Johnson & Johnson worried about losses from China tariffs despite projecting $700 million in profits



Johnson & Johnson's CEO said President Trump's tariffs on pharmaceuticals could cause a problem for drug supply chains.

During an investor call, CEO Joaquin Duato told his colleagues that they should work with the Trump administration to address supply chain vulnerabilities that could arise as a result of tariffs.

The remarks were seemingly an effective call for the Trump administration to ease tariffs on raw ingredients and drugs from China, the country the president has hit hardest in his new economic plan.

At the same time, however, Johnson & Johnson reported strong first-quarter revenues that even surpassed Wall Street estimates, Reuters stated.

According to the report, the pharmaceutical giant detailed plans to raise U.S. investments by 25% in the next four years — with some commitments already made — which would total more than $55 million.

Sales for 2025 were forecast to be around $700 million, and an upcoming nasal spray that allegedly treats depression is expected to generate sales between $3 billion and $3.5 billion annually by 2028. The company's chief financial officer reportedly claimed that a $400 million loss, as a result of tariffs, had been worked into the profit margin calculations.

Following a third failed bankruptcy attempt, the company is still facing over 90,000 lawsuits from families who alleged that talc-based Johnson & Johnson products were contaminated with asbestos and caused ovarian cancer after prolonged use.

The Lawsuit Information Center reported that a bankruptcy court rejected Johnson & Johnson's $9 billion settlement proposal. Divided equally among 90,000 cases, that figure would equate to $100,000 per lawsuit.

At least 3,500 claimants are from the United Kingdom, making this case one of the largest class-action suits in English and Welsh history. While the majority of claimants are women, some men are included in those claims that also said the company's powder products contained asbestos and caused cancer.

According to the Guardian, the number of lawsuits has nearly doubled since November 2024.

'[Duato] oversaw the company’s rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic.'

As for CEO Duato, the executive is coming off one of the most lucrative years of his career after his income increased to $28.4 million in 2023, versus $13.1 million in his first year as CEO in 2022, per Fierce Pharma.

Duato is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Spain and got his start at Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals. In 2021, BioSpace reported that Duato sat on the board of directors for UNICEF USA, while Fox Business noted he is the executive sponsor of Johnson & Johnson's African Ancestry Leadership Council.

Duato was also praised by his company for his work during COVID-19:

"[Duato] oversaw the company’s rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic and led coordination of global initiatives to safeguard the health of employees and ensure business and supply chain continuity," a company release said.

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Fauci's wife, vax-peddling buddies get the boot at NIH



Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. indicated last week that his department would downsize its workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 employees as part of a broader overhaul intended to maximize efficiency and save taxpayers money. Senior officials at the National Institutes of Health, a subordinate agency, were evidently not immune to this shake-up.

Insiders told Politico that Christine Grady, the wife of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, was ousted Tuesday from her role as senior investigator at the NIH Clinical Center's Department of Bioethics. Kennedy allegedly signed off on the termination of Grady, who spearheaded research into the ethics of the U.S. pandemic response.

Fauci allies Clifford Lane, deputy director for clinical research and special projects at NIAID, and Emily Erbelding, director of the NIAID division of microbiology and infectious diseases, were reportedly also given the boot.

Several institute directors, including Fauci ally Jeanne Marrazzo — the NIAID director who claimed during the pandemic that "wearing a mask is very effective" and told people not to gather in groups, including at "gyms, bars and churches" — were among the officials linked to the government's development and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines who were offered reassignments.

'What we've been doing isn't working.'

A copy of the agency's email to directors obtained by Nature states, "HHS proposes to reassign you as part of a broader effort to strengthen the Department and more effectively promote the health of the American people."

The letter offered the Washington, D.C., and Atlanta area-based directors the option of working in Alaska, Montana, and Oklahoma — supposedly an inducement to quit — noting, "This underserved community deserves the highest quality of service, and HHS needs individuals like you to deliver that service."

Whether they were fired or effectively resigned rather than transfer to distant outposts is unclear.

As the old guard were marched out of the NIH on what coincidentally was Dr. Jay Bhattacharya's first day in office as the director of the agency, Kennedy noted on X, "This is a difficult moment for all of us at HHS. Our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs."

Despite characterizing the terminations as difficult, Kennedy underscored that they were necessary.

"The reality is clear: What we've been doing isn't working. Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year. In the past four years alone, the agency’s budget has grown by 38% — yet outcomes continue to decline," wrote the health secretary. "We must shift course. HHS needs to be recalibrated to emphasize prevention, not just sick care. These changes will not affect Medicare, Medicaid, or other essential health services.

'This will go down as one of the darkest days in modern scientific history.'

Bhattacharya said in an email to staff that the terminations would "have a profound impact on key N.I.H. administrative functions, including communications, legislative affairs, procurement and human resources" and thanked the "scientists and staff whose work has contributed to lifesaving breakthroughs in biology and medicine."

Although a long time coming, the layoffs caught some workers off guard and enraged certain health establishmentarians.

Jessica Henry, formerly a digital communications specialist at the NIH's National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, told the New York Times that she learned after showing up to at work in Maryland on Tuesday that she had been canned with her entire team of communications and health education specialists.

"I also just feel so confused, and honestly kind of angry, because we hear a lot about how the administration wants to increase transparency," said the former theater teacher. "They want accountability to the American people for how their tax dollars are being spent. And from what I can tell, they just fired all of us who do that."

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, bemoaned the layoffs, telling Nature, "This will go down as one of the darkest days in modern scientific history in my 50 years in the business. These are going to be huge losses to the research and public health community."

"These are going to be huge losses to the research community," added Osterholm.

Monica Bertagnolli, former NIH director under Joe Biden, told Nature the treatment of the directors was "frankly unconscionable," adding, "These are all outstanding leaders, who were let go without accounting for the harm that could be done with the loss of research productivity and the loss of programs delivering lifesaving treatments."

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Trump And RFK Should Accelerate Inexpensive Treatments For Long Covid And Other Diseases

Generic drugs can combat an array of chronic diseases, but only if the Trump administration creates a structured, interdisciplinary study of these drugs.

Dave Weldon speaks the TRUTH about vaccines; gets pulled from CDC nomination



Doctor Dave Weldon was Donald Trump’s pick to be CDC director — but he was pulled from the nomination for previous comments he made regarding vaccines.

Weldon was a former congressman who introduced the Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act in 2007, where he stated several issues relating to vaccine safety.

“Several issues relating to vaccine safety have persisted for years. The response from public health agencies has been largely defensive from the outset, and studies have been plagued by conflicts of interest. Legitimate questions persist regarding the possible association between the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, and the childhood epidemic of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism,” Weldon wrote in the introduction of his act.

“I find this very hard to believe,” Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” comments, noting that the same year, Weldon cosponsored legislation with a Democrat to ban Mercury from vaccines, specifically thimerosal.


Thimerosal is 50% mercury and still remains in some childhood vaccines — particularly the flu shot.

“You look at this, and you look at what he was concluding, which is, ‘Hey, we should be careful with our children,’” Gonzales says, recalling the protocol American families used to follow when a thermometer breaks.

“I remember when I was little, and we had a thermometer that fell on the floor and broke. It was glass, it broke, and everyone in the house was like, ‘Don’t touch it, don’t leave the room, don’t go in here, we’ve got to get gloves, we’ve got to handle it very carefully,’” she says.

“We had that protocol when it was on the ground, and you might touch it, but injecting it into a newborn somehow, totally OK,” she continues.

And the epidemic of autism has only gotten worse since Weldon initially sounded the alarm.

In 2000, one in 150 children was diagnosed with autism. By 2020, the number was one in 36.

“I would say that that’s enough to question. Same thing that Dave Weldon is saying. ‘Hey, maybe we should look at this guys, maybe it’s a bad idea to put something like mercury in vaccines that you’re injecting into young humans,’” Gonzales says.

“Now all of a sudden, we have to figure out who takes Dave Weldon’s spot now,” she continues, adding, “We are in the driver seat now, we are perfectly positioned to finally, I don’t even want to say, solve the health crisis because it’s going to take more than four years to do that, but to at least put us in a good spot to do that.”

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Hospital responds to claim Vance's young relative was denied heart transplant over vaccination status



Cincinnati Children's Hospital issued a statement Wednesday following backlash over the claim it denied a 12-year-old relative of Vice President JD Vance a spot on its heart transplant waiting list over her vaccination status.

The hospital, which alternatively has no qualms subjecting kids to dangerous sex-change drugs and mutilations, suggested that its vaccine requirement is informed by its responsibility "to ensure that every donated organ is used in a way that maximizes successful outcomes for children in need."

Adaline Deal, whose mother is related to the vice president's half-siblings through marriage, suffers from two heart conditions, Ebstein's anomaly and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that after nearly a decade receiving treatment from the Cincinnati hospital, the girl was informed on Jan. 17 that her heart was failing, functioning at just 42%.

While Deal's heart cannot be fixed, it can be replaced.

'You're just going to let my child die?'

Jeneen Deal, the girl's mother, told WKRC-TV that doctors at the hospital "taught us about the different testing that they need to do and then the vaccinations that they need to do."

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which oversees the organ transplant list, does not issue policies requiring transplant centers to use specific criteria when determining the suitability of a given candidate for transplantation. Transplant hospitals can, however, establish their own policies.

In the case of Cincinnati Children's, candidates must have flu and COVID-19 vaccinations — vaccinations Deal's parents decided not to get her on the basis of religious and medical beliefs.

"I'm like, so if we don't do the vaccinations, you're just going to let my child die?" recalled Jeneen Deal. "And she's like, 'I am so sorry.' She goes, 'This is just our policy.'"

"We approach every transplant evaluation with a focus on long-term success, guided by medical science and an unwavering commitment to patient safety," the hospital noted in its Wednesday statement, which made no explicit reference to the Deal family. "Because children who receive a transplant will be immunosuppressed for the rest of their life, vaccines play a critical role in preventing or reducing the risk of life-threatening infections, especially in the first year."

The family is now reportedly considering taking Adaline to a transplant center in Pittsburgh in hopes of making the list without having to compromise on their beliefs.

A spokesperson for the vice president did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

Vance's relative is not the first American to be rejected as a patient for a lifesaving transplant due to vaccination status.

In 2022, DJ Ferguson, a father in his thirties, was removed from the heart transplant list at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston because he refused the COVID-19 vaccine, which has ironically been linked to risks of heart damage. His mother told NPR that Ferguson was not against vaccinations but was wary about the COVID-19 vaccine because he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.

"He wants to be assured by his doctors that his condition would not be worse or fatal with this COVID vaccine," said Tracy Ferguson.

Michelle Vitullo of Ohio was in desperate need of a liver transplant, then discovered her daughter was an exact match. Vitullo, suffering from advanced cancer, reportedly underwent multiple treatments to stabilize her health with the goal of undergoing the surgery in September 2021. The Cleveland Clinic canceled the procedure at the last minute, citing its COVID-19 vaccination requirement.

That same year, the University of Colorado's hospital kicked Leilani Lutali of Colorado Springs off its active transplant list for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. Lutali had a donor lined up who was similarly unvaccinated.

"The shot's relatively new, and as a consumer, I'm not an early adopter," Lutali told KDVR-TV. "I wait and see what's going on. I feel like I'm being coerced into not being able to wait and see and that I have to take the shot if I want this life-saving transplant."

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LAFD Terminated Firefighter For Refusing Covid Vaccine Just Months Before Deadly Wildfires

The Los Angeles Fire Department fired a firefighter for refusing the Covid vaccine after the mandate ended, even though he had an exemption.

RFK deflects Senate Democrats' attacks: 'Bringing this up right now is dishonest'



Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, fought back against Senate Democrats who berated him during his Wednesday confirmation hearing.

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee hurled various accusations at Kennedy, attempting to label him anti-vaccine and overlooking his decades of work addressing the corruption in the health care industry. Despite attempts to assassinate his character, Kennedy stood firm and deflected Democrats' assertions.

'Do you want me to answer? President Trump has asked me to end the chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again. If we don't solve that problem, we're moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.'

"The first thing I've done every morning for the past 20 years is get on my knees and pray to God that He would put me in a position to end the chronic disease epidemic and to help America's children," Kennedy said during the hearing.

"The U.S. has worse health than any other developed nation," Kennedy added. "And we spend more on health care, at least double, and in some cases triple, as other countries. Last year, we spent $4.8 trillion, not counting the indirect costs of missed work."

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon began by berating Kennedy's past comments about vaccines, referring to a statement that Kennedy made to podcast host Lex Fridman that none of them are "safe and effective." Wyden also accused him of "lying" to people about his views.

"As you know, because it's been repeatedly debunked, that statement that I made on the Lex Fridman podcast was a fragment of the statement," Kennedy said. "I said there are no vaccines that are safe and effective, and I was going to continue, for every person. Every medicine has people who are sensitive to them, including vaccines. He interrupted me at that point."

"I've corrected it many times, including on national TV," Kennedy continued. "You know about this, Senator Wyden, and so bringing this up right now is dishonest."

— (@)

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia similarly attacked Kennedy's character without allowing him to properly respond.

"Will you commit not to fire anyone in the health arena who currently works on protecting Americans?” Warner pressed, hardly allowing RFK to respond.

“I will commit to not firing anybody who is doing their job," Kennedy answered, prompting applause from the gallery.

— (@)

Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada similarly accused Kennedy of simply being a "rubber stamp" for the Trump administration, depriving him of any opportunities to properly answer.

"Do you want me to answer?" Kennedy said. "President Trump has asked me to end the chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again. If we don't solve that problem, we're moving deck chairs around on the Titanic."

— (@)

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Mike Pence's fake 'pro-life' opposition to RFK



It gives me zero pleasure to call out professing Christians, but prominent figures who use the name of Christ to advance morally dubious political agendas should be held accountable.

This week it's former Vice President Mike Pence.

So let's do the math here. Pence takes money from Big Pharma and formulates a nonsensical argument that pro-lifers need to fight RFK's nomination.

Pence appears to have joined the club of those who consort with Big Pharma to the detriment of all the rest of us. Dr. Francis Collins was a charter member of that club, as I detailed in "A Sunday kind of faith," but now Pence appears to be following suit.

As Rav Arora reports in detail here, a Pence-founded advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, announced this past week a six-figure ad campaign to fight RFK's confirmation as secretary of health and human services.

Follow the money

First, let's talk about those six figures. Who, exactly, is donating to keep RFK out of Trump's Cabinet?

Well, at least $100K came from G.D. Searle, now affiliated with ... any guesses? If you guessed Pfizer, ding ding ding! You're a winner!

But as Arora further reports, it gets muckier. Pence's former chief of staff, one Marc Short, has been linked to ethical questions due to his ownership of Big Pharma stock while he was in a position, during COVID, to influence federal response.

And now, as chairman of the board of Pence's advocacy group, Short is raising "ethical" questions about RFK, as well as repeating easily rebutted lies about RFK's involvement in certain vaccine controversies — again as Arora details.

Speaking of easily rebutted lies about RFK, another story the mainstream media is pushing hard right now is that 17,000 doctors have signed a letter demanding that RFK not be confirmed. But the media hasn’t reported the fact that anyone could — and did — sign that letter, as Jenna McCarthy hilariously reports here. Spoiler: It appears Bill Gates is behind the doctor letter effort. Color us all shocked.

But I digress.

Pro-pharma

What is most bothersome to me in all this is the approach Pence is taking to this effort, as he seeks to influence Christian conservatives in regard to this nomination.

Last week he published an op-ed in the Washington Times entitled, "There's work left to do in the pro-life movement" — and yes, there probably is. But what was the action step he wants us to take, exactly? What was the punch line of his article?

"We urge others in the pro-life community to join us in calling on members of the Senate to reject RFK Jr. and give President Trump a second chance to appoint a pro-life secretary who will defend the cause of life and ensure that HHS continually makes choices that guide our country towards life."

Wait — what?

How exactly would a pro-life HHS secretary help the pro-life movement? Since the abortion issue is currently being worked out primarily at the state level, HHS doesn't have too much to do with it.

But you know what the HHS secretary can address? What he can actually help make right? You know the answer already.

We need an HHS secretary who is pro-all-of-our-lives. Pro-health-for-everyone. Someone who will stand against the death merchants of Big Pharma.

Vaccine malpractice

We all need to work together to undo the medical malpractice pushed on all of us — malpractice that has been especially damaging to the young people who took the vax, like the countless young men now suffering heart problems. Or consider the huge upsurge in young people diagnosed with turbo cancers. How many of us know a younger person who's been struck by something like this? Are any of these victims not vaccinated? Well, none that I've encountered.

And just this month, a researcher found evidence of the vaccine in cancer tumors, which is ominous news indeed. Big Pharma rushed to cash in on COVID, and the companies don't want anyone stopping them from future profits. RFK is potentially in their way.

So let's do the math here. Pence takes money from Big Pharma and formulates a nonsensical argument that pro-lifers need to fight RFK's nomination. That sleight of hand is not a good look for a professing believer.

Because stopping RFK has nothing to do with stopping abortion. It won't save one unborn baby. But his confirmation could well save many born babies — from vaccines that will kill them. Because make no mistake, even as you read this, there are parents in this country mourning the loss of a young child to the COVID (or other) vaccines.

Side note: I challenge you to read this and not come away supportive of RFK's stated desire to clean up the vaccine mess, requiring proper safety evaluations before they are used on our children.

So. Pretending that pro-lifers have a duty to work against RFK on this is misleading at best. I call it willfully uninformed, for someone of Pence's stature, as well as unethical and unbecoming of a Christian. His disingenuous attempt to co-opt pro-lifers to fight for something that is anti-life can certainly be considered a black eye to the cause of Christ.

Interestingly, his op-ed ends with this: Mike Pence is a husband, father, grandfather, Christian, conservative and Republican — in that order.

You should rethink that order, Mr. Pence, as you should rethink your partnership with a corrupt industry responsible for much human suffering.

And if you agree, please take a few moments to let your senators know that we voted for Trump and RFK as a package deal and we expect him to be confirmed, or they can expect to be primaried. This is especially important for all Republican senators, many of whom have taken far too much money from Pharma.

We must stop this now. And here’s an easy way to do it that will take less than a minute. Click here and help end this madness.

Trump reinstating thousands of US service members discharged for refusing COVID shot



President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order Monday reinstating thousands of American service members who were discharged for refusing experimental COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. Doing so will amount to another promise kept by the Republican, who stated in August, "I will rehire every patriot that was fired with an apology and backpay. They will get their backpay and an apology from our government."

Former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memo on Aug. 24, 2021, both declaring that "mandatory vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 is necessary to protect the Force" and characterizing the novel vaccines as safe and effective.

The Biden administration's vaccine mandate for U.S. service members was ultimately rescinded in January 2023 as the result of a Republican-backed requirement added to the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. However, during the 16 months the mandate was in effect, roughly 17,000 service members refused to take the vaccine.

While around 1,200 troops were reportedly able to secure exemptions, Pentagon records indicated that 3,717 Marines, 1,816 soldiers, and 2,064 sailors were discharged for refusing the vaccine that had left some of their compatriots with health complications such as myocarditis or, in the case of former National Guard specialist Karoline Stancik, three heart attacks and a stroke.

'They will be apologized to.'

A White House official confirmed to the New York Post that Trump's executive order will cover active-duty or reserve service members who were discharged for refusing the vaccine between 2021 and 2023. Over 8,000 service members are expected to be restored to their previous rank and provided both backpay and full benefits.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pledged during his confirmation hearing earlier this month to reinstate and reimburse troops ousted for refusing an "experimental vaccine" as Trump had promised.

"Tens of thousands of service members were kicked out because of an experimental vaccine," said Hegseth. "They will be apologized to. They will be reinstated, reinstituted with pay and rank."

The Military Times indicated that rectifying the Biden administration's error might prove costly as backpay alone might run upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars. Nevertheless, it will make whole those who were kicked to the curb for questioning a vaccine shown in some cases to cause significant harm.

A study published January 2024 in the pharmacotherapy journal Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety indicated that "COVID-19 vaccination is strongly associated with a serious adverse safety signal of myocarditis, particularly in children and young adults resulting in hospitalization and death."

A study conducted by the Global COVID Vaccine Safety Project — a Global Vaccine Data Network initiative supported by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the HHS — and published last year in the journal Vaccine detailed unsettling links between the AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer vaccines and medical conditions such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, brain and spinal cord inflammation, Bell's palsy, and convulsions.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), a retired U.S. Army Ranger, celebrated Trump's decision to reinstate the troops, telling "Fox & Friends" that it is a "great day for patriots, a great day for our service members, my brothers and sisters in arms."

"Let's not forget," said Mast, "it wasn't just the military. It was other government agencies as well, where they were essentially washing [out] conservatives that were raising their hand, saying, 'I don't want to take this vaccine.'"

"They were washing them out of government, washing them out of West Point and Naval Academy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine academies, washing them out from being on the next promotion boards for first sergeants, sergeants, majors, or officers, and they were creating a system where the ones that were going to be giving promotion to the next classes of individuals were all going to be those that didn't say, 'No, I'm not a conservative, and you know, I'm OK with everything that you're doing right now,'" said Mast. "That's what was taking place."

While the reinstatement might be greatly welcomed by some troops, there may be others who have no interest in returning. After all, within eight months of the repeal of the vaccine mandate, only 43 of the over 8,000 service members given the boot decided to rejoin.

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Mosquitoes inject human test subjects with parasite in study at Bill Gates-linked center



Researchers at the Bill Gates Foundation-backed Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands have joined an international effort to transform mosquitoes into flying syringes. According to a study published late last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, they apparently now have an effective way of using mosquitoes to deliver some protection against malaria in unsuspecting humans — and possibly other payloads in the future as well.

Scientists have long toyed with the idea of transforming mosquitoes into "flying vaccinator[s]."

Shigeto Yoshida, the lead researcher on a 2010 study that modified mosquitoes' saliva such that they would deliver leishmania vaccines to mice when sucking their blood, noted that vaccination by insect was "just like a conventional vaccination but with no pain and no cost."

"What's more, continuous exposure to bites will maintain high levels of protective immunity, through natural boosting, for a lifetime. So the insect shifts from being a pest to being beneficial," added Yoshida.

Despite the Japanese geneticist's optimism, his study acknowledged that "medical safety issues and concerns about informed consent mitigate the use of the 'flying vaccinator' as a method to deliver vaccines."

Robert Sinden, professor emeritus of parasite cell biology at Imperial College London, told Science at the time that in addition to vaccinating people without their informed consent, no regulatory agency would sign off on the initiative.

The issue of informed consent, apparently an ongoing issue for elements of the scientific community, was evidently not enough to hinder the continued development of flying vaccinators. Hiroyuki Matsuoka of Jichi Medical University in Japan, for instance, announced that with the help of a 2008 Gates Foundation grant, he was preparing work on an engineered mosquito that could produce and secrete a malaria vaccine protein into a host's skin.

In 2022, Sean Murphy and his team at the University of Washington demonstrated the workability of that idea, testing mosquito-borne malaria vaccines on humans, establishing what they called a "proof of concept" for the technology.

'The parasite dies before it infects the blood cells and evolves into its deadly phase.'

Concerned about the short-lived and marginally effective nature of the malaria vaccines currently approved by the World Health Organization, Dutch researchers at the LUMC similarly turned to genetically modified parasites and mosquito carriers as a potential alternative.

In an earlier trial, the researchers tested the effectiveness of GA1, a malaria parasite genetically modified to stop developing after roughly 24 hours of infection in humans, but found that it only provided low protective efficacy against malaria. Hoping for a better outcome, the researchers crafted another parasite, GA2, to stop developing around six days following invasion in preclinical humanized mouse models.

The Bill Gates-backed Gavi, also known as the Vaccine Alliance, noted that "because the parasite dies before it infects the blood cells and evolves into its deadly phase, it instead acts as a way of priming the immune system, as a vaccination usually would."

Afforded a test group of 43 adults between the ages of 19 and 35 who previously had no record of malaria infection, the researchers subjected subjects to 50 bites from GA2-infected mosquitoes, 50 bites from GA1-infected mosquitoes, or 50 bites from uninfected mosquitoes (placebo), in three vaccination sessions at 28-day intervals. Three weeks following their third devouring by mosquitoes, the human test subjects underwent malaria infection with five bites from infected mosquitoes.

According to the study, eight of the nine participants in the GA2 group received effective protection against the malaria infection. Only one of eight participants in the GA1 group received protection, and none of the participants in the placebo group received protection.

The Dutch researchers now seek to replicate their results in a larger human trial.

"These findings represent a significant step forward in malaria vaccine development," Julius Hafalla, an immunologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Nature. "The ongoing global malaria burden makes the development of more effective vaccines a critical priority."

Leiden University Medical Center received a $1,578,317 grant from the Gates Foundation in September 2023 for the purpose of understanding "population and geographic factors affecting response to malaria vaccines in endemic countries." In November, the center received a Gates Foundation grant "to improve health outcomes and prevent premature death in populations around the world suffering from high rates of Malaria infection by developing next generation malaria vaccine candidates."

Bill Gates has demonstrated, both directly and through his foundation, a desire to shape public health, the news landscape, education policy, AI, insect populations, American farmland, the energy sector, foreign policy, and the earth itself.

Gates, who took issue in a January 2021 MSNBC interview with content encouraging "people not to trust the advice on masks or taking the vaccine," has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into malaria vaccine research. He noted on his blog in August, "Malaria is caused by a remarkably adaptable parasite that's constantly changing and developing resistance to our drugs and interventions. Fighting it is like playing a global game of high-stakes whack-a-mole: Just when we think we've got it under control, it pops up somewhere else or in a new form."

Gates noted further that it is important to use existing interventions while "laying the groundwork for a malaria-free future." According to Gates, that future might depend on the use of mRNA vaccines or the genetic modification of mosquito population.

According to the utopian billionaire, "One of our biggest challenges isn't scientific; it's financial and political."

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