Tomorrow, June 27, 2022, Clallam naturopathic physician and author Rick Marschall is due to report for 8 months in jail at the Federal Detention Center in Sheridan, Oregon, after being entrapped in an FDA sting operation. His crime: selling garlic extracts to help COVID-19 patients.
The title of Marschall’s self-published book on Amazon best sums up his philosophy as a naturopathic physician: First Do No Harm. He graduated from Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington with a license to prescribe anything except opiates. But his focus during his thirty-six years of practice in Clallam County has been on plant-based solutions.
The “Misbranded Drug”: Garlic and Starch
When COVID-19 rolled around, the United States government did not agree with his approach. In the spring of 2020, Marschall says he was having success with a Dynamic Duo product of allicin and larch starch powder for treating this virus.
Allicin is an extract of garlic that serves as an antiviral agent and does not harm good bacteria. The starch, called inuloarabinogalactan (IAG), is a powder from the bark of a larch tree that increases the number of white blood cells available to the immune system.
His book states, “One reason this treatment works so well for COVID-19, a more sophisticated and bioengineered virus, is that this high potency extract of garlic helps to repair damage to the hemoglobin molecule, and it reduces blood clots in the lungs.”
A year later, the National Institute of Health (NIH) confirmed this with an article on its web site. Study results “showed that allicin (L-cysteine) could significantly impact on improvement of signs and symptoms of COVID-19 after two weeks of treatment in comparison to placebo.”
The Sting Operation
Nevertheless, according to court documents, on March 26, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) initiated an investigation after receiving complaints “regarding Facebook postings by Marschall and others” about his Dynamic Duo product for treating COVID-19.
On March 30, 2020, an undercover agent for the FDA-OCI texted Marschall that she was “scared about the corona virus so I would like to hear about this product.” The court documents show the two then had a recorded phone conversation in which Marschall said, “Unfortunately, because everybody wants this stuff, you know there’s a bit of a wait.”
The following day, Marshall called and “indicated that the Dynamic Duo was now available.” The undercover agent provided credit card information for the purchase of the product for $140 plus $9.50 for shipping.
On April 2, 2020, by way of the United State Post Office, the product was received in Oakland, California. The undercover agent then mailed the package to the FDA-OCI office in Kirkland, Washington, where they examined the package.
Court documents reveal that the package included a document that stated that the Dynamic Duo “can crush 30 different viral infections, including those in the Corona family, (like in China Corona-19), 40 different bacterial infections, 25 different fungal infections and 20 different parasitic infections like amoebas.”
The special agent concluded in the court document that Marschall “did knowingly and intentionally introduce, deliver, and cause the introduction and delivery for introduction into interstate commerce, drugs, in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 331(a) and 333(a)(2).”
“Because I am a health coach, it would have been okay for me to deliver the product anywhere within state lines,” Marschall said. “My delivery outside of the state would have been okay had I not used a claim or purpose of the product notice. They picked on me to scare people. It doesn’t get any crazier than this.”
The Mistrial
The case was then filed against Marschall in the Federal Western District Court in Tacoma on August 5, 2020. Court documents show he was indicted under 21 U.S.C. 331(a), which prohibits the “introduction or delivery for introduction into interstate commerce of any … drug … that is adulterated or misbranded.”
Marschall said he first received an e-mail from the government and then a letter concerning the case against him. “They could have just sent me a warning letter,” Marschall said. “For example, with a mushroom company that does the same type of thing that I do, the government told them to stop doing it, or else they would shut them down.”
Court document 299 in this case reveals that United States District Court Judge Benjamin H. Settle made the following statement: “While the Food and Drug Administration has discretion to warn or notify individuals or entities it believes are violating FDA regulations, the government is not required to provide individual notice or an opportunity to cease his (Marschall’s) unlawful activity before charging him.”
After a year of proceedings, on August 9, 2021, court documents show that the “jury foreperson declared that the jury is unable to reach a verdict. The jury was polled individually, and all members agree. The Court declares a mistrial.”
After the trial, Marschall says that the judge waived the law shielding jurors from scrutiny and allowed prosecutors to discuss the case with the jurors. As far as Marschall was concerned, this was rare, constitutionally unlawful decision to allow prosecutors to determine the weak points in their case.
Retrial and Conviction
Another trial was carried out in late October. Court documents show that on October 22, 2021 the jury reached the following verdict: “As to the charge of Introduction of Misbranded Drugs into Interstate Commerce, as charged in Count One, we, the Jury, find the Defendant, Richard Marschall guilty.”
Marschall points to the following two injustices during the trial that led to his conviction:
The judge ordered the jury not to consider any argument relying on the First Amendment’s freedom of speech.
The judge instructed the jurors not to consider the direct testimony given by a Bastyr University naturopathic professor.
The judge sentenced Marschall to eight months of imprisonment at the Federal Detention Center in Sheridan, Oregon. Judge Settle checked off the following box in his sentencing statement: “The defendant shall surrender for service of sentence at the institution designated by the Bureau of Prisons as notified by the Probation or Pretrial Services Office.”
On May 24, 2022, the judge issued the following: “It is now ordered that the date by which Mr. Marschall must report to FCI Sheridan is extended from May 26, 2022 to no sooner than June 27, 2022.”
Even though this is Marschall’s third conviction in Federal court under the same statute and he had his credential to practice as a naturopathic physician permanently revoked by the state of Washington on October 9, 2018, he remains committed to providing allicin and IAG powder to his COVID-19 patients.
Community Response
Marschall has been active in local health freedom pushback since the lockdowns started, so many friends and well-wishers have been outraged by these injustice proceedings against him. A GiveSendGo campaign was started to help his wife pay bills during his imprisonment.
On June 18, Marschall was lured to the 7th Day Adventist Church in Sequim for a fake “special Vegan Cooking workshop” so the community could instead celebrate him with a surprise 70th birthday party.
Letters of support were sent to the 9th District Court asking for a bond to keep Marschall out of prison. Here’s one from Stephen Schumacher:
Regarding Case#CR20-5270 BHS of the FDA vs. Rick Marschall, please strongly consider expediting a bond to Mr. Marschall so he can stay out of prison until his case is heard on appeal.
As seen in court documents, this is a very troubling case of an undercover sting operation directed against sharing information about a nutritional supplement that anyone can buy on Amazon and has been found to help with Covid-19.
Mr. Marschall is a senior citizen who has caused no harm and is not a danger to anyone; in fact, his supposed crime was trying to help others with treatment options.It is a cruel waste of taxpayer money to incarcerate him prior to appeal.
Please expedite this request before Mr. Marschall must report to FCI Sheridan on June 27.
The FDA’s expensive, multiyear persecution of Marschall for selling garlic is reminiscent of the merciless pursuit of Jean Valjean for stealing a loaf of bread to feed starving children.
UPDATE and CORRECTION: After talking this afternoon with Amy Yaley (JHC Director of Marketing and Communications), it appears likely that your medical data is NOT being sent to Facebook through Jefferson Healthcare’s MyChart portal, even though Facebook Pixel Code scripts are present on their regular web pages.
My original article statements were based on recollecting having seen Facebook scripts while inspecting my personal MyChart patient data, but the screenshots below that have evidence of Facebook scripts show the web address “jeffersonhealthcare.org“. If this page had really been from inside MyChart, then the web address would have been “wamt.myonlinechart.org“, as seen in the feature image above.
There are still some unanswered questions, and I am waiting to connect with the person who can answer them. I will update this story with any further clarifications.
What we are left with is that many hospitals around the country have websites that compromise patient data to Facebook, but at this point Jefferson Healthcare does not appear to be one of them.
[Original article text follows:]
Nonprofit technology watchdog The Markup discovered that “a tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites (33 of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America) has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information — including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments — and sending it to Facebook. … We found the tracker, called the Meta Pixel, sending Facebook a packet of data whenever a person clicked a button to schedule a doctor’s appointment.”
This Meta Pixel tracker was detected inside password-protected patient portals such as the MyChart system provided by Jefferson Healthcare. Data breaches uncovered by the crowd-sourced Pixel Hunt project included:
When one real patient who participated in the Pixel Hunt study logged in to the MyChart portal…, the Meta Pixel installed in the portal told Facebook the patient’s name, the name of their doctor, and the time of their upcoming appointment.
When another Pixel Hunt participant used the MyChart portal…, the pixel told Facebook the type of allergic reaction the patient had to a specific medication.
Clicking on one button prompted the pixel to tell Facebook the name and dosage of a medication in our health record, as well as any notes we had entered about the prescription.
Clicking the “Schedule Appointment” button on a doctor’s page prompted the Meta Pixel to send Facebook the text of the button, the name of the doctor, and the search term we used to find the doctor: “Home abortion.”
When The Markup clicked the “Finish Booking” button…, the pixel sent Facebook not just the name of the doctor and her field of medicine but also the first name, last name, email address, phone number, zip code, and city of residence we entered into the booking form.
In addition, if a patient is logged in to Facebook when they visit a hospital’s website where a Meta Pixel is installed, some browsers will attach third-party cookies — another tracking mechanism — that allow Meta to link pixel data to specific Facebook accounts.
After learning about this potential problem, I signed in to my own Jefferson Healthcare MyChart account, which I’m told “offers secure online access to portions of your electronic health record”. By right-clicking and choosing the “Page Source” or “Inspect” option, it was easy to verify that Jefferson Healthcare’s MyChart webpages are laced with Facebook connections and scripts. See this screenshot:
Here’s another screenshot showing Jefferson Healthcare explicitly including “Facebook Pixel Code” for the Meta Pixel tracking software:
Note that HIPAA law “prohibits covered entities like hospitals from sharing personally identifiable health information with third parties like Facebook, except when an individual has expressly consented in advance or under certain contracts” — which has certainly not happened in this case.
I originally learned about this nationwide problem from Dr. Robert Malone’s substack, where he writes:
I was struck that patients should demand that their data not be entered into such systems. That a movement to return to data entry systems that are not corrupted by Meta, Facebook or Google needs to be jump-started.
As late as 2017, the government was actually worried about medical systems being hacked. But now? Where is our government in protecting patient’s rights?
Clearly, “we” the people can not rely on the US government. Therefore, we have to protect ourselves. Our doctors and hospitals are being encouraged to buy cloud-based, software solutions to “protect us.”
These medical providers also need to be educated — these large cloud systems-based solutions have been corrupted. The medical providers must understand that patients should be given a choice to opt-out of the system. The right to privacy extends to healthcare in its entirety.
The Free Press reached out to Jefferson Healthcare to inform them of this concerning situation and ask for comment. Despite being occupied in an all-day staff meeting at press time, Jefferson Healthcare was able to issue the following statement: “Our goal is to provide exceptional patient care to every patient we serve. Jefferson Healthcare complies with all laws and regulations protecting patient data. We are actively investigating.”
[Editors’ note: The Free Press will update this article as more information becomes available.]
Last June Jefferson County Emergency Management popped up vax clinics at the Saturday Farmers Market, in those pre-booster days excitedly advertising “Johnson & Johnson vaccine available today! One and Done!” Not seeing any takers, I tried talking with one of the masked doctors there, and was surprised by his enthusiasm to give these experimental injections to young children regardless of kids’ risks exceeding benefits for the sake of supposed societal good.
Vaxxers at PT Farmers Market, June 5, 2021 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)
I was reminded of this attitude while reading a peer-reviewed study finding “teenagers are [up to 6 times] more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in hospital with Covid,” where a commentator expressed that “Whether or not [young kids] are at high risk relative to the adverse side effects, they should be vaccinated to reduce the probability of older, more at-risk people from getting it.” (Since the injected appear to be more infectious, it’s unclear how that helps grandma.)
This attitude mystified me back then, but I understand it better now after reading Dr. Robert Malone’s explanation of the dark philosophy that has replaced “Do no harm” in modern Public Health:
Dr. Robert Malone interviewed with Dr. Ryan Cole in Gig Harbor, WA on Feb. 21, 2022 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)
As taught in most Universities, “Public Health” (as in the Masters of Public Health degree programs) is also largely based on these two 18th and 19th century philosophical theories (utilitarianism and malthusianism).
As opposed to the disciplines of Medicine and clinical research, which are grounded in the principles of the Hippocratic oath and beneficence as applied to the individual patient.
Examples of beneficence in clinical research and medical practice include “Do no harm,” “Balance benefits against risks,” and “Maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.”
What’s so bad about replacing individual patients’ rights and well-being with Public Health’s new utilitarian emphasis on purported “greatest good of the greatest number”? Consider this thought experiment:
A man walks into his doctor’s office for a health checkup. After completion of the exam, he asks “Doc, how am I doing?” His utilitarian MD-MPH turns and says, “You are in perfect health. Your heart is perfect, your liver is perfect, and your kidneys are perfect. And I have four other patients that will die in the next week if they do not get transplants requiring a donated heart, liver or kidney. So I will be prepping you for surgery in one hour.”
Four lives saved for one sacrificed. I think that we can all agree that, while this scenario may meet a utilitarian standard, it fails to meet the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian belief systems regarding the Hippocratic oath and principle of beneficence. But if reports are correct, in the very utilitarian, marxist reality which is modern China under the CCP, organ harvesting is a fact of life.
Dr. Malone concluded that:
As we look back at the long list of public health lies and tragedies that have occurred since January 2020, I have been trying to think through what systemic changes should be implemented to help prevent such catastrophically poor decision making in the future.
I suggest that at the top of the list we include jettisoning both the philosophical dependence of public health decision making (as taught in MPH programs) on utilitarian philosophy, and instead substitute a Judeo-Christian values-based public health decision making process. We have let the MPH utilitarians interject themselves in place of the traditional role of the Physician, and have had to live through the consequences.
Those consequences are now being revealed by research volunteers studying “the 55,000 internal Pfizer documents which the FDA had asked a court to keep under wraps for 75 years”.
Pfizer (and thus the FDA) knew by December 2020 that the MRNA vaccines did not work — that they “waned in efficacy” and presented “vaccine failure.”
Pfizer knew in May of 2021 that 35 minors’ hearts had been damaged a week after MRNA injection — but the FDA rolled out the EUA for teens a month later anyway, and parents did not get a press release from the US government about heart harms til August of 2021, after thousands of teens were vaccinated.
Athletes and college students and teenagers are collapsing on football and soccer fields. Doctors wring their hands and express mystification. But BioNTech’s SEC filing shows a fact about which the CDC and the AMA breathe not a word: fainting so violently that you may hurt yourself is one of the side effects important enough for BioNTech to highlight to the SEC.
Pfizer (and thus the FDA; many of the documents say “FDA: CONFIDENTIAL” at the lower boundary) knew that … the mRNA spike protein and lipid nanoparticles did not stay in the injection site in the deltoid, but rather went, within 48 hours, into the bloodstream, from there to lodge in the liver, spleen, adrenals, lymph nodes, and, if you are a woman, in the ovaries.
Lipid nanoparticles, the tiny hard fatty casings that contain the MRNA, traverse the amniotic membrane. That means that they enter the fetal environment, of course. (They also traverse the blood-brain barrier, which may help explain the post-MRNA vaccination strokes and cognitive issues we are seeing). … The assurance that the vaccine is “safe and effective” for pregnant women, was based on a study of 44 French rats, followed for 42 days.
While pregnant women were excluded from the internal studies, and thus from the EUA on which basis all pregnant women were assured the vaccine was “safe and effective”, nonetheless about 270 women got pregnant during the study. More than 230 of them were lost somehow to history. But of the 36 pregnant women whose outcomes were followed – 28 lost their babies.
This week the FDA is gearing up to grant new Emergency Use Authorization to inject this witch’s brew into babies as young as 6 months old, and the White House is rolling out 10 million doses prior to authorization.
Children’s Health Defense chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gave notice to the FDA and CDC on February 9 and June 10 that:
Should you recommend this pediatric EUA vaccine to children under five years old, CHD is poised to take legal action against you. CHD will seek to hold you accountable for recklessly endangering this population with a product that has little, no, or even negative net efficacy but which may put them, without warning, at risk of many adverse health consequences, including heart damage, stroke and other thrombotic events and reproductive harms.
Commenting on the White House targeting babies with Covid countermeasures that were “never about science or public health” prior to FDA safety review, Kennedy made clear that:
Now they have departed from common sense and into naked cruelty and barbarism. By recommending an unapproved, experimental, zero-liability and high-risk medical intervention for an illness that poses zero statistical danger to that age group, the White House has made itself the enemy of America’s children.
The Pharma gods have demanded child sacrifice and the high priests of public health have offered a generation of infants. Now more than ever, parents and physicians must step into the breach to protect our babies from our government.
Our regulatory agencies and elected officials are not protecting us because they are in lockstep with Big Pharma and mainswamp media promoting this sacrificial message. Their propaganda has been internalized by many who we used to trust to know better, as evidenced by the enthusiasm of the doctor I spoke with at the pop-up vaccine clinic. Jefferson County Public Health’s website is teeming with information on where these dangerous shots are available for 5-11 year olds. Will they soon be adding kids under five?
The Port Townsend City Council opened its June 6 meeting by hearing new police hire Officer Chase Stanton take his Oath of Office.
In public comments, Julie Jaman spoke to the Gateway and Boatyard Expansion Project being hornswoggled by the project mantra “the poplars must go” instead of implementing the Gateway Development Plan that doesn’t envision cutting. Since both PUD and Port have indicated poplars can be worked around, the win-win solution is to remove and replant poplars as needed while pruning suckers per the Plan. Before cutting poplars around town, cost review is needed of functions provided by poplars like unique verticality, buffering, windbraking, storm survivability, filtration, and link to the seasons. Poplars are the right tree in the right place, preventing a paved strip-mall development contrary to community values. *
Harvey Windle focused on problems with the council’s temporary streateries reauthorization until December 31, covering documented damage to business recovery income, lack of notice, not following public input, being out of compliance with state law preventing gifting of public property for these “mess tents”, and aggravating parking scarcity downtown where streateries and all-day parkers make it hard for customers to find places to park.
Stephen Schumacher riffed on Cato’s famous catchphrase by saying “Port Townsend defendenda est” (i.e. PT must be defended), urging the council to stay attentive each meeting to critical police staffing issues, along with getting roads and potholes fixed that were exacerbated by Sunday’s downpour. He reviewed latest findings from The New York Times and elsewhere about masks having infinitesimal effect on Covid spread, their unfitness for purpose since designed for bacteria not aerobic virus transmission, and their many harms especially for kids, so encouraged council to stop modeling their misuse.
City Manager John Mauro responded to public comment by noting council’s wish is to talk about parking management in the next term. Regarding police staffing, the city has just sworn in a new officer, so there is movement in the right direction.
Following staff presentation of interim Ordinance 3291 granting a 6-month extension for temporary tent encampments, pastor Scott Rosenkrans of Port Hadlock Community United Methodist Church spoke of their experience hosting their first Tiny Home encampment. They haven’t had one problem, have enough space for another one, and host a food pantry open Saturdays 10am-1pm, and help folks transition into permanent housing. During the 18 months the tiny homes have been there, they’ve become good neighbors.
Councilor Ben Thomas asked for clarification about the 180 day effective duration of the ordinance and its potential renewal for a second 180 days. City Attorney Heidi Greenwood responded that they’d be vested so eligible for a second extension. Aislinn Diamanti moved, Deputy Mayor Amy Howard seconded, and the council passed the extension unanimously.
After completing some unfinished business adopting Resolution 22-027 for a water system cross connection control program, the council considered Ordinance 3292 to impose a $50 civil infraction for vehicles idling for more than 3 minutes, with exceptions for health or safety reasons, extreme temperatures, traffic stops, law enforcement, vehicle repair, etc.
The proposal arose from the PT High School Students for Sustainability, none of whom were present due to graduation-related conflicts. Attorney Greenwood had helped students with this, and clarified that the exception for health reasons would cover people living in their vehicles.
Thomas wished there was another way to get the same educational result without passing a hard-to-enforce law penalizing idling. Monica MickHager praised the students’ energy, but suggested next time they learn by looking at what codes could be removed to encourage sustainability. Howard felt that if the stated goal is education, then the written warning step shouldn’t be skipped.
Mayor David Faber felt the ordinance should be passed if it’s consistent with our community ideals, but wondered whether officers could be given discretion to issue a warning in lieu of a fine. Heidi explained that generally discretion is always implied on the side of the enforcing officer so long as language “they will” is not there.
After an amusing delay finding a councilor to move the motion, Faber eventually stepped up, Rowe seconded, and the idle ban was passed unanimously.
The council then took up Resolution 22-027 adopting a policy for city fee waivers for intergovernmental cooperation and non-profit organizations that provide community benefits. Howard asked why waivers are limited to two times per calendar year, and Greenwood answered that the intent was to spead them out so they wouldn’t all go to the same organizations. Thomas asked why waivers were limited to non-profits, and Greenwood said this was to keep waivers further from the line where they could be considered gifts of public funds. MickHager moved, Thomas seconded, and the motion carried unanimously.
Next up was Resolution 22-028 to join HUD’s House America initiative to respond with urgency to community homeless crises. Mauro provided background that this came about because councilors Diamanti and Howard sit on the county Housing Fund Board, and staff recommended the city join.
In public comment, Schumacher asked council to evaluate whether anything can be done quickly with the Cherry Street Project to provide housing, and if not, sell it to get this albatross off the books so the money can be used for worthy housing projects. During council deliberation, MickHager wordsmithed characterizing Housing First as “the most effective approach” to “an effective approach”. With that edit, MickHager moved, Diamanti seconded, and the motion carried unanimously.
Concerning the Major’s City Manager Evaluation, MickHager felt he did a good job so moved to approve it, which Diamanti seconded and the council approved unanimously.
In his City Manager’s Report, Mauro started talking about staff comings and going, saying it was great starting a tradition to swear in new police officers before council, feeling that’s right for the duty they provide to our community. That’s a positive, balancing the anticipated resignation of Sgt. Garin Williams after 15 years.
He’s looking to fill other openings, including police, deputy public works directory, and city clerk. Emma Bolin will be joining as Planning Community Development Director, helping among other things with the Evans Vista land purchase.
Mauro spoke of various adventures related to Sunday’s heavy rain downfall, which Public Works responded to quickly. Steve King went on the bluff to look at the stability of the slope, which mostly just lost topsoil… as Mauro quipped, it was interesting to see geology happening in real time.
Mauro feels like Port Townsend is coming back after a couple of years. Rowe was at the previous Farmers Market, and councilors enthusiastically expressed their intent to have one of them appear there the last Saturday of each month to discuss people’s concerns.
Libby Wennstrom asked what our magic number currently is for police staffing. Mauro replied it’s hard to say because we’re now in flux with training. The city has an arrangement with the county as a fallback, but fortunately we haven’t had to call on them and hope to get enough officers to be self-reliant, but as Chief Olson had said, this may take 12-18 months. Other cities are likewise having problems and are down to 30-40% police staffing.
Thomas noted that Windle and others have come to him asking about taking away the temporary streateries; he doesn’t see that happening, but looking at the temporary ordinance, he wonders if they can be terminated if not used for 60 days. Faber mentioned that King had already brought that up with the new owner of Alchemy, whose streatery seems to be rarely used.
Greenwood clarified that the temporary reauthorization until December 31 doesn’t have the same 60 day abandonment clause as in the permanent authorization proposal, but that doesn’t mean the city could not look to exercise it. In terms of process, restaurants don’t have property rights to their allowed streatery slots.
The next regular council meeting on June 20 has been canceled because many members will be out of town that day.
*Correction: The original version inadvertently omitted Julie Jaman’s public comment.
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