- According to mainstream media, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently made claims about COVID-19 being an ethnically targeted bioweapon. That is false
- Kennedy was discussing the threat posed by bioweapons development, and the need to regulate this kind of research and “resuscitate” the 1972 international bioweapons charter that forbids most of it
- Kennedy cited a 2020 scientific paper, which found that ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews were the least susceptible to COVID-19, while people of African descent and Caucasians were the most susceptible, due to ACE2 and TMPRSS2 polymorphism variations
- Because we now have synthetic biology and a wide variety of genetic engineering techniques, there’s a whole new retinue of bioweapons, and among the most heinous are bioweapons that target specific ethnicities
- While evidence from official sources are scant, high-level individuals insist that race-specific bioweapons development is already underway, in one country or another, and/or that ethnic-specific bioweapons may already exist
According to mainstream media, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently made claims about COVID-19 being an ethnically targeted bioweapon. Yahoo! News,1 for example, reported that “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. baselessly claimed COVID-19 may have been ‘ethnically targeted’ … He said Caucasians and black people were most susceptible, and Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people were most immune.”
The New York Post claimed “RKF Jr. Says COVID May Have Been ‘Ethnically Targeted’ to Spare Jews.”2
According to Yahoo! News, Kennedy “did not cite any specific sources,” but this whole story turns out to be wrong. Kennedy was in fact citing a very specific scientific paper, and his comments about that paper were then taken out of context.
‘Wild Claims’ Taken Out of Context
Kennedy’s comments, which have been taken out of context by mainstream media to paint him as an anti-Semite, were made during a July 13, 2023, after-hours campaign dinner at an Upper East Side restaurant.3,4 In a July 17, 2023, Instagram video,5 Kennedy tried to set straight “the inaccurate distortion” of his comments.
As explained by Kennedy, he was discussing the threat posed by bioweapons development, which is being done by the U.S., China, Russia and many other countries, and the urgent need to regulate this kind of research and “resuscitate” the 1972 international bioweapons charter (the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons,6,7 which took effect in March 1975) that forbids much of this research.
Because we now have synthetic biology and a wide variety of genetic engineering techniques, “there’s a whole new retinue and generation of bioweapons,” Kennedy said in his Instagram reply, “and among the worst of those are bioweapons that target ethnicities.”
Research Has Identified Genetic Predispositions to COVID
During the dinner in question, Kennedy cited a July 2020 study8 in BMC Medicine, which reported that, based on ACE2 and TMPRSS2 polymorphism analysis, certain races, as well as people with certain diseases, are more susceptible to COVID-19. As noted in that paper:9
“We found unique genetic susceptibility across different populations in ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Specifically, ACE2 polymorphisms were found to be associated with cardiovascular and pulmonary conditions by altering the angiotensinogen-ACE2 interactions, such as p.Arg514Gly in the African/African-American population.
Unique but prevalent polymorphisms … in TMPRSS2, offer potential explanations for differential genetic susceptibility to COVID-19 as well as for risk factors, including those with cancer and the high-risk group of male patients.”
In his Instagram rebuttal, Kennedy explained that, according to this study, ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews were the least susceptible to COVID-19, while people of African descent and Caucasians were the most susceptible.
“This is not a controversial study,” Kennedy said. “Nobody has suggested that these were deliberately engineered changes. And I certainly don’t believe that they were deliberately engineered.
But what they are is kind of a proof of concept, that you CAN develop bioweapons that will attack certain ethnicities, and this should be terrifying to all of us … and [needs to be] an object of discussion.”
Genetic susceptibilities to COVID-19 were also reviewed in a March 2021 paper10 in the Annals of Laboratory Medicine. As noted by Kennedy in his Instagram rebuttal, throughout history, powerful individuals have sought to eliminate certain races or ethnicities, and current-day bioweapons give them the ability to do that very efficiently.
For this reason, gain-of-function research and bioweapons development must be guided by robust regulations and oversight. THAT was the take-home point he was making during that dinner.
‘Disgusting Fabrication’
In a July 16, 2023, Twitter post, Kennedy wrote:11
“The insinuation by @nypost and others that, as a result of my quoting a peer-reviewed paper on bio-weapons, I am somehow antisemitic, is a disgusting fabrication …
My father and my uncles, John F. Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy, devoted enormous political energies during their careers to supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism. I intend to spend my political career making those family causes my priority.
I will fight relentlessly alongside my Jewish brothers and sisters and friends against Jew-hatred and the demonization of Israel. I have just recorded an interview with @RabbiShmuley, whom the same New York Post just this month called, ‘the most famous Rabbi in America.’
I have called upon the Biden Administration not to consummate a second Iran deal that would give that genocidal government a legitimized nuclear program. In the same interview, I called upon the Democratic Party to return to the strong, unconditional support of Israel that was the hallmark of the party under the leadership of my uncle and my father.
Today I had a great conversation with Rabbi Shmuley on Judaism and anti-Semitism. He had this to say: ‘Two things bothered me about the reports I had read about what you had said at that dinner on the upper east side. I said number one, again, this perception that you’re anti-Semitic. I know you’re not.
And in fact, I know precisely the opposite is true. I know that in your heart you feel a great closeness to the Jewish people, to the Jewish community, and to Israel. And the second thing that bothered me is, that you’re being portrayed as you said before, a crank, as a loony toon … but you’re brilliant. You know your facts.’”
A Harbinger of Smears to Come
Is it possible that Kennedy’s pro-Israeli stance might in fact be one of the reasons why the Deep State-shackled media try so hard to smear him as an anti-Semite? Maybe, maybe not. What we do know is that Kennedy poses a serious threat to more than a few corrupt institutions, and they’re willing to use just about any smear tactic available, even if it makes no sense. As noted by Roger Simon in The Epoch Times:12
“This isn’t, in the end, really about anti-Semitism, real or imagined. It was just low-hanging fruit … a harbinger of many dastardly smears of the candidate to come.
If there’s one thing the military-industrial complex (endless wars from Iraq to Ukraine) and the health care-industrial complex (Big Pharma, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, et al.) do not want, it’s a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidency.
Big Tech probably isn’t very keen on it, either. It would cost them all incalculable amounts of money, much of it courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer and a complaisant government.
Most of all, the current leadership of the Democratic Party — bent on exploiting every so-called progressive policy, no matter how looney, for maximum gain and power — don’t want anyone bringing their party back to sanity, under the leadership of Mr. Kennedy or anyone else.”
Race-Specific Bioweapons Are a Reality
Getting back to Kennedy’s main point, there’s ample evidence showing we have the ability to create race-specific or ethnicity-specific bioweapons, and history tells us that race-specific targeting in war is nothing new. This is precisely why we need to rein in this mad science.
As noted in a September 2000 report by The Project for the New American Century, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,”13 “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”
In other words, if a particular race or ethnic group becomes politically troublesome, an ethnic-based bioweapon could suddenly become a “useful political tool” to restore order or power.
Kennedy is not saying that COVID-19 was an intentionally created race-specific bioweapon. He merely pointed out research showing that different races did have varying levels of susceptibility to it, and that race-specific or gene-specific bioweapons are, in fact, in the works around the world — and must be stopped.
Fast-forward to August 2019, and Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk warned humanity is unprepared for the emergence of race-specific bioweapons. As reported by The Guardian:14
“Scientists warn that humans should be worried about being wiped out by a killer pathogen that is specifically designed to kill people of only a particular race, based on their genetic material/ Deoxy ribonucleic Acid (DNA).
A new report from Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk says that world governments have failed when it comes to preparing against threats like futuristic bioweapons powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and genetic manipulation. Such weapons would have to power to target specific DNA, and kill certain races of people leaving other swaths of the population unharmed …
The authors warn: ‘The technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated at ever cheaper prices, democratizing the ability to harm more quickly and lethally. In a particularly bad case, a bioweapon could be built to target a specific ethnic group based on its genomic profile.’”
According to The Guardian, an estimated 16 to 20 countries have known biological warfare programs, but well over 100 have the capacity to make bioweapons. Making matters more difficult, most labs are “dual use,” meaning the work they do have both defensive and offensive uses, and there’s no hard distinction between the two.
Genetic Data Collection Poses Serious Threat
Two years later, in July 2021, Dr. P.S. Venkatesh Rao, a consultant endocrine, breast and laparoscopic surgeon, published an article15 in The Sunday Guardian, warning that global genetic data collection, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering techniques currently available allow for the creation of race-specific bioweapons. He wrote, in part:16
“Global collection of genetic data and genetic manipulation of humans, animals, plants, destructive insects and deadly microbes is of dual use from bio-welfare to bio-warfare …
It has become ridiculously simple and cheap to misuse data and gene altering and synthesizing tools, as simple as the use of an ordinary computer and a 3D printer. Big data, artificial intelligence and gene synthesis are being misused to create racially specific bioweapons …
The International HapMap Project of 2002 to 2010 developed a human genome map and provided a massive genotype data from Caucasian, African and Asian population samples. Many differences in susceptibility to some diseases, and response to certain drugs between different ethnic groups were reported in a 2015 study in BMC Genomics.
Multiple reports in scientific journals in 2016 such as in Oncotarget, in Cell and from Pasteur Institute in Paris, found differences in antibody responses and cellular immunity between those of African ancestry and Caucasians.
Those of African ancestry had a stronger inflammatory response and immune overreaction like cytokine storm and autoimmune diseases. Genetic differences affecting the immune system led to racial differences in the response to infections, drugs and vaccines.
In a pandemic, racial differences exist in mortality rates and vaccine efficacy and complications. Genetic data from blood samples about racial differences can be used for racially targeted biowarfare.”
China Accuses Pentagon of Making Race-Specific Bioweapons
Fast-forward yet again, to May 2023, and Newsweek reported17 that a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry had accused the U.S. Pentagon of creating “race-specific bioweapons.” The spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told reporters:18,19,20
“The U.S. widely collects and uses genomic information. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon has formulated R&D plans for hitting opponents with genetically engineered weapons. Those involved disclosed that the genomic data of Asian Chinese, European Aryans and Middle Eastern Arabs are all being collected by the U.S. military.
According to the website of Russia-based RT, the U.S. Air Education and Training Command (AETC) once issued a tender seeking to acquire samples of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and synovial fluid from Russians. It’s pretty clear who exactly is using genomic information for secret purposes.”
Wenbin’s accusation came one day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of collecting the genomic data of ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang for the purposes of control and surveillance.
A senior Pentagon official denied Wenbin’s allegation and Newsweek was reportedly unable to locate The Wall Street Journal article cited by Wenbin. I’ve had no luck locating it either. Whatever the truth may be, there’s no doubt that race-specific bioweapons CAN be created though. We certainly have the technologies required.
Do Ethnic-Specific Bioweapons Already Exist?
While evidence from official sources is scant — Blinken’s and Wenbin’s mutual accusations notwithstanding — Kennedy and many others insist that race-specific bioweapons are in active development, and some may even exist already. In a June 20, 2023, appearance on Newsmax, Kennedy told On the Record host Greta Van Susteren:21,22
Coffee the Christian way: Promised Grounds
“We know that the Chinese are developing ethnic bioweapons. Bioweapons that are designed to attack people of certain racial types. And we’re doing the same thing. We’ve been collecting Chinese DNA. We’ve been collecting Russian DNA specifically for that. [This] arms race is a catastrophe.”
Kennedy made the same claim in a June 5, 2023, live Twitter discussion with Elon Musk, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, venture capitalist David Sacks, investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger and securities attorney Omeed Malik (video above).
Ethic-specific bioweapons have already been developed, Kennedy said, and exist in labs around the world. The Epoch Times also insists that claims of China developing race-specific bioweapons are true (video below).
In an April 3, 2023, Wall Street Journal opinion piece,23 Paul Dabbar, undersecretary of energy for science during the Trump administration, also underscored this threat, writing, in part:24
“Around 2017, the Energy Department’s national laboratories started having significant concerns about biosecurity with regard to China. A Chinese general who was head of the National Defense University in Beijing publicly declared an interest in using gene sequencing and editing to develop pathogenic bioweapons that would target specific ethnic groups …
Taking note, the Commerce Department ordered export restrictions of potentially dangerous biotechnology to China. But the NIH and NIAID refused to believe that there was any risk involved in collaborating with Chinese labs. Their indiscriminate commitment to open science blinds them to threats, even when a country like China is open about its intentions.”
Next-Gen Warfare Will Target Genes
The Chinese general in question is Zhang Shibo, who in 2017 published “New Highland of War,”25 a war manual of sorts that discussed “new domains of warfare,” one being biology.
In the book, Shibo concluded that “Modern biotechnology development is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability,” including the possibility of “specific ethnic genetic attacks.”26
The same terms, “specific ethnic genetic attacks” can be found in the People’s Liberation Army’s textbook, “Science of Military Strategy,” also published in 2017. It too looks at biology as a military domain and mentions that biological warfare may eventually include race-specific, gene-based weapons.27
In June 2021, biosecurity specialist Michael Knutzen, a former Army intelligence officer and a Presidential Management Fellow at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote:28
“The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed critical weaknesses in the human domain of warfare at just the moment technology has emerged that gives bad actors new power to exploit those weaknesses.
Developments in synthetic biology will create next-generation bioweapons, ‘human-domain fires’ that will fundamentally change the strategic environment … Recent developments in synthetic biology … pose a profound threat … Of those dangers, next-generation bioweapons are the most serious …
One threat that was once the stuff of science fiction may soon become real. Some researchers (including Lieutenant General Zhang Shibo, former president of the PLA National Defense University) foresee the possibility of ‘specific ethnic genetic attacks’ on whole racial or ethnic groups …
And China may already have hacked from medical records or purchased the genetic information of millions of ordinary Americans through genealogical companies such as 23andme.
Bill Evanina, former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, warned against Beijing Genomics Institute–linked COVID-19 tests, noting: ‘Foreign powers can collect, store and exploit biometric information from COVID tests.’
Potential SBW effects include not only incapacitation and death, but also boutique outcomes. Colonel Guo emphasizes that ‘learning, memorizing … and even the ‘bellicose character’ can be injured precisely without a threat to life’ …
The ability to remotely hold a person’s biology hostage — through degenerative, frustrating, or simply embarrassing symptoms — but promising a personal cure (or enhancement) could create enormous strategic leverage.”
We Must Protect the World From Targeted Bioweapons
In closing, Filippa Lentzos, associate professor in science and international security at King’s College London, in December 2020 published an essay in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in which she discussed the need to “protect the world from ultra-targeted biological weapons”:29
“As genomic technologies develop and converge with AI, machine learning, automation, affective computing, and robotics, an ever more refined record of our biometrics, emotions, and behaviors will be captured and analyzed.
Governments and, increasingly, private companies will be able to sort, categorize, trade, and use biological data far more precisely than ever before, creating unprecedented possibilities for social and biological control …
These game-changing developments will … radically transform the dual-use nature of biological research, medicine, and health care and create the possibility of novel biological weapons that target particular groups of people and even individuals.
In the coming decade, managing the fast and broad technological advances now under way will require new governance structures that draw on individuals and groups with cross-sectoral expertise — from business and academia to politics and defense — to identify emerging security risks and make recommendations for dealing with them.”
This is essentially what Kennedy is calling for as well, but he’s not content with recommendations alone. We need strict safeguards to prevent one nation or another from obliterating entire ethnic groups from the face of the earth.
We also need strict regulations to protect people’s genetic data, seeing how such data can be used for global genocide. One loophole in the Biological Weapons Convention is its “general purpose criterion,” which allows most biological research as long as it’s for defensive or protective purposes.
As a result, the most hazardous biowarfare research in the world is being conducted in the name of defense or vaccine research. And, as noted by Lentzos, “Distinguishing permitted biodefense projects from those that are prohibited is difficult; one cannot just assess the facilities, equipment, material, and activities involved, but must also examine and interpret the purpose, or intent, of those activities.”
Converging Risks
The fact that we need to start examining and interpreting the purposes of biological research in earnest is quite clear. The escape of SARS-CoV-2 from a biolab in Wuhan, China, highlights this need. We’re fortunate that it wasn’t something with an exceptionally high mortality rate.
In her article, Lentzos reviews warnings about genetic weapons issued by a wide variety of actors over the last three decades:30
“The possibility of … ‘genetic weapons’ was first discussed in the biological arms control community in the 1990s, as the Human Genome Project to map the full complement of human genes got underway.
The UK government said ‘it cannot be ruled out that information from such genetic research could be considered for the design of weapons targeted against specific ethnic or racial groups.’
The British Medical Association cautioned that ‘the differential susceptibility of different populations to various diseases’ had been considered in the past, and that ‘whilst we should hope that genetic weapons are never developed, it would be a great mistake to assume that they never can be, and therefore that we can safely afford to ignore them as a future possibility.’
A report31 from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) spoke of the potential for ‘future development of weapons of mass extermination which could be used for genocide.’
Developments in genomic technologies and other emerging technologies, especially machine and deep learning, have spurred renewed concerns. ‘Access to millions of human genomes — often with directly associated clinical data — means that bioinformaticists can begin to map infection susceptibilities in specific populations,’ a recent report32 from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research warned.
A United Nations University report,33 meanwhile, asserts that ‘deep learning may lead to the identification of ‘precision maladies,’ which are the genetic functions that code for vulnerabilities and interconnections between the immune system and microbiome.
Using this form of bio-intelligence, malicious actors could engineer pathogens that are tailored to target mechanisms critical in the immune system or the microbiome of specific subpopulations.’
A 2018 National Academies of Sciences report34 suggests ‘[a]ctors may consider designing a bioweapon to target particular subpopulations based on their genes or prior exposure to vaccines, or even seek to suppress the immune system of victims to ‘prime’ a population for a subsequent attack.
These capabilities, which were feared decades ago but never reached any plausible capability, may be made increasingly feasible by the widespread availability of health and genomic data.’”
A Blanket Ban Is the Safest Solution
Lentzos reviews many of the challenges involved in effective oversight of potential bioweapons research. I, for one, believe we should opt for the simplest solution, which would be to issue a blanket ban on all gain-of-function research that involves equipping pathogens with novel capacities.
As well as a blanket ban on all research that could be used to develop a race-specific bioweapon, or a bioweapon intended to take out people with a particular genetic makeup, regardless of how that target group is defined.
We simply do not need this kind of research to live long, fruitful, healthy lives. It’s unnecessary, and taxpayers should not be paying for science that can result in their own demise.
Kennedy seems to be of like mind. As he stated in his June 5, 2023, live Twitter discussion, he wants to see bioweapons development shut down worldwide. During a June 27, 2023, health policy roundtable discussion he also promised to redirect federal grants away from infectious disease research to study chronic disease instead, were he to gain the White House.
This would ensure that tax dollars are not siphoned into biowarfare efforts veiled as vaccine research and the like. Scientists are flocking into biowarfare research because that’s where the grants are, so we need to turn off that tap and encourage scientists to engage in study that leads us toward better health outcomes.
Again, to pull us full circle to where we started, Kennedy is not saying that COVID-19 was an intentionally created race-specific bioweapon. He merely pointed out research showing that different races did have varying levels of susceptibility to it, and that race-specific or gene-specific bioweapons are, in fact, in the works around the world — and must be stopped.
- 1 Yahoo News July 15, 2023
- 2 NY Post July 15, 2023
- 3 ZeroHedge July 17, 2023
- 4, 12 Epoch Times July 17, 2023
- 5 Instagram Robert F. Kennedy Jr. July 17, 2023
- 6 Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons
- 7 Armscontrol.org March 2022
- 8, 9 BMC Medicine July 15, 2020; 18(1): 216
- 10 Annals of Laboratory Medicine March 1, 2021; 41(2): 129-138
- 11 Twitter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. July 16, 2023
- 13 The Project for the New American Century, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” September 2000
- 14 The Guardian August 20, 2019
- 15, 16 The Sunday Guardian July 24, 2021
- 17, 19 Newsweek May 11, 2023
- 18 FMPRC.gov.cn May 10, 2023
- 20 Twitter Spokesperson for China May 10, 2023
- 21 Rolling Stone June 20, 2023
- 22 Twitter Alicia Sadowski June 20, 2023
- 23, 24 Wall Street Journal April 3, 2023
- 25 Amazon.cn New Highland of War
- 26, 27 National Review April 10, 2023
- 28 USNI.org June 2021; 147(6): 1420
- 29, 30 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists December 7, 2020
- 31 SIPRI Yearbook 1993
- 32 UNIDIR.org August 19, 2020
- 33 The New Geopolitics of Converging Risks
- 34 Biodefense in the Age of Synthetic Biology 2018
Article cross-posted from Dr. Mercola’s site.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.
