… I had a direct, revealing encounter with NPR’s embedded bias in May of 2021, when Geoff Brumfiel, one of their senior correspondents, reached out to feature me in a piece titled: “For Some Anti-Vaccine Advocates, Misinformation Is Part Of A Business.” The article was a thinly veiled attempt at character assassination—an example of media functioning not as a seeker of truth, but as a weapon of narrative warfare.
Rather than ignore or stonewall, I made an unusual decision: I invited Brumfiel into a cross-interview, recorded and published in full transparency above. This format allowed both of us to pose questions to each other, and for the public to witness the full, unedited context. The result was deeply revealing—not just of NPR’s approach, but of the larger media machinery it represents.
This candid exchange exposed not only the editorial bias and conflicts of interest at NPR, but also the broader ideological machinery backing the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” narrative, propagated by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)—an organization that, ironically, engages in exactly what its name suggests it opposes: digital censorship, hate, and targeted takedowns.
The False Framing of “Anti-Vax” and “Misinformation”
The terms “anti-vaccine” and “misinformation” are wielded like verbal bludgeons—designed to shut down debate and demonize dissent. But the reality is far more nuanced. At GreenMedInfo.com, we curate and publish peer-reviewed research, offering the public access to scientific literature often ignored by mainstream outlets. This is not “misinformation”—it is scientific transparency.
Yet NPR painted me as a profiteer, part of an “anti-vax industry.” They ignored the fact that GreenMedInfo is ad-free and freely accessible, and that Stand for Health Freedom, which I co-founded, is a nonprofit platform defending bodily sovereignty and informed consent.
I challenged NPR and Brumfiel to investigate their own funding relationships—particularly with PhRMA and the Gates Foundation, both of which have donated millions to support pro-vaccine messaging through NPR. When media entities are underwritten by the very industries they’re reporting on, how can the public trust what they hear?
Corporate Sponsorship & Narrative Control
In fact, NPR’s own sponsorships—such as their integration of PhRMA’s “Brand Soundscapes” into NPR’s app—demonstrate just how blurred the line between journalism and marketing has become. And while Brumfiel insisted editorial decisions are independent, the systemic nature of these relationships is hard to ignore. As I pointed out during our dialogue, when NPR receives tens of millions in funding from groups that directly benefit from mass vaccination campaigns, their reporting on those topics cannot be assumed neutral.
The larger story here isn’t about me. It’s about how public media institutions, originally designed to be accountable to the people, have become extensions of corporate and governmental power.
orchestrating the pandemic to help usher in the “Great Reset,” a global economic, political and social system promoted by the World Economic Forum.
During oral arguments Thursday, attorney Peter Stassen told a packed courtroom that the COVID-19 vaccines were akin to a bioweapon, developed as part of a broader global effort to strip democratic and individual rights.
Speaking outside the courthouse in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, Stassen said Thursday’s hearing “was about publicly telling what is happening in this courtroom and what is the real case. The real case is that COVID-19 was not a disease but was a project.”
He accused Gates and Bourla of participating in that project, which he said was coordinated and undemocratic. He also accused the defendants of using censorship and propaganda to hide their intentions while promoting the COVID-19 vaccines as “safe and effective.”
COVID-19vaccines were developed and procured as military countermeasures, bypassing the standard development and approval pipeline for such products. By developing the shots as military countermeasures, they bypassed traditional safety regulations, leading to widespread injury, Stassen said.
Stassen said that while this is a civil case, he believes the defendants’ actions constitute serious criminal offenses that violate global treaties and the Nuremberg Code.
“They basically said, like a parrot, that all of Stassen’s accusations were either conspiracy theory or based on medical reports that are from people who are not neutral in this case,” said Ido Dijkstra, a Dutch journalist and the editor-in-chief of De Andere Krant, who attended the hearing.
Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst said the defense did not respond to Stassen’s assertions that COVID-19 was a project. “There was no response to that at all, nothing.”
Journalist Penny Marie, who has reported on the case, told The Defender that Stassen’s arguments “mirror what so many people worldwide say and have experienced and investigated.”
The defendants’ legal team did acknowledge that they were “touched” by the suffering of the vaccine-injured plaintiffs. Terhorst said the five living plaintiffs face “immense problems” with their health.
Dijkstra said the presiding judge on the three-judge panel appeared to “support the mainstream narrative,” but “gave the impression that she wanted to understand Stassen’s reasoning.”
Thursday’s hearing stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2023 by seven people injured by COVID-19 vaccines — including two who have since died — against Gates, Bourla and 15 other defendants, including former Dutch prime minister and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the Dutch state, and several Dutch public health officials and journalists.
According to Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst, who is not connected to the case but attended the hearing, none of the defendants appeared in court.
A ruling is expected as early as December but may be delayed until February 2027.
Expert witnesses barred from testifying in person
During oral arguments, Stassen addressed the court’s refusal to allow his team’s expert witnesses to testify in person. Earlier this week, the court limited the witnesses to video statements presenting their arguments.
Defense attorneys attacked the credentials of some of the witnesses. For instance, they claimed that Sasha Latypova — a former pharmaceutical research and development executive — has only a bachelor’s degree and is unqualified to provide testimony on scientific and medical matters.
Latypova disputed the claims, telling those gathered outside the courthouse that she has a “graduate degree from Dartmouth College and 25 years of pharmaceutical R&D and regulatory experience” — including interacting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency and Japanese regulators “on behalf of my clients.”
Catherine Austin Fitts, founder and publisher of the Solari Report and another of the expert witnesses for the plaintiffs, told The Defender that Bourla’s attorneys questioned the credentials of another witness — Mike Yeadon, Ph.D. Fitts said she was “surprised” by their claims.
“Yeadon served as vice-president of Pfizer’s allergy and respiratory research unit and worked for many years at Pfizer. Does Pfizer make it a practice to staff the company with unqualified people in senior positions? Does this explain why Pfizer appointed a veterinarian to be the CEO?” Fitts asked, referring to Bourla.
Terhorst said it is “very strange” for Dutch courts to not allow oral testimony by plaintiffs’ witnesses, as otherwise, “it is not easy to substantiate your claims.”
Despite the limitation, Terhorst said the witnesses bolstered the plaintiffs’ case. “The case is important based on the evidence provided by key witnesses,” she said.
“I think we [gave] a very clear sign to the court that there can be not justice if the court is not willing to look further at this expert evidence, because you can come to a judgment based on truth and a real discussion between the parties,” Stassen said during the press conference.
Vaccine-injured were ‘misled’ about safety of COVID shots
In an interview with journalist Fiona Rose Diamond earlier this week, Stassen said the plaintiffs “felt misled” by the Dutch government and by those who promoted the COVID-19 shots in the media.
“They felt misled by the whole system … And they were misled because they were told that this was a safe and effective vaccine, and in fact, the only way out of [the] crisis,” Stassen said.
At Thursday’s press conference, Stassen added that the plaintiffs sued not just because of their injuries, but because “they want the truth.”
Fitts highlighted the significance of the case, noting that under the Dutch legal system, the vaccine-injured can file lawsuits in response to their injuries — contrasting this with legal restrictions the injured face in the U.S.
Terhorst noted that the vaccine-injured in the Netherlands face other obstacles.
“Vaccine injury is not even recognized in the Netherlands,” she said. She noted that some vaccine-injured people briefly received treatment under public health programs that the Dutch state earmarked for long COVID patients. However, this treatment was later “terminated.”
Terhorst said lawyers for the Dutch state “said nothing” during the hearing about offering compensation to these victims, including the plaintiffs and their families.
This is one of several obstacles the plaintiffs have faced as this case has progressed. Last year, another attorney for the plaintiffs, Arno van Kessel, was arrested “with considerable force,” as part of a nationwide sweep by Dutch police against alleged members of a “sovereign citizen” movement with a “potential intent to use violence” against the Dutch state.
Terhorst said van Kessel spent seven months imprisoned in a high-security prison, lost his license to practice law, is not allowed to leave the country and was fitted with an ankle monitor — which was removed Thursday, in parallel with the hearing.
Tracy Beth Høeg, M.D., Ph.D., an epidemiologist and sports physician, said her decision to follow the data during the COVID-19 pandemic came at a steep professional price.
Høeg said her experience exposed the unwillingness of universities, media and public health institutions to adapt when research conflicted with their accepted narratives.
In an interview this week with investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker on The DisInformation Chronicle, Høeg said institutions too often treated the accepted narrative as settled and then dismissed or attacked people who questioned it.
That approach did more than distort the public discussion about COVID-19, Høeg said. It also created a scientific and institutional culture that could affect how other medical questions are handled long after the pandemic.
For Høeg, the solution is simple: Scientists should follow the evidence wherever it leads.
“It’s a core belief of mine that you have to be objective when you’re doing scientific studies,” she said. “Otherwise, you just shouldn’t do them. It’s pointless if you’re not willing to be objective.”
‘I … didn’t realize the jeopardy that I was putting myself in’
During the pandemic, Høeg published 30 to 40 papers on COVID-19 transmission, masking, youth sports, vaccine risk-benefit, pregnancy, long COVID, visitor restrictions and testing.
Some of her research challenged widely accepted claims.
One study found little evidence of COVID-19 transmission among children in Wisconsin schools, which was consistent with data from Europe. Another examined myocarditis risk in boys after their second Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine dose and found the risks outweighed the benefits in boys who didn’t have underlying health conditions.
Høeg said she didn’t initially understand the professional risks she was taking by challenging the prevailing narrative.
“There was sort of a hesitancy to do this sort of research because I think people were afraid for their careers,” she said. “I actually was blessed with having recently moved from Denmark and didn’t realize the jeopardy that I was putting myself in by doing these sorts of studies.”
At the time, Høeg was conducting research at the University of California, Davis.
She said the university received calls, including from Naturemagazine, complaining about her studies on pandemic policies. Eventually, the university asked her not to use her affiliation with the school.
Høeg said the university refused to renew her voluntary position in 2022, after the European Journal of Clinical Investigation published her study on myocarditis risks in boys who received the COVID-19 vaccine.
NPR also dropped an interview with Høeg for “All Things Considered” after she raised concerns about masking children during outdoor sports.
In a pre-interview discussion with NPR, she told the outlet, “We don’t have evidence that these masks work to prevent transmission. … Bottom line is, we shouldn’t be doing these unproven things to children that are harmful.”
Soon after, NPR told Høeg she was no longer needed for the interview.
“It does say a lot about our universities and institutions because it’s like they had been brainwashed to an extent to believe what the media was saying rather than actually look at the data,” Høeg said.
‘They repeated the same wording … even when the data didn’t back it up’
In 2022, Høeg and her colleagues conducted a follow-up analysis of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study on school mask mandates.
Høeg said their analysis used a larger dataset and a longer time period and reached the opposite conclusion about the relationship between mask mandates and COVID-19 transmission among children.
The team’s submission to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) was rejected. Høeg said reviewers described the submission as “rife with polemics.”
“Well, maybe it’s polarizing if you disagree with it,” Høeg said.
The rejection unearthed an underlying problem at the CDC, according to Høeg.
“They have a scientific agenda,” she said. “And so as soon as you have a scientific agenda, science has been thrown out the window. Science doesn’t have an agenda other than to find the truth.”
A 2024 analysis by Høeg and colleagues examined 77 mask studies published in the MMWR beginning in 2020. According to Høeg, 75% of the studies said masks were effective, while only 14% reported statistically significant results and none were randomized studies.
One finding especially stood out to her: She said 5% of the studies found masks were connected to higher infection rates, yet “they still concluded that masks worked.”
“They repeated the same wording over and over again in each of the studies, that ‘masks are necessary to decrease the spread’ and ‘masks are critical in controlling the case rates of COVID-19,’” she said. “They use the same sort of wording even when the data didn’t back it up at all.”
‘Why are we demonizing people for looking into this?’
A leaked memo from then-FDA official Dr. Vinay Prasad said career staff had linked at least 10 child deaths to the COVID-19 vaccine between 2021 and 2024.
Høeg said she reviewed the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports and found that investigations involving medical records and autopsies had already been conducted.
“My question at the time was … why are these not being made public?” Høeg told Thacker.
Høeg said news leaked that she would present information about the deaths and their possible association with COVID-19 vaccines. She said the media response focused on portraying her as an “anti-vaxxer” rather than asking why the deaths had been investigated but not publicly disclosed.
“If we have these sorts of deaths happening in children due to medical products of any kind, why are we sitting on them for years?” she asked. “That’s the take-home I want people to have from this.”
She also questioned why people who investigate potential safety problems are attacked for trying to expose the dangers.
“Why are we demonizing people for looking into this? … Isn’t that what the public wants?” she asked.
‘The deep state really is a thing’
In May, just days after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned, Høeg said she arrived at work to find media reports claiming she had resigned — something she said she knew nothing about.
FDA lawyers later asked her to resign, but she refused to sign the letter. She was subsequently locked out of the agency’s systems and escorted from the building.
Høeg said she never received a performance-based explanation for her termination. She also said the person identified as the author of her termination memo later denied writing or seeing it.
According to Høeg, agency lawyers told her the order came from “way above their pay grade.”
The experience changed how she viewed other departures from the agency. “It opened my eyes to the fact that maybe a number of the people who I thought had resigned really had not resigned,” she said.
“The deep state really is a thing,” she added.
‘Women who want to get pregnant … should be told about these risks’
For Høeg, the concerns she encountered during the COVID-19 era are not limited to COVID-19.
In 2025, she helped organize an FDA panel examining potential risks associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, during pregnancy.
The American Psychiatric Association criticized the panel for what it called “misinterpretation and unbalanced viewpoints.” Høeg said the media also portrayed any discussion of potential risks as “misinformation about SSRI use” and a signal that depression wasn’t being taken seriously.
According to Høeg, the panel discussed risks already addressed in FDA labeling and scientific research, including miscarriage, premature birth, postpartum hemorrhage, congenital heart defects and neonatal adaptation syndrome.
“This should not be controversial that women who want to get pregnant and who are pregnant should be told about these risks,” she said.
She also warned about the lack of ongoing monitoring of drug safety.
“The FDA is not actively investigating the safety of these products in pregnancy or at all after the initial trials are done,” she said.
Høeg said the discussion should not be interpreted as an argument against treating depression. “I don’t think that any of this should be synonymous with not taking depression seriously,” she said. “That’s just nonsense.”
‘There’s just no reporting on this. … People have died taking this drug’
Høeg also discussed Tavneos, the Amgen-manufactured brand name for avacopan, a drug approved to treat a type of blood-vessel inflammation.
While at CDER, Høeg said she raised concerns that the pivotal clinical trial used to approve the drug had included manipulated data.
According to Høeg, at least eight deaths had been attributed to the drug because of liver injury.
“There’s just no reporting on this,” Høeg said. “People have died taking this drug. … We asked for them to withdraw it from the market, and the media is just totally silent.”
Thacker: ‘There was no real learning in the end. … If anything, we became dumber’
Høeg said it is troubling that some of the most disputed COVID-19 policies are still treated as settled questions.
“How is this still part of our collective conversation that people … are still saying school closures were necessary and mask mandates were necessary?” she asked.
Thacker said the failure to learn from those policies could have consequences during the next pandemic. People who developed a “false sense of safety from masks” during COVID-19 could mistakenly assume masks will protect them from a more dangerous virus in the future, he said.
Thacker also questioned whether the country understands anything about the COVID-19 vaccines. “There was no real learning in the end. … If anything, we became dumber,” he said.
Høeg said the problem stems from the widespread failure to reconsider policies when the evidence changed.
“Once the government decided this is what we have to do, they just kept digging in, even though the data didn’t support it,” she said.
“This is why I keep doing these interviews, because it’s important for people to know the truth.”
Watch Høeg on ‘The DisInformation Chronicle’ podcast here:
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Thursday sued Pfizer and its CEO, Albert Bourla, alleging that the drugmaker misled the public by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective while not disclosing the vaccine’s potential risks to pregnant women, children and teenagers.
The 49-page lawsuit alleges Pfizer violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by deceptively marketing its vaccine to the public in turn for making billions of dollars in profit.
According to the complaint, Pfizer’s COVID-19vaccine marketing campaign focused on two principal themes: that the shot “posed no material safety risks” and that “mass vaccination was necessary to stop the transmission of COVID-19” — even though Pfizer never tested the vaccine’s ability to stop the virus from spreading.
Pfizer possessed extensive evidence that its vaccine caused serious adverse events — including 1,223 reported deaths following vaccination as of February 2021 and 52 miscarriages among vaccinated pregnant women. However, the company assured the public the vaccine was safe.
“Today we sued Pfizer for deceptively marketing the products as safe — making billions — while pregnant women were miscarrying their babies and teenagers were having heart attacks,” Uthmeier said in a statement.
Florida AG says state has track record of success with similar lawsuits
In a statement, Pfizer said the allegations are baseless, and that the “representations made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based” and that it “stands behind the safety and efficacy” of the product.
But Forrest B. Saunders, communications director for Uthmeier’s office, told The Defender “the complaint and comments by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speak for themselves.”
Saunders said Florida has a track record of success with such lawsuits, having “recovered millions for Floridians through consumer protection efforts.”
Florida resident Haley Schwartz, who was seriously injured following her COVID-19 vaccination in 2021, also welcomed the suit. She said injuries caused by the vaccine “have received inadequate attention” for years.
“Finally seeing these issues examined through a formal legal process feels significant and creates an important opportunity for greater scrutiny, transparency, and accountability regarding what was communicated to the public,” Schwartz said.
The lawsuit seeks civil penalties of $10,000 for each violation of the state’s consumer protection law — and $15,000 for each violation involving an elderly or disabled person.
Florida seeks to force Pfizer to return some of its profits and is asking for a permanent injunction against further deceptive practices.
Pfizer’s deceptive marketing sought to ‘ensure windfall profits’
According to the complaint, Pfizer engaged in a deceptive and “wide-ranging marketing campaign” to “drive consumer demand” for its COVID-19 vaccine, overcome widespread public skepticism and “ensure windfall profits.”
“This emphasis on the purported safety of the vaccine directly responded to widespread public concerns about a pharmaceutical product that had been developed on an unusually accelerated timeline, with uniquely limited testing and oversight, and employing novel mRNA technology,” the complaint states.
Pfizer’s campaign included public statements by Bourla claiming the COVID-19 vaccine was safe. The complaint cites a January 2023 interview in which Bourla claimed that Pfizer had not detected “a single [safety] signal” linked to the vaccine.
The complaint suggests public skepticism was warranted:
“Pfizer knew that data showed its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to myocarditis and pericarditis among minors; had reason to believe its COVID-19 vaccine would cause adverse events for pregnant women and their unborn babies in the first trimester, including miscarriage [and] thousands of reports of other adverse events including stroke and even death, especially among the elderly.”
By Feb. 28, 2021, Pfizer’s internal adverse event database already contained 158,893 adverse event reports and reports of 1,223 deaths linked to its COVID-19 shot, according to the complaint.
Pfizer by then also “possessed reports for 458 pregnant women exposed to its COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy” — over half of whom sustained at least one adverse event. Of 52 miscarriages, most occurred during the first trimester, “many within days of vaccination.”
Pfizer ended its COVID-19 vaccine trial involving pregnant women early, due to low participation, particularly among women in the early stages of pregnancy. But the drugmaker didn’t disclose “material facts already in its possession showing the risks associated with its COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy.”
Pfizer official admitted vaccine not tested for stopping transmission
Pfizer promoted its COVID-19 vaccine as a means of “protecting … loved ones” through a “wide-ranging marketing campaign” which suggested that the vaccine would stop the spread of COVID-19, the suit alleges.
But Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, said the vaccine was not tested on stopping the virus, according to a 2021 statement cited in the lawsuit.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the “assurances of safety the company gave required knowledge Pfizer simply did not have.”
He cited a February 2021 Pfizer “nonclinical overview” document listing an extensive range of safety studies Pfizer did not conduct.
“Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may actually have been the least-studied approved product it has made this century,” Jablonowski said.
The lawsuit alleges that Pfizer’s misleading marketing claims translated into a financial windfall for Pfizer and Bourla. Between 2020 and 2023, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine revenue exceeded $80 billion, and Bourla received nearly $102 million in compensation.
Legal liability shield may not protect Pfizer in Florida lawsuit
Attorney Ray Flores, CHD’s senior outside counsel, said these protections may not extend to state-level consumer protection cases.
“All states have consumer protection statutes that normally would allow individual consumers to bring suit for fraudulent practices. Under the PREP Act, however, only states have the potential for successful suits,” Flores said.
Kansas and Texas have active lawsuits against Pfizer in the 10th and 5th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, respectively. The suits make similar claims to Florida’s — namely, that Pfizer violated state consumer protection laws by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective.
“All three cases are remarkably similar, as they are brought under parens patriae,” a legal principle that allows states to file lawsuits to protect state residents, Flores said.
However, he said Florida’s lawsuit may face obstacles, as Pfizer may seek to move the case from state to federal court “to invoke PREP Act protection” — similar to what the company did in the Kansas and Texas lawsuits.
Flores said other states may be waiting on the sidelines for the outcomes of the Texas and Kansas cases.
“I wish more attorneys general would take such legal action,” Flores said. “There was a rumor back in 2024 that Utah, Mississippi and Louisiana were also suing Pfizer. It sounded good, and got lots of press, but it was never true.”
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