wakingtimes--2020-07-27--Did Sweden Get COVID Right?

Did Sweden Get COVID Right?

Did Sweden Get COVID Right ?
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In the U.S. , even as the COVID-19 curve appears to have flattened , and death rates for some groups have fallen to almost zero,1 dire warnings about an ominous “ second wave ” continue .
Likewise , Sweden , a country that has handled the pandemic differently than most of the globe , is being chided for its looser restrictions and lack of lockdowns , even as data suggest their refusal to implement a full shutdown of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after all .
While most other countries instituted stay-at-home orders and shuttered schools and businesses , Sweden did not .
While high schools and universities closed and gatherings of more than 50 people were banned , elementary and middle schools , shops and restaurants have remained open during the pandemic.2 Now , news outlets are trying to use Sweden as an example of what not to do to fight COVID-19 , citing a high death toll .
“ The country ’ s mortality rate from the coronavirus is now 30 % higher than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for population size , ” CBS News reported,3 but this doesn ’ t tell the full picture of how Swedes have fared in comparison to the rest of the world .
Sweden May Be Close to Reaching Herd Immunity If a novel virus is introduced to a population , eventually enough people acquire natural immunity so that the number of susceptible people declines .
When the number susceptible is low enough to prevent epidemic growth , the herd immunity threshold , or HIT , has been reached .
With SARS-CoV-2 , the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggested that 60 % to 70 % of the population must be immune before HIT will be reached , but researchers from Oxford , Virginia Tech , and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine4 found that when individual variations in susceptibility and exposure are taken into account , the HIT declines to less than 10 % .5 Independent news source Off-Guardian6 cited data from Stockholm County , Sweden that showed an HIT of 17 % ,7 as well as an essay by Brown University Professor Dr. Andrew Bostom , who explained:8 And , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continues with Stanford ’ s Nobel-laureate Michael Levitt , who is among those in support of Sweden ’ s lighter restrictions .
Levitt successfully predicted the trajectory of COVID-19 deaths in China , including when the deaths would slow , and has stated that the pandemic would not be as dire as many have predicted .
What ’ s more , in an interview with The Stanford Daily , Levitt stated in May 2020 , “ If Sweden stops at about 5,000 or 6,000 deaths , we will know that they ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t need to do any kind of lockdown.
” 10 As of July 17 , 2020 , there were 5,619 deaths in Sweden due to COVID-19,11 and in a study released by Levitt and colleagues June 30 , 2020 , which analyzes COVID-19 outbreaks at 3,546 locations worldwide , it ’ s predicted that Sweden ’ s total COVID-19 deaths will plateau at about 6,000.12 So far , Levitt is spot-on , and it appears , indeed , that Sweden ’ s COVID-19 deaths have slowed , peaking at more than 100 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , tallying in the low teens .
The intensive care unit at Stockholm ’ s Sodertalje Hospital has also cleared out , housing 77 cases during the pandemic ’ s peak and only four cases as of July 17 , 2020.13 Sweden continues to stand by their handling of the pandemic , despite heavy criticism .
The country ’ s state epidemiologist , Anders Tegnell , even described the rest of the world ’ s lockdowns as “ madness , ” considering the steep side effects they ultimately cause .
Levitt suggested that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but likely cost lives due to social damage , domestic abuse , divorces , alcoholism and other health conditions that were not treated.14 Bloomberg reported:15 Tegnell stated that shutting down schools was also unnecessary during the pandemic , and scientists from the Institut Pasteur in France indeed found that there was no significant transmission of COVID-19 in primary schools , either among the students or from students to teachers.16 “ The study also confirmed that younger children infected by the novel coronavirus generally do not develop symptoms or present with minor symptoms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diagnose the virus , ” study author Bruno Hoen added.17 Meanwhile , while Sweden has encouraged its citizens to engage in social distancing , mask usage is another story , and Tegnell has stated that there ’ s little evidence for wearing face masks.18 Outside of Sweden , other experts , including epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford University , have also spoken out against statewide lockdown measures in response to COVID-19 .
Ioannidis suggests that 150 million to 300 million people may have already been infected globally and may have developed antibodies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infection fatality rate has remained low at about 0.25 % .19 As continues to be demonstrated , the elderly and those with underlying health problems appear to be most vulnerable , and protecting such populations should have been a priority .
But lockdowns for young , healthy people are far more questionable .
Speaking with Greek Reporter , Ioannidis said:20 Overall , Ioannidis said the mathematical models that predicted hospitals would be overrun by COVID-19 patients were “ astronomically wrong , ” and although a handful of U.S. hospitals did become stressed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conversely , ” he said , “ the health care system was severely damaged in many places because of the [ lockdown ] measures taken , ” while lockdown measures have also significantly increased the number of people at risk of starvation while leading to financial crisis , unrest and civil strife.21 What ’ s more , one study even found that 81 % of people not exposed to SARS-CoV-2 were still able to mount an immune response against it , which “ suggests at least some built-in immune protection from SARS-CoV-2 … @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly polarized debate , U.S .
Surgeon General Jerome Adams encouraged mask usage but spoke out against making them mandatory due to concerns that it could lead to rebellion.23 In my interview with Denis Rancourt , Ph.D. , a former full professor of physics , and a researcher with the Ontario Civil Liberties Association in Canada , we also discussed the controversial topic of masks .
Rancourt did a thorough study of the scientific literature on masks , concentrating on evidence showing masks can reduce infection risk , especially viral respiratory diseases .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ wearing a mask to reduce infection risk to either the wearer or others in the vicinity , then it would have been detected in at least one of these trials , yet there ’ s no sign of such a benefit .
He said in our interview : This is another area where Sweden has stayed ahead of the curve , as they ’ ve resisted asking the public to wear masks based on lack of evidence of effectiveness and the risk that they offer wearers a false sense of security .
Tegnell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to recommend masks during use of public transportation , but stressed masks “ definitely won ’ t become an optimal solution in any way.
” 24 Sweden Speaks Out Against WHO Warning In late June 2020 , the World Health Organization counted Sweden among European countries at risk of seeing a resurgence of COVID-19 .
The warning was based on WHO data showing Sweden had 155 infections for every 100,000 inhabitants in the past 14 days , a higher rate than in most of Europe.25 Tegnell , however , said that this was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and WHO was confusing Sweden with countries just at the outset of their epidemics .
Instead , any rise in infections is likely due to increases in testing , Tegnell said , adding , “ They didn ’ t call to ask us .
The number of admissions to intensive care is at a very low level and even deaths are starting to go down.
” 26 Time will tell whether Sweden ’ s strategy , which avoided lockdowns and widespread mask usage , turns out to be the right one after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is already on the wall.27

Did Sweden Get COVID Right?
Dr. Mercola, Guest
Waking Times
In the U.S., even as the COVID-19 curve appears to have flattened, and death rates for some groups have fallen to almost zero,1 dire warnings about an ominous “second wave” continue.
Likewise, Sweden, a country that has handled the pandemic differently than most of the globe, is being chided for its looser restrictions and lack of lockdowns, even as data suggest their refusal to implement a full shutdown of their society may have been the best approach after all.
While most other countries instituted stay-at-home orders and shuttered schools and businesses, Sweden did not. While high schools and universities closed and gatherings of more than 50 people were banned, elementary and middle schools, shops and restaurants have remained open during the pandemic.2
Now, news outlets are trying to use Sweden as an example of what not to do to fight COVID-19, citing a high death toll. “The country’s mortality rate from the coronavirus is now 30% higher than that of the United States when adjusted for population size,” CBS News reported,3 but this doesn’t tell the full picture of how Swedes have fared in comparison to the rest of the world.
Sweden May Be Close to Reaching Herd Immunity
If a novel virus is introduced to a population, eventually enough people acquire natural immunity so that the number of susceptible people declines. When the number susceptible is low enough to prevent epidemic growth, the herd immunity threshold, or HIT, has been reached.
With SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, some estimates have suggested that 60% to 70% of the population must be immune before HIT will be reached, but researchers from Oxford, Virginia Tech, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine4 found that when individual variations in susceptibility and exposure are taken into account, the HIT declines to less than 10%.5
Independent news source Off-Guardian6 cited data from Stockholm County, Sweden that showed an HIT of 17%,7 as well as an essay by Brown University Professor Dr. Andrew Bostom, who explained:8
“… [A] respected team of infectious disease epidemiologists from the U.K. and U.S. have concluded: ‘Naturally acquired immunity to SARS-CoV-2 may place populations over the herd immunity threshold once as few as 10-20% of its individuals are immune.'”
And, as pointed out in Conservative Review:9
“… Naturally acquired herd immunity to COVID-19 combined with earnest protection of the vulnerable elderly — especially nursing home and assisted living facility residents — is an eminently reasonable and practical alternative to the dubious panacea of mass compulsory vaccination against the virus.
This strategy was successfully implemented in Malmo, Sweden, which had few COVID-19 deaths by assiduously protecting its elder care homes, while ‘schools remained open, residents carried on drinking in bars and cafes, and the doors of hairdressers and gyms were open throughout.'”
Off-Guardian continues with Stanford’s Nobel-laureate Michael Levitt, who is among those in support of Sweden’s lighter restrictions. Levitt successfully predicted the trajectory of COVID-19 deaths in China, including when the deaths would slow, and has stated that the pandemic would not be as dire as many have predicted.
Have Sweden’s COVID-19 Deaths Peaked?
What’s more, in an interview with The Stanford Daily, Levitt stated in May 2020, “If Sweden stops at about 5,000 or 6,000 deaths, we will know that they’ve reached herd immunity, and we didn’t need to do any kind of lockdown.”10
As of July 17, 2020, there were 5,619 deaths in Sweden due to COVID-19,11 and in a study released by Levitt and colleagues June 30, 2020, which analyzes COVID-19 outbreaks at 3,546 locations worldwide, it’s predicted that Sweden’s total COVID-19 deaths will plateau at about 6,000.12
So far, Levitt is spot-on, and it appears, indeed, that Sweden’s COVID-19 deaths have slowed, peaking at more than 100 deaths per day and now, midsummer, tallying in the low teens. The intensive care unit at Stockholm’s Sodertalje Hospital has also cleared out, housing 77 cases during the pandemic’s peak and only four cases as of July 17, 2020.13
Sweden’s Epidemiologist Calls Lockdowns ‘Madness’
Sweden continues to stand by their handling of the pandemic, despite heavy criticism. The country’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, even described the rest of the world’s lockdowns as “madness,” considering the steep side effects they ultimately cause.
Levitt suggested that not only did lockdowns not save lives, but likely cost lives due to social damage, domestic abuse, divorces, alcoholism and other health conditions that were not treated.14 Bloomberg reported:15
“‘It was as if the world had gone mad, and everything we had discussed was forgotten,’ Tegnell said in a podcast with Swedish Radio … ‘The cases became too many and the political pressure got too strong. And then Sweden stood there rather alone.'”
Tegnell stated that shutting down schools was also unnecessary during the pandemic, and scientists from the Institut Pasteur in France indeed found that there was no significant transmission of COVID-19 in primary schools, either among the students or from students to teachers.16
“The study also confirmed that younger children infected by the novel coronavirus generally do not develop symptoms or present with minor symptoms that may result in a failure to diagnose the virus,” study author Bruno Hoen added.17
Meanwhile, while Sweden has encouraged its citizens to engage in social distancing, mask usage is another story, and Tegnell has stated that there’s little evidence for wearing face masks.18
Stanford Expert Slams Lockdowns
Outside of Sweden, other experts, including epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford University, have also spoken out against statewide lockdown measures in response to COVID-19. Ioannidis suggests that 150 million to 300 million people may have already been infected globally and may have developed antibodies to the virus, and the median infection fatality rate has remained low at about 0.25%.19
As continues to be demonstrated, the elderly and those with underlying health problems appear to be most vulnerable, and protecting such populations should have been a priority. But lockdowns for young, healthy people are far more questionable. Speaking with Greek Reporter, Ioannidis said:20
“The death rate in a given country depends a lot on the age-structure, who are the people infected, and how they are managed. For people younger than 45, the infection fatality rate is almost 0%. For 45 to 70, it is probably about 0.05-0.3%.
For those above 70, it escalates substantially, to 1% or higher for those over 85. For frail, debilitated elderly people with multiple health problems who are infected in nursing homes, it can go up to 25% during major outbreaks in these facilities.”
Overall, Ioannidis said the mathematical models that predicted hospitals would be overrun by COVID-19 patients were “astronomically wrong,” and although a handful of U.S. hospitals did become stressed, no health systems were overrun.
“Conversely,” he said, “the health care system was severely damaged in many places because of the [lockdown] measures taken,” while lockdown measures have also significantly increased the number of people at risk of starvation while leading to financial crisis, unrest and civil strife.21
What’s more, one study even found that 81% of people not exposed to SARS-CoV-2 were still able to mount an immune response against it, which “suggests at least some built-in immune protection from SARS-CoV-2 …”22
US Surgeon General Opposes Mask Mandate
With mask usage becoming an increasingly polarized debate, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams encouraged mask usage but spoke out against making them mandatory due to concerns that it could lead to rebellion.23
In my interview with Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., a former full professor of physics, and a researcher with the Ontario Civil Liberties Association in Canada, we also discussed the controversial topic of masks. Rancourt did a thorough study of the scientific literature on masks, concentrating on evidence showing masks can reduce infection risk, especially viral respiratory diseases.
If there was any significant advantage to wearing a mask to reduce infection risk to either the wearer or others in the vicinity, then it would have been detected in at least one of these trials, yet there’s no sign of such a benefit. He said in our interview:
“It makes no difference if everybody in your team is wearing a mask; it makes no difference if one is and others aren’t. Wearing a mask or being in an environment where masks are being worn or not worn, there’s no difference in terms of your risk of being infected by the viral respiratory disease.
There’s no reduction, period. There are no exceptions. All the studies that have been tabulated, looked at, published, I was not able to find any exceptions, if you constrain yourself to verified outcomes.”
This is another area where Sweden has stayed ahead of the curve, as they’ve resisted asking the public to wear masks based on lack of evidence of effectiveness and the risk that they offer wearers a false sense of security. Tegnell did state that officials are considering whether to recommend masks during use of public transportation, but stressed masks “definitely won’t become an optimal solution in any way.”24
Sweden Speaks Out Against WHO Warning
In late June 2020, the World Health Organization counted Sweden among European countries at risk of seeing a resurgence of COVID-19. The warning was based on WHO data showing Sweden had 155 infections for every 100,000 inhabitants in the past 14 days, a higher rate than in most of Europe.25
Tegnell, however, said that this was a “total misinterpretation of the data” and WHO was confusing Sweden with countries just at the outset of their epidemics. Instead, any rise in infections is likely due to increases in testing, Tegnell said, adding, “They didn’t call to ask us. The number of admissions to intensive care is at a very low level and even deaths are starting to go down.”26
Time will tell whether Sweden’s strategy, which avoided lockdowns and widespread mask usage, turns out to be the right one after all, but some believe the writing is already on the wall.27
“Dr. Michael Levitt and Sweden have been right all along,” Off-Guardian reported. “The only way through COVID-19 is by achieving the modest (10-20%) Herd Immunity Threshold required to have the virus snuff itself out.


wakingtimes--2020-07-27--Leaked Docs Show DHS is Afraid That Masks Will Make Facial Recognition Useless

Leaked Docs Show DHS is Afraid That Masks Will Make Facial Recognition Useless Get the latest Waking Times articles delivered to your inbox .
Sign up here .
As the general public in the United States argues about whether or not we should be wearing masks to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus , law enforcement officials are concerned that facial recognition software could be thwarted , and possibly even broken by people wearing masks .
In a collection of law enforcement documents released by Blueleaks , researchers found a Department of Homeland Security intelligence memo where the agency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mask-wearing could cause for facial recognition technology .
The note , which was published on May 22nd , discussed what the agency described as “ the potential impacts that widespread use of protective masks could have on security operations that incorporate face recognition systems — such as video cameras , image processing hardware and software , and image recognition algorithms — to monitor public spaces during the ongoing Covid-19 public health emergency and in the months after the pandemic subsides.
” The memo went on to suggest that , “ violent extremists and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interest in avoiding face recognition are likely to opportunistically seize upon public safety measures recommending the wearing of face masks to hinder the effectiveness of face recognition systems in public spaces by security partners.
” The agency admitted that its concerns were based on the fact that activists have traditionally expressed desires to thwart facial recognition , and not on any recent events during the ongoing protests .
The report concluded that facial recognition could become increasingly worthless if mask-wearing becomes normalized .
Homeland Security ’ s Customs and Border Protection , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , has also claimed that its technology works on masked faces .
In recent months , some companies have claimed that they are developing facial recognition technology that will work with masks .
However , facial recognition doesn ’ t even work that well under normal circumstances , so it is hard to imagine a working system for masked faces .
Amazon ’ s facial recognition technology falsely identified 27 different professional athletes as criminals .
While it may be true that professional football players have been known to get in trouble from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a failure of the software .
According to a Freedom of Information request filed by Wired , these are actually typical numbers for the facial recognition software used by the South Wales Police .
Data from the department showed that there were false-positive rates of 87 percent and 90 percent for different events .
Similar numbers were released by the FBI in 2016 , with the agency also admitting that their facial recognition database consisted of mostly innocent people since they use driver ’ s license and passport photos for their searches , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact , there is a 50/50 chance that your picture is in a facial recognition database .
Also in 2016 , another study found that facial recognition software disproportionately targeted people with dark skin .

Leaked Docs Show DHS is Afraid That Masks Will Make Facial Recognition Useless
John Vibes, The Mind Unleashed
Waking Times
As the general public in the United States argues about whether or not we should be wearing masks to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, law enforcement officials are concerned that facial recognition software could be thwarted, and possibly even broken by people wearing masks.
In a collection of law enforcement documents released by Blueleaks, researchers found a Department of Homeland Security intelligence memo where the agency expressed concern about the potential problems that mask-wearing could cause for facial recognition technology.
The note, which was published on May 22nd, discussed what the agency described as “the potential impacts that widespread use of protective masks could have on security operations that incorporate face recognition systems — such as video cameras, image processing hardware and software, and image recognition algorithms — to monitor public spaces during the ongoing Covid-19 public health emergency and in the months after the pandemic subsides.” The memo went on to suggest that, “violent extremists and other criminals who have historically maintained an interest in avoiding face recognition are likely to opportunistically seize upon public safety measures recommending the wearing of face masks to hinder the effectiveness of face recognition systems in public spaces by security partners.”
The agency admitted that its concerns were based on the fact that activists have traditionally expressed desires to thwart facial recognition, and not on any recent events during the ongoing protests. The report concluded that facial recognition could become increasingly worthless if mask-wearing becomes normalized.
“We assess face recognition systems used to support security operations in public spaces will be less effective while widespread public use of facemasks, including partial and full face covering, is practiced by the public to limit the spread of Covid-19,” the report stated.
Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, which uses facial recognition screening on international travelers, has also claimed that its technology works on masked faces.
In recent months, some companies have claimed that they are developing facial recognition technology that will work with masks. However, facial recognition doesn’t even work that well under normal circumstances, so it is hard to imagine a working system for masked faces.
Amazon’s facial recognition technology falsely identified 27 different professional athletes as criminals. While it may be true that professional football players have been known to get in trouble from time to time, this is obviously a failure of the software.
According to a Freedom of Information request filed by Wired, these are actually typical numbers for the facial recognition software used by the South Wales Police. Data from the department showed that there were false-positive rates of 87 percent and 90 percent for different events.
Similar numbers were released by the FBI in 2016, with the agency also admitting that their facial recognition database consisted of mostly innocent people since they use driver’s license and passport photos for their searches, in addition to mug shots. In fact, there is a 50/50 chance that your picture is in a facial recognition database. Also in 2016, another study found that facial recognition software disproportionately targeted people with dark skin.
By John Vibes | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com


wakingtimes--2020-07-25--America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilisation

America Before : The Key to Earth ’ s Lost Civilisation Get the latest Waking Times articles delivered to your inbox .
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As the former editor-in-chief ( 1993 to 2007 ) and ongoing writer for Ancient American – a US magazine examining Old World impact on the New World before 1492 – recently released materials regarding pre-Columbian possibilities often come my way .
I was surprised , however , to find that Graham Hancock ’ s latest tome , America Before , compares remarkably with Before Atlantis ( 2013 ) , my own book , published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ title .
Both works go into the Bering land-bridge Theory , megalithic alignments with the Cygnus constellation , Easter Island ’ s moai , Gobekli Tepe , the discoveries of Albert Goodyear , Brazil ’ s Stonehenge , the Meadowcroft Rock shelter , Neanderthals , the Clovis First Controversy , Pedra Furada , etc.
, etc .
Other topics tackled in America Before – Ohio ’ s Great Serpent Mound , North American earthworks , the Piasu Bird , Cahokia , et al .
– were likewise described at length in my earlier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America ( 2006 ) , Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds ( 2008 ) , Unearthing Ancient America ( 2009 ) , Advanced Civilizations of Prehistoric America ( 2010 ) , Lost Worlds of Ancient America ( 2012 ) , Lost Colonies of Ancient America ( 2014 ) , and Lost History of Ancient America ( 2016 ) .
Independent research that arrives at common conclusions tends to validate disparate investigators at work in the same field .
Of them all , Graham Hancock is certainly the best known , thanks to his early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Times , The Independent , The Economist , and The Guardian , which granted him access to major book publishers with international distribution , such as St. Martin ’ s Press , publisher of his latest work .
His Fingerprints of the Gods was a worldwide bestseller .
At the time of its release in 1995 , critics – even those sympathetic to the author ’ s belief in ancient catastrophism – faulted him for merely reworking long-known if not well-publicised information .
But they were forced to admit that Hancock acquainted millions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the deep past .
America Before is not unlike Fingerprints of the Gods in that it introduces an international audience to a version of antiquity not otherwise available in schools or mainstream publications .
America Before also joins Before Atlantis in highlighting “ a global cataclysm that occurred near the end of the Ice Age around twelve thousand eight hundred years ago .
A disintegrating comet crossed the orbit of the Earth and bombarded our planet with a ‘ swarm ’ of fragments.
” Familiar language to readers already familiar with The Destruction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sequel .
Survivors of Atlantis ( 2004 ) similarly tells how an abundance of physical proof for worldwide destruction left by comets during the Bronze Age was offered by scientists meeting at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge , England .
In 1997 they presented undeniable evidence in the form of annual growth rings at Irish bogs and oak forests , ash-fall deposits from Greenland ice-cores , impact lines made by colossal waves along the shores of Morocco , abrupt lake level changes from Western Europe to South America , and small , glassy spherules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rock to intense heat .
Earth ’ s periodic brushes with celestial upheaval belong to a pattern of astronomical interface with our planet that abruptly terminated the Ice Age , as described in America Before and earlier in Before Atlantis .
Buried in the floor of Lake Cuitzeo was a thin , dark layer containing unequivocal evidence for a large , cosmic body that struck central Mexico just when the Younger Dryas period opened with such violence .
Virtually identical sediment strata dated to the same period have been previously located at numerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Western Europe .
According to Science Daily , “ The data suggest that a comet or asteroid – likely a large , previously fragmented body , greater than several hundred meters in diameter – entered the atmosphere at a relatively shallow angle .
The heat at impact burned biomass , melted surface rocks , and caused major environmental disruption.
” The resulting crater became Lake Cuitzeo , measuring twelve and one-half miles across , with an average depth of ninety feet .
The floor of Lake Cuitzeo is rich in spherules formed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high velocities during the whirling chaos of an extraterrestrial impact .
They are joined by numerous specimens of lonsdaleite – an identifiable configuration nanodiamonds assume when they are pressured by large meteorite collisions – and aciniform soot , the acne-like appearance of dust residue resulting from the same cause .
“ These materials form only through cosmic impact , ” Kennett explained , not through volcanic or other natural terrestrial processes .
In the entire geologic record , the only other known continental layer with abundant peaks in lonsdaleite , impact spherules and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boundary layer that coincided with the extinction of the dinosaurs .
Some thirty years prior to Camacho ’ s find , a still older site came to light one mile north from the Oklahoma town of Frederick , at a ten-mile-long , half-mile-wide ridge .
Ten to twenty-five feet beneath the surface of this gravel deposit occur dozens of well-crafted stone implements cemented in place in common strata with the bones of extinct animals firmly dated to seven hundred fifty thousand years ago .
C.N .
Gould , Director of the Oklahoma Geological @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be no doubt that the artifacts occur in the pit near the basal portion , on the same level as the fossil remains .
An examination of the undisturbed face of the pit , immediately above the position of the finds , showed unbroken , nearly horizontal strata above it .
As the case stands , it looks very much as though the artifacts are of the same antiquity as the fossil animals .
At the same time , it would be well to reserve final judgment until we are certain that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gould released his report in 1929 , subsequent investigations of the Holoman Pit , as it is locally known , repeatedly confirmed that the stone tools are not later inclusions but were indeed laid down at the same time the animal bones were stratified , three quarters of a million years ago .
As recently as 2005 , archaeologist Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool ’ s John Moore ’ s University in England discovered a line of human footprints dating back forty thousand years ago near Puebla , in Mexico .
Conventional scholars , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America before twelve thousand years ago , sought to debunk the heretical period she assigned the evidence by dispatching a team of leading geologists led by Paul R. Renne , director of California ’ s Berkeley Geochronology Center , to the site .
Once there , they took repeated argon testing to investigate the magnetic imprint of the foot-printed , magmatic rock , together with other state-of-the-art procedures .
Renne announced their results in the scientific journal Nature , stating that the rock featuring the footprints was not forty thousand years old after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1.3 million years old .
During the early 20th century , archaeologist Carlos Ameghino ( 1865 to 1936 ) led teams of excavators along the Argentine coast south of Buenos Aires after detecting clues to an early habitation site at Miramar .
By 1914 , he discovered numerous stone tools cemented within Pliocene Era strata .
As Silvia Gomez experienced in the following century , Ameghino ’ s critics commissioned a group of professional geologists to debunk his assertion .
Instead , they verified it , stating that the artefacts had been laid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years ago .
Although their analysis was released by the prestigious Anales del Museo de Historica Natural de Buenos Aires , it has since been ignored by archaeologists in the outside world .
The vast Amazon region has long been dismissed by mainstream scholars as anciently under-populated and barren of all but the most backward , native cultures , hermetically sealed off by nature from the outside world .
Hancock writes , “ in September 2015 , Pontus Skoglund , his senior colleague Professor David Reich of the Department of Genetics at Harvard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the field , announced in the pages of Nature that they had found new evidence in South America , and specifically in the Amazon rainforest , that called for a rethink.
” This is undoubtedly one of the most striking revelations ever made in the entire history of archaeology , as inexplicable as it is astounding .
It does not mean that a few Australoid castaways accidentally washed ashore on Peruvian shores , then somehow traversed the formidable Andes Mountains and descended into Brazil ’ s totally different , but no less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few , indigenous individuals .
Rather , DNA evidence signifies a mass-migration of Australo-Melanesians to Amazonia , where they interbred with native peoples on such a broad scale some ten and a half centuries ago , the genetic imprint is still discernible .
Their epic , 12,940–kilometre , trans-Pacific voyage to coastal Peru and subsequent 1,890–kilometre trek to Brazilian rain forest were successfully achieved at a time when Western European Man was struggling to survive the challenging Upper Paleolithic , or Late Stone Age .
Australia ’ s contemporaneous material culture was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even approaching an oceanic crossing of such magnitude , not only in terms of the extreme distances concerned , but especially regarding the large number of persons participating in the expedition , or expeditions .
The maritime technological requirements necessary for conducting an operation of transpacific scope alone rule out all possibilities for Australoid responsibility .
Moreover , what conceivable motivation could have possessed them to attempt such a huge enterprise ?
Hancock wonders if a third party was involved – a different , unrelated , unknown , though far higher culture that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transported Australo-Melanesians to Amazonia .
Speculation like this begins to conjure ‘ legendary ’ Lemuria , the pre-Polynesian civilisation that rose to ancient heights of technological greatness and imperialist domination of the Pacific realm , before succumbing to a natural catastrophe sufficiently powerful enough to shake the very foundations of the Earth itself .
Hancock , however , shies away from any Lemurian connotations .
Ancient Amazonia Rises Out of the Cleared Forests Even so , America Before ’ s most valuable and original contribution to our deepening grasp of antiquity is its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world hitherto neglected by conventional and alternative researchers alike .
They traditionally laboured under the assumption that Brazil ’ s rain forest was always far too environmentally hostile for civilisation to have taken root there .
Hancock cites the academic view “ that the Amazon could only have been inhabited for about 1,000 years , and then only by very small groups of hunter-gatherers , since the jungle was ‘ resource poor ’ .
” Among the very few archaeologists who personally challenged this dominant paradigm was Percy Harrison Fawcett .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Z during 1925 seemed to confirm consensus opinion that no such place could possibly exist in the Brazilian jungle , and America Before is remiss in failing to properly credit or even mention in passing the British Colonel , whose self-sacrificial , if percipient effort foreshadowed the very discoveries Hancock describes in Chapters 11 through 17 .
Together with the two previous chapters detailing Amazonia ’ s genetic connection with Ice Age Australia , they combine to represent the book ’ s highest worth .
Nowhere else may readers learn more about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ archaeological wealth .
He tells how the first modern Europeans travelling the Amazon River from Ecuador to its estuary on the Atlantic coast of Brazil saw “ great cities ” that “ glistened in white ” ( suggesting limestone construction , like that favoured by Maya construction engineers ) during their 7,000-kilometre , seventeen-month journey .
Some of these urban centres were “ more than twenty kilometres from end to end , roughly the length of Manhattan… enormous expanses were given over to productive agriculture , and there were signs everywhere of large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to centralised states that were capable of fielding disciplined armies thousands strong.
” Hancock quotes the mid-16th century expedition ’ s Spanish chronicler , Dominican friar Gaspar de Carvajal , concerning an abandoned , native “ villa , in which were a great deal of porcelain ware of various makes , both jars and pitchers , very large , with a capacity of more than twenty-five arrobas [ one hundred gallons ] and other small pieces such as plates and bowls and candelabra of this porcelain of the best that has ever been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Malaga [ Spain ’ s centre for pottery production ] is not its equal , because this porcelain which we found is all glazed and embellished with all colours , and so bright , that these colours astonish , and , more than this , the drawings and paintings which they make on them are so accurately worked out that one wonders how with only natural skill they manufacture and decorate all these things making them look just like Roman articles.
” Native porcelain of such high quality does not appear in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carvajal and his companions saw was greater than twenty kilometres in extent , with a population of twenty thousand or more residents .
Their chieftain , Machiparo , also ruled over “ many settlements and very large ones , which together contribute for fighting purposes fifty thousand men… ” It was the first of many related sites that have since come to light , including a pair of perfect squares – 200 metres and 100 metres wide – connected by a 20-metre-wide , 100-metre-long causeway .
Archaeologists estimate “ that as many as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Severino Calazans , the largest Amazonian structure of its kind so far surveyed , “ defined by an enclosure ditch twelve metres wide , measures 920 metres.
” This particular location and other , outsized designs “ have since been revealed by mass clearing of the forest for the cattle industry , thus becoming visible , especially from the sky , over the past 30 years .
Indeed , the enormous size of the geoglyphs makes it easier to distinguish their shape and configuration from an aerial perspective , than at ground level… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Before , they can not deny that its unique discussion of the lost civilisation of the Amazon , plus revelations concerning the mind-boggling heritage of its present-day descendants from 9th millennium BCE Australia , opens new vistas of antiquity , as trailblazing , as they are intriguing .
Frank Joseph has published more books ( eight ) about the lost civilisation of Atlantis than any other writer in history .
These and his twenty other titles dealing with archaeology , military history and metaphysics have been released in thirty-seven foreign editions around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ancient American , a popular science magazine , from its inception in 1993 until his retirement fourteen years later .
He lives today with his wife , Laura , in the Upper Mississippi Valley of the United States .
The above article appeared in New Dawn 175 ( Jul-Aug 2019 )

America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilisation
Frank Joseph, New Dawn
Waking Times
As the former editor-in-chief (1993 to 2007) and ongoing writer for Ancient American – a US magazine examining Old World impact on the New World before 1492 – recently released materials regarding pre-Columbian possibilities often come my way. I was surprised, however, to find that Graham Hancock’s latest tome, America Before, compares remarkably with Before Atlantis (2013), my own book, published six years earlier, in more than title.
Both works go into the Bering land-bridge Theory, megalithic alignments with the Cygnus constellation, Easter Island’s moai, Gobekli Tepe, the discoveries of Albert Goodyear, Brazil’s Stonehenge, the Meadowcroft Rock shelter, Neanderthals, the Clovis First Controversy, Pedra Furada, etc., etc. Other topics tackled in America Before – Ohio’s Great Serpent Mound, North American earthworks, the Piasu Bird, Cahokia, et al. – were likewise described at length in my earlier releases: Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America (2006), Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds (2008), Unearthing Ancient America (2009), Advanced Civilizations of Prehistoric America (2010), Lost Worlds of Ancient America (2012), Lost Colonies of Ancient America (2014), and Lost History of Ancient America (2016).
Independent research that arrives at common conclusions tends to validate disparate investigators at work in the same field. Of them all, Graham Hancock is certainly the best known, thanks to his early association with such prestigious periodicals as The Times, The Independent, The Economist, and The Guardian, which granted him access to major book publishers with international distribution, such as St. Martin’s Press, publisher of his latest work. His Fingerprints of the Gods was a worldwide bestseller. At the time of its release in 1995, critics – even those sympathetic to the author’s belief in ancient catastrophism – faulted him for merely reworking long-known if not well-publicised information. But they were forced to admit that Hancock acquainted millions of readers with otherwise neglected information about the deep past.
America Before is not unlike Fingerprints of the Gods in that it introduces an international audience to a version of antiquity not otherwise available in schools or mainstream publications. America Before also joins Before Atlantis in highlighting “a global cataclysm that occurred near the end of the Ice Age around twelve thousand eight hundred years ago. A disintegrating comet crossed the orbit of the Earth and bombarded our planet with a ‘swarm’ of fragments.” Familiar language to readers already familiar with The Destruction of Atlantis (2002) and its sequel. Survivors of Atlantis (2004) similarly tells how an abundance of physical proof for worldwide destruction left by comets during the Bronze Age was offered by scientists meeting at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge, England.
In 1997 they presented undeniable evidence in the form of annual growth rings at Irish bogs and oak forests, ash-fall deposits from Greenland ice-cores, impact lines made by colossal waves along the shores of Morocco, abrupt lake level changes from Western Europe to South America, and small, glassy spherules that result specifically from cometary collisions subjecting rock to intense heat. Earth’s periodic brushes with celestial upheaval belong to a pattern of astronomical interface with our planet that abruptly terminated the Ice Age, as described in America Before and earlier in Before Atlantis.
Buried in the floor of Lake Cuitzeo was a thin, dark layer containing unequivocal evidence for a large, cosmic body that struck central Mexico just when the Younger Dryas period opened with such violence. Virtually identical sediment strata dated to the same period have been previously located at numerous locations throughout North America, Greenland, and Western Europe. According to Science Daily, “The data suggest that a comet or asteroid – likely a large, previously fragmented body, greater than several hundred meters in diameter – entered the atmosphere at a relatively shallow angle. The heat at impact burned biomass, melted surface rocks, and caused major environmental disruption.” The resulting crater became Lake Cuitzeo, measuring twelve and one-half miles across, with an average depth of ninety feet.
Dr James Kennett, professor of earth science at the University of California (Santa Barbara), told the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “These results are consistent with earlier reported discoveries throughout North America of abrupt ecosystem change, megafaunal extinction, and human cultural change and population reduction. These changes were large, abrupt and unprecedented, and had been recorded and identified by earlier investigators at a ‘time of crisis’. The timing of the impact coincided with the most extraordinary biotic and environmental changes over Mexico and Central America during the last approximately twenty thousand years, as recorded by others in several regional lake deposits.”
The floor of Lake Cuitzeo is rich in spherules formed when they collided with each other at high velocities during the whirling chaos of an extraterrestrial impact. They are joined by numerous specimens of lonsdaleite – an identifiable configuration nanodiamonds assume when they are pressured by large meteorite collisions – and aciniform soot, the acne-like appearance of dust residue resulting from the same cause. “These materials form only through cosmic impact,” Kennett explained, not through volcanic or other natural terrestrial processes. In the entire geologic record, the only other known continental layer with abundant peaks in lonsdaleite, impact spherules and aciniform soot is in the sixty-five-million-year-old Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary layer that coincided with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Evidence for Early Human Settlement
“Recent discoveries show that North America was first peopled at least one hundred thirty thousand years ago,” according to Hancock, “many tens of thousands of years before human settlements were established in Europe and Asia.” Homo sapiens-sapiens? Yes, but the European continent was actually settled one hundred seventy thousand years earlier by Neanderthals. In fact, the oldest evidence for proto-humans in Europe goes back 1.3 million years. “At least” is a bit of an understatement for human settlement in the New World, because Before Atlantis describes how prehistorian Juan Armena Camacho discovered lithic implements at Hueyatlaco, seventy miles south-east of Mexico City. According to US geologist Dr Virginia Steen-McIntyre, “radiometric dates using methods identical to those used in Africa to date the early sites there place Hueyatlaco’s stone tools to slightly over a quarter of a million years ago.”
Some thirty years prior to Camacho’s find, a still older site came to light one mile north from the Oklahoma town of Frederick, at a ten-mile-long, half-mile-wide ridge. Ten to twenty-five feet beneath the surface of this gravel deposit occur dozens of well-crafted stone implements cemented in place in common strata with the bones of extinct animals firmly dated to seven hundred fifty thousand years ago. C.N. Gould, Director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, reported: “There can be no doubt that the artifacts occur in the pit near the basal portion, on the same level as the fossil remains. An examination of the undisturbed face of the pit, immediately above the position of the finds, showed unbroken, nearly horizontal strata above it. As the case stands, it looks very much as though the artifacts are of the same antiquity as the fossil animals. At the same time, it would be well to reserve final judgment until we are certain that the artifacts are not secondary inclusions.”
Since Gould released his report in 1929, subsequent investigations of the Holoman Pit, as it is locally known, repeatedly confirmed that the stone tools are not later inclusions but were indeed laid down at the same time the animal bones were stratified, three quarters of a million years ago. As recently as 2005, archaeologist Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool’s John Moore’s University in England discovered a line of human footprints dating back forty thousand years ago near Puebla, in Mexico. Conventional scholars, convinced no human set foot in Middle America before twelve thousand years ago, sought to debunk the heretical period she assigned the evidence by dispatching a team of leading geologists led by Paul R. Renne, director of California’s Berkeley Geochronology Center, to the site.
Once there, they took repeated argon testing to investigate the magnetic imprint of the foot-printed, magmatic rock, together with other state-of-the-art procedures. Renne announced their results in the scientific journal Nature, stating that the rock featuring the footprints was not forty thousand years old after all. It was, instead, 1.3 million years old.
During the early 20th century, archaeologist Carlos Ameghino (1865 to 1936) led teams of excavators along the Argentine coast south of Buenos Aires after detecting clues to an early habitation site at Miramar. By 1914, he discovered numerous stone tools cemented within Pliocene Era strata. As Silvia Gomez experienced in the following century, Ameghino’s critics commissioned a group of professional geologists to debunk his assertion. Instead, they verified it, stating that the artefacts had been laid down between two million and three million years ago. Although their analysis was released by the prestigious Anales del Museo de Historica Natural de Buenos Aires, it has since been ignored by archaeologists in the outside world.
Australia-Amazon: An Unexpected Discovery
“Certain tribes of the Amazon jungle,” states America Before’s back cover blurb, “are closely related to Australian Aborigines. How did this extraordinary, unexpected, and extremely ancient DNA signal get to the Amazon?” This question elevates Hancock’s new book with fresh discoveries that threaten to shake the scientific establishment to its core by opening an entirely new and revolutionary archaeological theatre of operations.
The vast Amazon region has long been dismissed by mainstream scholars as anciently under-populated and barren of all but the most backward, native cultures, hermetically sealed off by nature from the outside world. Hancock writes, “in September 2015, Pontus Skoglund, his senior colleague Professor David Reich of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and other leading experts in the field, announced in the pages of Nature that they had found new evidence in South America, and specifically in the Amazon rainforest, that called for a rethink.”
He quotes Skoglund’s “genome-wide data to show that some Amazonian Native Americans descend partly from a Native American founding population that carried ancestry more closely related to indigenous Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders than to present-day Eurasians or Native Americans,” and are, in Hancock’s words, “more closely related to Melanesian Papuans and Australian Aborigines than to any other Native American population.” “We spent a really long time trying to make this result go away,” Skoglund explained, “but it just got stronger.” In the end, “a statistically clear signal linking Native Americans in the Amazonian region of Brazil to present-day Australo-Melanesians and Andaman Islanders” was confirmed. “We also know it has to be pre-Columbian,” added Professor Eske Willerslev of Denmark’s Center for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen. Further studies by Willerslev and his colleagues “found Australian DNA already present in skeletal remains from Lagoa Santa, Brazil, dated to 10,400 years ago, and confirmed the suspicion of the researchers that the anomalous genetic signal must have reached South America in the Late Pleistocene – that is, near the end of the last Ice Age, [when] a group of people carrying Australo-Melanesian genes settled in what is now the Amazon jungle.”
This is undoubtedly one of the most striking revelations ever made in the entire history of archaeology, as inexplicable as it is astounding. It does not mean that a few Australoid castaways accidentally washed ashore on Peruvian shores, then somehow traversed the formidable Andes Mountains and descended into Brazil’s totally different, but no less forbidding jungle, where they cohabited with a few, indigenous individuals.
Rather, DNA evidence signifies a mass-migration of Australo-Melanesians to Amazonia, where they interbred with native peoples on such a broad scale some ten and a half centuries ago, the genetic imprint is still discernible. Their epic, 12,940–kilometre, trans-Pacific voyage to coastal Peru and subsequent 1,890–kilometre trek to Brazilian rain forest were successfully achieved at a time when Western European Man was struggling to survive the challenging Upper Paleolithic, or Late Stone Age. Australia’s contemporaneous material culture was itself far too underdeveloped for undertaking anything even approaching an oceanic crossing of such magnitude, not only in terms of the extreme distances concerned, but especially regarding the large number of persons participating in the expedition, or expeditions.
The maritime technological requirements necessary for conducting an operation of transpacific scope alone rule out all possibilities for Australoid responsibility. Moreover, what conceivable motivation could have possessed them to attempt such a huge enterprise? Hancock wonders if a third party was involved – a different, unrelated, unknown, though far higher culture that, for reasons even more obscure, transported Australo-Melanesians to Amazonia.
Speculation like this begins to conjure ‘legendary’ Lemuria, the pre-Polynesian civilisation that rose to ancient heights of technological greatness and imperialist domination of the Pacific realm, before succumbing to a natural catastrophe sufficiently powerful enough to shake the very foundations of the Earth itself. Hancock, however, shies away from any Lemurian connotations.
Ancient Amazonia Rises Out of the Cleared Forests
Even so, America Before’s most valuable and original contribution to our deepening grasp of antiquity is its investigation of Amazonia, an area of the world hitherto neglected by conventional and alternative researchers alike. They traditionally laboured under the assumption that Brazil’s rain forest was always far too environmentally hostile for civilisation to have taken root there. Hancock cites the academic view “that the Amazon could only have been inhabited for about 1,000 years, and then only by very small groups of hunter-gatherers, since the jungle was ‘resource poor’.”
Among the very few archaeologists who personally challenged this dominant paradigm was Percy Harrison Fawcett. His disappearance in search of the lost city of Z during 1925 seemed to confirm consensus opinion that no such place could possibly exist in the Brazilian jungle, and America Before is remiss in failing to properly credit or even mention in passing the British Colonel, whose self-sacrificial, if percipient effort foreshadowed the very discoveries Hancock describes in Chapters 11 through 17.
Together with the two previous chapters detailing Amazonia’s genetic connection with Ice Age Australia, they combine to represent the book’s highest worth. Nowhere else may readers learn more about the Amazon Basin’s otherwise unknown archaeological wealth.
He tells how the first modern Europeans travelling the Amazon River from Ecuador to its estuary on the Atlantic coast of Brazil saw “great cities” that “glistened in white” (suggesting limestone construction, like that favoured by Maya construction engineers) during their 7,000-kilometre, seventeen-month journey. Some of these urban centres were “more than twenty kilometres from end to end, roughly the length of Manhattan… enormous expanses were given over to productive agriculture, and there were signs everywhere of large and well-organised political and economic systems linked to centralised states that were capable of fielding disciplined armies thousands strong.”
Hancock quotes the mid-16th century expedition’s Spanish chronicler, Dominican friar Gaspar de Carvajal, concerning an abandoned, native “villa, in which were a great deal of porcelain ware of various makes, both jars and pitchers, very large, with a capacity of more than twenty-five arrobas [one hundred gallons] and other small pieces such as plates and bowls and candelabra of this porcelain of the best that has ever been seen in the world, for that of Malaga [Spain’s centre for pottery production] is not its equal, because this porcelain which we found is all glazed and embellished with all colours, and so bright, that these colours astonish, and, more than this, the drawings and paintings which they make on them are so accurately worked out that one wonders how with only natural skill they manufacture and decorate all these things making them look just like Roman articles.” Native porcelain of such high quality does not appear in Brazilian archaeology.
The largest native city Carvajal and his companions saw was greater than twenty kilometres in extent, with a population of twenty thousand or more residents. Their chieftain, Machiparo, also ruled over “many settlements and very large ones, which together contribute for fighting purposes fifty thousand men…”
Two, subsequent expeditions, twenty years later and 1637-38, respectively, supported Carvajal’s report. Hancock quotes UCLA Professor David Wilkinson, “an authority on long-term and large-scale phenomena in world politics [who] has made a special study of the level of civilisation in the Amazon prior to European contact.” Based on a late 17th-century report that one of Brazil’s native cities could field 60,000 warriors, Wilkinson found “comparative-civilisational standards have implied an urban population of 300,000 to 360,000.” He goes on to describe “more than 30 epidemics – smallpox, measles, and other outbreaks – some on a massive scale – in 16th-18th century South America.” With fatal consequences in the upper ninety percentile, the Amazonian metropolitan areas literally died out though depopulation. “Once left deserted,” Hancock explains, “the great cities and monuments and other public works of any hypothetical Amazonian civilisation would quickly have been encroached upon and soon completely hidden by the jungle…” They only began re-emerging in 1977, “when giant, geometrical earthworks were discovered in the Rio Branco area of the Brazilian state of Acre, in the southwestern Amazon.”
It was the first of many related sites that have since come to light, including a pair of perfect squares – 200 metres and 100 metres wide – connected by a 20-metre-wide, 100-metre-long causeway. Archaeologists estimate “that as many as 1,500 geoglyphs might ultimately be found.” Severino Calazans, the largest Amazonian structure of its kind so far surveyed, “defined by an enclosure ditch twelve metres wide, measures 920 metres.” This particular location and other, outsized designs “have since been revealed by mass clearing of the forest for the cattle industry, thus becoming visible, especially from the sky, over the past 30 years. Indeed, the enormous size of the geoglyphs makes it easier to distinguish their shape and configuration from an aerial perspective, than at ground level…”
Groups are composed chiefly of circles, ellipses and rectangles, suggesting possible celestial orientations. Hancock writes that “because they offer an unobstructed view of the horizon, such locations are also very often what ancient astronomers looked for when they set out monuments on the ground – aligned, say, to the June solstice sunset or to the March equinox sunrise. Without a full-scale archaeo-astronomical survey of the Amazonian geoglyphs,” however, their suspected celestial significance remains unproven. Their resemblance to Old World Stone Age sites nevertheless inspires provocative comparisons. Hancock tells how “the square enclosure ditch at Severino Calazans shares the ground plan, base diameter and cardinality [orientation to the Four Cardinal Directions] of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. That epoch, moreover, around 2500 BC, coincides and overlaps with the megalithic epoch in Europe, so another curiosity is the way that the circular geoglyphs of Amazonia resemble henges – the circular embankments with deep, internal ditches that surround the great, stone circles of the British Isles. The scale is very similar and the resemblance is so obvious that even the most sober archaeologists, usually wary of cross-cultural comparisons, are willing to remark upon it.”
Whatever critics may make of America Before, they cannot deny that its unique discussion of the lost civilisation of the Amazon, plus revelations concerning the mind-boggling heritage of its present-day descendants from 9th millennium BCE Australia, opens new vistas of antiquity, as trailblazing, as they are intriguing.
About the Author
Frank Joseph has published more books (eight) about the lost civilisation of Atlantis than any other writer in history. These and his twenty other titles dealing with archaeology, military history and metaphysics have been released in thirty-seven foreign editions around the world. He was the editor-in-chief of Ancient American, a popular science magazine, from its inception in 1993 until his retirement fourteen years later. He lives today with his wife, Laura, in the Upper Mississippi Valley of the United States.
The above article appeared in New Dawn 175 (Jul-Aug 2019)


wakingtimes--2020-07-25--Kansas City Decriminalizes Marijuana Possession Despite Federal Prohibition

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Last week , the Kansas City City Council voted to decriminalize marijuana possession and eliminate all penalties in the city despite federal prohibition .
Mayor Quinton Lucas ( D ) , along with four members of the city council , filed the measure last month .
The ordinance repeals a provision in the Kansas City Code of Ordinances setting criminal penalties for marijuana possession .
Under the former law , possession of 35 grams or less of marijuana carried a $ 25 fine , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ punishable by a $ 500 fine .
Under the new law , “ Possession or control of marijuana is not a violation of the Code of Ordinances.
” The council approved the measure by a 9-4 vote .
Marijuana possession for non-medical use remains a criminal offense under Missouri state law , but the new ordinance will disincentivize enforcement efforts in Kansas City and likely change policing priorities .
minimizing marijuana arrests and prosecutions .
Under the federal Controlled Substances Act ( CSA ) passed in 1970 , the federal government maintains complete @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the federal government lacks any constitutional authority to ban or regulate cannabis within the borders of a state , despite the opinion of the politically connected lawyers on the Supreme Court .
If you doubt this , ask yourself why it took a constitutional amendment to institute federal alcohol prohibition .
Despite federal prohibition , Missouri legalized medical marijuana via ballot measure in 2018 .
Decriminalization of marijuana in Kansas City removes yet another layer of laws punishing the possession and use of marijuana in the state , but federal prohibition remains in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statistics show that law enforcement makes approximately 99 of 100 marijuana arrests under state , not federal law .
When states stop enforcing marijuana laws , they sweep away most of the basis for 99 percent of marijuana arrests .
Furthermore , figures indicate it would take 40 percent of the DEA ’ s yearly-budget just to investigate and raid all of the dispensaries in Los Angeles – a single city in a single state .
That doesn ’ t include the cost of prosecution .
The lesson ?
The feds lack the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assistance .
Kansas City joins a growing number of states and localities increasingly ignoring federal prohibition , and nullifying it in practice .
Colorado , Washington state , Oregon and Alaska were the first states to legalize recreational cannabis , and California , Nevada , Maine and Massachusetts joined them after ballot initiatives in favor of legalization passed in November 2016 .
Michigan followed suit when voters legalized cannabis for general use in 2018 .
Vermont became the first state to legalize marijuana through a legislative act in 2018 .
Illinois followed suit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allowing cannabis for medical use , the feds find themselves in a position where they simply can ’ t enforce prohibition anymore .
The lesson here is pretty straightforward .
When enough people say , ‘ No !
’ to the federal government , and enough states pass laws backing those people up , there ’ s not much the feds can do to shove their so-called laws , regulations or mandates down our throats .
Michael Maharrey [ send him email ] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’ 98 – Kentucky .
See his blog archive here and his article archive here .
He is the author of the book , Our Last Hope : Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty .
You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.co .

Kansas City Decriminalizes Marijuana Possession Despite Federal Prohibition
Michael Maharrey, Guest
Waking Times
Last week, the Kansas City City Council voted to decriminalize marijuana possession and eliminate all penalties in the city despite federal prohibition.
Mayor Quinton Lucas (D), along with four members of the city council, filed the measure last month. The ordinance repeals a provision in the Kansas City Code of Ordinances setting criminal penalties for marijuana possession. Under the former law, possession of 35 grams or less of marijuana carried a $25 fine, and possession of more than 35 grams was punishable by a $500 fine. Under the new law, “Possession or control of marijuana is not a violation of the Code of Ordinances.”
The council approved the measure by a 9-4 vote.
“The City doesn’t need to be in the marijuana policing business—and we remain focused on helping open doors to new opportunities & empowering people to make a decent living,” Mayor Lucas said in a tweet.
Marijuana possession for non-medical use remains a criminal offense under Missouri state law, but the new ordinance will disincentivize enforcement efforts in Kansas City and likely change policing priorities. minimizing marijuana arrests and prosecutions.
EFFECT ON FEDERAL PROHIBITION
Under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) passed in 1970, the federal government maintains complete prohibition of marijuana. Of course, the federal government lacks any constitutional authority to ban or regulate cannabis within the borders of a state, despite the opinion of the politically connected lawyers on the Supreme Court. If you doubt this, ask yourself why it took a constitutional amendment to institute federal alcohol prohibition.
Despite federal prohibition, Missouri legalized medical marijuana via ballot measure in 2018. Decriminalization of marijuana in Kansas City removes yet another layer of laws punishing the possession and use of marijuana in the state, but federal prohibition remains in effect. This is significant because FBI statistics show that law enforcement makes approximately 99 of 100 marijuana arrests under state, not federal law. When states stop enforcing marijuana laws, they sweep away most of the basis for 99 percent of marijuana arrests.
Furthermore, figures indicate it would take 40 percent of the DEA’s yearly-budget just to investigate and raid all of the dispensaries in Los Angeles – a single city in a single state. That doesn’t include the cost of prosecution. The lesson? The feds lack the resources to enforce marijuana prohibition without state assistance.
A GROWING MOVEMENT
Kansas City joins a growing number of states and localities increasingly ignoring federal prohibition, and nullifying it in practice.
Colorado, Washington state, Oregon and Alaska were the first states to legalize recreational cannabis, and California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts joined them after ballot initiatives in favor of legalization passed in November 2016. Michigan followed suit when voters legalized cannabis for general use in 2018. Vermont became the first state to legalize marijuana through a legislative act in 2018. Illinois followed suit in 2019.
With 33 states including allowing cannabis for medical use, the feds find themselves in a position where they simply can’t enforce prohibition anymore.
The lesson here is pretty straightforward. When enough people say, ‘No!’ to the federal government, and enough states pass laws backing those people up, there’s not much the feds can do to shove their so-called laws, regulations or mandates down our throats.
About the Author
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center, where this article first appeared. He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky. See his blog archive here and his article archive here. He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.co.


wakingtimes--2020-07-25--Former ‘Queen of Porn’ Posts Series of Tweets Claiming Her Insights Into Hollywood Pedophilia

Former ‘ Queen of Porn ’ Posts Series of Tweets Claiming Her Insights Into Hollywood Pedophilia Get the latest Waking Times articles delivered to your inbox .
Sign up here .
The legendary porn star Jenna Jameson has become increasingly outspoken since her departure from the profession in 2008 , and regularly comments on social media about people in the entertainment industry .
Last week , the former adult actress posted a few disturbing tweets with accusations about rampant pedophilia and child abuse in the entertainment industry .
She also called out the online platform periscope for hosting child abuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ child abuse in Hollywood and among the wealthy elite are certainly credible .
For the past several years the news has been filled with stories of people like Harvey Weinstein , Jeffrey Epstein , and Keith Raniere .
However , she also talks about plenty of things that there isn ’ t any proof for , including “ child hunting games ” as well as “ sacrifice ” and “ torture of children.
” Jameson was trafficked by her ex-boyfriend and his father when she was young , and this is an issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her page , but the posts are a mix of verifiable information and baseless conspiracy theories .
While child trafficking is a very real problem in the world , and child abuse certainly exists in the entertainment industry , her claims are to be taken with a grain of salt , because in the past few years she has started to develop a reputation for making unsubstantiated claims about other people in the industry .
In May , the actress Hillary Duff was forced to respond to accusations that she was attempting to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a conspiracy theory about her go viral .
Since putting her support behind Donald Trump in 2015 , she has expressed a number of other controversial views , including hostility towards Islam , support for military action against Iran , and showing support for a rapper who admitted to taking his daughter to the doctor for virginity checks .
She has also provoked anger among the LGBTQ community for her comments about Playboy featuring a transgender model .
Earlier this year , fueled by another right-wing conspiracy theory , Jameson accused Buzzfeed reporter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ John Vibes is an author and journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture , and focuses solutions-oriented approaches to social problems .
He is also a host of The Free Your Mind Conference and The Free Thought Project Podcast .

Former ‘Queen of Porn’ Posts Series of Tweets Claiming Her Insights Into Hollywood Pedophilia
John Vibes, Truth Theory
Waking Times
The legendary porn star Jenna Jameson has become increasingly outspoken since her departure from the profession in 2008, and regularly comments on social media about people in the entertainment industry. Last week, the former adult actress posted a few disturbing tweets with accusations about rampant pedophilia and child abuse in the entertainment industry. She also called out the online platform periscope for hosting child abuse footage.
http://twitter.com/jennajameson/status/1283939583269335041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1283939583269335041%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftruththeory.com%2F2020%2F07%2F21%2Fformer-queen-of-porn-posts-series-of-tweets-claiming-her-insights-into-hollywood-pedophilia%2F
Her claims that there is child abuse in Hollywood and among the wealthy elite are certainly credible. For the past several years the news has been filled with stories of people like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and Keith Raniere. However, she also talks about plenty of things that there isn’t any proof for, including “child hunting games” as well as “sacrifice” and “torture of children.”
http://twitter.com/jennajameson/status/1283509408274636802?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1283509408274636802%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftruththeory.com%2F2020%2F07%2F21%2Fformer-queen-of-porn-posts-series-of-tweets-claiming-her-insights-into-hollywood-pedophilia%2F
Jameson was trafficked by her ex-boyfriend and his father when she was young, and this is an issue that she posts about a lot on her page, but the posts are a mix of verifiable information and baseless conspiracy theories. While child trafficking is a very real problem in the world, and child abuse certainly exists in the entertainment industry, her claims are to be taken with a grain of salt, because in the past few years she has started to develop a reputation for making unsubstantiated claims about other people in the industry.
In May, the actress Hillary Duff was forced to respond to accusations that she was attempting to sell her child online after Jameson helped a conspiracy theory about her go viral. Since putting her support behind Donald Trump in 2015, she has expressed a number of other controversial views, including hostility towards Islam, support for military action against Iran, and showing support for a rapper who admitted to taking his daughter to the doctor for virginity checks. She has also provoked anger among the LGBTQ community for her comments about Playboy featuring a transgender model.
Earlier this year, fueled by another right-wing conspiracy theory, Jameson accused Buzzfeed reporter Ryan Broderick of being a pedophile.
About the Author
John Vibes is an author and journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture, and focuses solutions-oriented approaches to social problems. He is also a host of The Free Your Mind Conference and The Free Thought Project Podcast.


wakingtimes--2020-07-25--UV Radiation Protects Against Coronavirus

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According to a British observational study1 posted July 6 , 2020 , on the preprint server medRxiv , ultraviolet ( UV ) radiation exposure appears to lower COVID-19 mortality rates .
As reported by News Medical Life Sciences,2 environmental factors such as temperature , humidity and UV irradiation are known to play a role in other infectious diseases , including seasonal influenza , so it shouldn ’ t come as a surprise that SARS-CoV-2 — the virus responsible for COVID-19 — can be affected in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ written extensively about the importance of vitamin D and its influence on COVID-19 specifically , but this research suggests there are other benefits to sun exposure besides vitamin D production .
The researchers looked at UVA measures and COVID-19 death statistics in 2,474 U.S. counties , 6,755 Italian municipalities and 6,274 areas in England between the months of January and April 2020 , which is when vitamin D production due to low sun exposure tend to be minimal .
According to the authors:3 The researchers hypothesize UV exposure “ may have a direct @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in airborne droplets , ” as well as the virus ’ ability to stay viable on various surfaces , thus reducing overall infection rates and lowering the initial inoculation load in those infected , which in turn might reduce the risk of severe illness .
Another mechanism of action may involve nitric oxide .
UVA radiation triggers the release of nitric oxide in your skin , mobilizing it into your circulation .
This lowers blood pressure by causing your blood vessels to expand .
This , the researchers say , is one important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not involve vitamin D. What ’ s more , nitric oxide may help mitigate the endothelial damage seen in severe COVID-19 infection that leads to organ failure .
While not mentioned in this study , nitric oxide also improves your immune function , thins your blood and decreases blood viscosity , which in turn decreases platelet aggregation .
As such , nitric oxide helps reduce your risk of developing a life-threatening blood clot .
Previous research has also found nitric oxide inhibits replication of the SARS virus ( SARS-CoV ) , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proteins of the two viruses are similar , nitric oxide may have a similar effect on SARS-CoV-2 .
If correct , this could be yet another mechanism of action by which nitric oxide helps reduce disease transmission and severity .
So , to summarize , not only does exposure to sunlight lower COVID-19 mortality , but just about any strategy that boosts nitric oxide production may also have a similar effect .
Examples of such strategies include the Nitric Oxide Dump workout and consuming nitrate-rich foods such as beetroot juice , arugula and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study4 posted on medRxiv , July 2 , 2020 , asks whether lockdown orders might do more harm than good by decreasing the protective role of UVB radiation — the kind that triggers vitamin D production in your skin — which has also been shown to lower COVID-19 mortality rates .
As noted by the authors : According to their calculations , mortality rates could have been reduced by an average of 21 % had lockdown orders been accompanied by instructions to get regular sun exposure .
As reviewed in several previous articles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all COVID-19 related risks , including your risk of testing positive for active infection , disease severity and your risk of death .
For example : COVID-19 certainly isn ’ t the only disease influenced by vitamin D. As noted in a study14 published July 4 , 2020 , in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism , higher vitamin D levels are “ non-linearly linked to lower risk of all-cause , [ cardiovascular disease ] CVD , and cancer mortality.
” Interestingly enough , this study found the risk for CVD and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ D level of just 24 ng/mL ( 60 nmol/L ) .
Cancer deaths leveled off at a mere18 ng/mL ( 45 nmol/L ) .
This is surprisingly low , considering large-scale studies suggest the cutoff for optimal cancer protection is around 40 ng/mL ( 100 nmol/L ) , with a level of 60 ng/mL to 80 ng/mL ( 150 nmol/L to 200 nmol/L ) being ideal for health and disease prevention .
You can learn more about this in “ For Optimal Health , Make Sure You Have a Vitamin D Level of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ review15,16 published in 2018 , as many as 50 % of Americans taking vitamin D supplements may not get significant benefit as the vitamin D simply gets stored in its inactive form , and the reason for this is because they have insufficient magnesium levels , and magnesium is required in the conversion of vitamin D into its active form .
Research17 published in 2013 also highlighted this issue , concluding that higher magnesium intake helps reduce your risk of vitamin D deficiency by activating more of it .
More recently , research18 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more vitamin D to achieve a blood level of 40 ng/ml ( 100 nmol/L ) if you do not take supplemental magnesium , compared to taking your vitamin D with at least 400 mg of magnesium per day .
You can cut your need for oral vitamin D even further — by as much as 244 % — by taking it concurrently with both magnesium and vitamin K2 , as reported in “ Magnesium and K2 Optimize Your Vitamin D Supplementation.
” While oral vitamin D supplementation may be a good idea for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to remember to get your vitamin D level tested first .
The reason for this is because you can not rely on blanket dosing recommendations .
The crucial factor here is your blood level , not the dose , as the dose you need is dependent on several individual factors , including your baseline blood level .
I recently published two vitamin D reports , a comprehensive scientific review and a shorter summary , in which I detail vitamin D ’ s mechanisms of action and how to ensure optimal levels .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everyone you know .

UV Radiation Protects Against Coronavirus
Dr. Mercola, Guest
Waking Times
According to a British observational study1 posted July 6, 2020, on the preprint server medRxiv, ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure appears to lower COVID-19 mortality rates.
As reported by News Medical Life Sciences,2 environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and UV irradiation are known to play a role in other infectious diseases, including seasonal influenza, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that SARS-CoV-2 — the virus responsible for COVID-19 — can be affected in a similar manner.
UV Radiation Lowers COVID-19 Mortality
I’ve written extensively about the importance of vitamin D and its influence on COVID-19 specifically, but this research suggests there are other benefits to sun exposure besides vitamin D production.
The researchers looked at UVA measures and COVID-19 death statistics in 2,474 U.S. counties, 6,755 Italian municipalities and 6,274 areas in England between the months of January and April 2020, which is when vitamin D production due to low sun exposure tend to be minimal. According to the authors:3
“Our fully adjusted model showed an inverse correlation between UVA and COVID-19 mortality with a Mortality Risk Ratio (MRR) of 0.73 … per 100KJ/m2 increase UVA in the USA, 0.81 … in Italy and 0.51 … in England. Pooled MRR was 0.68 …
This represents a halving of the average risk of death across the lower and narrower range of UVA experienced across England and across the higher and wider range across Italy and the USA …
Our analysis suggests that higher ambient UVA exposure is associated with lower COVID-19 specific mortality. This effect was independent of temperature and UV within the vitamin D action spectrum.
Relatively higher UVA, across a country experiencing lower average levels of UVA during and immediately preceding the pandemic (England), is associated with greater falls in mortality risk compared to countries (Italy and the USA) with a higher average level suggesting an exposure tolerance effect …
We have been able to show a possible benefit from UV at wavelengths that do not cause synthesis of vitamin D. this suggests that explanations for seasonal and geographic variations in COVID-19 prevalence need to consider mechanisms other than just vitamin D.”
Mechanisms of Action
The researchers hypothesize UV exposure “may have a direct effect on the viability of SARS-CoV-2 virus in airborne droplets,” as well as the virus’ ability to stay viable on various surfaces, thus reducing overall infection rates and lowering the initial inoculation load in those infected, which in turn might reduce the risk of severe illness.
Another mechanism of action may involve nitric oxide. UVA radiation triggers the release of nitric oxide in your skin, mobilizing it into your circulation. This lowers blood pressure by causing your blood vessels to expand. This, the researchers say, is one important metabolic benefit of UV exposure that does not involve vitamin D.
“As cardio-metabolic disease and possibly hypertension increase the risk of death from COVID-19, any UV driven improvements in these risk factors would be expected to reduce mortality,” the researchers note.
What’s more, nitric oxide may help mitigate the endothelial damage seen in severe COVID-19 infection that leads to organ failure. While not mentioned in this study, nitric oxide also improves your immune function, thins your blood and decreases blood viscosity, which in turn decreases platelet aggregation. As such, nitric oxide helps reduce your risk of developing a life-threatening blood clot.
Previous research has also found nitric oxide inhibits replication of the SARS virus (SARS-CoV), and the researchers hypothesize that, since the spike proteins of the two viruses are similar, nitric oxide may have a similar effect on SARS-CoV-2. If correct, this could be yet another mechanism of action by which nitric oxide helps reduce disease transmission and severity.
So, to summarize, not only does exposure to sunlight lower COVID-19 mortality, but just about any strategy that boosts nitric oxide production may also have a similar effect. Examples of such strategies include the Nitric Oxide Dump workout and consuming nitrate-rich foods such as beetroot juice, arugula and cilantro.
Are Stay-At-Home Orders Increasing COVID-19 Mortality?
In related news, another study4 posted on medRxiv, July 2, 2020, asks whether lockdown orders might do more harm than good by decreasing the protective role of UVB radiation — the kind that triggers vitamin D production in your skin — which has also been shown to lower COVID-19 mortality rates. As noted by the authors:
“Recent studies indicate that measures such as lockdowns may have slowed down the growth of COVID-19. However, in addition to substantial economic and social costs, these measures also limit the exposure to Ultraviolet-B radiation (UVB).
Emerging observational evidence indicate the protective role of UVB and vitamin D in reducing the severity and mortality of COVID-19 … In this observational study, we empirically outline the independent protective roles of lockdown and UVB exposure as measured by ultraviolet index (UVI), whilst also examining whether the severity of lockdown is associated with a reduction in the protective role.”
According to their calculations, mortality rates could have been reduced by an average of 21% had lockdown orders been accompanied by instructions to get regular sun exposure.
Vitamin D Lowers All COVID-19 Related Risks
As reviewed in several previous articles, vitamin D appears to impact virtually all COVID-19 related risks, including your risk of testing positive for active infection, disease severity and your risk of death. For example:
Research 5 posted on the preprint server medRxiv, May 13, 2020, found low vitamin D status at the time of COVID-19 testing was a risk factor for a positive result. Compared to those with sufficient vitamin D levels, those with deficient levels were nearly twice as likely to test positive for COVID-19 (21.6% versus 12.2%). A study 6 from the Philippines found that for each standard deviation increase in serum vitamin D, the odds of experiencing only mild disease rather than severe illness was 7.94 times greater, and the odds of having a mild clinical outcome rather than a critical outcome was 19.61 times greater. Research 7 , 8 posted on the preprint server MedRxiv June 10, 2020, reports a combination of vitamin D3, magnesium and B12 inhibited the progression of COVID-19 in patients over the age of 50, resulting in “a significant reduction in proportion of patients with clinical deterioration requiring oxygen support and/or intensive care support.” A study 9 from Indonesia found COVID-19 patients with a vitamin D level between 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L) and 30 ng/mL (75 nmol/L) had a sevenfold higher risk of death than those with a level above 30 ng/mL. Having a level below 20 ng/mL was associated with a 12 times higher risk of death. A study 10 that looked at data from 20 European countries found that “the probability of developing COVID-19, and of dying from it, is negatively correlated with mean population vitamin D status, with both probabilities reaching zero above about 75 nmol/L,” (30 ng/mL). A paper 11 , 12 posted on the preprint portal medRxiv May 18, 2020, found a strong correlation between severe vitamin D deficiency and higher mortality rates in countries across the globe. The researchers attribute this to a connection between low vitamin D and high risk for cytokine storms. The analysis suggests higher vitamin D levels among the general population could cut mortality in half by reducing complications.13
Higher Vitamin D Lowers All-Cause Mortality Risk
COVID-19 certainly isn’t the only disease influenced by vitamin D. As noted in a study14 published July 4, 2020, in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, higher vitamin D levels are “non-linearly linked to lower risk of all-cause, [cardiovascular disease] CVD, and cancer mortality.”
Interestingly enough, this study found the risk for CVD and all-cause deaths tapered off at a vitamin D level of just 24 ng/mL (60 nmol/L). Cancer deaths leveled off at a mere18 ng/mL (45 nmol/L).
This is surprisingly low, considering large-scale studies suggest the cutoff for optimal cancer protection is around 40 ng/mL (100 nmol/L), with a level of 60 ng/mL to 80 ng/mL (150 nmol/L to 200 nmol/L) being ideal for health and disease prevention. You can learn more about this in “For Optimal Health, Make Sure You Have a Vitamin D Level of 60 ng/mL.”
Magnesium Optimizes Vitamin D Supplementation
According to a scientific review15,16 published in 2018, as many as 50% of Americans taking vitamin D supplements may not get significant benefit as the vitamin D simply gets stored in its inactive form, and the reason for this is because they have insufficient magnesium levels, and magnesium is required in the conversion of vitamin D into its active form.
You need 146% more vitamin D to achieve a blood level of 40 ng/ml (100 nmol/L) if you do not take supplemental magnesium, compared to taking your vitamin D with at least 400 mg of magnesium per day.
Research17 published in 2013 also highlighted this issue, concluding that higher magnesium intake helps reduce your risk of vitamin D deficiency by activating more of it.
More recently, research18 by GrassrootsHealth reveals you need 146% more vitamin D to achieve a blood level of 40 ng/ml (100 nmol/L) if you do not take supplemental magnesium, compared to taking your vitamin D with at least 400 mg of magnesium per day.
You can cut your need for oral vitamin D even further — by as much as 244% — by taking it concurrently with both magnesium and vitamin K2, as reported in “Magnesium and K2 Optimize Your Vitamin D Supplementation.”
Optimize Your Vitamin D Level to Minimize COVID-19 Risks
While oral vitamin D supplementation may be a good idea for most people, it’s important to remember to get your vitamin D level tested first. The reason for this is because you cannot rely on blanket dosing recommendations. The crucial factor here is your blood level, not the dose, as the dose you need is dependent on several individual factors, including your baseline blood level.
I recently published two vitamin D reports, a comprehensive scientific review and a shorter summary, in which I detail vitamin D’s mechanisms of action and how to ensure optimal levels. I recommend downloading and sharing those reports with everyone you know.