This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise...
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

-Shakespeare, Richard II

On a recent visit to London I spent days wandering around my favorite spots in South Kensington, Chelsea, and Mayfair, and many happy hours strolling in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. I had lunch in the Orangery of Kensington Palace, high tea at the Goring Hotel in Belgravia, and met a friend for lunch at the Savile Club.

One day, an old English friend who happened to be in town for a few days — before returning to his more affordable home base in Kuala Lumpur—joined me for a long walk through Bloomsbury, Soho, and Mayfair. We popped into the Lamborghini showroom on Berkeley Square to gawk at cars. A very young and handsome Dutchman was already there, flirting with the beautiful young woman who worked in the showroom.

“Are you thinking about buying a Lambo?” I asked him.

“Uh, yeah,” he said indecisively, glancing at the girl.

“Are you a scion of an old Dutch East India Company fortune?” I asked.

'Uh, I think so,” he replied.

From Lamborghini, we walked over to James Purdey & Sons to look at handmade shotguns.

“Who are your biggest customers these days?” I asked the man who worked in the main salon.

“Mostly Americans,” he said.

We left Purdey’s and walked to my friend’s club for a beer.

“Say what you want about London, it’s still an incredibly wealthy city,” I observed.

“Yes, but little of the wealth you observe belongs to English people,” he replied. “Few Englishmen can afford these fancy places and products on display in London. In fact, only about thirty-six percent of the population of London is ethnic English.”

One night, at a swanky rooftop birthday party for a City banker, I fell into conversation with a man who took a different view of the matter.

As he told me, “Your rightwing American pundits—guys like Tucker Carlson—are totally exaggerating our problems in this country. All the chatter about excessive immigration and crime and political dysfunction is wildly overblown.”

“I am mainly concerned about the infringement of free speech in this country,” I said.

“There is no infringement of free speech in this country,” he replied.

I mentioned a report in the Times last spring that over 12,000 people had been arrested in Britain in 2023 for online speech violations.

“That’s not true,” he replied.

So, what is the truth about Britain? Survey data of the primary concerns expressed by people in England, Wales, and Scotland are the following:

1. Cost of Living and the Economy

• Prices: High inflation and expensive energy bills remain major worries, leaving households dealing with high debt.

• Growth: The government is trying to increase the country’s weak productivity and find the money to repair crumbling public services.

2. The National Health Service (NHS)

• Wait times: Long delays for routine hospital treatments and emergency care are major concerns.

• Funding: The health service faces high demand from an aging population while managing limited budgets.

3. Immigration and Borders

• Asylum system: Debates over how to process asylum seekers and control illegal border crossings remain dominant political issues.

4. Housing

• Shortages: A lack of affordable housing and high rent prices make finding suitable homes a widespread problem.

5. Climate Change and Energy

• Green transition: Moving to clean energy while keeping household utility costs down is a difficult policy balancing act.

These problems apparently proved too much for Sir Keir’s government, prompting to announce his resignation today. He will likely be replaced by Andy Burnham, who previously served as the Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to 2026 and MP for Leigh from 2001 to 2017. Before becoming mayor, he held several cabinet positions, lastly as Secretary of State for Health from 2009 to 2010 under Gordon Brown. He identifies himself as a socialist and part of the soft left faction of the Labour Party.

If I were advising Burnham, I would tell him to start by abolishing the suicidal policies of Green Energy and Russian Bear-Baiting. As I point out in my forthcoming book, Mind Viruses, the irrational obsessions with “climate change” and the Russian bogeyman are extremely profitable for certain financial, industrial, and military interests, but are massively deleterious for the great majority of citizens.

I suspect that Burnham is another globalist stooge who—like Mark Carney in Canada an Friedrich Merz in Germany—will continue the same destructive policies of his predecessor until he, like Starmer, resigns after only a couple of years in office.

I often think of my old professor, Roger Scruton, who died on January 12, 2020, just before the Covid pandemic, and I wonder what he would think about Britain today.

The last time I spoke to him was in November 2018, when I congratulated him for being appointed chair of the UK government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.

“I doubt I’ll be allowed to keep the position for long,” he replied. “There are many people who don’t want me in it.”

A few months later, on April 10, 2019, I wasn’t surprised by the news that he was fired. His sacking occurred after a journalist named George Eaton, formerly the deputy editor of the New Statesman, published an interview with him. Eaton used partial and edited quotes—wildly out of context—to frame Scuton as a racist and homophobe.

Following the firing, Eaton posted an Instagram picture of himself drinking a bottle of champagne with the caption: “The feeling when you get right-wing racist and homophobe Roger Scruton sacked as a Tory government adviser.”

Scruton spent much of his professional life trying to define and defend England in accordance with his distinctly conservative worldview. Lord Salisbury (Prime Minister 1885 – 1892 and 1895 – 1902) was his ideal British statesman.

Sir Roger knew that his life’s work was an uphill battle. Once, over dinner at his farm, he explained to me that the idealistic project of trying to conserve a culture is doomed by the fact that we only become fully conscious of a culture worth conserving when it is already passing away. To illustrate his point, he cited Hegel’s famous remark in his preface to the Philosophy of Right.

. . . only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva takes its flight only with the gathering of the dusk.

In plain English, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

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As a cardiologist, I know that whatever causes a cardiac arrest, if it happens once, it can happen again. Danish public health expert Vibeke Manniche recently updated me on the case of Christian Eriksen.

June 12, 2021. Parken Stadium, Copenhagen. 42nd minute of Denmark’s opening Euro 2020 match against Finland. Christian Eriksen, then 29, receives a throw-in near the left touchline. He stumbles forward, collapses face-first onto the turf, and does not move. His heart had stopped.

The images are indelible: teammates forming a human shield, captain Simon Kjær clearing his airway and beginning chest compressions, the medical team delivering a defibrillatory shock on the pitch, Eriksen’s partner Sabrina Kvist Jensen weeping at the sideline. He was clinically dead for several minutes. He survived.

June 2026. Reports emerge that Eriksen, now playing for Manchester United at age 34, has suffered a second cardiac arrest. Once again, his life was saved — this time by the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) fitted after the first event. He is the first high-profile athlete known to have experienced two vaccine-era cardiac arrests separated by years. Here is a summary presented by Dr Brian Sutterer.

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The pandemic has been over for years now. Why do we keep hearing about more biolabs? Boosters? Why does the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex always dish out more distressing news? There never seems to be resolution.

🦠 US-Run Biolabs Confirmed by Tulsi Gabbard

Steve Gruber on Daybreak, Real America’s Voice, opens with his trademark line—“the difference between a conspiracy theory and fact is a number of months”—before turning to the day’s headline: outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has confirmed the existence of roughly 120 US government-run biolabs conducting gain-of-function research globally.

McCullough notes two critical points:

• Gabbard waited until her outgoing status to release this, suggesting the ODNI and intelligence community knew the implications and has fear of reprisal.

• The program operates largely under the Department of Defense Biological Threat Reduction Program, with CDC and other agencies involved. Ukraine received the largest share of funding.

He finds it damning that these labs—supposedly doing “independent research” toward threat reduction—have produced few if any scientific publications and zero evidence of actual biological threat reduction. His conclusion: the US was likely developing pandemic threats and countermeasures in secret.

⚖️ Anthony Fauci Accountability

Gruber calls the COVID response a “scam” centered on Fauci’s lies about both the pandemic and the mRNA injections. McCullough argues the path forward runs through the Department of Justice: Attorney General Todd Blanche should appoint a special counsel—an independent investigation untainted by government conflicts of interest. He credits Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) along with independent media for pressure, but insists the DOJ must be “put in the hot spot.” Thus far Bondi and Blanche have silently protected Fauci.

🕷️ Tick-Borne Illness Prevention

The conversation shifts to practical preparedness. McCullough—speaking as Chief Scientific Officer of The Wellness Company—emphasizes that a single doxycycline capsule taken within 72 hours of a tick bite (ideally within 36 hours of removal) can prevent Lyme disease and “a lifetime of misery.” He specifically warns Gruber that Michigan is a Lyme-endemic area and recommends keeping TWC’s Medical Emergency Kit on hand.

Please subscribe to FOCAL POINTS as a paying ($5 monthly) or founder member so we can continue to bring you the truth. AlterAI may be used to assist in searches, synthesis, and review.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

Chief Scientific Officer, The Wellness Company

https://www.twc.health/pages/focal-points

Reference: Gruber, S. & McCullough, P. (2026, June 18). The Steve and Ivey Gruber Show. Real America’s Voice.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and the MAHA Coalition appear powerless in stopping the onslaught of genetic mRNA vaccines entering the market for widespread use.

🧬 The mFLUSIVA Approval: Efficacy Theater, Missing Safety Data, and the Influenza Vaccine Industrial Complex

📋 A Regulatory Process in Reverse

The FDA’s pathway to approving Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine—branded mFLUSIVA (mRNA-1010)—reads less like a rigorous scientific evaluation and more like a negotiation between business partners. After the agency issued a Refusal-to-File letter in February 2026, then reversed course within days, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) convened on June 18, 2026, and voted unanimously to recommend approval. The PDUFA date is set for August 5, 2026. By the time the 2026–2027 flu season arrives, this product will almost certainly be on the market.

What makes this approval trajectory notable is what was not required before granting market access.

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Please be sure to follow young father and YouTuber Andy Schmitt who is doing a wonderful job on his podcast, The Orthodoxy.

🎙️ Interview Summary: Dr. Peter McCullough on The Orthodoxy Podcast with Andy Schmitt

🔬 Senate Investigation Uncovers Buried Vaccine Stroke Risk

Dr. Peter McCullough opens by discussing a Senate investigation led by Ron Johnson that uncovered Biden administration health officials identifying a statistically significant stroke risk from the Pfizer COVID-19 booster as early as November 2022 — then burying it while continuing to push boosters on the elderly.

The mechanism, McCullough explains, is straightforward: spike protein loads into brain blood vessels, eats away at vessel walls, leading to clots or hemorrhagic rupture. He references the Ota paper from Japan confirming vaccine spike protein directly in cerebral vasculature. He recounts the case of Barbara Orendello, who suffered a devastating stroke days after her Moderna shot, leaving her wheelchair-bound with her skull opened for clot removal.

🧪 The Determinants of Autism & Childhood Vaccination

McCullough walks Schmitt — a new father who declined all infant vaccines — through the McCullough Foundation’s newly published report in the Journal of Independent Medicine on autism risk factors. Key findings:

• Healthy full-term babies with no family history of autism and no maternal exposures have zero predisposing risk factors and remain healthier if they remain completely unvaccinated through childhood

• A bundle of 16+ vaccines around 18 months — including COVID, influenza, DTaP, MMR, RSV, Hib, and rotavirus — triggers brain inflammation, sometimes seizures, and rapid autism onset

• The report was so convincing that within 19 days of submission to HHS, the CDC changed its website language to acknowledge vaccines cannot be ruled out as causing autism

Schmitt shares his own experience at UW Hospital in Madison, where staff pressured him and his wife over their refusal of the vitamin K shot — and then stonewalled their circumcision scheduling.

McCullough dismisses neonatal tetanus risk in sterile US hospitals, noting tetanus vaccines for pregnant women are a recent practice. He points to a JAMA article calling four pediatric tetanus cases a “resurgence” while the CDC sources its neonatal tetanus data from Africa, where Maasai women deliver on dung-and-dirt floors.

📉 Testosterone Decline & Food System Toxicity

Schmitt asks about the 30% testosterone drop in Western men. McCullough confirms the secular trend but attributes it primarily to obesity, stress, and diabetes — not vaccines. He promotes a natural botanical product (Zeus) stimulating Leydig cells rather than synthetic testosterone injections, which cause irreversible testicular atrophy.

The conversation pivots to food: glyphosate (Roundup) now found in 81% of Americans via NHANES data, GMO crops, trans fats (successfully banned under Bloomberg), petroleum-derived food dyes linked to ADHD exacerbation and animal carcinogenicity, and the failure to label fast food with calorie and macronutrient content.

🛡️ Media as Propaganda Arm & Treatment Suppression

McCullough describes how government agencies made an “all-out commitment” to vaccines akin to a military campaign, suppressing treatments like hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, vitamin D, colchicine, corticosteroids, and the McCullough protocol — which he says saved tens of millions of lives globally.

He notes the media operates with zero dissenting voices during public health crises and wars, citing Israel’s five-year imprisonment for independent war reporting by civilians. A recent AI analysis of millions of tweets showed fear drove vaccine uptake and relief followed injection — a manufactured psychological cycle.

📊 MAHA & Trump Administration: Receives Grade of C+

On the Trump/RFK Jr. “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, McCullough’s grade dropped from B-plus to C-plus. His criticisms:

• No qualified Surgeon General nominated in two years — needs a physician with public health service experience, hundreds of publications, and leadership of large medical organizations

• FDA commissioner lasted under two years — a surgeon with no regulatory or medical experience

• Acting CDC director for nearly two years without permanent leadership

• RFK Jr., Dr Oz, FDA, CDC directors all failed to show up for multiple Senate hearings on COVID-19 vaccine safety

• Zero progress on the big MAHA objectives

  • Remove COVID-19 vaccines from market

  • Ban all vaccine mandates

  • Rescind 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA)Read more

  • Ban direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals and vaccines

  • DOJ or special counsel investigation of Dr Fauci

Please subscribe to FOCAL POINTS as a paying ($5 monthly) or founder member so we can continue to bring you the truth. AlterAI may be used to assist in searches, synthesis, and review.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

Chief Scientific Officer, The Wellness Company

https://www.twc.health/pages/focal-points

References

• Ota N, Itani M, Aoki T, Sakurai A, Fujisawa T, Okada Y, Noda K, Arakawa Y, Tokuda S, Tanikawa R. Expression of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in cerebral Arteries: Implications for hemorrhagic stroke Post-mRNA vaccination. J Clin Neurosci. 2025 Jun;136:111223. doi: 10.1016/j.jocn.2025.111223. Epub 2025 Apr 3. PMID: 40184822.

• McCullough Foundation, Determinants of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Journal of Independent Medicine

• JAMA — The Resurgence of Tetanus (four US pediatric cases)

• Barkey & Gear, Unavoidable Harm (vaccine guide for parents)

• NHANES — glyphosate detected in 81% of Americans

• SEC filings (Pfizer, Moderna) — FOCAL POINTS booster uptake calculation (~8.9% of Americans over 6 months)

• Austin Bradford Hill & Richard Doll, 1954 UK Physician Smoking Study

• CDC — National Immunization Survey (NIS) methodology critique

Please enjoy this update from Just the News, Real America’s Voice. Hosts: Amanda Head and John Solomon Network: Real America’s Voice Guest: Dr. Peter McCullough, Chief Scientific Officer at The Wellness Company

📺 “Turbo Cancer” Is Here — Dr. Peter McCullough on the Post-Jab Cancer Wave, Vaccine Injury, and 31 Million Still Taking Boosters

Hosts: Amanda Head and John Solomon Network: Real America’s Voice Guest: Dr. Peter McCullough, Chief Scientific Officer at The Wellness Company Date: June 8, 2026

💉 31 Million Americans Still Getting Boosted

The interview opens with a sobering statistic: 31 million Americans — 8.9% of the population — continue taking COVID boosters, according to McCullough’s calculations published on his Focal Point Substack. That’s despite years of mounting evidence that the mRNA shots cause myopericarditis in healthy young people, particularly young men.

McCullough explains the mechanism plainly: small areas of inflammation and scarring in the heart that serve as triggers for lethal arrhythmias. This is the pathology behind the widely observed phenomenon of young men collapsing on soccer fields, at gyms, and walking through their neighborhoods. The acute danger has receded simply because fewer people are getting jabbed, but for those still lining up, the risk remains.

🏛️ Ron Johnson’s Push: Make Vaccine Injury a Real Diagnosis

John Solomon reported that Senator Ron Johnson appeared on the news exposing the government concealment of vaccine injuries. Johnson had a concrete proposal: the U.S. government should mandate that COVID-19 vaccine injury be recognized as a legitimate medical condition, complete with ICD-10 diagnostic codes and insurance reimbursement.

McCullough agrees without hesitation. He estimates that between 5% and 15% of Americans are carrying some form of vaccine injury or a worsening of a baseline medical condition triggered by vaccination. These people are seeking care and paying out of pocket. McCullough argues the medical establishment needs formal codes, reimbursement structures, and a willingness to “come into the fold and treat people as they should.”

🔬 Ivermectin-Fenbendazole: 84% Response Rate — and the NCI Won’t Touch It

Head asks about progress on ivermectin and fenbendazole for cancer. McCullough points to a recent JAMA report by Rockwell and colleagues documenting that use of this drug combination in cancer patients has skyrocketed during 2025. The catalyst? Mel Gibson’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he discussed these therapies openly.

The Wellness Company’s micronized ivermectin-fenbendazole formula has now produced the first clinical report showing roughly an 84% positive impact — meaning cancer either stabilized or improved when the combination was added to standard oncology care. McCullough calls on the National Cancer Institute, which he says is clearly tracking the Rockwell data, to step up and fund a large prospective randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial. They haven’t. The NCI knows, he implies — and they’re choosing inaction.

☢️ “Turbo Cancer” and the 2021 Inflection Point

The most ominous part of the interview concerns what McCullough calls “turbo cancer.” He notes that Time Magazine ran a 2025 cover story asking where all the cancer in young people was coming from. The answer, McCullough says, is visible in the data: after two decades of gradually rising cancer rates, 2021 marked a sharp inflection upward — the same year mass COVID vaccination rolled out.

A recent Senate hearing examined the link between COVID-19 vaccination — particularly Pfizer and Moderna — and future cancer development. While the acute cardiovascular and thrombotic risks have diminished as fewer people take the shots, McCullough warns a wave of vaccine-associated cancers may just be beginning. He says the term “turbo cancer” fits what practitioners are seeing in clinic: aggressive, fast-moving malignancies in young patients with no family history.

🪱 New World Screwworm: A Flesh-Eating Threat at the Border

The conversation takes an unexpected turn to the New World Screwworm, recently found infecting a dog. McCullough explains the screwworm is actually fly larvae — aggressive, large worms that invade living tissue. He’s less worried about pets than about his diabetic patients in Texas: a fly landing on a diabetic ulcer and depositing eggs could create a nightmare scenario.

Ivermectin, recently FDA EUA over-the-counter in cattle, kills the eggs if administered early, but if the infestation goes undetected, the worms grow so large they must be extracted surgically. McCullough notes that years ago, authorities released sterilized flies near the border to neutralize the screwworm population — a strategy that may need repeating.

🦠 Ebola: Sanitation Problem, Not Pandemic Threat

McCullough dismisses concerns about the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda going pandemic. He calls it a straightforward sanitation crisis: less than 1% of people in affected areas can wash their hands after using the bathroom. The WHO, he says, should focus on sanitation infrastructure and education about burial procedures that don’t spread the virus.

He offers a striking statistic: there have been no reported ICU deaths from this outbreak. Fatalities have occurred in the bush among people with no access to proper supportive care. Those who reach treatment survive. The real story isn’t a scary virus — it’s the absence of basic healthcare. Yet Politico has been serving up Ebola fear stories in time for the World Cup and a fast-tracked vaccine for this summer.

🎯 Closing

Head closes by marveling at ivermectin’s ever-expanding list of applications — from COVID to cancer to parasitic worms — calling it “one of those tree dolls” that just keeps unfolding.

Please subscribe to FOCAL POINTS as a paying ($5 monthly) or founder member so we can continue to bring you the truth. AlterAI may be used to assist in searches, synthesis, and review.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

Chief Scientific Officer, The Wellness Company

https://www.twc.health/pages/focal-points

Reference: Just the News, No Noise. “Interview with Dr. Peter McCullough.” Real America’s Voice, June 8, 2026. Transcript provided by user.

A newly published registry-based cohort study has reported higher rates of certain congenital anomalies among babies born to mothers who received a COVID-19 vaccine during the first trimester of pregnancy.

They analyzed 1,352 pregnancies and compared women vaccinated during the critical organogenesis period (conception through 11 weeks and 6 days) with women who were either unvaccinated or vaccinated later in pregnancy.

The study found that atrioventricular septal defects (AVSD)—a serious congenital heart defect involving holes between the heart’s chambers—were observed in 2.3% of babies whose mothers were vaccinated during the first trimester, compared with 0% among babies of unvaccinated mothers.

They also found cleft palate in 0.8% of babies exposed during the first trimester, compared with 0% among babies of unvaccinated mothers.

The vaccines used in this study consisted of inactivated whole-virus and viral-vector platforms. Had the mRNA platform been analyzed here, we probably would have seen even worse birth defect rates.

These findings arrive as major public health organizations—including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), the World Health Organization (WHO), and many national health agencies—continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy.

These organizations must be held accountable for their reckless actions that have resulted in grave harm to unborn children.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

Support our mission: mcculloughfnd.org

Please consider following both the McCullough Foundation and my personal account on X (formerly Twitter) for further content.

I started at St. Mary’s Hospital. On Sept. 3, 1928, a hospital bacteriologist named Alexander Fleming returned from vacation to his second floor laboratory (to my left in the photo below) and examined a petri dish on which Staphylococcus bacteria was growing. Quickly Fleming observed that the dish had been contaminated with Penicillium notatum mold—probably from the first floor laboratory, just below his lab — in which Penicillium notatum was being studied to determine if it caused asthma.

Fleming observed that, while much of the dish was colonized with Staphylococcus, none grew in a conspicuously wide margin around the mold. He deduced that the mold must be secreting a substance that killed the bacteria. He called this substance “penicillin,” but he was unable to isolate it in a stable extract.

Fleming was nevertheless confident that his observation had enormous potential. The following year he published a paper about it in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology. Within the medical community, the paper was largely received with indifference and skepticism. Many perceived his “penicillin” to be a laboratory curiosity of little practical use.

It was only about a decade later that an Oxford research team, led by Howard Florey, Norman Heatley and Ernst Boris Chain developed a method to isolate and concentrate it. They then conducted animal and early human trials that demonstrated its ability to treat severe infections with relatively low toxicity.

From St. Mary’s I wandered over to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where Sir Austin Bradford Hill was a professor when he and his colleague, Richard Doll, published their landmark 1950 case-control study in the British Medical Journal linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer. Their paper was met with widespread skepticism, and the UK Department of Health initially rejected its findings to prevent mass panic.

Alas, while St. Mary’s had made a little museum out of Alexander Fleming’s lab, the LSHTM displayed no memorial or plaque to commemorate Sir Austin.

Multiple students, a professor, and a librarian stared dumbly at me when I asked if I could visit the old boy’s office. The professor hastened to add that, “Of course, his work is still well-known here.”

“That’s good,” I replied.

I was consoled to see a bust of Sir Richard Doll in the library.

From the LSHTM in Bloomsbury I wandered to Broadwick (formerly Broad) Street in Soho. During a major cholera outbreak in the neighborhood in 1854, an anesthesiologist named Dr. John Snow — who administered chloroform to Queen Victoria to ease the pain of two of her childbirths — conducted an investigation.

With remarkable thoroughness, he gathered evidence that the cholera outbreak was caused by a contaminated well in Soho. His proposition challenged the longstanding theory that cholera was caused by breathing a miasma of foul air. It took a great effort to persuade the Board of Health to remove the pump handle from the Broad Street well, and shortly thereafter the number of cholera cases precipitously dropped.

And yet, in spite of his obvious success, Dr. Snow still encountered massive resistance from innumerable skeptics in the local medical and religious establishments. His final vindication came almost thirty years later when Dr. Robert Koch isolated the bacterium that causes cholera. Koch again demonstrated that this bacterium was present in contaminated drinking water, and not in airborne “vapors” or “miasma.”

I emphasize the word again, because, though Koch (with his enormous prestige) vindicated Snow decades later, already in 1854, a relatively unknown Italian anatomist named Filippo Pacini discovered a comma-shaped bacillus during a cholera outbreak in Florence.

Pacini presented his findings in a paper titled, “Microscopical Observations and Pathological Deductions on Cholera” (published in the December 1854 issue of the Tuscan medical journal, Gazzetta Medica Italiana) in which he characterized the organism and called it “Vibrio” from the Latin word meaning “quiver.”

Pacini correctly hypothesized that the microorganism impaired intestinal mucosa reabsorption, thereby causing debilitating diarrhea, vomiting, severe dehydration, and death. Pacini’s paper also received little attention from the medical community — so little that Robert Koch was later credited with discovering the causative agent of cholera.

In the case of Dr. John Snow, a beautiful pub is named after him, where I raised a glass in his memory and honor.

During my walking tour, I frequently thought about Professor Angus Dalgleish, who recently testified before the US Senate about the link between COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and cancer. As was the case with Drs. Snow, Fleming, and Bradford-Hill, Dr. Dalgleish’s observations are not being embraced by the mainstream medical establishment. This inspired me all the more to make a pilgrimage to his place south of London, where we had lunch and spent the afternoon together.

I am confident his that his observations and Senate testimony will ultimately be vindicated. As Schopenhauer famously observed:

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

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The public is bombarded with public health messaging about vaccination, far more than losing weight, exercise, improving diet or even high-cost branded drugs. I wondered how much is spent on vaccine promotion and why?

💉 The Taxpayer Vaccination Leviathan: Annual Federal Spending on Immunization Promotion (2018–2025)

The federal vaccine apparatus is a sprawling, multi-agency enterprise that consumes billions annually—not just purchasing doses, but manufacturing consent through aggressive “promotion” and “education” campaigns that blur the line between public health and propaganda.

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I travelled to Russia about 15 years ago and I remember hearing Russians talk about their desire to recapture Ukraine. So I know first hand that an invasion of Ukraine was an aspiration that our intelligence community and DOD registered long ago. So why in the world since 2005 would the DOD place and fund biolabs in Ukraine only to fall under Russian control? The Pentagon’s Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) — part of the broader Cooperative Threat Reduction Program — funnelled hundreds of millions into securing and studying Soviet-era pathogen collections across Ukraine and 30+ other countries. Facilities housed anthrax, Ebola, Marburg, plague, and more, with contractors like Black & Veatch and Metabiota deeply involved.

For years, anyone raising questions was smeared as a Russian asset. That changed in June 2026 when Tulsi Gabbard, as DNI, declassified ODNI intelligence confirming over 120 U.S.-funded biolabs worldwide — including 40+ in Ukraine — and exposed that the Biden-era national security apparatus and NIAID director Anthony Fauci had knowingly lied about their existence while conducting gain-of-function research under minimal oversight. The documents revealed exactly what Gabbard had been flagging since 2022: a sprawling, poorly supervised network handling the world’s deadliest pathogens, with biosafety lapses and financial ties reaching back to Hunter Biden’s investment firm through Rosemont Seneca. The establishment called it a conspiracy theory — until their own intelligence agencies admitted it was true.

I sat down with Liz MacDonald on Fox Business, The Evening Edit to discuss Tulsi Gabbard’s bombshell declassification — over 120 U.S.-funded biolabs across 30+ countries handling dangerous pathogens under minimal oversight. Ukraine topped the list, which is insane given it’s an active war zone where a stray bomb could release Soviet-era bioweapons material.

The reason this research was outsourced overseas is exactly what Liz suspected: less regulatory oversight. The Department of Defense, NIH, CDC — a whole bevy of agencies were in on it, and Fauci absolutely knew. The work involved gain-of-function and pathogens capable of causing pandemics.

I also flagged that the Wuhan lab documents remain locked up in ODNI, still classified under “national security risk” — meaning Americans still haven’t seen the full picture. Full disclosure is non-negotiable at this point.

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Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

President, McCullough Foundation

FOCAL POINTS has partnered with AlterAI to defend your medical freedom. Subscribe to AlterAI today and get a discount on unbiased and accurate AI! https://alter.systems/?ref=mf10

Source: Fox Business, The Evening Edit, interview with Dr. Peter McCullough and host Liz MacDonald, June 15, 2026 (transcript provided).

Recently I joined Natalie and Clayton Morris on Redacted for a review of Munro et al describing a phase I trial of plasmid DNA encoded for the common conserved region of the coronavirus Spike protein. The product was tested in high doses using a external gun shooting the vaccine into the arm. You may be thinking, what could go wrong?

AI-Designed DNA Vaccine: Dr. McCullough on the Munro et al. pEVAC-PS Trial

Dr. Peter McCullough sat down with Natalie and Clayton Morris to dissect the Munro et al. phase I trial of pEVAC-PS — a computationally designed, needle-free DNA plasmid vaccine targeting pan-sarbecoviruses. The conversation zeroed in on what the paper doesn’t say.

The Technology

The vaccine uses circular DNA plasmids encoding a 200-amino-acid conserved region of the spike protein’s receptor-binding domain, selected by AI (DIOSynVax platform) for cross-sarbecovirus reactivity. Delivery bypasses needles entirely — the PharmaJet Tropis device shoots liquid intradermally at high pressure. McCullough noted this is not a needle but a gun, raising the spectre of surreptitious vaccination: “If I snuck up behind you and just brushed by you, I could pop that, and then you’re vaccinated with DNA plasmids.”

The Missing Preclinical Data

McCullough’s central critique: no genotoxicity, teratogenicity, or oncogenicity studies were performed before injecting humans. The paper states integration risk is “extremely low” because plasmids lack integrase enzymes, then concedes in the same breath that human cells possess endogenous mechanisms for incorporating foreign DNA into the genome. McCullough: “They state that there’s no integrase enzyme with it. So you don’t have to provide an integrase. Human cells have ways of taking DNA and putting it into the genome.”

The authors claim the risk is negligible. McCullough’s response: “But they did not test that. That’s not listed. So we’re just supposed to take their word for it?”

The Adverse Events Shell Game

The paper reports no serious adverse events, but as the Morrises highlighted, there is no tabulated list of adverse events — just a summary statement. McCullough called this unacceptable for a phase I trial whose entire purpose is safety assessment. The paper reports 121 unsolicited AEs, 23 deemed vaccine-related, and 12 clinically significant laboratory abnormalities — all dismissed as grade 1–2 and “self-resolved.”

The Efficacy Smoke Screen

Despite being a safety trial, the paper leans heavily on antibody data. McCullough noted that one participant contracted COVID during the trial and was pulled from analysis. The modest binding antibody responses — statistically significant only in the highest dose group and only against the vaccine construct itself — don’t support meaningful protection. The paper admits immunogenicity was “modest” and “did not increase predictably with higher doses.”

The Lab-Leak Vaccine Hypothesis

McCullough drew a direct line to Peter Daszak and the Wuhan Institute of Virology: “This seems like a vaccine to cover more lab accidents and lab leaks.” The broad-spectrum design targeting “potential zoonotic spillovers” reads, in his view, as preparation for whatever escapes the lab next — not natural emergence.

What Could Go Wrong: A Development Checklist

1. Systemic distribution — The PharmaJet device targets the dermis, but nothing guarantees plasmid DNA stays local. McCullough warned it could enter circulation, distributing genetic code to vital organs.

2. Incomplete enzymatic degradation — Human DNAses may fragment plasmids rather than fully destroy them. Partial sequences could remain functional.

3. Cellular spike protein loading — Transfected cells become spike protein factories. The paper’s own peptide microarray data show antibodies targeting the S309 epitope — a conserved region with homology concerns (McCullough referenced the 2021 Australian vaccine where subjects turned HIV-positive due to spike-HIV homology).

4. Genomic integration — Human cells possess LINE-1 retrotransposon machinery and non-homologous end-joining pathways capable of inserting foreign DNA into chromosomes. Without integration studies, this risk is unknown, not low.

5. Transgenerational transfer — If germline cells take up plasmids, integrated sequences could pass to offspring. No reproductive toxicology was performed.

6. Oncogenic transformation — Random genomic integration can disrupt tumor suppressor genes or activate oncogenes. Zero carcinogenicity data exist.

7. Immune dysregulation — Chronic spike protein expression from integrated DNA could drive autoimmunity or antibody-dependent enhancement upon wild-type virus exposure.

8. Needle-free delivery risks — High-pressure injection may aerosolize vaccine, create unpredictable tissue distribution, and enable non-consensual administration.

For many of you the genetic plasmid DNA shot is a “hard-pass.” Sadly, the vaccine development world has apparently lost its moorings and is bounding ahead with no concerns for safety whatsoever.

Please subscribe to FOCAL POINTS as a paying ($5 monthly) or founder member so we can continue to bring you the truth. AlterAI may be used to assist in searches, synthesis, and review.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

President, McCullough Foundation

FOCAL POINTS has partnered with AlterAI to defend your medical freedom. Subscribe to AlterAI today and get a discount on unbiased and accurate AI! https://alter.systems/?ref=mf10

References

Munro APS, Ferrari M, Kinsley R, et al. A phase I, needle free, dose escalation clinical trial of pEVAC-PS, a candidate pan-Sarbecovirus Vaccine. J Infect. 2026;92:106759. doi:10.1016/j.jinf.2026.106759

Morris N, Morris C. Interview with Dr. Peter McCullough: AI COVID DNA vaccine tested on humans. June 12, 2026. Transcript provided.

• “DoD has been working with Ukrainian government since 2005 to secure five biological research laboratories in Kyiv.”

• “We have invested approximately $200 million in Ukraine since 2005, supporting 46 Ukrainian labs ...”

• “They [Ukrainian bio-researchers] are looking at pathogens that infect humans and animals with an emphasis on those that are endemic to Ukraine, Anthrax, tularemia, tuberculosis, botulism, classic swine fever, Crimean hemorrhagic fever, avian flu.”

Note the preposterousness of the first statement — i.e., the US Department of Defense has worked for over twenty years “to secure five biological research laboratories in Kiev.” Are we really to believe that it takes this long to close the labs and destroy the dangerous pathogens they contain?

When I read the DoD Fact Sheet in 2022, I figured these disclosures were the tip of the iceberg of what the DoD and its Ukrainian proxies are doing in Ukrainian biolabs. What the DoD characterizes as “looking at pathogens that infect humans and animals” is a euphemism for “looking at ways in which pathogens that infect humans can be made more transmissible or more pathogenic to humans and animals.”

On June 12, 2026, DNI Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents about U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Biolabs, specifically mentioning the biolabs in Ukraine.

As I suspected, the labs in Ukraine have been a bonanza for the US Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, which has long worked with the DoD to perform Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC).

DURC is officially described as “research intended for beneficial purposes but could be misapplied to cause harm.” This is another species of Orwellian Newspeak for obscuring the true purpose of DURC—that is, to create bioweapons and commercially valuable “countermeasures” such as vaccines that can forced on the civilian population in the event that a bioweapon (like SARS-CoV-2) is released (accidentally or deliberately) from a lab.

I found the statement at the bottom of page 4 especially noteworthy.

Why would the US government pay Ukrainian scientists to research highly pathogenic avian flu? This raises the suspicion that Ukrainian scientists are using American and Dutch biotechnology to develop an avian flu bioweapon.

Recall that in 2011, Yoshihiro Kawaoka (University of Wisconsin–Madison) and Ron Fouchier (Erasmus Medical Center, Netherlands) independently conducted experiments to assess whether H5N1 could become transmissible between mammals. Ferrets, whose respiratory tract physiology closely resembles the human, were used as the animal model.

As we relate in our book Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality:

Fouchier’s team began with an H5N1 strain isolated in Indonesia and introduced specific mutations: two in the hemagglutinin (HA) protein to change receptor binding from avian-type to human-type, and one in the PB2 polymerase gene to enhance replication in mammalian cells. They then serially passaged the virus through ferrets, and after ten passages, observed airborne transmission between ferrets in adjacent cages. Five mutations in total were identified as critical for this transmissibility. Kawaoka’s group generated a reassortment virus combining the HA gene from H5N1 with seven segments from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain, which already had efficient human transmissibility. They engineered four mutations in the HA protein, enabling respiratory droplet transmission in ferrets.

Both manuscripts were submitted in 2011, Fouchier’s to Science and Kawaoka’s to Nature, which sparked widespread alarm in the scientific community. The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) recommended redacting key methodological details due to bioterrorism and biosafety concerns. This led to a temporary publication delay. After further debate, including international input and the development of new biosafety guidelines, both papers were published, Kawaoka’s in May 2012 and Fouchier’s in June. The episode ignited an ongoing global debate over the ethics and safety of creating highly pathogenic agents that could, accidentally or deliberately, be released from a lab.

Fouchier and Kawaoka claimed their research enables mankind to stay ahead of the natural evolution of influenza viruses to prepare for their eventual emergence. Equipped with these pathogens, researchers could, they claimed, develop vaccines and antiviral medications to counter them if viruses like them should ever strike. The trouble with this dubious reasoning is that such dangerous pathogens are far more likely to escape from a lab than to evolve naturally—a purely theoretical prospect that may never happen in millions of years. In 2020, humanity would learn the hard way how dangerous it is to engineer pathogenic and highly transmissible agents in a lab.

And yet, six years later, we are confronted with the distinct possibility that Ukrainian scientists are developing avian flu bioweapons.

Thank God we have Peter Daszak—the disgraced and NIH debarred former head of Ecohealth Alliance—to weigh in on X by repeating the same DoD lie that it’s taken over twenty years to “secure” the biolabs in Ukraine.

Who on earth is dumb enough to listen to Peter Daszak? That he still has an audience reminds me of the WHO's decision to send him to Wuhan in early 2020 to investigate the origin of SARS-COV-2.

As I recently testified before the EU Parliament, this was the equivalent of the LAPD sending Charles Manson to investigate the Sharon Tate murder, because there is overwhelming evidence that Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance played a decisive role in creating the virus.

All the above pertains to the insane and criminal proxy war that the US (and now Europe) have been waging against Russia in Ukraine since the CIA-backed Maidan coup in 2014.

As I relate in my forthcoming book, Mind Viruses: America’s Irrational Obsessions, the US government has long been doing everything in its power to bait the Russian bear into a war in Ukraine. The following are just a few of these provocations (in addition to the US-sponsored biolabs that are the subject of this post).

• 2008: United States announces plan for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO.

• 2014: US National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—long suspected of being a CIA front organization—provides substantial funding for Euromaidan protests that oust Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich, who rejected an EU Association Agreement for Ukraine. The Agreement required that Ukraine borrow a large sum from International Monetary Fund (IMF) with onerous terms, including the elimination of natural gas subsidies for Ukrainian households.

• Substantial forensic evidence emerges that the Maidan Massacre of February 20, 2014, which galvanized the movement to overthrow President Yanukovich, was perpetrated from snipers firing from surrounding buildings controlled by Maidan protestors. This raises the suspicion it was a false flag attack.

• 2014: Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt have phone call (intercepted by Russian intelligence) revealing their covert engineering of Ukrainian political leadership and meddling in Ukraine’s sovereignty.

• 2014: Baltic countries join NATO.

• 2015–2022: CIA establishes as many as twelve secret “forward operating bases” along Ukraine’s border with Russia and training elite Ukrainian commando units (Unit 2245) to capture Russian drones and decrypt communications.

• 2015 and 2021: United States provides over $2.7 billion in security assistance to train and equip the Ukrainian military.

• Later 2021, Russian intelligence informs President Putin that the CIA and British intelligence (MI6) are essentially controlling Ukrainian intelligence and turning it into a “springboard for operations against Moscow.”

• December 2021: United States and NATO reject Russian neutrality proposal for Ukraine.

• February 2022: Vice President Kamala Harris attends Munich Security Conference and reiterates US intention for Ukraine to join NATO.

Imagine how the US government and military would react if Russia were doing anything even resembling any of the above activities anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, never mind a few hundred miles from Washington D.C.

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Kyle Busch was a two-time Cup champion and fierce competitor holding NASCAR's all-time record of 234 national series victories. While the mainstream media brushed his unexpected death off to “pneumonia and sepsis” I wondered why there was no mention of the causative organism, use of ECMO, and how unusual it was for a 41 year old man to die of an illness where the average age is 77 years and after 4-6 days in the hospital ICU. I was relieved to get a call from NewsMax.

The Death of Kyle Busch: A Case Study in Abject Medical Reporting

“Died of pneumonia” — that’s what the public was told. A 41-year-old elite athlete, wealthy, with access to top-tier medical care, dead within 24 hours of hospital admission. Coughing up blood. Hemorrhaging on a bathroom floor. And the media simply nodded along.

Rob Finnerty’s interview with Dr. Peter McCullough on NewsMax cuts through the polite fiction that has become standard operating procedure in medical journalism. The transcript reveals something far more troubling than a tragic death: it exposes a media apparatus that has abandoned its public health obligations entirely.

The Facts That Demand Explanation

Kyle Busch was not a sedentary, chronically ill man. He was a NASCAR champion — a sport demanding extreme cardiovascular endurance, heat tolerance, and reaction speeds that degrade rapidly without elite fitness. He raced a truck event at Watkins Glen while symptomatic, meaning he was functional enough to compete. Eleven days later, he was dead.

McCullough, a cardiologist with four decades of clinical experience, states it plainly: “I’ve never had a man in his young 40s die in 24 hours of a hemorrhagic pneumonia.” This is not a marginal observation. It is a statistical near-impossibility in the absence of some underlying pathology.

The hospital reportedly never identified the causative organism. No test results for SARS-CoV-2, influenza, RSV, pneumococcus, hantavirus—presumably all tests were negative. The body was cremated before any meaningful investigation could occur — including the autopsy checklist McCullough and Hulscher published in their case report, which specifically tests for vaccine-derived spike protein and mRNA persistence in tissue. McCullough suggested this set of steps for the body of CNN contributor Alice Stewart in 2024—COVID-19 vaccinated and life ending in another mysterious death.

The Parallel That Haunts

McCullough references the Hulscher-McCullough case report — a 47-year-old previously healthy male who died of fatal pulmonary hemorrhage 555 days after his second Pfizer dose. The parallels are striking: sudden onset, profuse oral bleeding, lungs massively congested with blood (right lung 1552g, left 1333g against a normal of ~250–300g each), negative pathogen panels, and a medical examiner who defaulted to “cardiovascular disease” despite no myocardial infarction, no thrombus, and no hypertension history.

That patient received batch EW0175 — ranked in the top 2.8% of all Pfizer batches for reported deaths, with a lethality rate of 1.69% among adverse event reports. The batch was associated with respiratory failure, thrombosis, myocarditis, and cardiac arrest in VAERS data.

Busch’s vaccination status remains publicly unconfirmed, but McCullough’s point is procedural, not speculative: NASCAR, like virtually all major sports organizations during the mandate era, required COVID vaccination. The question must be asked.

Where Is the Inquiry?

Finnerty asks the essential question: “Why are the mainstream medical community, why are they so hesitant to even mention maybe, hey, COVID and those vaccines?”

McCullough’s answer is damning: because asking that question “takes us all the way back to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where there was so much fraud and deception.” The entire edifice — gain-of-function research, emergency use authorization without long-term safety data, suppression of adverse event reporting, the 5–15 year FDA regulatory window of concern for novel genetic products — becomes unstable the moment anyone looks closely at a single anomalous death.

The media’s obligation is not to adjudicate causation. It is to ask the questions. When a 41-year-old athlete dies in a manner that a veteran cardiologist calls unprecedented in his career, the failure to investigate is not neutrality — it is complicity in a cover-up by omission.

The Stakes

Millions of Americans received these products. The FDA’s own CBER guidance acknowledges a 5–15 year window of concern. The CDC has now acknowledged that claims of no vaccine-autism link are not evidence-based. The ground is shifting beneath the institutional narrative.

If the media cannot ask hard questions about the death of a famous, healthy 41-year-old, what questions will they ask about the deaths of ordinary Americans who never made the evening news?

Please subscribe to FOCAL POINTS as a paying ($5 monthly) or founder member so we can continue to bring you the truth. AlterAI may be used to assist in searches, synthesis, and review.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

President, McCullough Foundation

FOCAL POINTS has partnered with AlterAI to defend your medical freedom. Subscribe to AlterAI today and get a discount on unbiased and accurate AI! https://alter.systems/?ref=mf10

References

1. Hulscher N, McCullough PA. Delayed Fatal Pulmonary Hemorrhage Following Covid-19 Vaccination: Case Report, Batch Analysis, and Proposed Autopsy Checklist. IJIRMS. 2025.

2. Finnerty R. Interview with Dr. Peter McCullough regarding the death of Kyle Busch. NewsMax. Transcript dated June 13, 2026.

3. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Long Term Follow-Up After Administration of Human Gene Therapy Products. FDA; 2020.

4. Parry PI, Lefringhausen A, Turni C, et al. ‘Spikeopathy’: COVID-19 Spike Protein Is Pathogenic, from Both Virus and Vaccine mRNA. Biomedicines. 2023;11(8):2287.

5. Schmeling M, Manniche V, Hansen PR. Batch-dependent safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Eur J Clin Invest. 2023;53(8):e13998.

6. Castruita JAS, Schneider UV, Mollerup S, et al. SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences circulate in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination. APMIS. 2023;131(3):128-132.

7. Kämmerer U, Schulz V, Steger K. BioNTech RNA-Based COVID-19 Injections Contain Large Amounts of Residual DNA Including An SV40 Promoter/Enhancer Sequence. Science, Public Health Policy and the Law. 2024.

The murder occurred on April 2, 2025, during a Frisco Independent School District track meet at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas, when 17-year-old Anthony fatally stabbed 17-year-old Metcalf in the chest. Both were high school athletes from rival schools—Anthony from Centennial High School and Metcalf from Memorial High School.

The incident happened in the Memorial High School tent during a break in the track meet due to rain. Anthony claimed he sought shelter in Memorial’s tent because he could find none in his own school’s tent. Witnesses reported that members of Metcalf’s team, including Austin and his twin brother Hunter, asked Anthony to leave multiple times.

According to witness accounts, Anthony was defiant and said something like “Touch me and see what happens” while reaching into his backpack. Metcalf then stood and pushed or grabbed Anthony to force him from the tent. Anthony pulled out a knife and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest, injuring his heart. He fled the scene but was quickly arrested. Metcalf was rushed to the hospital but died from his injury. Anthony later admitted to the stabbing but claimed it was in self-defense.

The incident reminded me of my experience attending a Texas high school in the 1980s, in which brawling at sporting events was a common occurrence. Once, at a basketball game hosted by my high school, some of my friends got into a brawl with boys from the opposing school. I jumped into the fray to defend a friend who was getting beaten. His assailant turned his attention to me and threw a right cross that knocked me unconscious. For a few seconds, some of my friends thought I was dead.

At a subsequent basketball game against the same school, some of my friends spotted the boy who had knocked me out, and proposed that I challenge him to a rematch. I walked over to the opposing team’s bleachers and asked the boy (who happened to be black) if he was indeed the guy who knocked me out. He smiled and answered in the affirmative.

“That was a hell of a punch you threw,” I said.

“Thanks,” he replied.

“He’s a golden gloves champion,” one of the boy’s friends said.

“Is that true?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, smiling.

“I guess that explains it,” I said, which caused his friends (who were white) to burst out laughing.

“Be careful who you get into a fight with!” one of them jeered. I didn’t ask for a rematch, but bashfully walked back to my home school bleachers under the watchful gaze of my friends.

None of our high school brawls had anything to do with race. They were adolescent rivalries of the sort portrayed by S.E. Hinton in her 1975 novel Rumble Fish, set in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In my day, the notion of entering a rival high school’s tent at a track meet and refusing to leave was considered suicidal. Only the most thrill-seeking among us would have even considered it. Thus, it seems to me that Karmelo Anthony’s decision to enter a rival team’s tent with a knife in his backpack can only be interpreted as the most extreme form of looking for trouble.

In my forthcoming book, Mind Viruses: America’s Irrational Obsessions, I examine how fraudulent claims of “systemic racism” became a common and destructive feature of American public life in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The following is an excerpt from the chapter on racism. If you find it interesting, please order a copy the book, which now has a firm and final pub date of July 21. All pre-publication orders will be logged as sales during the week of publication, which gives it a shot at becoming a New York Times bestseller—a tall order for a book that challenges all the pathological nonsense (endorsed by the New York Times) that has afflicted American society for the last twenty-five years.

My apologies for the previous delays. Momentous events of the last six months prompted me to refine my original thesis and expand the book, thereby delaying the publication date.

Chapter 10: Racism

Mind Virus: The destructive and debilitating belief—reinforced by constant messaging—that American society and institutions are infused with “systemic racism.”

Proposed Remedy: Donating hundreds of millions of dollars to activists and organizations such as Black Lives Matter. Transferring hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs across federal, academic, and corporate sectors.

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 was initially celebrated as a historic milestone in American racial progress. Throughout the United States and the world, many perceived the first Black president of the United States to be living proof that the nation had moved beyond the racial discrimination of the past. And yet, shortly after Obama was sworn into office—which coincided with Wall Street bank bailouts—media reporting and public discourse became increasingly preoccupied, even obsessed with the proposition that the American people and institutions remained deeply racist.

Between the years 2011 and 2019, the frequency of the terms “racism” and “racist” increased 700 percent in the New York Times and nearly 1,000 percent in the Washington Post.[i] At the same time, many commentators and pundits increasingly spoke about the “systemic” or “structural” racism that is allegedly so woven into the fabric of law, institutions, and culture that most people are unaware of how it operates for maintaining white supremacy. Such “systemic racism” is alleged to be far more insidious than the overt segregation of American life before the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

A benign interpretation of America’s irrational obsession with race after 2009 is that it was animated by the same psychology that Alexis de Tocqueville perceived to have animated the French revolutionaries. As he pointed out, hatred for the French Old Regime fanned into revolutionary fanaticism after the Old Regime began giving up its privileges and making concessions to the burgeoning urban middle class. As Tocqueville remarked, the trouble wasn’t lack of favorable change, but that change didn’t happen fast enough to meet growing expectations.[ii]

The shortcoming of this interpretation is that enormous progress had already been made in rectifying racial injustice in the United States since 1938, when the blues musician Lead Belly recorded the song “Scottsboro Boys,” with its exhortation to “stay woke” about the dangers faced by Black Americans in the Jim Crow South.

I was born in Dallas in 1970 and grew up in an affluent White community, and I witnessed a total rejection of the racial sentiments I occasionally heard expressed among people of my grandparents’ generation. By the time I graduated university in 1993, no one in my social circle, which extended to residents of cities all over the country, expressed racist sentiments or treated Black individuals as social inferiors. Most college-educated Americans of my generation therefore believed that we had come a long way to achieving Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of living in a colorblind country.

Even though I studied philosophy at Boston University, I didn’t know about a new school of academic thought called critical race theory (CRT) that was taking shape during my college years. Only later did I learn about a 1991 paper by Neil Gotanda—professor of law at Western State College of Law in Fullerton, California—titled “A Critique of ‘Our Constitution Is Color-Blind,’” in which he rejected King’s dream of a “colorblind” society.[iii]

Gotanda argued that colorblind racial ideology is a sophisticated mechanism for preserving white supremacy. As he saw it, the insistence that race is irrelevant in law and policy conceals the reality of race, thereby securing for Whites the economic and political advantages that they accumulated in the overtly racist past. At the heart of this theory is Karl Marx’s concept of “false consciousness”—that is, the way in which the exploited working class (the proletariat) internalizes the ideology of the ruling class (the bourgeoisie). This false consciousness renders the proletariat unable to grasp that it is being dominated and exploited.

Marx’s critical theory for interpreting economic and social arrangements is useful for describing the way in which subordinate people in a hierarchical society can be abused. Such abuses should be criticized and corrected. However, the fatal flaw of Marxism and the critical race theory that it spawned (by way of the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School) lies in the fact that human society—like the social life of all living creatures—is inescapably hierarchical. This hard reality is evident in the fact that every Marxist-inspired revolution of the 20th century established a new hierarchy that was more abusive than the hierarchy it replaced.

During Obama’s presidency (January 2009—January 2016) tenets of critical race theory were increasingly adopted by mainstream commentators and pundits. However, because it was extremely difficult to find concrete and compelling examples of systemic racism, media reporting focused on dramatic incidents of what was characterized as police brutality directed at Black men.

America’s obsession with race in the post- 2009 era emerged as a full-blown mind virus in 2013 with the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who had been charged for murdering a Black teenager named Travyon Martin.

On February 26, 2012, Zimmerman—a man of half Hispanic ancestry—was serving as a neighborhood watchman in a gated community in Sanford, Florida when he got into a fight with Martin. Their violent struggle culminated with Zimmerman shooting Martin. Zimmerman claimed he shot in self-defense while Martin was on top of hims and punching his face. His broken nose, two black eyes, and two lacerations to the back of his head—injuries that the medical examiner later described as “very significant”—seemed to support his contention. Nevertheless, he was charged with second-degree murder on the grounds that he had profiled, followed, and confronted the unarmed teenager, thereby initiating the violent conflict that culminated in Zimmerman shooting Martin.

The defense argued that Zimmerman’s community had recently experienced multiple burglaries committed by Black males, which justified his decision to confront Martin. Zimmerman’s injuries, plus witness testimony that he was indeed on the ground and being badly beaten by Martin when he drew his pistol and fired, persuaded the jury to acquit him. News of his acquittal sparked protests in Los Angeles and other American cities, and it inspired California residents Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors to found Black Lives Matter.

The passionate reaction to Zimmerman’s acquittal arose from the assumption that racial animus had motivated him to confront Martin. Media reporting cited his initial phone call to the Sanford police—which he made from his cell phone while sitting in his car—to report the “suspicious guy.” However, the call transcript does not support the claim that Zimmerman acted out of racial animus. . . . [chapter continues].

[i] Zach Goldberg, “How the Media Led the Great Racial Awakening,” Tablet, August 4, 2020.

[ii] Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, 1856.

[iii] Neil Gotanda, “A Critique of ‘Our Constitution is Colorblind,’” Stanford Law Review, Nov. 1991.

From Mind Viruses: America’s Irrational Obsessions, SKYHORSE, July 21, 2026.

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Has there been bona fide progress in the public safety issue of drunk driving? Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was officially founded on September 5, 1980. The grassroots organization was started by Candace Lightner. She mobilized after her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was tragically struck and killed by a repeat drunk driver in Fair Oaks, California. The statistics on drunk driving tell a story that was unthinkable three decades ago. In 1994, alcohol-impaired drivers with a BAC of 0.08 or higher accounted for 13,390 traffic fatalities. By 2023, despite a much larger population and more vehicle miles traveled, that figure had dropped to 12,429—and the rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled fell from 0.42 in 2022 to 0.38 in 2023. The percentage of total traffic deaths involving drunk drivers slid from 33% to 30% over the same three-decade arc.

This isn’t one story about activism. It’s four stories converging at the same intersection.

📱 Factor One: Ride-Share as the Designated Driver in Your Pocket

When Uber and Lyft entered city after city starting around 2011–2012, the intuitive prediction was obvious: give drunk people a cheap, one-tap way home and fatalities plummet. Reality, as always, is messier.

The academic literature is split. A 2020 PLOS ONE study examining the 100 most populated metro areas from 2009–2017 found Uber availability was not associated with changes in total, alcohol-involved, or weekend-specific traffic fatalities in aggregate. A 2021 working paper by Anne Burton using FARS data from 2006–2016 couldn’t reject the null hypothesis of no effect either.

However, the long-run picture looks different. Burton’s event studies found statistically significant declines in annual drunk-driving crashes and fatalities 2–6 years after Uber or Lyft entered a city—suggesting a delayed behavioral shift. An earlier SSRN study on California from 2009–2014 found a significant drop in alcohol-related motor vehicle homicides after Uber’s introduction, though the effect was concentrated in the cheaper UberX service, not the pricier Uber Black. The mechanism is straightforward: cost and convenience matter more than mere availability. When a ride home costs less than another round of drinks, the calculus shifts.

The takeaway: ride-share’s effect is real but gradual, requiring years of cultural embedding before it meaningfully displaces the “I’m fine to drive” impulse.

⚖️ Factor Two: The Hammer of Tougher Standards and Consequences

The nationwide adoption of the 0.08 BAC standard (finalized by 2004 via federal highway funding pressure) and the subsequent proliferation of ignition interlock laws, mandatory minimums, and administrative license suspension created a legal environment where the expected cost of a DUI skyrocketed.

The data bears this out. The percentage of drivers in fatal crashes with a BAC of 0.08+ fell steadily from 25% in 1994 to 20% by 2019 among male drivers, and a similar downward trend holds for females. The 2023 NHTSA data shows that among the 12,429 alcohol-impaired fatalities, 67% (8,272) involved drivers at or above 0.15 g/dL—nearly double the legal limit. This suggests the deterrence system is working on the marginal drinker who might blow a 0.09, but the hardcore repeat offender remains largely undeterred by legal threats alone.

The financial hammer helps too: NHTSA estimates alcohol-involved crashes cost the U.S. $68.9 billion annually (based on 2019 figures), a number that justifies aggressive enforcement budgets. When a single DUI can cost $10,000–$15,000 in legal fees, fines, and insurance hikes, the rational-choice model gains teeth.

🧬 Factor Three: Gen Z’s Alcohol Exodus

This is arguably the most culturally significant shift. Gallup data shows the share of adults under 35 who say they drink dropped from 72% in 2001–2003 to 62% in 2021–2023—a ten-point collapse in two decades. The International Wine and Spirits Record found 64% of legal-drinking-age Gen Zers hadn’t consumed alcohol in the six months leading up to their 2024 survey.

What’s driving it? Several overlapping currents:

• Health consciousness and vanity: Social media’s permanent record makes drunk behavior a liability. Gen Z is more informed about alcohol’s physiological consequences—cancer risk, sleep disruption, mental health degradation—and less willing to trade a temporary buzz for a permanent Instagram humiliation.

• Cannabis substitution: With nearly half of states legalizing recreational use and 79% of Americans living in a county with a dispensary, cannabis offers an alternative intoxicant that doesn’t trigger hangovers, calories, or DUI checkpoints in quite the same way.

• Demographic shifts: Gen Z is more racially diverse, and both Latino and Asian consumers historically drink less than white consumers. Women, who now make up the majority of Gen Z drinkers, consume roughly half as much alcohol as men who drink.

• The loneliness factor: In-person socializing among 15-to-24-year-olds collapsed from 30 hours monthly in 2003 to 10 hours by 2020. Alcohol is fundamentally a social drug. Less hanging out means less drinking means less drunk driving.

The net effect on drunk driving is unambiguously positive: fewer young people drinking at all means fewer young people making catastrophic decisions behind the wheel.

🌿 Factor Four: The Rise of Functional Non-Alcoholic Alternatives

This is where the story gets genuinely uplifting. The non-alcoholic beverage category has become the third-fastest-growing segment in the U.S. over the past two years. Sober bars like Hekate in New York and Sans Bar in Austin have normalized alcohol-free socializing. But the real innovation lies in products that don’t just remove alcohol—they replace the experience.

Pique’s Vesper exemplifies this shift. It’s not a sad near-beer or cloying mocktail. It’s an adaptogenic aperitif built on L-theanine (from green tea), damiana leaf, gentian root, lemon balm, elderflower, and tart cherry—botanicals that actively soothe the nervous system, promote a subtle euphoria, and open social receptivity without intoxication. Gentian root has a centuries-long history as a tonic that awakens the senses. Damiana has been traditionally used as a heart-opening botanical that encourages connection. The formula delivers what people actually want from a drink at a bar: relaxation, social lubrication, and sensory pleasure—minus the neurotoxicity, calories, hangovers, and life-ruining legal consequences.

Products like Vesper close the final gap in the drunk-driving prevention ecosystem. Ride-share handles transportation. Tougher laws handle deterrence. Gen Z’s cultural shift handles demand reduction. But Vesper and its category handle the social ritual itself—giving people something sophisticated to hold, sip, and enjoy that doesn’t just avoid the problem but actively improves the evening.

🏁 The Road Ahead

The 7.6% drop in alcohol-impaired fatalities from 2022 to 2023 (13,458 to 12,429) is encouraging, but 12,429 preventable deaths is still a massacre. The four forces outlined here—technology, deterrence, demographic change, and functional alternatives—are each insufficient alone. Together, they form a pincer movement that is slowly, inexorably squeezing drunk driving out of American life. The sober bar isn’t just a novelty anymore. It might be the future.

Please subscribe to FOCAL POINTS as a paying ($5 monthly) or founder member so we can continue to bring you the truth. AlterAI may be used to assist in searches, synthesis, and review.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

President, McCullough Foundation

FOCAL POINTS has partnered with Pique to promote your optimal health. To learn more about Pique products and get 20% off and free gifts, https://www.piquelife.com/DRPETER today!

References

1. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. FARS Encyclopedia: Trends – Alcohol. Fatalities by highest driver BAC, 1994–2023. fars.nhtsa.dot.gov

2. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 2023 Data: Alcohol-Impaired Driving. DOT HS 813 713. crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov

3. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Drunk Driving Statistics and Resources. nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving

4. Morrison, C.N., et al. (2020). “Ridehailing and alcohol-involved traffic fatalities in the United States.” PLOS ONE, 15(9): e0238744.

5. Burton, A.M. (2021). “Do Uber and Lyft Reduce Drunk-Driving Fatalities?” Working paper. annemburton.com

6. Greenwood, B.N. & Wattal, S. (2015). “Show Me the Way to Go Home: An Empirical Investigation of Ride Sharing and Alcohol Related Motor Vehicle Homicide.” SSRN.

7. Sivan, S. (2021). The Real Reasons Generation Z Is Drinking Less Alcohol. Rabobank RaboResearch.

8. Burga, S. (2025). “Why Gen Z Is Drinking Less.” TIME Magazine. time.com

9. Newsweek. (2024). “Gen Z Is Abandoning Alcohol.” newsweek.com

10. Pique Life. Vesper: Non-Alcoholic Adaptogenic Aperitif. piquelife.com/products/vesper

The experience made me nostalgic for my happy time researching’s Jenner’s life and work for my book (with Dr. Peter McCullough) Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality. I am indebted to Dr. Samuel A. Mascorro for providing me with a bibliography and photocopies of various medical histories published in the 19th century.

The following is a reproduction of Chapter 4 of Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality, which tells the story of Jenner’s wondrous adventures. If you enjoy the chapter, please buy a copy of the book!

Chapter 4: “Of the Cow”: The Original Vaccine

Gloucestershire is a pastoral district that lies about 100 miles west of London. Tourists know it for its Cotswolds region, which strikes many as the quintessence of rural charm. For centuries the county has had a flourishing dairy industry, and its famous Gloucester cheese has been made since the 16th century. Jane Austen was apparently inspired by the Cotswolds village of Adlestrop, one of the ancestral homes of her cousins, the Leigh family, whom she frequently visited. The parsimonious character of Fanny Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility seems to have been inspired by Austen’s aunt (by marriage) Mrs. Leigh-Perrot. About forty miles southwest of Adelstrop lies the city of Berkeley, where Edward Jenner was born on May 17, 1749—the eighth of nine children of the vicar of Berkeley, the Reverend Stephen Jenner, and his wife Sarah.

Generally credited as the father of vaccinology, Jenner is the subject of countless laudatory tributes. In 1881, Louis Pasteur proposed naming all inoculations (against all infectious disease pathogens) “vaccines” in honor of Jenner’s cowpox vaccine against smallpox, though his proposal did not catch on until the 20th century. Many published evaluations of Jenner’s work are reverential and bring little to no critical scrutiny to bear on his assumptions, methods, and conclusions. John Baron’s The Life of Edward Jenner, published in 1827, began the tradition of Jenner hagiography. It starkly contrasts with Charles Creighton’s hyper critical Jenner and Vaccination, published in 1889. The truth about Jenner probably lies somewhere in between.

In many respects, he was the sort of English country gentleman whom Jane Austen might have gently satirized in her novels. The vicar’s son likely would have gone to Oxford and trained for the clergy had it not been for the death of both parents when he was young, which was also a blow to his family’s finances. And so, when he was thirteen, he was apprenticed to a local physician. After six years of training, he went to St. Georges Hospital in London to work for the famous surgeon and naturalist, John Hunter. Hunter introduced him to the eminent botanist Joseph Banks, who had just returned from Captain Cook’s first around-the-world voyage. Jenner helped Banks to catalogue the specimens he’d collected on the voyage. Banks later became the president of the Royal Society and remained so for more than forty years.

Following Jenner’s training in London, he returned to his native Berkley and established a medical practice in which he frequently inoculated his patients for smallpox with the variolation method. He also continued his collaboration with John Hunter in the field of natural philosophy. During the 1770s, Hunter concerned himself with the question of “Animal Heat,” and he was keen to take body temperature readings of hibernating hedgehogs. He assigned this difficult task to the unfortunate Jenner, instructing him “to find out their haunts and observe, if you can, what they do.”[i] In the sort of comical letter that Jane Austen might have fabricated in one of her novels, Hunter instructed Jenner to find a hibernating hedgehog, make an incision in its belly, implant a thermometer, and take temperature readings—all without disturbing the hibernating creature. Unable to perform this task, Jenner wrote to Hunter in September 1778 that his industry in taking the hedgehog’s body temperature had been impaired by a broken heart he’s suffered from his unrequited love for a local girl.

“Let her go, never mind her. I shall employ you with hedgehogs,”[ii] Hunter replied. Following Jenner’s misadventure with hedgehogs, he attempted to answer once and for all a question that had puzzled ornithologists for centuries—namely, how exactly did an imposter cuckoo fledgling eject all other fledglings from the nest, thereby becoming the sole beneficiary of the sparrow hen’s maternal ministrations? In his 1788 paper, “Observations on the Natural History of the Cuckoo,” published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Jenner claimed that the fledgling cuckoo hatched first and then quickly set about using the little space on his back between his fledgling wings to push the sparrow’s eggs out of the nest. Jenner’s 19th century critics regarded this as a fanciful idea that he must have fabricated, but his account was confirmed by photographers in the 20th century. With the publication of this paper, Jenner was made a fellow of the Royal Society, which greatly elevated his perceived authority as a scientist.

In 1792, Jenner obtained a medical degree from St. Andrews University, Scotland. His 19th century critics pointed out that he purchased the degree, though it seems his fee was accompanied by recommendations from friends who were respected in the medical profession. At last, he was able to advertise himself as a physician and surgeon (MD, FRS), so he quit his general practice and became a medical consultant.

Jenner frequently met with his rural colleagues and country doctors at his local Medico-Convivial Society, which convened at the Ship Inn (located on the banks of the Berkeley Pill, a tidal estuary near the River Severn). At one of these gatherings, they discussed the pustules that sometimes erupted on cows’ teats. These resembled smallpox pustules and occasionally appeared on the hands and forearms of milkmaids—a malady commonly known as cowpox.

An old medical legend has it that, in his youth, Jenner had once met a Bristol milkmaid who proclaimed, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.” Jenner’s first biographer, John Baron, probably fabricated this tale to avoid giving credit to the country doctor John Fewster, who, in 1796, reported cases he’d observed earlier in his career of cowpox conferring immunity against smallpox.[iii] Another story known to members of the Medico-Convivial Society was that, in 1774, a dairy farmer named Benjamin Jesty inoculated his wife and daughter with material he’d taken from cowpox pustules. Word had it that the Jesty women had indeed never contracted smallpox. Other country doctors who attended the meeting had also heard the story of Farmer Jesty’s purportedly successful cowpox inoculation experiment, which was not consistent with multiple documented cases of dairymaids contracting smallpox after they contracted cowpox.

In 1794, Jenner wrote to colleagues of his growing conviction that exposure to cowpox conferred immunity to smallpox. On April 15, 1794, he received a letter from Dr. Haygarth of Chester, an eminent physician of the time, who wrote:

Your account of the cowpox is indeed very marvellous, being so strange a history, and so contradictory to all past observations on this subject [that] very clear and full evidence will be required to render it credible. . . . I trust that no reliance will be placed upon vulgar stories.[iv]

Shortly thereafter, Jenner contracted typhus, which resulted in his 1795 move to Cheltenham, a spa town where the aristocracy congregated during the summer to “take the waters.” Attractive, socially gifted, and a lively conversationalist, Jenner made influential connections during his convalescence in Cheltenham.

In May 1796, after returning to Berkely, he conducted his first human experiment with cowpox inoculation. His account of it is worth reproducing in full:

Sarah Nelmes, a dairymaid at a farmer’s near this place, was infected with the Cow Pox from her master’s cows in May, 1796. She received the infection on a part of the hand, which had previously in a slight degree been injured by a scratch from a thorn. A large pustulous sore and the usual symptoms accompanying the disease were produced in consequence. The pustule was so expressive of the true character of the Cow Pox, as it commonly appears on the hand, that I have given a representation of it in the annexed plate.

I selected a healthy boy [James Phipps, the son of Jenner’s gardener], about eight years old, for the purpose of inoculation for the Cow Pox. The matter was taken from a sore on the hand of a dairymaid (Sarah Nelmes), and it was inserted on the 14th of May, 1796, into the arm of the boy by means of two superficial incisions, barely penetrating the cutis, each about half an inch long.

On the seventh day he complained of uneasiness in the axilla, and on the ninth he became a little chilly, lost his appetite, and had a slight head-ache. During the whole of this day he was perceptively indisposed, and spent the night with some degree of restlessness, but on the day following he was perfectly well.

In order to ascertain whether the boy, after feeling so slight an affection of the system from the Cow-pox virus, was secure from the contagion of the Small Pox, he was inoculated the 1st of July following with variolous matter, immediately taken from a pustule. Several slight punctures and incisions were made on both arms, and the matter was carefully inserted, but no disease followed. . . . Several months afterwards, he was again inoculated with variolous matter, but no sensible effect was produced on the constitution.[v]

Jenner presented this account in his paper titled “An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a disease discovered in some of the western counties, especially Gloucestershire, and known by the name of Cow-pox.” By naming the disease Variolae Vaccinae—Latin for “Smallpox of the Cow,” Jenner not only gave it a scholarly ring; he also implied that “Smallpox of the Cow” was essentially the same disease that devastated humans, only—for reasons that he did not try to explain—far less dangerous. Here it’s worth reminding the reader that Jenner did not know the causative agent of smallpox nor of cowpox. He referred to both maladies as a “virus,” but in the older sense of the word—that is, “a substance produced in the body as the result of disease, especially one capable of infecting others.” Throughout the paper he also refers to “the smallpox poison” and “variolous matter.”

Jenner submitted his paper to the Royal Society, but Joseph Banks did not find it worthy of publication. And so, two years later, in 1798, Jenner decided to publish a revised version of the paper as a pamphlet, and not as a Royal Society publication. The pamphlet begins with the claim that cowpox was not primarily a disease that affected cows, but horses. As he put it:

The farriers have called it the grease. It is an inflammation and swelling in the heel, from which issues matter possessing properties of a very peculiar kind, which seems capable of generating a disease in the human body (after it has undergone the modification which I shall presently speak of), which bears so strong a resemblance to the smallpox that I think it highly probable it may be the source of the disease. In this dairy country a great number of cows are kept, and the office of milking is performed indiscriminately by men and maid servants. One of the former having been appointed to apply dressings to the heels of a horse affected with the grease, and not paying due attention to cleanliness, incautiously bears his part in milking the cows, with some particles of the infectious matter adhering to his fingers. When this is the case, it commonly happens that a disease is communicated to the cows, and from the cows to the dairymaids, which spreads through the farm until most of the cattle and domestics feel its unpleasant consequences. This disease has obtained the name of the cow-pox.[vi]

After making this declaration, he presents numerous anecdotes of individuals in Gloucestershire who had, in previous years, purportedly been exposed to cowpox and did not subsequently contract smallpox after close contact with the sick or after deliberate inoculation. Case XVII details Jenner’s experiment with James Phipps, which he introduces with the sentence, “The more accurately to observe the progress of the infection I selected a healthy boy, about eight years old, for the purpose of inoculation for the cow-pox.”

Upon reading this account, the reader wonders why cowpox in humans had long been perceived among experienced farmers to be a disease that primarily afflicted dairy maids and not farriers whose hands were exposed to the initial disease-causing matter. Did the disease become more transmissible or virulent to humans in the intermediary species of the cow? That “the grease” was frequently referred to as foul smelling raises the suspicion that it was not a viral illness, but an anaerobic bacterial disease commonly known as thrush (Fusobacterium necrophorum). The causes of all microbial infections, including pyogenic bacterial infections that resembled cowpox pustules, were not understood in 1798. They only became understood with the development of modern bacteriology during the latter half of the 19th century.

Although Jenner was guessing about what farmers called the grease and cowpox, his perception of an infectious agent being transferred by unwashed hands was insightful. Forty-nine years later, Professor Ignaz Semmelweis in Vienna had a similar thought when it occurred to him that medical students were, with their unwashed hands, transferring an infectious agent from corpses in anatomy class to the reproductive tracts of women in the maternity ward. In yet another example of the extraordinary confusion that prevailed in medical circles during this period, most of Semmelweis’s medical colleagues in Europe regarded his perception as crazy.

The totality of circumstances raises the suspicion that Jenner’s horse grease theory was a gambit for dismissing documented cases of dairy maids who contracted cowpox but still subsequently contracted smallpox. To contend with this problem, Jenner posited that there were two maladies commonly referred to as cowpox. He asserted that “genuine cowpox” was the illness that originated in horse grease. The other malady, which he called “spurious cowpox,” was, he claimed, the “spontaneous cow-pox” that affected cows and “left the system as susceptible of the small-pox as before.” He did not present any evidence to support this theory. He merely asserted it to be the case. As Jenner’s critic, Charles Creighton, put it:

The “genuine” cowpox of Jenner was, in short, whatever should not be followed by an attack of smallpox, whereas that cowpox was “spurious” which the smallpox contagion gave no heed to; and that distinction was called for in the first instance by way of confronting the testimony of Jenner’s medical neighbours, that they had known many cowpoxed milkers . . . who had fallen victims to smallpox in the usual way.[vii]

After presenting his case studies—including his experiment with James Phipps—Jenner made his triumphant conclusion:

What renders the cow-pox so extremely singular is, that the person who has been thus affected is for ever after secure from the infection of small-pox: neither exposure to the variolous effluvia, nor the insertion of the matter into the skin producing this distemper.

Charles Creighton emphasized that Jenner’s paper contained an enormous flaw. As he put it:

Jenner kept silence about the cases of cowpoxed milkers subsequently smallpoxed, which he might easily have collected in considerable numbers from the experience of his own district. He confined his attention to such cowpoxed milkers as had not subsequently received smallpox either by accident or design; and these cases he adduced as experimental proof of the protective power of cowpox.[viii]

Just before Jenner went to press, he met an influential botanist and physician named William Woodville, who was the chief physician of London’s Smallpox and Inoculation Hospitals. Woodville found the theory of cowpox inoculation compelling, but not Jenner’s theory that horse grease was the origin of cowpox, so he advised Jenner to strike this origin theory from his paper.[ix]

In January 1799, Woodville procured cowpox material from diseased cow at a dairy farm in Gray’s Inn Road, London, and he used it to conduct vaccine experiments at his hospital, which he interpreted as successful. Unfortunately for Jenner’s horse grease theory, Woodville ascertained that no horses or farriers had been anywhere near the dairy cows for a significant period before the outbreak.[x]

Suspicion eventually arose that, within the setting of Woodville’s Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital, his cowpox vaccine was contaminated with smallpox. The result was that his vaccination program was probably indistinguishable from his earlier variolation program. This touched on a major problem with so-called challenge experiments using smallpox inoculum to test the efficacy of the cowpox vaccine. During the era of variolation between 1721 and 1799, mild symptoms following variolation were interpreted to mean the inoculation had “taken”—that is, induced mild smallpox that would protect against severe smallpox. However, when it came to challenging (with smallpox inoculation) experimental subjects who had received the cowpox vaccine, mild symptoms of smallpox following smallpox inoculation were often interpreted to mean the vaccine had worked. But if this was true, how could one know that vaccination worked better than variolation?[xi]

Apparently recognizing that his initial claim about genuine and spurious cowpox wasn’t persuasive, Jenner published a revised pamphlet in 1799, titled Further Observations on the Variolae Vaccinae, in which he offered practical advice for recognizing genuine cowpox lesions and distinguishing them from other similar pustular lesions that were not genuine cowpox. The British microbiologist and smallpox researcher, Derrick Baxby, interpreted this as a good faith attempt to identify authentic cowpox, and not merely an attempt to explain away vaccine failures, though he conceded that other vaccinators sometimes performed this sleight of hand trick.[xii] In December 1799, Jenner published a third pamphlet, Continuation of Facts and Observations in which he did not once mention his horse-grease theory. Two years later, he published yet another revision titled On the Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation in which he again made no mention of horse grease.

This final revision of his pamphlet found a large and receptive readership in Britain, the United States, and on the European continent. Soon many physicians in England and the U.S. began using what they believed to be “vaccine”—that is, pus and lymph from cowpox pustules—to perform inoculations on their patients. The trouble with this enterprise lay in the difficulty of obtaining “genuine” cowpox lymph and ascertaining that it was, in fact, genuine, and not the “spurious” variety.

In 1802, Jenner petitioned Parliament to receive a reward for his discovery, making special mention of his claim that he had inoculated his own child (Edward Robert Jenner) with genuine cowpox. The boy died in 1810, purportedly of tuberculosis. One wonders if he contracted bovine tuberculosis from the vaccine. Parliament formed a committee to consider the matter, and it’s likely that Jenner’s Cheltenham connections were helpful on this occasion. Students of this period of British Parliamentary history are familiar with the extensive influence peddling that shaped public policy at the time. The committee was persuaded that Jenner had in fact discovered a means of preventing smallpox and declared: “As soon the New Inoculation becomes universal it must absolutely extinguish one of the most destructive disorders by which the human race has been visited.” As a Parliamentary reward for his discovery, Jenner received £10,000 (about a million U.S. dollars today). Five years later, in 1807, Parliament gave him an additional award of £20,000.[xiii]

The difficulty of finding enough of genuine cowpox from sick cattle obliged the medical profession to employ the “arm to arm” method of vaccination. This involved inoculating one human with “genuine cowpox.” After pustules erupted at the inoculation site, the inoculated person would then rub the pustules on his arm together with an incision made in the arm of the next person to receive the inoculation. With the rapid and widespread adoption of this method, thousands of Englishmen were vaccinated with what was believed to be cowpox during the early years of the 19th century. In addition to being of questionable efficacy, this procedure also exposed the inoculation recipient to the risk of being infected with other communicable diseases such as syphilis, tuberculosis, and smallpox itself.[xiv]

[i] Charles Creighton, Jenner and Vaccination, London, Swan Sonnenschein, 1889, p. 7, PDF p. 19.

[ii]Ibid.

[iii]Arthur W. Boylston, M.D., The Myth of the Milkmaid, The New England Journal of Medicine, January 31, 2018.

[iv] Charles Creighton, Jenner and Vaccination, London, Swan Sonnenschein, 1889, p. 36 (PDF p. 48).

[v] Edward Jenner, Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, London: 1798.

[vi]Edward Jenner, Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, London: 1798. Reproduced as Paper I in The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox by Edward Jenner, https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/history/articles/jenner.htm#paperI

[vii]Charles Creighton, Jenner and Vaccination, London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1889, p. 63, PDF p. 74. https://ia800709.us.archive.org/7/items/JennerAndVaccinationCharlesCreighton/Jenner%20and%20Vaccination%2C%20Charles%20Creighton.pdf

[viii] Ibid, p. 39, PDF p. 51

[ix] Ibid, p. 102, PDF p. 114

[x] Ibid, pp. 158, PDF p. 170

[xi] Ibid, pp. 147-148, PDF 159-160

[xii] Derrick Baxby, Two Hundred Years of Vaccination, Current Biology, July 1, 1996. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(02)00590-0.pdf

[xiii]Kendall A. Smith, Edward Jenner and the Small Pox Vaccine, Frontiers in Immunology, 13 June 2011

[xiv] Donald A. Henderson and Bernard Moss, Chapter 6: Smallpox and Vaccinia, Vaccines, Stanley A Plotkin, MD and Walter A Orenstein, MD., Philadelphia: Saunders, 1999. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7294/

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A little over a year after I met Jamie Foxx at ATT Stadium in January of 2022, news broke that he was hospitalized in serious condition. I lost track of Foxx and news of his miraculous recovery.

Here’s what we know about Jamie Foxx’s medical crisis, based on his own account in his December 2024 Netflix special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was... and his family’s statements.

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As a true crime author, I have investigated multiple cases of death by poisoning. Many substances will not be detected by standard toxicology screening, which is designed to detect common substances illicit drugs, alcohol, or prescription pain relievers. Many toxic compounds will only be detected if the toxicologists does a targeted search for them with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS).

Several readers apparently interpreted my post to mean that I was asserting that Christine had been poisoned, when I fact I was stating that her symptoms and the circumstances of her death raise the suspicion that poisoning was a possibility.

The point of forensic science—including forensic toxicology—is not only to substantiate the suspicion of foul play, but also to rule it out. When presented with an unexplained or suspicious death, one cannot rule out foul play unless one makes a diligent effort to investigate the possibility of it, even if that possibility may seem unlikely. One cannot ascertain anything if one doesn’t test for it.

A couple of days after I posted my essay, my friend and fellow author, Helmut Sterz — author of the brilliant forthcoming book The Vaccine Mafia—sent me the following tribute to Christine.

OBITUARY FOR CHRISTINE COTTON: BIOSTATISTICIAN & WHISTLE BLOWER.

I never met Christine in person, but I knew her from video discussions and had been exchanging emails with her since 2023. That year, she had published a sensational exposé in her French book, in which she ruthlessly exposed Pfizer’s criminal conduct during the clinical development of the “Comirnaty vaccine.” She not only possessed the scientific expertise to conduct a detailed analysis of the clinical approval documents, but also the untamed courage to stand up to the Pfizer Goliath as David and confront it head-on. When I first held her book “Tous vaccines, tous protégés?” (All Vaccinated, All Protected?) in my hands, a warrior-like woman on the cover caught my eye, reminiscent of Marianne, the national heroine and symbolic figure of France.

In her right hand, she holds up a scale, the balance clearly tilting toward “Risk.” In her left hand is a massive sword, a two-handed broadsword, whose tip pierces the head of a snake. The symbolism is clear. With this book, Christine wanted to deal a fatal blow to the monster that is the global vaccine mafia. The book’s subtitle is: “Covid-19 Vaccines: Chronicle of a Health Disaster Foretold.” When I began reading the book, it was clear to me that this superbly documented analysis serves as an exceptionally valuable counterpart to my own observations in the field of preclinical research and toxicology. However, up to that point, I had only compiled evidence of the virtually nonexistent toxicity studies on Comirnaty but had not published it.

Through the publisher of her book, I came into contact with Christine, who was immediately interested in collaborating. On October 7, 2023, I received a call in which she told me that a lawyer in Zurich, Philipp Kruse, might benefit from my observations regarding Pfizer/BioNTech’s flawed preclinical safety strategy. In doing so, she opened the right door for me, and I began writing my book, “The Vaccine Mafia.” I stayed in touch with Christine over the years and was able to return the favor by helping her with a lawsuit against the French health authority. Over a year ago, Christine told me she was seriously ill and in constant pain. Even then, she hinted that she couldn’t go on living like that. She suspected she was suffering from the aftereffects of a tick bite. She never expressed to me the suspicion that the pharmaceutical industry she had attacked was seeking to take revenge in a malicious way. Her body forced her to give up, but her spirit remained ready to continue the fight against Big Pharma until the very end.

Thus, she wrote another detailed analysis of Pfizer’s policies regarding its clinical trials for “Comirnaty,” which she is making available to everyone as her legacy. “Assessment of Methodological Practices Implemented in Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Trials with respect to Good Clinical Practice.”

On Saturday, May 30, 2026, Christine called me and asked for my help, explaining that she was on her way to Switzerland to end her life there. She asked me to find a trusted person in case she encountered difficulties once she arrived in Switzerland, so I asked attorney Philipp Kruse for help. He spoke with her on the morning of June 1, before Christine took her own life, and according to Philipp Kruse, she walked the final steps of her journey with determination and discipline. I thank Mr. Kruse from the bottom of my heart for this act of friendship. Christine Cotton left us with dignity, fighting to the very end against a monstrous disease, just as courageously as she fought against the monster of the military-pharmaceutical complex.

She achieved a victory through her advocacy work. But it is sad to note that the wounded monster ultimately brought her down through its grip as well. The victory has come at too high a price, but it gives me and many others the energy needed to finally prevent the military-industrial complex from taking complete control over our lives and our democracy. With deep respect and great sorrow, I would like to honor this exemplary, incorruptible, and courageous woman with these words.

Helmut Sterz, June 5, 2026

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Can the power of music end tyranny? Let’s find out with diva, Claire Stadtmueller.

🎭 Introducing The Dissident Soprano: Claire Stadtmueller

Dr. Peter McCullough welcomed classical vocalist Claire Stadtmueller to his program after meeting her at a World Council for Health New England Chapter meeting in Rhode Island. What followed was a wide-ranging conversation weaving together music, political awakening, and spiritual resistance.

🎵 From Farm Girl to Carnegie Hall

Stadtmueller described her unlikely path — raised on a small thoroughbred horse farm in New Jersey, the daughter of a German-born steeplechase jockey and farrier. She called herself “farm girl by day, diva by night.” Her musical talent emerged early; she was the designated soloist by third grade and eventually attended the New England Conservatory in Boston for vocal performance, later earning a master’s degree.

Her operatic credentials are substantial: seven appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and a notable performance as Tosca in Central Park with Maestro La Selva — a production she recalled involved rolling on concrete during an attempted-rape scene, for which she wisely procured knee pads. She studied in Italy with Pavarotti’s teacher and remains a protégé of Greek bass Dimitri Kavrakos.

🦠 COVID Mandates as Career Catalyst

The conversation pivoted when Stadtmueller disclosed she was fired from a teaching position after 11 years for refusing the COVID injection. Rather than retreat, she transformed. Barred from venues requiring vaccine papers, she created what she calls her “dissident soprano music videos” — including one showing her locked out of Carnegie Hall. These films won awards at festivals in twelve cities worldwide.

This led to her current project: The End of Tyranny, a multimedia show combining big band, musical theater, symphonic elements, and opera — all in English, running just over an hour.

🗽 The End of Tyranny

The show premieres July 11, 2026, at 3:30 PM Eastern in a small New Britain, Connecticut church (capacity 250), with livestream capacity for 17,000 viewers via theendoftyranny.org. Twenty musicians from six states are participating — all believers in the message. The program can be attended around the world by the End of Tyranny Livestream.

Stadtmueller described the thematic arc: globalist technocracy deploying cell towers, weather modification (she cited a June 2023 White House document on solar radiation management), and mandated injections as tools of control. Her character represents those who refuse compliance. The climax: God wins. “Nothing’s too overwhelming for God,” she said. The show lands one week after Independence Day, posing the question: How independent are we if we say yes to everything they demand?

🎼 McCullough’s Curiosities

The interview took several entertaining detours. McCullough, self-admittedly never having interviewed a professional musician, peppered Stadtmueller with offbeat questions:

• Do great singers have bigger mouths? She redirected to technique — the soft palate, the “beginning of the yawn,” and the sinus amplification system.

• Why do British singers sound American? Same reason she sings in twelve languages with perfect diction: studied reproduction of sound.

• Can tone-deaf people be trained? Yes, to match pitch — but professional-level musicianship requires innate ear connection.

• Why do rock stars wear sunglasses and opera singers don’t? In opera, the performers want their faces to be shown and the world seen clearly

• Why are concerts so loud? She agreed completely, noting she stuffs her ears at weddings and instructed her daughter’s wedding band to keep volumes reasonable.

🕊️ Art Against Tyranny

Both agreed that the overwhelming majority of artistic expression around conflict is anti-war and pro-peace. Stadtmueller theorized that musicians, immersed in beauty and God’s creation, naturally resist destruction. She invoked Beethoven crossing out his dedication to Napoleon, Toscanini defying Mussolini, and Britten’s War Requiem as historical precedents for artistic resistance.

Her closing message: the Constitution remains a tool for liberty, and her team uses constitutional affidavits to engage legislators. The show is not about division but awakening — a celebration of “the God-given freedom and liberty of humanity.”

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Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

President, McCullough Foundation

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📚 References

Stadtmueller, C. (2026, June 2). Interview by Dr. Peter McCullough. McCullough Report / FOCAL POINTS Substack, America Out Loud Talk Radio. Transcript provided.

The End of Tyranny official website: theendoftyranny.org

First reported by Jon Fleetwood, the CDC awarded Pfizer two new contracts on June 1st totaling $1.24 billion for COVID-19 mRNA injections covering fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

• $735.7 million for pediatric COVID-19 shots

• $505.3 million for adult COVID-19 shots

While demand has collapsed, the CDC continues to lock in hundreds of millions of dollars in future purchases of the mRNA shots for both infants and adults through its regular procurement channels.

Our public health agencies are doubling down after getting caught covering-up 25 major safety signals — including sudden death.

Instead of accountability, we are watching billions of dollars being funneled into the same gene-transfer products that have injured, disabled, or killed millions of innocent Americans.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

Support our mission: mcculloughfnd.org

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