Little-known data have resurfaced suggesting that plastic bags are generally less harmful to the environment than cloth or cotton bags, which are often used to “fight climate change” due to their reusable quality.&nbsp;<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental-impact">Figures</a> presented by Our World in Data show the “number of times a given grocery bag type would have to be reused to have as low an environmental impact as a standard single-use plastic bag.” According to the data, an organic cotton shopping bag would have to be reused 20,000 times to match a plastic bag in environmental impact. A conventional cotton bag would have to be reused 7,100 times and a composite bag 870 times. &nbsp;The site lists seven more categories which require less uses, but none as harmless as a plastic bag, including recycled PET (84 reuses), polypropylene, non-woven, recycled (52 reuses), polypropylene, woven, recycled (45 reuses), bleached paper (43 reuses), unbleached paper (43 reuses), biopolymer (42 reuses), and polyester PET, recycled (35 reuses).&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1662545412/aflds/image_df7bf35226.png"></figure>The situation is similar when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, based on an <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-comparisons-ghg">analysis</a> of the “number of times a given grocery bag type would have to be reused to have as low greenhouse gas emissions as a standard single-use plastic bag.”&nbsp;Again, an organic cotton bag was found to have the most emissions, requiring 149 uses to match a plastic bag, followed by a conventional cotton bag at 52 reuses, a composite by 23 reuses and eventually reaching bleached paper, unbleached paper and biopolymer, which require no reuses and appear to be on par with plastic bags in having low greenhouse gas emissions.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1662545379/aflds/image_3e31fee9a1.png"></figure>The data are based on a 2018 <a href="https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study</a> commissioned by the Danish Environmental Agency, which analyzed 14 types of bags in Denmark. The study compared 'all environmental indicators' which was a combined value for climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, ozone depletion, human toxicity (cancer effects), human toxicity (non-cancer effects), photochemical ozone formation, ionizing radiation, particulate matter, terrestrial acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, marine eutrophication, ecosystem toxicity, resource depletion (fossil), resource depletion (abiotic), and water resource depletion.&nbsp;For most categories, the study found that low-density polyethylene (LDPE) bags, which are the usual plastic shopping bags in supermarkets, “are the carriers providing the overall lowest environmental impacts for most environmental indicators.”&nbsp;

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Plastic bags show lowest impact in nearly all environmental indicators

Study: Plastic shopping bags less harmful to environment than cotton bags

<h2>Mobile computers</h2>Electric vehicles are more than just cars that run on electric batteries instead of gas; today they may be described as computers capable of functioning like cars or, as Sintrones, a supplier of vehicle computing systems <a href="https://www.sintrones.com/application/understanding-vehicle-computer-system-key-components-and-how-it-works/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">characterized them</a>, mobile computers.<blockquote>Modern vehicles are intricate machines that can be compared to mobile computers. The majority of modern vehicles possess at least one computer system, with many possessing several. . . .&nbsp;</blockquote>McKinsey and Company was more <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/whats-driving-the-connected-car" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">detailed</a> in its description of the “car as computer,” connected to the internet, and capable of optimizing its own operation and maintenance:<blockquote>Today’s car has the computing power of 20 personal computers, features about 100 million lines of programming code, and processes up to 25 gigabytes of data an hour. Yet while automotive digital technology has traditionally focused on optimizing the vehicle’s internal functions, attention is now turning to developing the car’s ability to connect with the outside world and enhance the in-car experience. This is the connected car—a vehicle able to optimize its own operation and maintenance as well as the convenience and comfort of passengers using onboard sensors and Internet connectivity.</blockquote>As such, electric cars, like computers, have many inherent vulnerabilities that leave them exploitable by bad actors, even without the drunk and impaired driver <a href="https://frontline.news/post/kill-switch-to-be-mandated-in-cars-by-2026-with-software-deciding-if-you-re-too-impaired-to-drive" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“kill switch” mandate</a> coming into effect in the U.S. in 2026. Unlike the computer on your desk, however, if your “mobile computer” is hacked it can put your life, as well as your data, at risk.<h3>Cyber security threats</h3>Boye Tranum and Peter Hellström <a href="https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/electric-vehicles-how-much-should-we-worry-about-cyber-security" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">highlighted</a> cyber security issues unique to electric vehicles in their article published by the UK's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Security ramifications, they said, are not fully considered.<blockquote>From a cyber security perspective, the transition is not one from internal combustion energy to battery electric. It’s one from vehicles with digital extras to fully digitally transformed, fully interconnected vehicles. Dozens of computers and hundreds of sensors operate and optimise brakes, electric flow, charging and many other functions within just one vehicle, always communicating with one another, and connecting via 4G and soon 5G networks to infrastructure, third-party services, and other vehicles.. . . &nbsp;the technology and systems being developed and applied don’t always fully consider the security ramifications.One example would be a control system that ‘sees’ the position of other cars, enabling vehicles to travel in clusters to save energy when they share a travel path. But this means sharing data vividly, and it creates a hefty attack vector. If the data is not anonymised, this could be used to track a person and their behaviour.</blockquote>"Kill switches" bad for business and the economyIn fact, Tranum and Hellström believe that states and car manufacturers would never install kill switches of their own accord since they would damage the automobile industry and the general economy.<blockquote>Particularly, the question of a kill switch, in which an attacker could use a back door to shut down a vehicle completely, has recently made headlines. This is possible if a vehicle is connected to the outside world. And once access to one system in a vehicle has been obtained, there is potential to hack into the others.But looking at this from a risk perspective, what would be the reason for a kill switch or other dramatic hacks on the OT [operational technology] of EVs? States and car manufacturers care about the economy and good business, and if a kill switch was ever used or even discovered, that business and part of the economy would be severely damaged.</blockquote>They are concerned that purposeful disruption of power grids would be used to disable multiple cars and create havoc, rather than acting to disable a single car.&nbsp;<blockquote>From a societal perspective, if an attacker wants to cause widespread disruption, what’s the best way to do this? Is it to shut down individual EVs, or to target wider energy infrastructure, from wind farms to power stations and the grid? If widespread disruption is the attacker’s aim, then energy infrastructure would be their primary target.</blockquote>They also believe that individuals' data is at risk and could be hacked when they recharge their cars:&nbsp;<blockquote>An EV may not even need to be hacked to present a risk. The integrity of data may be the bigger issue. A service station – likely operated by mechanics, not cyber or data specialists – may access systems and download data when servicing a vehicle. There isn’t always transparency about how organisations treat the data, whether it’s the service station, the manufacturer, a component supplier, or an online service provider.&nbsp;</blockquote>Supply chain vulnerabilities&nbsp;Another issue with electric vehicles, they posit, is that most of the electronics come from a small number of Asian manufacturers, so any vulnerabilities in a product will have a great effect:<blockquote>EVs today typically use components from a small number of vendors in Southeast Asia, creating the conditions for any vulnerabilities to have a serious domino effect should they be introduced. There are already moves by the US and Europe to bring home supply chains, which could increase the number of local suppliers and somewhat reduce the risk. But we should remember that supply chains based anywhere can introduce vulnerabilities.</blockquote><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Bonanza for hackers; dangerous for everyone else</h2>The video below demonstrates some of the ways the software of an electric vehicle can be penetrated by hackers, enabling the tracking of a vehicle's location, the monitoring of conversations in the car, and overriding the navigation system.Titled “Back-connect to the Connected Car. Search for Vulnerabilities in the VW Electric Car," the video shows the presentation made by<a href="https://www.navinfo.eu/about-us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> NavInfo Europe</a> security team members Yuriy Serdyuk and Alexey Kondikov on December 7, 2022 at the<a href="https://www.blackhat.com/eu-22/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Black Hat Europe 2022</a> conference in London. Serdyuk and Kondikov demonstrated the serious vulnerabilities and security issues they found in the European electric Volkswagen ID3, which can also create problems with other VW models.&nbsp;<blockquote>Our discovered vulnerabilities and security problems in car architecture are also applicable for such Volkswagen models like ID4, ID5 and affect hundreds of thousands of electric cars on the roads.We will demonstrate how hackers can receive root access in Infotainment and Gateway modules in the cars, install backdoors and what hackers can do remotely with hacked cars.</blockquote>NavInfo made the full abstract and materials <a href="https://i.blackhat.com/EU-22/Wednesday-Briefings/EU-22-Serdyuk-Back-connect-to-the-connected-car.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">available</a> to the public. Here are a few of the slides:Note the comment at the bottom of this “main components” slide which explains that the diagram is actually a simplified version of a much more complex reality.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714640030/Nav_Info_main_components_291d85189c.jpg"></figure>What they found is shocking, as described in the below slide on the car's vulnerabilities.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714640030/Nav_Info_vulnerabilities_exploitation_7d2ef009a8.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;This security risks slide shows that no one and nothing is secure if the car is hacked:<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714640030/Nav_Info_security_risks_babf10515e.jpg"></figure>Screenshots from NavInfo's presentation:The narrator of the video described the results of a hack:<blockquote>We retrieve the current location, as well as the previous locations from the car. (@28:30).</blockquote><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714592548/Black_Hat_retrieving_the_car_location_fbec0cdf0a.jpg"></figure>The researchers next show how they can alter the navigation script with wrong instructions.<blockquote>With remote access, we can control the voice of the navigation system of the car. (@29:58).</blockquote><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714592548/Black_Hat_control_voice_of_the_navigation_system_db98eba059.jpg"></figure>Hackers are also able to obtain data on friends and family, putting them at risk as well.<blockquote>We show how we retrieve contact information from a mobile device and the car. (@31:00)&nbsp;</blockquote><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714640681/Nav_Info_retrieves_contract_info_from_mobile_device_and_car_64d9ed58e6.jpg"></figure>Watch as they demonstrate what they've managed to achieve and how they can remotely access a car's location and record and download what is heard through the car's microphone, change the script of the navigation system, copy all phone contacts from Bluetooth-connected devices, and more.&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4yBKYMKRPbU?si=8DM0PNDQSpzko3H7&amp;start=1576" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>&nbsp;Multiple hacking tests have exposes EV vulnerabilities with concerning results<ul><li>Tokyo hackers <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2024/01/27/tesla-hacked-as-electric-cars-targeted-in-1-million-hacking-spree/?sh=6792788522e8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">won</a> multiple cash prizes in a hacking contest for hacking Teslas.&nbsp;</li><li>A 19-year-old researcher remotely <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-security-researcher-describes-how-he-hacked-into-25-teslas-2022-1?op=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hacked</a> into more than 25 Teslas and gave the manufacturer time to repair the defects before revealing what he found.&nbsp;</li><li>The subtitle of a January 2023 Security Week article <a href="https://www.securityweek.com/16-car-makers-and-their-vehicles-hacked-telematics-apis-infrastructure/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">revealed</a> that “A group of seven security researchers have discovered numerous vulnerabilities in vehicles from 16 car makers, including bugs that allowed them to control car functions and start or stop the engine.”</li></ul><blockquote>Impacted car models include Acura, BMW, Ferrari, Ford, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Kia, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Rolls Royce, and Toyota. The vulnerabilities were identified over the course of 2022. Car manufacturers were informed about the security holes and they released patches.&nbsp;</blockquote><ul><li>Just a month ago, in March 2024, “white-hat” hackers easily <a href="https://www.livescience.com/technology/electric-vehicles/white-hat-hackers-carjacked-a-tesla-using-cheap-legal-hardware-exposing-major-security-flaws-in-the-vehicle" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">carjacked</a> a Tesla. “Security researchers used a $169 Flipper Zero device and a Wi-Fi development board to obtain a driver's credentials, break into a Tesla Model 3 and drive away.”&nbsp;</li></ul>In the video below, YouTuber Mysk shows how phishing and social engineering can easily enable a thief to steal a Tesla. Tesla doesn't protect its owners against stolen credentials, according to Mysk, who wrote:&nbsp;<blockquote>The major problem with the design is that Tesla only requires an account's email and password as well as being physically near the Tesla vehicle to activate a phone key. With an activated phone key a user, or an attacker, has full control of the vehicle. The flow doesn't require the user to be inside the car or to use another physical factor for authentication, such as a Tesla key card or scanning a QR code that the Tesla's touchscreen displays.&nbsp;</blockquote>&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="964" height="542" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7IBg5uNB7is" title="Cybersecurity: Can a Tesla stop phishing and social engineering attacks?" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>&nbsp;<h3>Hackers look for credit card numbers and other personal information&nbsp;</h3>An article by Patrick George for The Atlantic <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/electric-car-hacking-digital-features-cyberattacks/675284/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">explored</a> reasons why electric vehicles would be hacked. One reason he cited was for credit card information. Credit cards of car owners who pay for add-on features, such as heated seats, may be hacked for their credit card information:<blockquote>The bigger threat, experts told me, is remote software hacks from malicious actors. Each time a car gets a new touchscreen app or subscription feature, it provides a potential way in for hackers who are after your credit-card information, personal data, and more.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote>&nbsp;Cars may especially be a target of hacks because of the massive amounts of personal and location data that they now collect. “Cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy,” a recent report from the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation concluded. Depending on what exactly gets breached, a car hacker could see where your home or office is or where you go to spend your money, or even have a window into much more personal matters, such as whether you drove to an abortion clinic.</blockquote><h2>Will mobile computers in the U.S. be more hackable in 2026?</h2>If the above have been vulnerabilities and security concerns until now, how much more will hackers be able to accomplish when all new electric vehicles sold in the U.S. will have to have an open system or at least one back door and technology to disable their operation, in order to comply with the drunk and impaired driver “kill switch” mandate?&nbsp;Related articles:&nbsp;<ul><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/will-hackers-be-able-to-stop-your-car-with-mandated-kill-switch" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Will hackers be able to stop your car with mandated 'Kill Switch?'</a></li><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/kill-switch-to-be-mandated-in-cars-by-2026-with-software-deciding-if-you-re-too-impaired-to-drive" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">'Kill Switch' to be mandated in cars by 2026 with software deciding if you're too impaired to drive</a></li><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/cars-to-be-programmed-to-limit-speed-if-california-bill-becomes-law">Cars to be programmed to limit speed if California bill becomes law</a></li></ul>

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Technology

Cyber

Phone contacts, previous locations, credit card numbers and navigation systems all vulnerable to hacks

Electric vehicles act as 'mobile computers' that place data and safety at risk

By Alex NewmanThe increasingly violent and lawless pro-Hamas “protests” taking place at leftwing universities across America are being funded by billionaire George Soros and the Rockefeller dynasty. And according to the organizations involved, the goal is ultimately “revolution.”&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe class="rumble" width="640" height="360" src="https://rumble.com/embed/v4q39ib/?pub=4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>A number of the key organizations involved in the chaos ripping across academia are on the Soros payroll. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), for instance, which described the October 7 terror attack by Hamas as a “historic win,” has&nbsp;<a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/george-soros-maoist-fund-columbias-anti-israel-tent-city/">received funding</a>&nbsp;from a network of organizations funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations and others. The group’s members have been seen chanting “We Are All Hamas.”SJP has been identified by Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs President Dan Diker as a “terror organization front.” Diker, who authored&nbsp;<a href="https://jcpa.org/book/students-for-justice-in-palestine-unmasked/">a report unmasking SPJ</a>, noted that the group was founded by a radical professor who also founded a Hamas-affiliated organization and has called for “intifada” against America. SJP has hosted jihadists, Marxist-Leninist leaders, and even an attempted hijacker.Another major group involved in the pro-Hamas activism on college campuses being bankrolled by Soros and other leftist mega-donors is U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). The group, which pays “fellows” thousands of dollars and&nbsp;<a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1w6FKZTn4OabnOzhZ_rvq4rsSgtxPqAFl4P7yryE6TpE/edit#slide=id.g1ea9d72ddf0_0_433">boasts of training them to “rise up, to revolution</a>,” received some $300,000 from Soros in recent years. It identifies “capitalism” and “white supremacy” as underpinning U.S. support for Israel.&nbsp;Also providing over $350,000 to USCPR in recent years is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The tax-exempt fund, powered by massive oil wealth from the totalitarian dynasty, showers money on other revolutionary groups as well. These include&nbsp;<a href="https://thenewamerican.com/us/alex-newman-deep-state-using-child-soldiers-in-war-on-america/">the Sunrise Movement, which played a key role in the violent “racial justice” riots</a>&nbsp;that destroyed billions worth of property (mostly owned by minorities) and left countless dead in the summer of 2020.&nbsp;Of course, many of the students protesting and rioting have very little understanding of what they are protesting or why, as they have&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1783167266882019690">even admitted on camera</a>. But those organizing and financing the rent-a-mobs and useful idiots have a much clearer vision: This is revolution, as spokesmen and leaders are openly claiming.&nbsp;Some of the revolutionaries’ leaders have even openly discussed murdering “Zionists.” Columbia University encampment leader Khymani James, who uses the pronouns “he/she/they,” made&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/guypbenson/status/1783643422680592687">a video</a>&nbsp;urging viewers to “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”&nbsp;There are also well-trained experts who do this for a living and have been captured on camera giving the rioters instructions. For example,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1785235384944754886">in this video</a>, “professional protest consultant” Lisa Fithian — a staple at communist demonstrations for decades — can be seen guiding protesters as they destroy property and break into Columbia university.This is not the first time Muslims and others have been used as useful idiots by well-funded subversives promoting revolution. In fact,&nbsp;<a href="https://thenewamerican.com/world-news/globalists-using-muslim-terrorists-as-pawns/">according to&nbsp;</a>Romanian KGB chief Ion Pacepa, who defected to the West in 1978, the mass-murdering Soviet regime sent thousands of KGB agents into the Middle East to radicalize Muslims against Israel and America.&nbsp;“In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S.,” explained Pacepa, arguably one of the most important defectors. “As KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions.”The United Nations has also been instrumental in brainwashing young people — especially young Arabs along Israel’s borders — with jihadist propaganda urging them to wage perpetual war on Jews. As this writer&nbsp;<a href="https://thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/investigation-exposes-un-agents-inciting-terrorism-hate/">has documented</a>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href="https://thenewamerican.com/world-news/calls-grow-for-probes-and-defunding-of-terror-linked-un-agencies/">over a decade</a>, the UN Relief and Works Agency&nbsp;<a href="https://thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/un-schools-caught-teaching-arab-children-to-wage-jihad-on-jews/">uses textbooks that glorify terrorism</a>&nbsp;and even provide military-style training to children.After tolerating the increasingly violent riots and illegal encampments, law-enforcement last week started cracking down and even arresting some of the criminals. However, in the quest to tamp down on violence and lawlessness, free-speech organizations are warning government officials not to cross the line into restricting constitutionally protected rights to free speech.“State-mandated campus censorship violates the First Amendment and will not effectively answer anti-Semitism,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-statement-gov-abbotts-campus-anti-semitism-executive-order">argued</a>&nbsp;the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in response to actions in Texas. “By chilling campus speech, the executive order [by Gov. Greg Abbott] threatens to sabotage the transformative power of debate and discussion.”&nbsp;States across the country have laws criminalizing the funding and encouraging of riots. Just as rogue prosecutors are terrorizing Trump and his allies by abusing the law, legitimate prosecutors across the country could use existing statutes to go after the funders and the professional revolutionaries behind the scenes while leaving free speech alone.<img class="image_resized" style="width:348px;" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.freedomproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/3364780_1225x377_2500.jpg?resize=696%2C214&amp;ssl=1" alt="">As National Security Council Director of Policy and Planning Rich Higgins explained in a memo, a broad alliance of groups including communists, globalists, and Islamists are united in their goal of destroying America — not just as a nation, but even as an ideal. Unfortunately, tax-funded universities are playing a key role in the process. America must react.<a href="https://libertysentinel.org/author/admin/">Alex Newman</a>&nbsp;Alex Newman is an award-winning international journalist, educator, author, and consultant who co-wrote the book “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.” He writes for diverse publications in the United States and abroad.Published at <a href="https://www.freedomproject.com/2024/05/01/tnr20240501/">FreedomProject Media</a>.

soros.webp

World News

US News

Goal of increasingly violent and lawless 'protests' is ultimately 'revolution'

Soros and Rockefellers fund pro-Hamas 'revolution' on campuses

In docs we trustA recent <a href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-health-misinformation-tracking-poll-pilot/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">survey </a>conducted by KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) on “Health Misinformation” has found that the overwhelming majority of Americans trust their doctors' healthcare advice. The findings hold true among both Republicans and Democrats.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714606005/trust_docs_c16369c905.png"></figure>&nbsp;In CDC, we don't necessarily trustThe difference in level of trust between supporters of the two parties varied greatly, though, when they were asked about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with 87 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans saying they trusted information deriving from the CDC. Republicans tended to trust their local health officials more, with the figure rising to almost 60 percent.Lunna Lopes, the lead author of the report and the senior survey analyst at KFF, concluded that family physicians are therefore best situated to produce behavioral changes espoused by public health officials:<blockquote>Doctors are particularly well positioned to be the messengers when it comes to health recommendations that people really trust.</blockquote>The survey also revealed that even people who use social media a great deal are relatively skeptical when it comes to accepting healthcare-related advice from any of the various platforms, and indeed, from media of any kind. People are far more ready to place their trust in a healthcare professional with whom they are acquainted, and this will have come as no surprise to governments across the globe who directed a good deal of their messaging toward GPs during the COVID period.&nbsp;You paid your doctor. But someone else paid moreTrust in one's doctor can seem intuitive; after all, the physician is being paid to take care of your health. Few people consider that they are not the only people paying doctors, though, and that their admittedly considerable bills are often dwarfed by what physicians receive from other sources.In 2014, the government decided to make some of this information freely available to the public, with the passage of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. As the title of the legislation indicates, the intent of the legislators was not only to reveal how much money doctors and other healthcare workers were receiving from the pharmaceutical companies, but also to enable people to use this information to reduce corruption.&nbsp;How many people, however, have ever heard of <a href="https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CMS Open Payments</a>? Not many, despite their website being extremely user-friendly. If you want to look up your local doctor and see who, aside from his patients, has been paying him, it is very simple to do so. A random inquiry into one Dr. Robert D. Abbott, of Virginia, for example, reveals that in 2021, he was paid $11.49 by AbbVie Inc. for “food and beverage.”Was $11.49 enough to change Dr. Abbott's prescribing practices? AbbVie, the maker of Humira for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, clearly believes that giving doctors money for food and drink is a worthwhile investment, however. In 2022, the pharma company handed out $17 million for “food and beverage” to doctors, in just over 870,000 payments, representing almost 15 percent of its total payments to healthcare workers that year.This sum is not atypical of pharma companies; Pfizer, for instance, handed out around $3.5 million to physicians that same year in almost 200,000 individual payments. Merck spent around $2.5 million in the same category of expenses — other categories include “travel and lodging,” “education,” “charitable contribution,” and compensation for serving as a speaker.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1714607691/abbvie_4d796864cd.png"></figure>&nbsp;Patients talk, but money talks louderIdentifying a clear cause-and-effect relationship between Pharma money and pharma prescriptions is not at all simple. However, some effect between money and physicians' actions has been acknowledged by at least one government. In 2017, the British National Health Service (NHS) decided to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jac/article/73/10/2883/5043144?login=false" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">award</a> local health authorities £5 per person in their area if they managed to reduce the local level of antibiotic prescribing by at least one percent. The result? Prescriptions for antibiotics <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/186968/financial-incentives-help-drive-down-unnecessary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dropped</a> by at least three percent following the implementation of the scheme.This was doubly significant, because already several years before the financial incentive scheme, a huge campaign against over-prescribing of antibiotics was launched in the U.K., with very limited success, even though GPs were trained in the potential danger of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). According to an <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/soft-touch-gps-told-to-stop-giving-antibiotics-to-pushy-patients-so-as-to-curb-rise-of-drugresistant-superbugs-10459183.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">article </a>dating from 2015,&nbsp;<blockquote>Nine out of ten GPs say they feel pressurised to issue the prescriptions and 97 percent of patients who ask for them are prescribed them … As many as 10 million prescriptions, about a quarter of the annual total, are being given unnecessarily to patients who will not benefit from the drugs.</blockquote>&nbsp;Singling out physicians works as wellIn Australia, authorities tried a different approach to cutting the number of antibiotic prescriptions: <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-antibiotics-arent-always-needed-heres-how-gps-can-avoid-overprescribing-213981" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“feedback letters”</a> sent out by the Health Department to certain doctors, telling them that they were prescribing far more antibiotics than the national average. The result of this campaign was apparently a drop of around nine percent in prescriptions.&nbsp;Name and shameThe personal approach has also been tried with some success in the U.S. back in 2018, when researchers in conjunction with the CDC and Medicare launched a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/08/07/636184559/dear-doctor-letters-use-peer-pressure-government-warning-to-stop-overprescribing?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20First%20Edition&amp;utm_source=hs_email&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=65018734&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_uAza7T_wksDL41S6Uwt8IHsD1diJAaI02thw5QgBLtjojWkYVMuYZvZqwLx8AH5zjOKUivuIVpbCBJhaMGT2ERlADCA&amp;_hsmi=65018734" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Dear Doctor” study</a> with the aim of cutting the number of prescriptions for Seroquel being handed out by GPs. Seroquel is a commonly prescribed neuroleptic ("antipsychotic") drug which is often used off label (that is, to treat symptoms and/or conditions for which it was not originally licensed).In this study, individual physicians received letters from Medicare telling them that they were writing many more prescriptions for the drug than the state average. The doctors were also told that they were “flagged”:<blockquote>You have been flagged as a markedly unusual prescriber, subject to review by the Center for Program Integrity.</blockquote>The study found that doctors cut back Seroquel prescriptions by around 16 percent as a result.&nbsp;Misguided compassion?Seroquel has its uses, of course, but when prescribed, for example, to the elderly population, it can frequently hasten a patient's demise. Don't doctors know this? Of course they do. The FDA issued a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC556368/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">warning</a> on use of Seroquel in the elderly as far back as 2005. But perhaps many GPs simply find it hard to say “no” to someone who is exhausted from looking after an elderly parent with dementia and wants to give them something to “make them a bit easier to deal with.”&nbsp;In more notorious cases, doctors have been documented handing out antipsychotics to help parents deal with “difficult" children, with sometimes fatal results, as with the case of <a href="https://www.lubinandmeyer.com/news/psych_drugs.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rebecca Riley</a>, who was just two when a doctor prescribed her Clonidine, Seroquel, and Depakote for “bipolar disorder.”&nbsp;Lots and lots of black boxesSeroquel is hardly the only dangerous drug being overprescribed. Most psychiatric drugs are handed out not by psychiatrists but by GPs, though it is unclear whether restricting the ability to prescribe these drugs to psychiatrists would have an impact on the number of prescriptions issued.What do GPs know about the dangers of psychiatric medication? <a href="https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/06/tail-wags-dog-eventually-dog-bites/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">According </a>to one recent medical school graduate, what she was taught about psychiatry amounted to:<blockquote>Elicit a list of symptoms, pick any diagnosis that seems to fit, and write a prescription for any SSRI.</blockquote>SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressants, have “boxed warnings” (once known as “black box warnings”). Horrific as the side effects can be, the withdrawal effects can be far worse. Do GPs know the extent of these adverse events? As recently as last year, the British Journal of General Practice published <a href="https://bjgp.org/content/73/728/138" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">advice </a>to GPs on antidepressant withdrawal. But SSRIs have been around for decades. Why do doctors still need to be educated on this topic?Apparently they do. In Australia, where <a href="https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/04/overprescribing-madness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">around 90 percent</a> of all antidepressants are prescribed by GPs, clinical guidance is <a href="https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/12/family-physicians-must-change-antidepressant-prescribing-practices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">not followed</a> in the majority of cases, with the average duration of “therapy” lasting for four years when the official recommendation is for between six and twelve months of treatment, and that only in moderate-to-severe cases.&nbsp;The gold still glitters in the sunshineWill more education help? Antibiotics and antidepressants remain among the most prescribed drugs. Even the Sunshine Act hasn't helped, according to a <a href="https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/04/transparency-not-enough-stem-tide-pharma-influence-medicine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study </a>conducted in 2021 which found that,<blockquote>… the mandated financial disclosures have not prevented physicians from being influenced by pharmaceutical industry money … Leading experts on financial conflicts of interest … investigated the policy's impact over the seven years it has been in effect. They found no evidence that physician behavior regarding financial conflicts of interest has changed in that time.</blockquote>The authors of the study concluded that,<blockquote>Disclosure is necessary but not sufficient to address the damage that industry relationships cause to medical knowledge and public health.</blockquote>&nbsp;Get it (the message) or dieCloser to “home,” how many GPs told their patients about the many reasons to doubt the safety of the COVID jabs? How many GPs were sufficiently well educated on the dangers, the multiple studies coming out, the background to the mRNA platform, and more, to be able to provide the possibility of informed consent?More alarmingly, a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953623005075" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study</a> published in 2023 surveying primary care physicians on the methods they used to persuade hesitant patients to agree to be jabbed found that three percent of doctors admitted using “guilt/fear messaging” to “motivate” people, including making statements such as “get it or die.”

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Malpractice

Doctors, like the rest of us, often succumb to pressure — or money

95 percent of both Republicans & Democrats trust their personal physicians' advice. Should they?

<h2>Who controls your car?</h2>Could your car be controlled by someone or something other than yourself? This question is real, not imaginative, and may become more relevant to more drivers in the coming years. As Frontline News <a href="https://frontline.news/post/kill-switch-to-be-mandated-in-cars-by-2026-with-software-deciding-if-you-re-too-impaired-to-drive" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a>, infrastructure bill H.R.3684, Section 24220, Drunk and Impaired Driving Prevention Technology, mandates that by 2026 all new cars must include technology to passively monitor drivers for drunk or impaired driving.&nbsp;Should a car's software algorithm determine that the driver is impaired, it is required to “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation.” Although the bill does not explicitly use the term “kill switch,” most readers understand it to be just that.Former Congressman Robert Barr <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/29/barr-bidens-infrastructure-bill-contains-backdoor-kill-switch-for-cars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">discussed</a> the bill with the Daily Caller in November 2021, shortly after Biden signed it. Among other issues, Barr raised concerns about data being stolen and cars being hacked and controlled by unauthorized parties.<blockquote>Everything about this mandatory measure should set off red flares.First, use of the word “passively” suggests the system will always be on and constantly monitoring the vehicle. Secondly, the system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected. Thirdly, it will be an “open” system, or at least one with a backdoor, meaning authorized (or unauthorized) third-parties can remotely access the system’s data at any time. (Emphases added.)</blockquote>Barr questioned who would have access to the data, how it could be accessed, and by whom — police without a warrant . . . private entities . . . hackers?<blockquote>Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, there also is no detail in the legislation about who would have access to the data collected and stored by the system. Could it be used by police, and could they access this information without a warrant? What about insurance companies, eager to know with what frequency their customers drove after drinking alcohol, even if it was below the legal limit? Such a trove of data presents a lucrative prize to all manner of public and private entities (including hackers), none of which have our best interests at heart.</blockquote><h2>Auto lenders already use kill switches</h2>Others have also expressed concern about hackers taking control of cars, for good reason.Kill switches have already been used, by companies providing sub-prime auto loans, to disable the cars of delinquent payers. Borrowers who have their cars disabled, without laws in place to protect drivers, face a variety of problems, some life-threatening.Is it likely that drivers affected by the 2026 mandate will face situations such as those described below?<h3>Cars permanently disabled</h3>Andy Grimm, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/7/13/23206224/car-lot-lender-deactivated-cars-with-kill-switch-after-borrowers-fell-behind-on-payments-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told</a> of a 2022 lawsuit being brought against a lender for using a kill-switch to permanently disable the cars of two individuals who lost their jobs in the spring of 2020, fell behind in their car payments, “and found their vehicles had stopped working thanks to a “vehicle starter interrupter switch” installed by their car dealers and lender.” Their cars have been sitting in front of their homes for two years.&nbsp;<h3>Car stopped while driving on the highway</h3>The HuffPost <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220306012916/https://www.huffpost.com/entry/late-payment-a-kill-switch-can-strand-you-and-your_b_5bfd9668e4b052aa1843d8be" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">detailed</a> the dangerous situation one woman faced when her car was turned off while she was driving on a highway:<blockquote>[Las Vegas resident T. Candice] Smith in 2013 testified to the Nevada legislature that her car’s kill switch activated as she was driving down Interstate 15.“All of a sudden the steering wheel locked up and the car shut off,” she testified. “I was barely able to make it to the left shoulder. I was scared and shaking and had no idea what just happened.”</blockquote><h3>Few laws to protect car owners</h3>According to the HuffPost, few states have enacted laws regulating the use of kill switches.<blockquote>But only half a dozen states have enacted regulations on kill switches, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada and New Jersey. The laws vary, but all, at the least, require telling the borrower that the devices, which also have GPS tracking, are installed.The Colorado law specifically prohibits stopping the vehicle if doing so would pose a danger to its occupants, such as when it’s in motion. Most of the other laws call for 24 or 48 hours’ notice before the vehicle is disabled, and many allow grace periods or emergency overrides.Sophia Romero, staff attorney in the Consumer Rights Project at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, said it took years and a series of lawsuits for the law in her state to catch up with the practice of installing the devices on cars. (Emphasis added.)</blockquote><h3>Hackers could stop your car, too</h3>Vintage race car driver Lauren Fix reported on 'kill switches' for Car Coach Reports (in the below video @3:05), noting the potential for hackers to retrieve a driver's data stored by the system and even take control of a vehicle.<blockquote>. . . tracking that data also makes it possible for bad actors to retrieve that because it's open.&nbsp;More pressing than the privacy concerns though are the safety issues included is an automatic kill switch with internet access. Now we all know that hackers have accessed cars before and they can access this system and this represents an obvious scenario that a malicious agent could disable your vehicle remotely with no warning.</blockquote>&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="1046" height="523" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/meTUTfliL9o" title="Biden's Bill Has BACK DOOR KILL Switch On YOUR CAR by 2026" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>&nbsp;Commenters on a FrontPage Magazine article about the law governing kill switches were likewise <a href="https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-kill-switch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">concerned</a> about cars being stopped/hacked while being driven:<blockquote>What happens when someone like China hacks the system and shuts all the cars down?This is a really bad idea. What happens in an emergency? No fleeing from criminals, violent mobs, natural disasters, or dashes to the hospital. These things take more than 15 seconds. [This refers to a California law requiring technology to prevent cars from going10 miles above the speed limit: “New cars will have a special button on the dash. If you suddenly need to speed and manage to find the button when trying to drive out of some bad situation, and it lets you speed for 15 seconds.”] Cars losing power on busy freeways already cause accidents, and just traffic jams, if you’re lucky. I can also foresee people’s cars being shut down just when they’re driving and eating. (Emphasis added,)________________________________________I’m a non-driver, but even my non-existent expertise would lead me to question how any manufacturer can guarantee that shut-down would occur in a safe and controlled way. What if the car stops itself suddenly and the driver behind you rams your car? Unless an on-board computer can evaluate all of the external factors, there is no way that this is any safer than relying on human judgement (most people want to survive, which is the sort of consideration that is unlikely to be factored into a computer’s processes)________________________________________. . . imagine an interstate highway, where the cars cruise along at 70 mph, and some hacker, or misguided government employee hist this kills switch? There would be a 40 car pileup, with dead and injured all over the place. Terrorists wouldn’t have to use car bombs anymore, just shut off some cars on a busy, fast moving highway, and enjoy the carnage from an overpass. . . . I wonder how long before the aftermarket will start selling a way to kill for the kill switch, along with the surveillance equipment, if they are not already? (Emphases added.)</blockquote><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Congress won't defund mandate implementation</h2>In his article, Barr said that, after the law is implemented we would lose “the freedom of the open road" that individual car ownership brought to the American Dream."&nbsp;Representative Thomas Massie <a href="https://repcloakroom.house.gov/amendment/amendments-to-h-r-4820-transportation-housing-and-urban-development-and-related-agencies-appropriations-act-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">attempted</a> to preserve that freedom, this past November, with a proposed amendment to the Congressional bill that would remove funding for enforcing the law: &nbsp;<blockquote>Amendment No. 60 – Prohibits funds from being used to implement Sec. 24220 of the IIJA, which mandates new vehicles include a kill switch to monitor diver performance and prevent vehicle operation.&nbsp;</blockquote>As Massie explained in the video below, he wants to feel confident that the car will continue operating when he takes his family on trips.&nbsp;<blockquote>Allowing the car to disable itself I think is troublesome. We don’t have a lot of time. This is supposed to be implemented in 2026. And I don’t know about you all, but I would like to know when I put my family in the car and I’m taking a trip somewhere, the car is not going to disqualify me.&nbsp;</blockquote>&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1DIZJEWE6KE?si=d3Xt52Vqny4R-A_i" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>&nbsp;Massie's amendment, to defund the ‘kill switch’ mandate, ultimately failed to pass as nineteen House Republicans joined Democrats to <a href="https://100percentfedup.com/update-19-house-republicans-vote-against-defunding-kill-switch-mandate-for-new-vehicles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">defeat</a> the amendment, allowing the law to pass in its original form with provisions for implementing the “kill switch” mandate.Related articles:&nbsp;<a href="https://frontline.news/post/kill-switch-to-be-mandated-in-cars-by-2026-with-software-deciding-if-you-re-too-impaired-to-drive" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">'Kill Switch' to be mandated in cars by 2026 with software deciding if you're too impaired to drive</a><a href="https://frontline.news/post/cars-to-be-programmed-to-limit-speed-if-california-bill-becomes-law">Cars to be programmed to limit speed if California bill becomes law</a>

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