor of Women’s Studies at Wellesley College, uncovered documents concerning unethical research experiments on human subjects conducted by the U.S. government in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. The research involved intentionally infecting over 1300 subjects with syphilis to test the effectiveness of penicillin in preventing this disease. Only 700 subjects were given penicillin and 83 died as a result of the study. The subjects were not informed that they were participating in an experiment.

2010 – Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus launch Retraction Watch, a blog that posts retractions of scientific papers and articles related to research integrity.

2018 – In October of that year, He Jiankui, a scientist of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, announces the birth of the world’s first gene edited babies, both girls. He claims that he used CRISPR-Cas 9 technology to modify the CCR5 gene to give the girls immunity to HIV. The announcement generates outrage around the world and many scientists and policymakers call for a ban on human germline, genome editing.

These are only a few of the many misconducts perpetrated by governments and the science community. By the look of things, as science and technology progresses, ethical awareness is regressing.

What about doctors? Are they trustworthy? Do they only have their patient’s interest at heart? Doctors can also have some flawed perceptions and stand in a situation of conflict of interest.

Many doctors receive payments from pharmaceutical companies. Although it is common practice, this actually puts them in situation of conflict of interest. You can ask your doctor(s) a few questions in order to validate their dedication to your wellbeing as well as their knowledge about the immunization against Sars-Cov-2;

• How does my body produce the spike protein with this new vaccine technology?
• If the spike protein is inside many cells in my body, do you know in which type of cells it will be produced? Is there a possibility that it might affect these cells (to be forced into producing a stranger protein and by the resulting presence of the stranger protein)?
• If I react negatively to this type of new immunization, how will I be treated medically?
• Do you know how to report an adverse event from the immunization ?

Pay attention not only to the answer, but also to the demeanor, get a feel of the transparency of the medical person in front of you. Be mindful that doctors are not immune to reprehensible behaviors.

The industry was also guilty many wrongdoings. Mainly of putting financial gain before the welfare of their consumers. For instance, in the 50s Nestle has been aggressively advertising their infant formula to uneducated mothers in third world countries. This has been causing illness and death amongst infants. Till this day, nursing mothers of third world countries are gripping with the belief that infant formula is much better than breast milk.

The list will be much longer if we dive into the past of many industries. But this is not the main goal of this lesson which is meant for you to be able to look for the truth. Therefore, for the pharmaceutical industry’s rap sheet, you will have to find out for yourself. But here you will get help to do so, with the introduction to successful Web search.

Successful Websearch

Knowledge is, more than ever, power. Finding the information creating the needed knowledge baggage is the result of a successful information search. Nowadays most of the pertinent information can be found in the Web. So is a lot of false information. Therefore, one has to develop not only an ability in finding the pertinent information but also the ability in making the proper verification. The key is to start with the proper key words. For instance, if looking into the past of the four vaccine candidate makers (to evaluate how trustworthy they are), one important question to be answered is ”Was there any litigation in their past?” Lets find out.