Why covid hits first usa

Haggadah have remained mostly the same since their original compilation, there have been some additions after the last part of the text. Some of these additions, such as the cumulative songs "One little goat" (;; ;;;;) and "Who Knows One?" (;;; ;; ;;;;), which were added sometime in the fifteenth century, gained such acceptance that they became a standard to print at the back of the Haggadah.




 Li Wenliang: Coronavirus kills Chinese whistleblower doctor
Published
7 February 2020

Share

Li Wenliang

IMAGE SOURCE, LI WENLIANG

Image caption,

Li Wenliang contracted the virus while working at Wuhan Central Hospital
A Chinese doctor who tried to issue the first warning about the deadly coronavirus outbreak has died, the hospital treating him has said.
Li Wenliang contracted the virus while working at Wuhan Central Hospital.
He had sent out a warning to fellow medics on 30 December but police told him to stop "making false comments".

Dr Li Wenliang, who was hailed a hero for raising the alarm about the coronavirus in the early days of the outbreak, has died of the infection.



The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) had a significant history in China by the time it undertook its China Program, a rural reconstruction initiative that ran from 1935 to 1946. It had launched the China Medical Board (CMB) in 1914 and established the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) in 1917. It supported a handful of mission colleges through the late 1920s, a legacy of the Rockefeller family’s Baptist commitments. By 1933, the RF had spent over $37 million in China, more than in any other foreign country, and most of it had been spent on the PUMC.

By: Lee Hiltzik
In this edition of New Research, we offer a snapshot of some recent use of our archival collections. Available here are newly published reports submitted by RAC travel stipends recipients who have pursued their studies in our reading room. These reports showcase a wide range of collections spanning different time periods, geographic locations, and disciplines. For this edition, records from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Office of the Messrs. Rockefeller of the Rockefeller family archives, as well as the papers of John Z. Bowers and Harold H. Loucks have been cited. You are encouraged to read through these reports from our reading room visitors and discover a bit about the wide range of topics covered and research approaches used.

“The Pedagogy of Race: The Peking Union Medical College and Its Effects on Chinese Socio-Medical Scientific Discourse, 1912-1949” by Matthew Foreman

In his report, “The Pedagogy of Race: The Peking Union Medical College and Its Effects on Chinese Socio-Medical Scientific Discourse, 1912-1949,” Matthew Foreman looks into a previously unexplored chapter in the history of the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC). This college, established to educate and train Chinese students in Western medicine, also became involved with international networks of professionals conducting eugenics research. While in hindsight we reject these notions of “race science” that led to discriminatory policies and unspeakable horrors, in the early twentieth century, eugenics was a largely accepted branch of modern Western science. Matthew Foreman traces the careers of a handful of eugenicists who came to PUMC. These scientists wanted to study China’s “racial problem”

Kirsten Moore-Sheeley is a research assistant professor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Her research interests include the history of biomedical research and technology and the history of infectious disease. She was a 2023 RAC research stipend recipient.

“Escaping Totalitarian Regimes to Keep Studying the Past: Ancient History Refugee Scholars between 1917 and 1948” by Francesco Mocellin

Francesco Mocellin’s research report, “Escaping Totalitarian Regimes to Keep Studying the Past: Ancient History Refugee Scholars between 1917 and 1948,” traces the paths of two scholars of ancient history who were forced to flee totalitarian regimes due to persecutio

Francesco Mocellin is a doctoral candidate in the humanities at both Padua University and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, studying the ideologies of classicism in interwar Western Europe. He was a 2020 RAC research stipend recipient.


New Research: Pan-Pacific Studies, Rice Research in India, Religion and the National Parks, and Argentine Virus Laboratory
For this round of reports, researchers used the records of the International Education Board, the Office of the Messrs. Rockefeller, and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as the papers of Laurance S. Rockefeller.

NEW RESEARCH
New Research: Administrative Internationalism, Women Domestic Workers in Brazil, Mexican Family Planning, and Wartime Chinese Medicine
We are sharing here the latest edition of our “New Research” series.  It provides the public with an opportunity to read the most recently published Rockefeller Archive Center research reports.  These reports have been prepared by RAC research stipend recipients who have come to our reading room to study the archival materials that we preserve…

New Research: Privately-Funded Development, Primate Language Research, Chinese Gerontology, HBCU Architecture
This current set of reports reflects researchers’ study of records from the International Basic Economy Corporation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the China Medical Board, the Population Council, and the General Education Board.


Rockefeller scientists launch a broad range of studies into novel coronavirus
APRIL 3, 2020facebook sharing button twitter sharing button linkedin sharing button email sharing button SHARE
Copy link icon COPY LINK
Biosafety Level 3A wide range of projects are underway to help address the need for new interventions to alter the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rockefeller University experts in infectious disease, immunology, biochemistry, structural biology, and genetics have begun over a dozen projects in recent weeks aimed at better understanding the biology of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is responsible for the current global COVID-19 pandemic. The research, which involves 18 laboratories and over 130 scientists, has the goal of discovering or developing new, urgently needed approaches to prevent and treat the disease.

Although most Rockefeller laboratories have ceased on-campus operations to reduce the spread of the illness, exceptions have been made for those researchers working on essential COVID-19-related projects. Because the development, scale-up, and deployment of a safe and effective vaccine for the virus is still well over the horizon, the researchers are focusing on parallel approaches to provide alternative means of prevention and therapy, attacking the problem from many angles.


With new laws in place, Rockefeller teamed up with Andrew Carnegie and started funding medical schools all over America on the strict condition that they only taught allopathic medicine

How Rockefeller Created the Business of Western Medicine

As an alternative medicine practitioner I have a lot of conversations with patients who are disenchanted with the current Western medicine system.  This disenchantment is both related to the quality of care they receive and also the way in which the business of Western medicine is conducted.  This post is a brief historical look at the business of Western medicine.  This article will not directly address aspects of patient care, instead it will focus on the origins of our current medical business model.

Rockefeller is probably most famous for securing a monopoly in America’s oil market, but many people haven’t heard the rest of the story.

By the turn on the 20th century, Rockefeller controlled 90% of all petroleum refineries in the America through ownership of the Standard Oil Corporation (later split into Mobil, Chevron, Exxon, etc.)  Concurrently, around 1900, the science world was getting excited about new “petrochemicals” and the ability to create a variety of new of compounds from oil.  Some of the first products derived from petrochemicals were plastics, but organic chemists knew that oil had the potential to create far more than plastic toys.


https://youtube.com/shorts/h3tCIEE_oMs?si=78iVmj4ptBDkdwn6

 Western big pharma is waging a disinformation campaign against Sputnik V
Outlet: mundo.sputniknews.com(opens in a new tab) ( archive #1(opens in a new tab), archive #2(opens in a new tab), original(opens in a new tab) )
Date of publication: June 14, 2021
Article language(s): Spanish
Countries / regions discussed: Russia, EU, UK, US


AI TRANSLATIONS:

TAGS:
Sputnik V
Information war
Big business
SUMMARY

A disinformation campaign against the Sputnik V vaccine was ordered by the Western pharmaceutical transnational big pharma, which include 30 of the world's leading pharmaceutical manufacturers, whose headquarters are primarily in the United States and Western European countries: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, all of which have released their own COVID-19 vaccines.

From the beginning, there was a campaign to undermine confidence in the great achievement of Russian scientists, in the efficacy of the vaccine. There are attacks against Sputnik V mainly in the Anglo-Saxon press; it is a kind of octopus that combines the interests of the big pharma and various political actors who are opposed to Russia. The campaign aims to reduce the vaccination rate in Russia itself.

Since the end of last year, Russian authorities have repeatedly announced attempts by Western countries to discredit Sputnik V. In December, the official representative of the Russian Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said that Moscow knows in detail what funds and what resources have been launched from abroad to discredit the national vaccine in the world and in Russia. In March, a Sputnik source in the Kremlin reported that the United States and its allies, through controlled non-governmental organizations, were preparing for a large-scale disinformation campaign

Carnegie Institution of Washington
photo of staff and members dept genetics CIW December 1939In 1903 the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW), the privately-funded scientific research organization founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1902, approved a plan to establish a biological experiment station to study evolution. The Station for Experimental Evolution (SEE) formally opened on June 11, 1904 in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, to study heredity and evolution through breeding experiments with plants and animals. Under the initial directorship of Charles Benedict Davenport (1866–1944), the unit would flourish and operate for 67 years, undergo name changes as it fine-tuned its research focus, combine with and then close down a eugenics research operation, and eventually merge with neighboring Long Island Biological Association’s Biological Laboratory (LIBA Bio Lab). This union eventually became Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution which played a pivotal role during the 20th century in the emergence of molecular genetics, the scientific foundation of the revolution in biology and biotechnology.

Covid: WHO says 'extremely unlikely' virus leaked from lab in China

Rockefeller mason from www.rockco.com
Mason is a Private Advisor and Vice President at Rockefeller Capital Management. Prior to joining Rockefeller, Mason was a Financial Advisor at Merrill

This is an invitation to a meeting of the Masonic order Cryptic Council of Royal and Select Masters, signed John D. Rockefeller.


Rockefeller Center. He was a Freemason who felt it was his duty to incorporate Masonic symbols into his designs. Solomon's temple is a very important symbol of the Freemasons. Corbett wrote that he  wanted to make modern recreations of the ancient wonders of the world. Obsessed with recreating Solomon's temple throughout his career, he tried to build Rockefeller Center as a modern recreation of Solomon's Temple.

Dr. Steven Syrop will present slides of all the clues that Corbett left in plain sight.

Don’t try to slide them a syrop


I am not a conspiracy theorist. I deal with real facts, not theory. Some of the people I write about, I have met. Some of the people I expose are alive and very dangerous. The darkness has never liked the light. Yet, many of the secrets of the Illuminati are locked up tightly simply because secrecy is a way of life. It is such a way of life, that they resent the Carroll Quigleys and the James H. Billingtons who want to tell real historical facts rather than doctored up stories and myths. I have been an intense student of history since I could read, and I am deeply committed to the facts of history rather than the cover stories the public is fed to manipulate them.
I do not fear the Illuminati taking over this country and doing away with the Constitution, because they took over this country long ago, and the Constitution has not technically been in effect due to Presidential emergency decrees since W.W. II. Being a follower of Christ does not mean we should fear. Perfect love for Almighty God casts out our fear for the situation He has place us in. Don’t think for a moment you are going to vote the Illuminati out of office. They control the major and minor political parties. They control the process of government, they control the process of information flow, they control the process of creating money and finally they control Christendom. (However, God controls the hearts of His people.)
I have provided information on how to respond in some of my other writings. This book will not tell you how to deal with the Illuminati families. This volume is simply the first of two volumes which is published to give an overview of what the Illuminati is. In short the Illuminati are generational Satanic bloodlines which have gained the most power. A generational Satanist described the Illuminati as "Satan’s elite."
This book is not written to cause fear. It is not written to provide names for a witch hunt. It is not written to provide another theory. This book is not about a theory. It is about the secret occult oligarchies which rule the world. When brought together, the facts of this book will begin to speak for themselves without me. I don’t ask that you take my word. Investigate for yourself. God Himself has told us that the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one. Some people after they have read my material have gone out into their own geographic area and seen for themselves that a small group of people control their nation and the world from behind the scenes. They have seen for themselves the power that secret societies exercise from behind the scenes.
1

This book will not be error free. There will be typos, and misspelled names, and errors of various kinds. The author is not God Almighty. I do not have every hair on these people’s heads counted. This book has not been put out with the luxury of ghost writers, editors, a paid staff of researchers and a large budget. I look at many trivial projects which the elite are able to pour millions of dollars into, and I look at the research I do when at times I’ve not had a dime to photocopy some document I want. There is so much for me to communicate about the Illuminati, who they are, what their rituals are like, and how they control the world that it has taken several years of writing to begin to give people a fully cohesive picture.
Finally, after a number of requests that I assemble my writings exposing the top 13 Illuminati bloodlines, I have taken the time to put it all together in a book with a comprehensive index. History is important. In order to know where we are going, we need to know where we have been. To control the past is to control the present. The Illuminati’s control over the entire learning process from cradle to grave gives them great ability to shape our frames of references. Jesus spoke about historical things. Paul reminded people of historical things. Josephus wrote a history of the nation of Israel.


 do know that I was driven enough in my study that I often would not stop until my eyes and mind could go no further. Men and women with sharp intellects like Edith Star Miller (author of Occult Theocracy) and Alexander Hislop (author of The Two Babylons) have tried to research the occult world and the connections between the different groups. I first read Hislop’s book in 1981. His book shows that there is a continuity between the ancient occultism of the Mystery Religions and modern day religion. Edith Star Miller’s Occult Theocracy was very helpful for me to rapidly see some of the many hidden historical and operational connections between occult groups today. Finally, the book Holy Blood. Holy Grail and its first sequel The Messianic Legacy gave me a deep insightful look into the 13th bloodline. But my understanding has been lifted by countless other investigators, who are worthy of praise because they dared to challenge the power structure to get to the real facts. </p>
In mockery and imitation of God’s 12 tribes, Satan blessed 12 bloodlines. One of these bloodlines was the Ishmaeli bloodline from which a special elite line developed alchemy, assassination techniques, and other occult practices. One bloodline was Egyptian/Celtic/Druidic from which Druidism was developed. One bloodline was in the orient and developed oriental magic. One lineage was from Canaan and the Canaanites. It had the name Astarte, then Astorga, then Ashdor, and then Astor. The tribe of Dan was used as a Judas Iscariot type seed. The royalty of the tribe of Dan have descended down through history as a powefful Satanic bloodline. The 13th or final blood line was copied after God’s royal lineage of Jesus. This was the Satanic House of David with their blood which they believe is not only from the House of David but also from the lineage of Jesus, who they claim had a wife and children. The 13th Satanic bloodline was instilled with the direct seed of Satan so that they would not only carry Christ’s blood--but also the blood of his "brother" Lucifer.

One of the bloodlines goes back to Babylon and are descendent from Nimrod. Down through the years the occult world has remained hidden from the history books. (Publishing and education have been controlled privileges.) They have ruled behind the scenes. The Mystery Religions each had their secret

Bloodlines of Illuminati
by:
Fritz Springmeier, 1995

Interesting what has been available for publication

When seen in better light, wars between kings no longer appear as wars between elite factions, but contrived wars to control the masses by their greedy elite masters. But who are these people? The answer may not be the answer some might expect, because power comes in many shapes and sizes. Power doesn’t have to have high visibility to be active. In fact, due to the evil dark nature of these evil bloodlines they have traditionally tried to remain secret. I am indebted to people who have stepped out of the generational Satanic bloodlines of the Illuminati and who have given their lives to Christ for many of the tips which got my investigations on the right track. This book tells what many witnesses of generational Satanism would like to tell, but are too intimidated to tell. Witnesses like Tom Collins, and John Todd, and David Hill have tried to testify what they themselves saw--they each were destroyed. But the truth will not die with Tom Collins or David Hill. The truth did not go out of fashion just because John Todd was framed and dishonored by the Illuminati’s henchmen. Several people from different places have confirmed that there are 13 Illuminati bloodlines. Further, several ex-Illuminati people have confirmed my list of 13 families.
It is possible that my list is off on a name or two, but if it might be off, it can not be off much, if any. I believe the facts speak for themselves. As you study these bloodlines you will also see how powerful they are. David Hill, who was investigating the Illuminati, lost his life because he had been close to the inside as a high ranking Freemason who worked for the Mafia.
I received David Hill’s research manuscript two years after I had begun reporting on the 13 families. David Hill had done what I had originally done. He had asked questions and began to dig into who pulled the strings in this country. Both David and I discovered the names of some of the more obvious powerful families. For instance, in David’s notes he writes, "Yes, it is a fact: the Mellons, Carnegies, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Dukes, Astors, Dorrances, Reynoldses, Stilimans, Bakers, Pynes, Cuilmans, Watsons, Tukes, Kleinworts, DuPonts, Warburgs, Phippses, Graces, Guggenheims, Milners, Drexels, Winthrops, Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Harknesses and other super rich Illuminated families generally get along quite well with Communists, who supposedly want to take away the wealth of these men and give it to the people.
However, this is only double talk designed to bolster the superstructure of delusion that Communists are the enemies of all Capitalists. But Communists, like the super rich families, are not the enemies of MONOPOLY CAPITALISM: they are the foes of FREE ENTERPRISE." (Untitled manuscript of David Hill, p. 215.)
My research had already entered another dimension beyond David Hill’s, because people trying to escape being part of the Illuminati had given me the 13 family names. But each round of validation I have received is a pleasant encouragement that others have seen the same things. It was a pleasant surprise to see that this researcher had singled out some of the same families as I had. Some of the allied families if not all of them probably have intermarried somewhere with one of these bloodlines.
Because this book is a collection of things which I have written over the years allow me to review what was written. In 1991, I first self-published my Be Wise As Serpents manuscript which exposed the top 13 families. In 1992, I began my newsletter to continue exposing the Illuminati, and came out with some monographs exposing the Monarch Mind Control program and the Illuminati Plans/methods to create earthquakes. From the mid-Dec. ‘92 newsletter up to the most recent ones in

· PREVIEW OF VOL. 2

Besides feature articles about the top 13 families, I have also written articles about the Illuminati in general. When I went to assemble what I had written on the 13 families, I realized that much of what I’d said was in the content of articles about the Illuminati in general. I made the decision to use the approximately 250 pages I’d written specifically about the 13 families as Book #1, and what I had written in general about the families, which was also 200 plus pages as Book #2. Volume two will explain how the Illuminati control the world, and what some of their beliefs are, and about their secret and semi-secret organizations.

The two books will provide perhaps the most indepth complete picture of the 13 top Illuminati families that has been done to date. In fact, I know of no other book which is devoted to exposing the top 13 Illuminati families. In Volume two, you will read about Illuminati life, Illuminati control, and Illuminati organizations including the ACL, the Bohemian Grove, the Cosmos Club, the CFR, the Club of Rome, the Council of 9, the Council of 13 which is the Grand Druid Council, the Jason Society, the Jason Group, the Ordo Saturis, the OTO groups, MI-6, MJ-12, the Mothers of Darkness, the Pilgrim Society, the Prieure de Sion, the Process Church, the Sanhedrin, the Temple of Power, and other groups. These two books will give the details behind what was written, "the whole world lieth in wickedness" and that the god of this world is in its full reality Satan.
Grace and peace be with you Fritz Springmeier, Feb

(Butcher - sound like a movie ) - this my comment PDV

Chapter 1: THE ASTOR FAMILY

The original founder of the Astor fortune was John Jacob Astor (1763-1884). John Jacob Astor was born in Walldorf, Duchy of Baden (Germany) from a Jewish bloodline. The Jewish origins have been hidden, and quite a number of various ideas of the Astor’s heritage have been put into circulation by the Astors. John Jacob Astor was a butcher in Walldorf. In 1784, he came to America after a stop over in London, England. Although the story is that he came to America penniless--and that may be true--he soon joined the Masonic Lodge, and within 2-3 years had become the Master of the Holland Lodge No. 8 in N.Y. City. (This Holland Lodge is a prominent lodge in that many of its members have good connections to the Illuminati elite. An example of just one Lodge #8 member is Archibald Russell, 1811 - 1871, whose father was President of a real hotbed of Illuminati action for many years: The Royal Society of Edinburgh).

(Mason Jew, as alway profit from conflict revolutions and usually wars - my comment )

The Royal Society of Edinburgh).

By 1788, Astor was a master of masonic lodge#8. This is rather interesting considering Astor could not speak Englishwhen he arrived in America, and supposedly was very poor. John Jacob Astor was always very famous for being coldhearted, anti-social, “a man who didn’t have charm, wit or grace.” (This quote comes even from a relative of the DuPont family who wrote a sympathetic Biography entitled The Astor Family.) If this man lacked social graces and was so cold, and was so poor
during his first years in the U.S., why did he rise to such prominence in Freemasonry? Certainly not because of his social graces. For instance, one time later in life at a meal given for elites, when his hands got dirty at the table he reached over and used the shirt of the man beside him to wipe
his hands. The original financial break came by carrying out a series of shady and crooked real estate deals in the N.Y. city area.
The next breakcame when two men who are now known to have been in the Illuminati gave John Jacob Astor a special government privilege. The two men were Pres. Jefferson and Secretary Gallatin--both Illuminati members. The United States government had placed an embargo on all U.S. ships from sailing with goods in 1807. But Astor got special permission from these two men for his ship to sail with its cargo. His ship sailed and made close to a $200,000 profit in that day’s money. Astor strangely profited greatly from the War of 1812,

China opium drugs trade

the whole industry! Again this could only have happened, because the occult power of this Astor family gave them the right. Obviously, others in the Committee of 300 had to step aside, if his position in the hierarchy had not given Astor the right, believe me the other families that originally controlled the fur trade would have gotten rid of Astor. One result of his fur company, was
that Astoria, OR was created. Today, perhaps in honor of the family that originally took interest in it, Astoria is a real hot-bed for the secret Satanic covens in Oregon. John Jacob Astor did have a few helpful connections. Three of his relatives were captains on clipper ships. He had connections in London to the Backhouse family. He married a Todd, a family frequently associated with Satanism. His wife, a Todd, was also connected to the influential Brevoort family. And finally for some reason, John Jacob Astor was also on good relations with the politicians of the day, perhaps because most of them were Freemasons too.

For a few years John Jacob Astor had participated in the opium trade, but in 1818-he publicly quit running opium to China. John Coleman in his good book The Conspirator’s Hierarchy: The Story of opium trade .... it was the Committee of 300 who chose who would be allowed to participate in the fabulously lucrative China opium trade,

Mason criminals and inside government official who is a criminals to and informants

For a few years John Jacob Astor had participated in the opium trade, but in 1818-he publicly quit running opium to China. John Coleman in his good book The Conspirator’s Hierarchy: The Story of opium trade .... it was the Committee of 300 who chose who would be allowed to participate in the fabulously lucrative China opium trade, through its monopolistic BEIC, and the beneficiaries of their largess remained forever wedded to the Committee of 300.” Interestingly another Top 13 family, the Russells, was also one of the lucky ones to get a slice of the China opium trade. It is clear
repeatedly from history that Astor was privy to inside information in the government

(COVID financial panic and stock exchange, real estate property fall)

The Financial Panic of 1837 allowed him to foreclose on a large number of mortgages. John Jacob Astor’s wealth continued to skyrocket. As one biography said, “When it came to a question of principle versus profit, Astor was a practical man.” Put simply, he had no scruples. Astor had a reputation for being a ruthless landlord.

From drug dollar and war organiser , arms sale to banker

Astor became a banker, and sat on the board of 5 directors of the new national bank that Hamilton created for the U.S. government called the Bank of the United States

Hitler knew he was clearing criminals


Fear of people revolutions and protection Americans Amendments while organising war and supply with weapon , on the backward site two face of every Masonic organisation they have some type of philanthropy, as a cover up , and the money anyway hits only Masonic Jewish organisations

Astors perferred not to sit on boards of corporations they controlled. In 1890, a real estate expert calculated the Astors owned 1/20 of New York
City real estate. After making their fortune while residing in the New York area, the Astors by and large have all gone to England. They still wield great financial power in the United States through proxies. Forum Magazine, Nov. 1889, commented that authorities estimated the Astors were
worth $300,000, but that that figure had to be an underestimate. Today, my estimate of the Astors is that they are worth about 40 billion dollars. One of the many foundations that the Astors created was the Vincent Astor Foundation, which is controlled from England by the Astors and has in the
range of $100 million tax exempt dollars. The Vincent Astor Foundation has typically given to Catholic and Episcoplian needs, among other things. They also give money to agencies opposed to private ownership of guns.


Doctors have been whistleblowers throughout history. They’ve also been silenced
This article is more than 6 years old
Dr Li Wenliang tried to sound the alarm about the coronavirus outbreak. For centuries, doctors have been doing the same – leading to backlash and even death
Coronavirus – live US updates
Live global updates
See all our coronavirus coverage
Nikhil 'Sunny' A Patel and Ankita Rao
Wed 8 Apr 2020 11.00 BST
Share
Prefer the Guardian on Google
Dr Li Wenliang was an astute observer. Back in December, the Chinese opthamologist noticed that there were a series of patients who had upper respiratory infections in Wuhan that seemed similar to prior Sars outbreaks. He alerted colleagues on WeChat but was quickly criminalized by the state for spreading “false rumours”. It wasn’t until after the young doctor’s death from Covid-19, the same disease he had identified, that the Chinese authorities cleared him of wrongdoing.


Just a few weeks later, and a few thousand miles away, American doctors are experiencing a similar silencing. Physicians and nurses have lost their jobs during the surging pandemic for alerting media about shortages of masks and hospital equipment. At the highest level, the Trump administration has resisted the advice of Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and a physician, when he called for a more urgent and intense federal response.

Li Wenliang

The whistleblower doctor who fell victim to China's coronavirus


Central to the art of doctoring is observation. Physicians see disease and destitution in clinics and hospitals. They interview and listen, and trace illness back to family histories and living situations and environment. They advise politicians and government agencies with data and science. For many centuries, this has led doctors to speak out against the powers that be – demanding that they treat at the source. But in many countries, this has also led to backlash, even death.

Rudolf Virchow was a German physician in the 19th century, known for linking cancer to the cell. He was also a writer, a scientist and a politician, applying his faculties in microscopy to the city infrastructure in Berlin to curb the spread of disease through sewage and water. Virchow is credited with creating Germany’s first public health programs.


Virchow got in trouble regularly – he was expelled from Charite hospital for joining the 1848 revolution, and was ostracized by his colleagues. But the doctor truly found himself in the line of fire when he criticized the government’s investment in the military instead of education and alleviating poverty.

As one story goes, the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck was so furious that he challenged Virchow to a duel. Bismarck found Virchow at work in his lab, where he had recently identified the roundworm Trichinella spiralis, which can contaminate meat. “I suppose I have the choice of weapons,” the doctor apparently said, and held up two large sausages. He told the Bismarck that one was filled with the roundworm he was studying, the other was completely safe to eat, and asked him to choose one. The duel ended there.

Virchow’s fate, however, is in some ways a lucky one. Other physicians who have spoken out on behalf of their patients, or the poor, have suffered blackmail, violence and persecution.

The British physician Judith Mackay, for instance, started speaking out against tobacco companies in the 1960s when she studied the stark impact of smoking on health in Hong Kong. But when she started pushing the government to adopt stricter regulations, she was immediately threatened. Mackay was called “psychotic human garbage”, a “power-lusting piece of meat” and “a key individual [whose] presence is a danger signal” by multinational companies that launched campaigns to discredit her research.


In more recent years, Binayak Sen, an Indian pediatrician, highlighted the struggles and inequities in healthcare faced by the most marginalized in Indian society: the country’s adivasis, or indigenous people, some of whom identified with a Maoist movement. For three decades, Sen lived in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, where he trained health workers to provide where government healthcare failed. He systematically documented the senseless deaths from malnutrition, lack of access to adequate healthcare and lack of political agency.

But the central government started noticing Sen’s activism when he became involved in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a human rights organization that investigated abuses against indigenous people. In 2007, the Indian government charged him with sedition, a law originally created by British colonial government to control the local population. He was sentenced to life in prison on charges of supporting a Maoist insurgency.

Sen was jailed for several years and spent a considerable amount of that time in solitary confinement. He was released without comment from the supreme court of India in 2011. But 13 years later, his appeal is still pending in front of the Chhattisgarh high court.

Steve Biko, circa 1977.

Steve Biko, circa 1977. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

While some physicians are criminalized for speaking from the margins of society, others are involved in larger revolutionary movements. Such was the case for Steve Biko, a South African medical student who began a social movement to fight apartheid in the 1970s. At the time, healthcare systems for black and white individuals in South Africa were separate and unequal. Black doctors were largely not allowed to take care of white patients, or even examine their bodies when they died.


As Biko was highlighting systemic inequities through his black consciousness movement, he was subject to a “banning order” from the government, which censured his speech and movement. In 1977, he was detained by police under the pretext of a terrorism act, and beaten to the point of brain hemorrage. The prison physician ignored recommendations by a consulting neurologist and neurosurgeon, and Biko died at the hands of the state, alone in a jail cell.

That year, a group of doctors filed a claim, demanding that the Medical Association of South Africa take action against the prison doctors, but it was left idle in the court.

Eight years later, Dr Wendy Orr, a medical doctor for the government, started to take notice of these cases. Orr said later that she was the only physician “to reveal evidence of police torture and abuse of political detainees in South Africa”. After seeing countless patients showing signs of being tortured by police forces, she alerted her superiors, only to be informed that her job was solely to tend to the wounds and physical complaints that the prisoners had.

In the mid 1980s, Orr took her claim to the South African Supreme Court. The court heard both Orr’s case, as well as the one brought on by the doctors hoping to seek justice in Steven Biko’s death. But the Medical Association of South Africa turned their head yet again, refusing to punish those responsible for these prison deaths.


Orr became the commissioner for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, where these abuses were recounted in detail for the first time. She recalled later that the stories of witnesses such as Mr Nalgas, a subject of the torture, brought Archbishop Desmond Tutu to tears. “For me this sums up the damage done to all of us by apartheid: it treated black people as something less than human, and it dehumanized white people because they came to believe that,” she wrote.

As the world grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, the censorship and silencing of whistleblowing physicians persists. One the one hand, health workers are held on a pedestal - with citizens lining their windows and balconies to applaud them every evening in cities like London and New York. But when they push their institutions or governments too far - whether calling for public health measures like physical distancing, or funding for something as simple as a mask, doctors risk not only their lives on the frontlines, but also their jobs and basic rights.

As Virchow, the German pathologist, astutely noted: “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.”