Homesteading: The Regenerative Farming Paradox

What Happened to Our Food and How to Fix ItThe science of soil depletion, nutrient loss, and the regenerative path forwardPick up a tomato from a supermarket shelf and compare it to one you pulled from rich garden soil this morning. You already know which one tastes better. You probably also sense, even if you could not prove it in a laboratory, that they are not quite the same food. As it turns out, your instincts are correct, and there is now a substantial body of scientific evidence to explain exactly why.This essay is about what has happened to the nutritional quality of our food over the past seventy years, what caused it, and what you can do about it if you are managing your own land. The story involves soil chemistry, fungal networks, industrial farming practices, and one of the most hopeful bodies of agricultural research to emerge in recent decades. It is also, ultimately, a story about time: how long it takes to damage a living system, and how you can restore it much faster than most people believe.The Vanishing NutrientsIn 2004, a researcher named Donald Davis and his colleagues at the University of Texas published a paper that quietly shook the nutritional establishment. They compared the mineral and vitamin content of 43 garden crops, everything from broccoli to spinach to carrots, using USDA data from 1950 against data from 1999. The same crops, the same agency’s measurements, fifty years apart.What they found was a consistent, measurable decline across nearly every nutrient they examined. Calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C were all lower in 1999 than in 1950, with drops ranging from 6 to 38 percent depending on the crop and nutrient. A 38 percent reduction in iron in your spinach is not a rounding error. It means you need to eat almost twice as much spinach to get the same nutritional benefit your grandparents got from their garden. The study is notable for using government data rather than advocacy sources, which gives its findings unusual methodological credibility even for skeptics.The authors were careful not to overstate their case. They noted that part of the decline was likely due to what researchers call the dilution effect: modern varieties bred for size, yield, and shelf life produce more biomass per plant, but the mineral content does not scale proportionally with the weight. A larger tomato is not necessarily more nutritious, as it may simply be a more watered-down one. But declining soil fertility, they argued, was also a contributing factor.Supporting this at a global scale, soil scientist Rattan Lal published a landmark study in 2005 estimating the scale of nutrient depletion in agricultural soils worldwide. His analysis of major cereal crops found that potassium deficits affected 90 percent of global harvested area, phosphorus deficits affected 85 percent, and nitrogen deficits affected 59 percent. These are staggering figures. More than half the world’s cropland, by Lal’s reckoning, is effectively mining its own fertility, taking more out each season than is being replaced.On a homestead, you have the power to break this pattern on your own land. But first, it helps to understand why industrial agriculture created it in the first place.Why Industrial Farming Depletes SoilThe short answer is that conventional farming treats soil as a substrate that holds crops upright while you pour nutrients into them from a bag. Synthetic fertilizers supply the three macronutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, in forms that plants can absorb immediately. This works remarkably well for producing high volumes of crop biomass. It works terribly for maintaining the complex, living ecosystem that makes soil genuinely fertile.Healthy soil is not a collection of chemicals. It is a community. A single teaspoon of undisturbed forest soil contains more microbial organisms than there are people on Earth. Those microbes, including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and thousands of others, form an intricate network that does far more than simply break down organic matter. They cycle nutrients, suppress plant disease, regulate water movement, bind soil particles into stable aggregates, and most critically, they form partnerships with plant roots that make the difference between a plant that merely survives and one that thrives.The most important of these partnerships involves a group of fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizae. These fungi are among the most ancient and ecologically significant organisms on Earth, having formed partnerships with plant roots for more than 400 million years, long before most modern plant families existed. They colonize plant roots and extend their thread-like hyphae far out into the surrounding soil, sometimes extending a plant’s effective root area by a factor of a hundred or more. In exchange for carbohydrates from the plant, the fungi deliver minerals, particularly phosphorus and zinc, that the plant’s own roots could never access. Research published in New Phytologist has found that micronutrients such as selenium and iodine reach crops almost entirely through this fungal pathway, not directly from soil chemistry, but through the biological network that mediates it.Industrial or mechanized tillage of the soil, synthetic fertilizers (especially phosphorus), and pesticides all suppress or destroy these mycorrhizal networks. When you stop tilling and start building organic matter, one of the first things you are doing is creating conditions for these fungi to re-establish. That matters more than most gardeners realize.Conventional farming disrupts the soil system in several compounding ways. Deep ploughing shreds fungal networks and exposes soil carbon to rapid oxidation. Synthetic nitrogen, applied in abundance, shifts the soil microbial community toward fast-cycling bacteria and away from slower, carbon-building fungal populations that sustain long-term fertility. Pesticides and herbicides, some of which persist in soil for years, directly suppress microbial diversity. And monoculture, growing the same crop year after year in the same field, starves the soil of the botanical diversity that feeds diverse microbial communities.The result, compounded over decades, is a soil that can still grow crops but has lost much of its biological intelligence. It can deliver nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium because you keep adding them. But it struggles to deliver the full spectrum of trace minerals, secondary metabolites, and phytochemicals that a biologically intact soil provides almost automatically.But Is This Contested?If you do much reading in this area, you will encounter skeptics. The most substantive of them, a Canadian researcher named Robin Marles, published a systematic review in 2017 in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, arguing that historical food-composition comparisons, including Davis et al.’s 43-crop study, are methodologically unreliable. Changes in analytical techniques, crop varieties, geographic origin of samples, and laboratory procedures over fifty years, Marles argued, make direct numerical comparisons untrustworthy. His conclusion was that allegations of soil mineral depletion causing nutritional decline are unfounded.This critique is worth taking seriously and makes a good point. Comparing a 1950 laboratory analysis to a 1999 one is genuinely an imperfect comparison. Some of the apparent decline may reflect measurement artifact rather than real change. Anyone who cites these studies should acknowledge that caveat.But Marles’s reassurance is harder to sustain when you look at the full picture. His analysis on soil mineral content as measured by chemical assay, essentially the total amount of a given mineral present in the soil. What it largely misses is the biological dimension: whether those minerals are in a form that plants can actually access and use. Soil can be chemically loaded with zinc while remaining biologically incapable of delivering that zinc to a crop, because the fungal networks that make zinc plant-available have been destroyed. The absence of a measurable decline in total soil mineral content does not mean the soil is functioning as well as it once did. It means only that the minerals have not been physically removed, not that the living system delivering them is intact.For a homesteader, the practical implication is this: the scientific debate over whether food has gotten less nutritious does not need to be fully resolved for your decisions on your land to be clear. The evidence that biologically active soil produces more nutritious food than biologically depleted soil is robust and consistent. Your goal is to create soil that is alive, and that goal is well-supported regardless of how the historical comparison debate is eventually settled.The Evidence That Regenerative Practices WorkThe strongest direct evidence that regenerative management improves crop nutritional quality comes from a 2022 study by David Montgomery and colleagues at the University of Washington, published in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ. They compared paired farms across the United States, fields side by side, with the same crops and soil type, where one had been managed conventionally and the other regeneratively for five to ten years. The regenerative farms used no-till, cover crops, and diverse rotations. The conventional farms used the standard synthetic-input, tillage-based approach.The results were striking. Crops from the regenerative plots showed consistently higher concentrations of key minerals and phytochemicals. In one wheat comparison in Oregon, cover-cropped plots produced grain with 41 percent more boron, 48 percent more calcium, 56 percent more zinc, and four times as much molybdenum as the conventionally managed field immediately next to it. These are not small differences. They represent real, measurable improvements in food quality, achieved not by adding minerals to the soil but by rebuilding the biological systems that deliver minerals to plants.What Montgomery’s team found, and what is key to understanding why regenerative practices work, is that the nutrient differences are tracked not with total soil mineral levels but with soil health scores, measures of organic matter, microbial activity, and soil structure. The regenerative soils were not chemically richer. They were biologically more functional. The fungi and microbes were doing their jobs again.How Long Will It Take? A Realistic TimelineThis is usually the first practical question a new homesteader asks, and it deserves an honest answer. The good news is that meaningful recovery happens much faster than most people assume. Different aspects of soil health recover on different timescales, but the timeline for seeing real improvements in your food quality is measured in years, not generations.Within the first six months to a year, microbial activity begins to rebound, and earthworm populations increase. You will notice that your soil smells earthier and breaks apart more easily. These are not cosmetic changes. They reflect real shifts in the biological community below the surface.Over the first one to three years, labile carbon pools increase, and early mycorrhizal networks begin to establish themselves. Cover crops germinate and establish more vigorously as water infiltration improves. A 2024 study by Nyabami and colleagues found that just three years of cover crop management measurably increased soil organic matter and labile carbon pools even in inherently sandy, low-organic-matter soils in Florida, which are among the most challenging conditions imaginable for soil carbon accumulation.The five-to-ten-year window is where the most practically significant changes accumulate. Montgomery et al. (2022) documented measurable improvements in crop micronutrient status in regeneratively managed fields after only five to ten years of practice change. During this period, soil organic matter measurably increases, crop micronutrient density improves, and yield gaps between organic and conventional systems begin to narrow. Many homesteaders report that produce tastes noticeably better and that disease pressure on crops declines.Over 10 to 20 years, full soil structure develops, topsoil deepens, and yield parity with conventional systems becomes achievable. The University of Washington Farm study by Macray and Montgomery (2023) found that topsoil thickness increased fourfold over 20 years of regenerative management on a site that had previously been a garbage dump. Cover crops were estimated to sequester soil carbon at approximately 0.32 tonnes per hectare per year. A fifteen-year Italian experiment by Mazzoncini and colleagues (2011) documented a 51 percent relative increase in topsoil organic matter after fifteen years of no-till management, along with improvements in aggregate stability and reductions in compaction.Beyond twenty years and extending to seventy or more, the deepest layers of soil ecology continue to recover. A 2025 chronosequence study by Navratil and colleagues in Restoration Ecology examined restored prairies and forests in Ohio ranging from three to seventy years old and found that mycorrhizal colonization and community diversity increased continuously across the full range, with no sign of plateauing. Full recovery of fungal community diversity toward undisturbed soil levels takes time, but practical farming benefits arrive well before ecological restoration is complete.It is worth noting that soil degradation under intensive conventional farming happens much faster than natural restoration. Some estimates put the depletion rate at 100 to 1,000 times faster than natural recovery without active management. The encouraging news is that with intentional regenerative practices, restoration is dramatically faster than passive natural succession. A 2025 review in Frontiers in Nutrition also found that biofertilizers and microbial inoculants can accelerate recovery timelines, particularly for severely depleted soils, suggesting that targeted biological inputs can help jump-start the system when starting with badly damaged ground.Will Going Regenerative Hurt Your Yields?This question matters especially if your homestead is feeding your family, supplying a CSA, or providing any meaningful portion of your income. The honest answer is that yields will probably dip somewhat in the short term, and probably recover fully or improve in the medium and long term. Let’s examine that more carefully.The Transition PeriodThe transition from conventional to regenerative or organic management typically involves a yield dip for the first one to three years.  The soil biology is restructuring itself, the weed pressure may temporarily increase as you reduce tillage, and you are learning new management practices. The Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial, now spanning more than 40 years, found that yields matched conventional levels again within three to five years.If you are transitioning a market garden or small farm, this is the period to have financial reserves or to phase the transition field by field rather than all at once. If you are transitioning to a home food garden, the productivity impact is usually manageable and is quickly offset by lower input costs.The Steady-State PictureOnce past the transition, the yield picture is more complicated than either organic advocates or conventional defenders typically admit. Several large meta-analyses, which pool data from hundreds of experiments worldwide, have found an average yield gap of about 19 to 25 percent between organic and conventional farming. Alvarez (2021) in Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science estimated the gap at around 25 percent overall, rising to 30 percent for cereals. Seufert, Ramankutty, and Foley’s influential 2012 analysis in Nature found a similar range.But these averages conceal a great deal. First, the gap varies enormously by crop type. Legumes, fruits, and perennial crops, which are the mainstays of many homesteads, frequently show gaps of less than 10 percent or no gap at all. Cereals show the largest deficits. Second, management quality matters enormously. A meta-analysis by Ponisio and colleagues (2015) found that diversified organic crop rotations reduced the average yield gap to under 10 percent, and the researchers concluded that with better research and practice development, the gap could be eliminated for many crops and regions. But this isn’t the case for most home gardens or for organic farms starting up; no-till, organic methods require more knowledge up front about cover crop management and mulching.  There is a whole skill set for no-till farming that must be learned, and much of it will be specific to your region.  If you are combining no-till methods with regenerative farming techniques (rotating livestock or using composting techniques from livestock manure), this can also add a layer of complexity.  Animal manure is often rich in weed seeds, the interplay between grazing animals and no-till farming can be difficult to manage.Third, and most relevant for the long-term homesteader, the gap narrows as your soil recovers. A Dutch experiment that set up organic and conventional systems side by side on identical soil (Smukler et al., 2018) found that organic yields started lower but approached conventional yields after 10 to 13 years, directly paralleling the soil health recovery timeline. As your organic matter builds and your fungal networks re-establish, your soil’s ability to support productive crops improves. The yield gap is not a permanent feature of biological agriculture. It is largely a temporary artifact of starting from depleted ground.That said, ten years is a long time to wait for crop yields to return.  So, best to just assume that yields will be lower and accept it as the downside of getting more nutrients and less chemicals infused into your produce and fruits.Where Regenerative Systems Can OutperformThe most dramatic yield reversal occurs in drought years and other stress conditions. The Rodale Institute’s 40-year data found that in drought years, organic corn yields were 31 percent higher than conventional yields. The reason is straightforward: soil with higher organic matter holds significantly more water, buffering crops against both drought and flood stress. If you are farming land that is vulnerable to dry summers or heavy rainfall events, this resilience premium is not a minor footnote. It may be the difference between a harvest and a crop failure.There is also a profitability dimension that matters even when gross yield is lower. A study by LaCanne and Lundgren (2018) in PeerJ compared regenerative and conventional cornfields in the Northern Plains and found that regenerative farms produced 29 percent less corn but achieved 70 percent higher profit, because the elimination of synthetic inputs, including fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide, dramatically reduced costs. For a homesteader, this logic applies directly: food you grow without spending as much money on, is food that costs you less to produce, even if the harvest is slightly smaller by weight.One genuine caveat deserves attention here. A 2018 meta-analysis in Nature Communications by Knapp and van der Heijden found that organic systems show about 15 percent greater year-to-year yield variability than conventional systems. This is a real concern for homesteaders who depend heavily on specific crops for food security. The practical answer is diversity. A homestead with twenty different crops in a bad year for two of them is much more resilient than a homestead with three crops that all perform variably. Diversity is not just an ecologically sound regenerative practice. It is also your insurance policy against the inherent variability of any biological system.What is also not discussed in all of this is that organic farming methods often yield fruit and produce that is not perfectly perfect. For the homesteader, cutting the bad bits of an apple out or ripping off the half-eaten lettuce leaves isn’t really an issue, but sorting through produce for resale or trying to sell less-than-perfect fruit can be challenging.The Big Picture: Why This Matters Beyond Your GardenIt would be easy to read everything in this chapter as being only about your food and your land. But the problem of soil nutrient depletion is a global one, and its scale matters for understanding why what you are doing on your homestead is significant beyond its borders.A 2021 review in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society estimated that nutrient depletion affects over 130 million hectares of agricultural land worldwide, roughly 8 percent of global cropland, with especially severe impacts in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia. More than two billion people worldwide suffer from deficiencies in iron, zinc, and other micronutrients. The overlap between regions with the most depleted agricultural soils and those with the highest micronutrient deficiency rates is not coincidental. Soil health and human nutritional security are not separate problems. They are the same problem viewed from different altitudes.This is an argument for the genuine importance of what regenerative land managers, including homesteaders, are doing. Every acre that transitions from biological depletion to biological abundance demonstrates, in the most concrete way possible, that a different approach works. And it works on a timescale relevant to a human life and a farming career.What This Means for Your Land: Getting StartedTheory is useful. Practice is what changes your soil. Here is how the research reviewed in this chapter translates into concrete starting points for a homesteader transitioning toward regenerative management.Stop Tilling, or Till Much LessEvery tillage event destroys mycorrhizal fungal networks, exposes soil carbon to oxidation, and sets back the biological clock. This is the single most impactful change most conventional gardeners and small farmers can make. Transitioning to permanent raised beds, no-dig market garden beds, or reduced-tillage broadfork preparation rather than rotary tilling will show results in soil biology within one to two seasons.Keep the tractor and other heavy vehicles off the vegetable patch as much as possible.  When soil is impacted, it damages the soil’s biome and makes it difficult for young plants to thrive.Keep the Ground CoveredBare soil is biologically dead soil in the making. Cover crops in the off-season, mulch between plants during the growing season, and living ground cover in pathways all feed the soil food web continuously. Legume cover crops also fix atmospheric nitrogen, reducing your dependence on purchased fertility. Even three years of consistent cover cropping in Florida sandy soil, one of the hardest conditions imaginable, measurably increased soil organic matter and labile carbon pools, according to a 2024 study by Nyabami and colleagues.Feed Diversity Into the SystemThe soil microbial community is fed by root exudates, and different plants feed different microbes. A monoculture of tomatoes feeds a narrow slice of the possible microbial community. A polyculture of tomatoes, basil, marigolds, beans, and cover crop interplanted between them feeds a far more diverse underground community, which in turn delivers a broader spectrum of minerals to your crops. Diverse rotations, companion planting, and inclusion of perennials wherever possible all amplify this effect.Add Organic Matter GenerouslyCompost, wood chip mulch, aged manure, green manure crops incorporated before flowering, and leaf mold all build the organic matter that is the foundation of biological soil fertility. A 2025 meta-analysis found that active mycorrhizal fungal communities increased soil organic carbon by an average of 21.5 percent. You build those fungal communities by giving them organic matter to work with.Be Patient With the Transition and Plan for ItThe first two to three years are the hardest. Your weed pressure may be higher. Some yields may be lower. Your soil biology is rebuilding itself, and it takes time. Have financial reserves if you are market farming, phase your transition to spread the risk, and document your soil health annually so you can see the trajectory. The Dutch study found yields approaching conventional levels after 10 to 13 years. Montgomery’s paired farm study found measurable improvements in micronutrient levels within five to ten years. The arc of recovery takes time, but it does happen. You just need to stay on it long enough to see the full benefit.For practical, science-grounded guidance on regenerative soil management, the following books are highly recommended: Growing a Revolution by David Montgomery (2017); The Living Soil Handbook by Jesse Frost (2021); Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis (2010); and The Market Gardener by Jean-Martin Fortier (2014).The Soil RemembersThere is something almost poignant about the science reviewed here.Loss of biological function can be restored in topsoil. It responds to management changes with a speed that would surprise anyone who thinks of soil as an inert geological material. Within three years, microbial communities begin to rebound. Within a decade, your crops will be measurably more nutritious. Within a generation, you can rebuild a farm, and your land can be healthy again.The tomato you pull from your well-managed garden soil this morning does not just taste different from the one on the supermarket shelf. It is different, genuinely, chemically, measurably different. It has more of what your body needs, because the soil that grew it is alive in the way soil was always meant to be. You cannot indefinitely take from the soil without giving back. But when you do give back, with attention, diversity, and organic matter, the soil responds. So does the food it grows.  And so will you and your family’s health.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareReferencesAll citations are from peer-reviewed scientific literature unless otherwise noted.Alvarez, R. (2021). Comparing productivity of organic and conventional farming systems: A quantitative review. Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science, 68(14), 1947–1958.Bueno de Mesquita, C.P., et al. (2018). Benefits of mycorrhizal inoculation to ecological restoration depend on plant functional type, restoration context and time. Biological Conservation, 228, 73–81.Conti, G., et al. (2025). The potential of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to improve soil organic carbon in agricultural ecosystems: A meta-analytical approach. Functional Ecology, 39(1).Davis, D.R., Epp, M.D., & Riordan, H.D. (2004). Changes in USDA food composition data for 43 garden crops, 1950 to 1999. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 23(6), 669–682.Frontiers in Nutrition (2025). From soil to health: advancing regenerative agriculture for improved food quality and nutrition security. Frontiers in Nutrition, 12, 1638507.Knapp, S., & van der Heijden, M.G.A. (2018). A global meta-analysis of yield stability in organic and conservation agriculture. Nature Communications, 9, 3632.LaCanne, C.E., & Lundgren, J.G. (2018). Regenerative agriculture: merging farming and natural resource conservation profitably. PeerJ, 6, e4428.Lal, R. (2005). Global soil nutrient depletion and yield reduction. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 26(1), 197–220.Macray, J., & Montgomery, D.R. (2023). Trends in soil organic matter and topsoil thickness under regenerative practices at the University of Washington student farm. PeerJ, 11, e16217.Marles, R.J. (2017). Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains: The context of reports of apparent historical declines. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, 56, 93–103.Mazzoncini, M., et al. (2011). Fifteen years of no till increase soil organic matter, microbial biomass and arthropod diversity in cover crop-based arable cropping systems. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 31(4), 785–795.Montgomery, D.R., & Biklé, A. (2021). Soil health and nutrient density: Beyond organic vs. conventional farming. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 5, 699147.Montgomery, D.R., Biklé, A., Archuleta, R., Brown, P., & Jordan, A. (2022). Soil health and nutrient density: Preliminary comparison of regenerative and conventional farming. PeerJ, 10, e12848.Navratil, R.T., et al. (2025). The effects of land restoration techniques on mycorrhizal colonization in post-agricultural soils. Restoration Ecology, e70190.Nyabami, G., et al. (2024). Three years of cover crops management increased soil organic matter and labile carbon pools in a subtropical vegetable agroecosystem. Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment, 7(1), e20454.Poeplau, C., et al. (2023). Cover crops do not increase soil organic carbon stocks as much as has been claimed: What is the way forward? Global Change Biology, 29(22), 6253–6265.Ponisio, L.C., et al. (2015). Diversification practices reduce organic to conventional yield gap. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 282(1799), 20141396.Rodale Institute (2022). Farming Systems Trial: 40-Year Report. Kutztown, PA: Rodale Institute.Rosenfeld, C.S., et al. (2021). The role of soil in the contribution of food and feed. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 376(1834).Seufert, V., Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J.A. (2012). Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture. Nature, 485(7397), 229–232.Smukler, S.M., et al. (2018). Crop yield gap and stability in organic and conventional farming systems. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 256, 123–134.White, P.J., & Broadley, M.R. (2009). Biofortification of crops with seven mineral elements often lacking in human diets: iron, zinc, copper, calcium, magnesium, selenium and iodine. New Phytologist, 182(1), 49–84.

Summary: What Happened to Our Food, How to Fix It, and How Long Will it Take?


Homesteading: Horse feathers and other true stories.

Yesterday we had a gentleman here named Charles to redo the hot-wire on the fences, and not realizing that our stallion Quartz had already been let into the pasture, he and I went in to discuss what needed to be done.  As we were talking, Quartz wandered over and noticed that the gate had been left half open.  As he was pondering his next life decision, I saw him out of the corner of my eye, rushed over, and shut the gate.  Quartz realized immediately that his plan of a sneaky escape had just vaporized and turned to getting pets instead.Charles then remarked that it is a good thing horses aren’t very smart, or Quartz would have been out of there.  I didn’t say anything to contradict that opinion, but let me state for the record, horses are smart - very smart.As I was taking photos for today’s photo essay, I stopped by Quartz’s stall to do a little training.  I am teaching him the Spanish walk. Some classical trainers use it early as a gymnastic exercise, not a goal in itself.I like to do a little trick training because it promotes a mindset of cooperation.  It is completely transactional.  Do something I want them to do, and they get a very concrete reward.This is what the Spanish walk looks like:This is where we are at:Here is the point that I want to emphasize - horses are just as smart as dogs when it comes to learning.  When it involves muscle memory, horses learn incredibly fast.When in doubt, horses move slow.  They don’t take initiative. They are “prey” animals, so can act cautiously.  They have a lot of instinct, and can be fear driven - they have to be in a secure frame of mind to learn effectively.Quartz is now getting ridden regularly and progressing rapidly.  I hope that he will be in the dressage show ring by mid-summer.In terms of fast learning, when we bought Quartz home from the trainer a week ago, I put him in the pasture next to his dad and then immediately remembered why that was a bad idea.  Quartz can take down a fence faster than any horse I know - if it isn’t electric.  Hence, why Charles is here helping with that chore.This is how fast I relearned the lesson about trusting Quartz to not make poor life decisions.Below, is the video -uncut and unfiltered - including me dropping my phone to get the stallions under control.  Yipee! Another rodeo was in order.  Luckily, the horses will do anything for a mint and a bit of grain, so it just took a bit of convincing that food was a better option than fence disassembly.Jade is in the far pasture, Quartz up front.Jade and Quartz are now being kept far, far away from each other - until the electric is back up and running.Never let anyone tell you that horse ownership is boring!Anyway, on to other updates.The eight bronze breasted hybrid turkey babies have arrived. Yeh, they are cute - way cute.Kale is going crazy now.Lettuce isn’t far behind.  Although the bed needs a good weeding.Garlic and spinach are leaping out of the ground - although with all the hot weather, the spinach is bolting already!I had a little tomato plant volunteer early last fall, which I put in a pot and popped it to over-winter into the greenhouse.  This week, I planted it out into a raised bad and there - it is…My first tomato of the year!.  Let’s hope Prince Caspian and his two peaboys that have been released out into the great big world and are now a year old don’t discover that little green fruit before it ripens! Caspian loves him some good tomato!Below are the two “yearlings,” no big tails yet, looking into our bedroom window this morning.I need to name them, something other than “Frick and Frack.”  Would love to chose something from the Narnia books, any suggestions?We had a lot of worry about releasing them.  Last year, I incubated a bunch of wild turkey eggs and raised them up.  When I released them, Caspian was anything but friendly.  If any of those turkeys survived, they live in the forest - cause Caspian wasn’t having them in his territory.But Prince Caspian is being very patient with his boys and all three are sleeping high up in the big cherry tree that shades the pea-coop, where the ladies live.I currently have about ten eggs on the counter from the other set of peahens and peacock.  These go into the incubator tomorrow.A subscriber of this substack sent me some Apios tubers last year.  Unfortunately, once planted in the woodland area - “someone” dug them up and ate them.  But I was so taken by the idea of Apios in the garden, that I purchased some tubers on Etsy and started them in the greenhouse this winter.These have now been transplanted into a raised bed.  I will build a wood trellis for them latter in the week.All the fruit trees are looking fabulous, particular the peach trees - below.  Although I would have liked the sweet cherries to have put on more foliage and more bloom this spring.After a week of days in the upper eighties and low nineties - the forecast now says on Monday night -one night only, temperatures will dip into the low thirties!  So, Monday afternoon - I will be brining in the citrus trees I just put out and wrapping some of the tender plants up with bubblewrap and plastic for the evening.The emus have found domestic bliss and therefore, have been a bit boring.Gizmo however has matured into one handsome grrl!Well, that about it - and Robert just informed me that lunch is ready!JGMMalone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.Share

Summary: Life isn't boring!


Sunday Strip: "Make it Sh*tty" -

The year is 1950. Your doctor lights a cigarette and tells you smoking is fine. He read it in a study. He is telling the truth about having read it. He does not know, or is not saying, that the study was funded by the tobacco industry.The year is 1958. Your doctor tells you to eat less fat. The evidence is contested. The contestation is not in the public messaging. The food industry has been helpful in clarifying which findings deserve attention. Some researchers who published contradictory data have been quietly defunded. Ancel Keys is on the cover of Time magazine.The year is 1962. Your doctor prescribes thalidomide to your pregnant wife for morning sickness. It has been approved. The FDA gave it the green light in Europe [JGM - factcheck, EU regulators did that]. Twelve thousand children will be born with severe limb malformations before anyone in an official capacity acknowledges the problem. The families are told the drug was safe. The drug was approved. Both of these things remain true.The year is 1972. Your doctor prescribes Valium. Britain is in the grip of a benzodiazepine wave that will last two decades. The dependency risk is known internally. It is not shared. Your doctor is not lying to you. He was not told either.The year is 1999. Your doctor prescribes Vioxx for your arthritis. It is newer than ibuprofen, well-tolerated, and Merck has a study showing it works. Merck also has internal data suggesting it roughly doubles the risk of heart attack. This data will not reach your doctor for four more years. Fifty thousand people are estimated to have died in the interim. Merck eventually settles for 4.85 billion dollars. No criminal charges are brought.The year is 2002. Your doctor prescribes OxyContin. Purdue Pharma trained its sales representatives to tell doctors the addiction risk was less than one percent. That figure came from a letter, not a study. The letter was about patients with terminal cancer on short-term doses in hospital settings. Your doctor is a GP with a patient who has a bad back. Nobody draws a distinction. Nobody is required to.The year is 2008. Your doctor checks your cholesterol. Your LDL is elevated. You are prescribed a statin. Nobody mentions that the number needed to treat for primary prevention is approximately 250. Nobody mentions that the muscle deterioration you'll notice over the next two years is listed as a rare side effect rather than a documented pattern affecting a meaningful percentage of patients. The trial that informed the prescription was funded by the manufacturer.Now it is today.Your doctor has new guidelines. New studies. New consensus.He is confident.He has always been confident.The confidence has never been the problem.The confidence is, in fact, precisely the problem.-From: Sama Hoole@SamaHoole on XMalone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.That would be US AID or… USAID“TStrait of Hormuz is Open!Strait of Hormuz is Closed!Open! Closed!”Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareJGM

Summary: Just what the doctor ordered...


Well Being: Eat your...

So, last night, we were watching a lovely documentary calledAlex Polizzi’s Secret ItalyonAmazon. The series has a segment on the island of Sardinia, and one interesting fact is how many centenarians live there. However, another interesting fact is that the islanders still eat a lot of organ meat of all types. Nothing is wasted from the animal, and it is all on display in the local markets, where butchers work on site. A far cry from the centralized, industrialized slaughterhouses, where such delicacies are used for pet food. The truth is that organ meat is good for you, and it is a shame that it has fallen out of favor in our so wealthy, we don’t have to eat that shat, nation.Organ meats, what we used to simply call offal, are among the most nutrient-dense foods available. Not slightly better than muscle meat, but in many cases an order of magnitude richer in key vitamins, minerals, and biologically active compounds. When used intelligently, they can close nutritional gaps that are otherwise very difficult to address through diet alone.Let’s start with the obvious objection, because everyone thinks it.“Yes, but the liver filters toxins.”True. It is a filtration and processing organ. But that does not mean it stores toxins like a sponge sitting under your sink. The liver’s job is totransform, neutralize, and exporttoxins. It does not warehouse them. Those compounds are either broken down and excreted through bile or urine, or they circulate and are handled elsewhere.If you are worried about accumulation, fat is a much more likely place for persistent compounds to reside than liver tissue itself. What the liver does store, very efficiently, arenutrients. That is why predators go for it first.So no, eating liver is not the dietary equivalent of licking a water filter. It's more like the equivalent of a multi-vitamin.Why liver deserves a place on the plateLiver, whether beef or chicken, is arguably the most concentrated nutritional package you can get from an animal.It delivers:Vitamin A in the form of retinol, ready to use, not something your body has to convertVitamin B12 in levels that make most foods look anemic by comparisonFolate in its natural form, not synthetic folic acidCopper and choline, both critical and often under-consumedBeef liver tends to be more concentrated and robust in flavor. Chicken liver is milder, easier for most people to tolerate, and still remarkably dense nutritionally. If you are easing into this, chicken liver is the gateway drug.Energy, brain, and metabolic throughputLiver is loaded with B vitamins, especially B12, B2, and B6. These are central to:Mitochondrial energy productionNeurotransmitter synthesisCholine, which is abundant in liver, supports:Brain development and functionLiver health itselfCell membrane integrityIf you are running a high-demand system, physically or cognitively, these are not optional inputs.Blood building and oxygen transportLiver brings together:Heme iron, which your body absorbs efficientlyCopper, which helps regulate iron metabolismThat combination matters. You can take iron supplements all day long, but without the supporting cofactors, the system does not run properly. Liver supports the whole pathway.This becomes particularly relevant in:Iron deficiency anemiaPregnancyGrowth and recoveryImmune and reproductive healthVitamin A from liver plays a central role in:Immune signalingMaintaining the integrity of gut and lung liningsAdd in zinc and selenium from organ meats more broadly, and you are supporting:Immune functionHormonal balanceThis is systems biology, not isolated nutrients.A brief word about taste and realityNow, none of this matters if you cannot get it past your fork.Liver has a reputation. Some of it deserved. Some of it based on childhood trauma involving overcooked slabs of something that tasted like a boot soaked in iron.There are ways around this:Do not overcook it.Mix small amounts into ground beef. Online “ancestral” meat shops specialize in grass-fed ground organ meat and beef sales. This is an easy way to ease into eating organ meat.Use, or even better, make, pâté, which is civilization’s way of making liver not only tolerable but actually enjoyable. Chicken livers are cheap and very tasty in pâté. Pâté is easy to make and keeps for several days. It is so tasty, you might even try serving it at a party!The classic liver and onions (try using calf’s liver) is pretty darn tasty.  Especially with ketchup.Start small. You do not need a plate of it. An ounce or two once or twice a week will move the needle.The larger pointMuscle meat gives you protein and calories. Liver gives you the cofactors that allow your system to function at a higher level.And despite what you may have been told, you are not eating a toxin sponge. You are eating the metabolic control center of the animal. The place where the nutrients are stored.JGMMalone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareBrownstone Institute’s second retreat at Polyface Farms is a chance to join us (Robert and I will both be speaking) in an exciting adventure on a real working farm, to learn from the best minds on the subjects of health and food freedom, and discover what a huge difference authenticity can make to rediscover core truths. This event shows the why and the way.The event begins on Friday morning with an early morning registration and a delicious breakfast and ends Saturday afternoon.Polyface Farm:On Friday and Saturday, August 28th and 29th, Brownstone will host their annual Polyface Retreat at Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia.RETREAT:REGISTER NOW.Tickets for the VIP dinner August 28 are still available, but going fast. Eight are left.TICKETS.

Summary: Liver


The Coming Shortages

Five-year inflation rate, per US BLS.By: JGMSix years ago, in 2022, I wrote a series of articles about the war in Ukraine and the eruption of the Tonga volcano, and how those events would drive inflation and shortages, causing price spikes across many categories.That largely came to pass as I had predicted.After Biden’s disastrous presidency, the economy under President Trump and inflation have both improved significantly.But here we are again, on the precipice of another crisis that the media has largely missed.First, we have the Iranian war and what it is doing to the cost of fuel. Fuel costs drive almost everything. That makes it very difficult for President Trump to use creative measures to keep inflation at bay, particularly since he does not control the Federal Reserve, which sets the key benchmarks which determine interest rates.As the war has escalated, the situation in the Middle East has become more dire. The region has currently lost about 7 to 10 million barrels per day of effective oil production, while export flows are down more than 15 million barrels per day.In percentage terms, that is roughly a 7 to 10 percent hit to total global supply, paired with about a 15 percent disruption to global trade flows. Add to that the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about 20 percent of the world’s oil, and it becomes clear that this is not just another regional conflict.This is a large shock by any historical standard. Even small supply disruptions can move prices. A high single-digit to low double-digit disruption, combined with a logistics choke point, is enough to keep world oil prices elevated and refined product markets tight.What matters here is that this is not just about oil that is no longer being produced. A significant portion of the problem is oil that exists but cannot move. Tanker risk, insurance constraints, and rerouting limitations mean that available barrels are effectively stranded. That is why export losses are outpacing production losses, and why the system feels tighter than the raw supply numbers alone would suggest.Worldwide, availability becomes the bigger problem if the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted. Oil does not get shared evenly. Higher-income countries will continue to secure supply, while more import-dependent and price-sensitive regions have begun to experience real shortages, particularly in diesel, jet fuel, and other refined products.In the United States, the situation is different. Direct exposure to Persian Gulf imports is relatively small, on the order of 2 to 3 percent of total consumption (thank you President Trump 1.0). That means the near-term issue is not empty gas stations. It is price. Because oil is globally priced, a 7 to 10 percent global supply shock translates into higher gasoline, diesel, and transportation costs across the board.So the immediate effect in the U.S. is inflationary pressure rather than physical scarcity. But if the disruption persists for months, those global percentages stop being abstract. They begin to show up as tightening supply chains, reduced refining flexibility, and eventually localized shortages.Because this is a worldwide shortage, it affects inflation and supply in ways that go far beyond fuel costs. Clothing is made of synthetic materials derived from oil. Plastics come from oil. Packaging, transport, manufacturing. It all traces back.“Soup to Nuts” is Not an ExaggerationBut here is the part that should really get people’s attention. China saw this coming early. Long before most Western governments were willing to acknowledge the scale of disruption, China began locking down key inputs. Fertilizer was at the top of that list. The CCP is not benign; when push comes to shove, it is all about China and China’s dominance in world markets.  They are not honest brokers, they work to monopolize key resources and every effort should be made so that they can not do so, whether it be for semiconductor chips, lithium, or fertilizer production.China has not shut off fertilizer exports entirely, but it has pulled back in a big way.Depending on the product category, between 50 percent and70 to 80 percent of export volumesare now restricted or effectively blocked. That is not a minor adjustment. That is a major contraction.What this looks like on the ground is fairly straightforward. Key products like phosphate fertilizers and NPK blends are being heavily limited or outright curtailed.Bottom line, China has not gone to zero. But cutting back by roughly half to three-quarters of export capacity is more than enough to cause worldwide disruptions in agriculture, particularly for countries that have come to depend on Chinese fertilizer to keep their agricultural systems running.Fertilizer is Not OptionalModern agriculture runs on three primary nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Nitrogen fertilizer is heavily dependent on natural gas. Potash and phosphate are mined and globally traded. China plays a major role in all three, particularly in processing and export. When they restricted fertilizer exports and prioritized domestic supply, they effectively tightened the spigot for the rest of the world overnight. A world caught flat-footed.Now layer that on top of a war that directly disrupts two of the other major players. Russia and Belarus are among the largest exporters of potash and nitrogen fertilizers. Sanctions, shipping disruptions, and insurance constraints have all reduced availability. The Middle East, a key source of natural gas used to manufacture nitrogen fertilizers, is now unstable.This is not a small problem. This is the foundation of the global food system.The United States is not insulated. We do produce some fertilizer domestically, but nowhere near enough to be independent, and much of the upstream supply chain remains globally entangled. Over the last few decades, we have hollowed out domestic capacity and become dependent on imports and just-in-time delivery.Farmers operate on thin margins and tight timelines. They cannot simply wait it out. If fertilizer is too expensive or unavailable at planting, yields drop. Not a little. A lot. Corn, for example, is extremely nitrogen hungry. Cut fertilizer, and you cut yield. It really is that simple.Farmers should be very concerned right now.  But for most, the reality hasn’t sunken in yet.And consumers will feel it, whether they realize the cause or not.First comes the produce aisle. Fruits and vegetables, especially those that rely on intensive fertilization, will rise quickly in price. Then the staples follow. Wheat, corn, soy. These are not just foods themselves; they are inputs into everything else.Corn becomes feed. Soy becomes feed. Feed becomes meat.So when fertilizer prices spike, animal feed costs rise. When feed costs rise, meat, dairy, and eggs follow. It cascades through the system.There is also a timing issue that most people miss. You do not see the full effect immediately. Fertilizer decisions made this planting season show up at harvest. That means the real impact often hits months later, and then lingers.So what we are looking at is not just a short-term price spike, but a rolling wave.Higher input costs. Lower yields. Tighter supply.And ultimately, significantly higher food prices. Including restaurants.If Oil is the Headline, Fertilizer is the StoryEnergy shocks attract attention. Fertilizer shocks reshape civilizations.This war is not just tightening fuel markets. It is tightening the inputs that grow food, move goods, and sustain modern agriculture. About a third of the global fertilizer trade now passes through the same chokepoint that is the subject of a dispute.Energy producers, fertilizer companies, agricultural commodities, and the entire supply chain will adjust. At the same time, anything that reduces dependence on these inputs will quietly gain value.And as always, the real story is not what is obvious today, but what shows up six months from now.  Right about the same time as the US midterm elections.One thing is clear. The United States will likely invest heavily in rebuilding fertilizer manufacturing capacity.In the meantime, the USA is in crisis management. The administration has issued a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act to speed fertilizer deliveries inside the U.S. The Jones Act, for those who do not live and breathe maritime law, requires goods moved between U.S. ports to be carried on American-built, American-owned, American-flagged, and American-crewed ships.In normal times, that protects domestic shipping. In times like this, it becomes a bottleneck. There simply are not enough qualifying ships to move everything, including oil and fertilizer, where it needs to go. Waiving it, even temporarily, allows foreign vessels to step in and move critical supplies along the coastline.At the same time, the administration is seeking alternative imports from countries such as Venezuela and Morocco. But they are competing with the rest of the world for those same tons of fertilizer. That means higher prices and tighter availability are likely to persist.ConclusionThis is not a crisis that will resolve quickly, nor one that will remain confined to the Middle East. It will work its way quietly through inputs, supply chains, and timing. First energy, then fertilizer, then food.Most people will not notice until the cost increases reach the grocery store. By then, the decisions that drove those prices will already have been made months earlier.So this is the window. Not for panic, but for preparation.Tighten where you can. Plant what you can. Store what makes sense.Because this is not just about higher prices. It is about less margin for error.Be careful out there!Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.Share

Summary: Be an Ant, not a grasshopper


Dire Straits, Part 3 Chapter 3

Dire Straits, Part 3 Chapter IIIThe Impact on the Global Economy - Getting to Net Zero and Lockdown 2.0By Justine Isernhinke, Fellow and Head of Geopolitics and UAP Research, The Malone InstituteDe-IndustrializationFor the better part of the last 50 years, Europe has systematically dismantled itself both economically and culturally. Laws, regulations and mandates were adopted that were hostile to fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Strict climate and environmental standards only serve increase production costs, while reducing the competitiveness of European products for export.Under increasing legislation, vast numbers of manufacturing companies shut down operations in Europe and established themselves inChinaand theU.S.to take advantage of cheaper energy and less regulatory constraint. Globalization and cheaper labor and production costs attracted European companies. Regulatory burdens had a real-life cost implication: according to the IMF, internal barriers in the EU single market are equivalent to a 45% tariff on goods and a 110% tariff on services. Robert Bryce wrote an excellentarticleon Europe’s Deindustrialization.Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy costs were higher in the EU than elsewhere. Europe’s energy crisis was made worse by the final blow resulting from the loss of cheap piped natural gas after the imposition of theWest’s sanctionson Russia after the outbreak of the Ukraine war. Interestingly, Germany’s—and by extension, Europe’s—robust economic growth since the 1960s was somewhatpredicatedon the supply of cheap Russian natural gas supply. According to the IEA, by the end of 2024, average electricity prices for energy-intensive industrial consumers in the EU were approximately twice as high as in the US and 50% higher than in China. Not only is the European Union heavily dependent on energy imports, it is critically dependent on imports of rare earth metals and semiconductors from China and other Asian countries.European innovation and cutting-edge technology havelaggedbehind the US and China for decades. There isnota single European tech giant on par with Google or Alibaba.All of this has resulted in a serious and systemic industrial decline and absolutely zero capability for the continent to “take a punch” metaphorically speaking.For further information, seehttps://gmk.center/en/posts/deindustrialization-in-ukraine-and-the-eu/Gulf States Vulnerable InfrastructureNot only have hotels and airports been targeted but the energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf is especially exposed. As Iranian attacks have ramped up, so too have the number of successful hits on energy assets across theGulf Cooperation Council(GCC). Key Saudi refineries in Ras Tanura and Yanbu have been hit, imperiling the pipeline alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has hit Oman’s transport and logistics infrastructure, including ports that function as partial bypass routes. Kuwaiti refineries have also been targeted: the Mina Al Ahmedi refinery came under two waves of attacks on March 19 alone.More than 25 companies operating in the GCC, including national and international energy firms, haveappliedforce majeure(a legal term meaning that they are unable to meet their contractual obligations and thereby waived from liability for failure to do so). QatarEnergy was the first to invoke the emergency measure after several waves of Iranian strikes on Ras Laffan, one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. As a consequence, QatarEnergy’s LNG-export capacity has beenreducedby 17%. They estimate that it will take 3–5 years to restore the facility. Qatar supplies20%of the world’s LNG exports, driving concerns about the security of global gas supply beyond this stage of the conflict.As noted above, the Gulf’s premier financial center as well as a vital international shipping and transit hub, the UAE has been central to Iran’s strategy of pressuring the US by maximizing economic impact and disrupting global trade. The UAE has beenattackedby more Iranian projectiles than all other GCC states combined and incurred by far the greatest and most varied damage within the group. There have been 48 confirmed hits on significant and strategic sites including Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab and International Financial Centre, Jebel Ali port, Fujairah’s petrochemical and storage complex, the Ruwais refinery, international airports and Amazon Web Services data centers. The concentration of these high-value targets within a relatively close geographic proximity to Iran has increased the vulnerability of the UAE’s leading economic sectors to conflict. In addition to theattackson March 31 on the pipeline, a massivefirehas broken out at a pumping station along the Habshan-Fujairah oil pipeline (ADCOP) in the UAE—a primary export route for Emirati energy products.Iran has also sought to legitimize its disproportionate targeting of the UAE by highlighting its close relationship with Israel, with the UAE having made large-scaleinvestmentsin Israeli arms and technology in recent years.Source: ©https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2026/03/mapping-the-damage-iranian-strikes-on-the-gcc/In retaliation, as mentioned previously, the UAE has literally applied extensive economic sanctions on Iran, Iranians living in the UAE, and frozen Iranian-owned accounts and seized assets.Russia’s oil infrastructure is under attackWe will look at this more closely in the final chapter of this analysis, but Russia has obviously benefited tremendously from the increase in the oil price and the US’s easing of sanctions on the sale of oil. Simultaneously, though, Ukraine hasacceleratedits attacks and hit 10 major Russian refineries and export terminals, no doubt in an effort to temper any benefit Russia may have during this crisis.Satellite imagery of a large fire at the Ust-Luga oil terminal complex in northern Russia on March 27, 2026. The imagery was collected by several of Vantor’s satellites and that provides different perspectives of the fires.  Satellite image ©2026 VantorOil PricesThere are as many opinions about where the price of oil will hit as there are vessels sitting idle in the Persian Gulf. As the war progresses, and prices and shortages hit, we will also see new oil exploration, old refineries coming back online and countries doing whatever they can to secure suppliers.David Murrin, a well-known analyst of international affairs, believes that oil will hit $350/barrel over the next few months. However, that assumes someone will be prepared to pay that price. Another analyst, Doomberg, is of the view that even if oil went to $200/barrell, there’s not enough demand for oil at that price so it won’t stay that high for that long.We could also see a fracturing of the oil price between the West and the East.JP Morgan released amapshowing how many days each continent has left before entering an ENERGY CRISIS due to fuel shortages.Asia: April 1stEurope: April 10North America: April 15Australia: April 20For a primer on Diesel prices in the UK, check out this video:Since Iran war began (Feb 28),here‘s what is going around theworld:CRITICAL— Running Out:• Bangladesh — 95% imported, pumps going DRY, universities closed• Pakistan — 80% Gulf-dependent, schools shut, 4-day workweek. Overnight price surge. Long queues.• Sri Lanka — rationing, mandatory fuel passes, weekly holiday (4 day work week), schools closed.• Zimbabwe — severe fuel shortages; diluting petrol with more ethanol• Turkey - stocks crashed, inflation exploding, currency under pressure• Australia — Tanker delays. Import dependent. Hoping IEA coordination holds.RECORD HIGHS:Cambodia — +68% (highest petrol hike globally)Vietnam — +50%, panic buying, shortagesNigeria — +35%Laos — +33%SEVERE— Americas:USA — diesel +37% ($4.97/gal), gas +27% ($3.72/gal), CA: $5.29; Gas taxes suspended in states. SPR drawn down. Iran sanctions quietly paused.Canada — +28%Brazil — emergency fuel tax cuts; owns oil but supply chains are hurting.Mexico — government-capped fuel pricesSEVERE— Europe:Ireland — €2.30/L diesel (highest EU)Germany — €2.00+/L, recession risk, industrial surcharges, gas +30%, EU emergency plan launchedFrance — €2.00+/L, releasing strategic reserves. Paying 30% more at pumps.Italy — €2.00+/L, recession riskNetherlands — €2.00+/LFinland — €2.00+/LSpain — +27%, €1.79/L (EU’s biggest jump)UK — diesel +13%, inflation forecast 5%+ Shell CEO wanted of a shortage starting in April.Austria | Portugal — cut fuel taxesHungary — capped fuel pricesMANAGED— Asia (but fragile):Japan — 95% Gulf-dependent, emergency reserves activated. Actual usable reserves are only 95 days. (Japan did overstate its reserves by 3x the number. Governments are desperate to keep populations calm.)South Korea — 70% Gulf-dependent, price cap (first in 30 yrs). 50 days of reserves.China — govt-capped +11%, banned fuel exports. 1.4 BILLION barrels stockpiled. Banned exports. Still getting Iranian oil. But China can also fall back onto otherpipelineson the Asian continent.India — only +5% (subsidized), 85% Gulf-dependent . 9 days of reserves, emergency suppliers being hunted— watch April. India’s massive textile industry has been• paralyzed with the loss of 90% of their LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) imports choked off at the Strait of Hormuz,half a million workersjust lost their jobs.Thailand — price capped. Half of Thailand’s entirefishing fleetis literally shut down because fuel prices have doubled. The global food supply chain is breaking apart because the Trump administration and Israel decided to bomb the Middle East. Philippines — state of emergency declared Mar 24; 40 days offuel leftnow.Singapore | Taiwan — Qatari LNG cut offMIDDLE EAST / AFRICA:Egypt — +15-22% (petrol, diesel, cooking gas — Mar 10); Egypt isreducinggovernment fuel use by 30%Jordan — heavy import pressureEthiopia — severe energy strain; prioritizing essential services for fuel supply.Nigeria — +35%South Africa - photos by citizens of dry gas pumps, but ANC-led government thinks the situation is “stable”South Sudan - a 12 hour load shedding cycle because they rely on oil for electricity.Zambia - projectedwelfare lossof -5.6%. The Kiel Institute warns the disruption might trigger not just an energy crisis but a food security shock due to reliance on imports.STABLE(Producers):Saudi Arabia | Russia | UAEAustralia out of DieselAustralia now imports more than 90 per cent of its refined fuel, entirely on foreign-owned and foreign-crewed vessels. The war in Iran has shown how little control or influence their government has over when fuel shipments arrive, where they go, or who gets priority. Despite being a major energy exporter, Australia is uniquely vulnerable to diesel and petrol supply shocks. The deliberate closure of Australian oil refineries over a period of almost 15 years has hollowed out domestic production capacity, leaving just two facilities supplying less than 20% of the country’s needs. At the same time, Australia’snational fuel reservesfall well short of the 90-day benchmark recommended by the International Energy Agency.Australia’s Prime Minister already ishintingat the energy lockdown that’s coming.South Korea’s MeasuresSouth Korea is becoming the canary in the coalmine. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) has marked afourth straight session of lossesas of March 31, 2026. The Korean won has fallen to a 17 year low— levels previously broached only in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009 and the late 1990s Asian crisis.South Korea imports 70% of its crude oil and 25% of liquefied natural gas from the Middle East. The government has sought to pivot to coal as an alternative source,removing an 80% maximum operation limit, and nuclear energy by raising the nuclear power plant utilization ratefrom around 70% to over 80%.The government has alsoimposeda five-day, license plate-based rotation system to restrict public-sector vehicle traffic and reduce oil consumption, and urged households totake shorter showersand charge phones during the day. Further - harsher - measures are beingconsidered.UnemploymentWe have a convergence ofArtificial Intelligence, aprivate creditcrunch (banks have been limiting redemptions across credit funds for a few months now) and rising costs in all supply chains, which will negatively impact employment across the world. I listened to an interesting analysis that companies, particularly US companies, are no longer able to pass the costs onto consumers. After a year of tariffs, it’s clear to most CEOs that raising prices will price them out of the market and reduce consumption. The implications of this war, aside from any other considerations, will have a direct and unfortunately downward impact on disposable income, which was already strained with post-Covid inflation.What can we expect?Evergiven Ship– for every one day it blocked the Suez Canal (six days in total), there was a week of supply disruption. With the Evergiven, however, only 400 vessels were stuckwaitingon the stuck cargo vessel.Based on the logistics nightmare of Evergiven, even if the war ended today, after a month of war, we’re looking at 28 weeks of supply disruption.Even if the war ended tomorrow, supply chains are gummed up and would take likely6 monthsto rectify - at least. Recent thinking is that this could even be ayearbefore prices come down. This could be the start of the Great Depression of the 21stCentury.Some good newsNot all is lost. If nothing, humans are incredibly adaptable and our prime directive (aside from survival) is how to make a buck withopportunitypresents itself:’Kenya:the once-forgotten Lamu Port has roared to life. Long dismissed by critics as a white elephant, it has seen a974% surgein volume. Ultra-large vessels, too deep for Mombasa and too exposed for Gulf waters, now dock at Lamu’s 18-metre natural depth. We’re also seeing Roll-on/Roll-off (RoRo) revolution in Lamu. Manufacturers are using RoRo ships – where vehicles are driven on and off via ramps – to offload thousands of cars. These are then ferried to the Gulf on small, low-risk boats to avoid the $200,000+ war risk insurance premiums slapped on large carriers entering the Strait of Hormuz.Ethiopia:their national carrier Ethiopian Airlines has seized the moment. With Dubai and Doha mostly paralyzed by airspace risks from Iranian missile and drone strikes, the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, has become the continent’s primary air-bridge. Cargo revenue is up 14%. High-value goods, such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, perishables, are now routed through the Bole International Airport, bypassing the 40-day sea detour.To protect this windfall, Kenya and Ethiopia have launched joint military operations along the once-languishing Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor. This unprecedented coordination is designed to ensure that the new “safe harbour” of Lamu remains shielded from regional spillover. And because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz marooned shipping containers, an emergency air-bridge has formed. Nairobi and Addis Ababa are now the primary transit points for consumer electronics flown from Asia to Europe, thereby bypassing the the 17,700KM sea detour.Nigeria:the country is counting its crude. Brent prices hit $120 per barrel in March. Against a budget benchmark of $64.85, daily revenues have doubled. The government has stumbled into an unexpected multi-billion dollar fiscal cushion. The Dangote Petroleum Refinery is also cashing in. In March, it issued an export tender for 84,000 metric tonnes of jet fuel and diesel. It is no longer just a domestic project – it is replacing Persian Gulf supplies for the continent.South Africa:The main port in South Africa, Durban, has shed its reputation for congestion. It is now clocking 28 crane moves per hour, processing thousands of ships rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope with a rare level of precision.Morocco:Royal Air Maroc has moved swiftly. Ten new international routes –including Los Angeles and Beirut – have siphoned off transit passengers who once relied on Middle Eastern hubs. Casablanca traffic is up 12%.Namibia:Walvis Bay in Namibia has become the first reliable refuelling station for ships emerging from the South Atlantic. Bunkering demand is up 30%.Mozambique:the country’s $20 billion LNG project has been fast-tracked TotalEnergies resumed operations in early 2026. Over 4,000 workers are racing to meet an accelerated production date. The port in Maputo, the capital, has seen volumes grow by 16% in the weeks following the war’s outbreak. Chrome and coal exporters have abandoned northern routes in favour of the safer Indian Ocean–Cape corridor.Mauritius:The country has leveraged its mid-ocean position into a 15% revenue increase. High-end logistics and emergency repair services are now its bread and butter.United States:The upside for the US is LNG dominance. Already the US is the world’s largest exporter at 15 billion cubic feet per day with eight new LNG terminals under construction. Capacity could double to29 billioncubic feet per day by 2029.We could also expect OPEC and US supply growth to have ramped up tooffsetIran exports by June. By May, most Hormuz Strait volumes may have been re-routed.There will still be a mad scramble for any oil tanker. We’ve seen China sell LNG atinflated pricesto other Asian nations. A few days ago, 11 tankers carrying US diesel were abruptly diverted away from Europe towards Africa, with volumes split between West Africa and the Durban storage hub in South Africa,underscoringhow quickly trade flows are being redrawn.With passage through the Strait of Hormuz still restricted, countries are doing whatever they can to secure supply amid rising shortage risks. A similar pattern is emerging east of Suez, where cargoes originally bound for Europe from the Middle East are being redirected into Asia.ConclusionThanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareThe European Union called for energy lockdowns and is urging Europeans to work from home, drive less, and fly less because of the Gulf conflict.. Like I’ve said, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen says this crisis won’t end even if the war ends tomorrow. This means that Europe won’t be back to normal in a long time. Whilst there are no immediate supply shortages yet, diesel and jet fuel are already under pressure. Of course, you also have 26 of 27 EU member states currently under infringement proceedings for failing to implement electricity market rules.The reality is that Europe’s grid is so outdated it can’t even handle the renewables they already built — 120 GW of clean energy projects are at risk of being strandedBut here’s what EU Energy Commissioner Jørgensen is not telling you:The EU had cheap Russian energy. They chose to refuse it.The EU had nuclear. They chose to phase it out.Germany shut down its last nuclear plants in 2023.Seven EU countries still actively BLOCK nuclear alternatives in energy law.They replaced reliable energy with ideology.Once the Gulf conflict starts to impact the EU, they have no options, no buffer and certainly no plan.Their solution is, once again, behavioral control: tell citizens to drive less, fly less and work from home.Then instead of telling you that the European politicians spent decades destroying Europe’s own energy production and focused on creating the most ideologically-driven, non-resilient, fragile energy grid ever, they accuse the Iran War of triggering this emergency.This isn’t a Gulf conflict problem.This is a European political failure dressed up as an act of God.COVID lockdowns told you to stay home.Energy lockdowns are telling you to stay home.Same instruction. Different excuse.Both times — the crisis was real. The cause was manufactured by the same class of people.This is the most predictable energy catastrophe since the 1970s oil embargo — except this time, Europe did it to themselves.For the last few weeks as I researched this paper, I began to wonder how we got here. What made the West so vulnerable. In fact, the world so vulnerable. I don’t know the answer to that. But there is one contributing thought I have.When I studied economics and economic history at University, we were taught that there were progressive revolutions in humanity’s economic evolution. There was the agricultural revolution, followed by the industrial revolution, and then in the latter 20thcentury the services revolution. Each country had to move through each revolution in order to end up richer and more advanced. The goal was for an economy to become a “services economy” where what was produced was services and not goods or food. https://spia.princeton.edu/news/manufacturing-isnt-only-way-poor-countries-can-developWe were taught that globalization allowed for macro division of labor – that countries that were better at producing food, should solely produce food. Countries that had cheap labor should be our factories and countries with smart intellectuals should run banks, insurance firms and technology companies – i.e. services.What was interesting is that this development theory completely contradicted what I was taught in my international relations class about National Security.National Security is not a mythology but is rooted in the school of Realism (vs. Idealism), where the guns/butter economic debate has real world implications – do you spend money to build guns or produce butter? https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/guns-butter.aspUnder the paradigm of National Security, you really need both. It cannot be a zero-sum game. For a country to have true security, you need your own factories to churn out weapons in order to protect your people and your borders. And you need an independent food source to ensure that your people don’t starve if the countries around you stop supplying you with food.Under National Security, the progressive revolutions of economic development are required but they never replace each other. Under Idealism, they do replace each other and economic activities we don’t like in our backyard (rare earth production, for example) need to be moved to another country that has no issue polluting its rivers and lakes.Under the last 30 years of idealist leadership in Europe, and America to a lesser extent, we outsourced not only our call centers, but our guns, our butter, our factories, our energy production to other nations far away and out of our thoughts.With WEF urging and EU fanaticism, Europe de-industrialized under some utopian goal of Net Zero and Carbon-Free. America was patrolling the world’s oceans, securing shipping for everyone and creating the Liberal World Order that is now eroding away as America realizes that all it did was fund Europe’s Welfare State. America was also seduced by the WEF Sirens and built up a massive service industry, to the detriment of the industrial revolution that made that service revolution possible – like coal mining, steel production, factories. However, thankfully, America is a divided nation and as idealist as some politicians were, there have been plenty of realists understanding that globalization as practiced by Europe would be the end of America. America at least has some independence – some ability to withstand what is coming.This, I believe, is the tension we are seeing unfold on in real time today: Europe outsourced almost everything, hoping that an economy based on services would be enough to carry them through. America, especially under Trump in both terms, has held on and encouraged growth in industrialization. But I fear it’s not enough. Globalization is a fickle mistress. She has turned on those that doted the most on her.Welcome to mandatory Net Zero and Lockdown 2.0 – all caused by politicians, economists and intellectuals who misunderstood that it always had to be guns AND butter.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.


WHAT YOUR COVID BOOSTER DID TO YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

What this is aboutIf you got multiple COVID-19 booster shots, something happened to your immune system that your doctor probably never mentioned, and that your post-vaccination blood test almost certainly cannot detect.A growing body of peer-reviewed research published between 2023 and 2025 documents that repeated mRNA boosting causes a progressive shift in the type of antibody your immune system produces against the virus. This shift is not random noise. It follows a well-understood biological pattern. And it has measurable, functional consequences.This article explains what that shift is, what it means, who it matters most for, and what should be done about it. No prior immunology background is required.The standard post-vaccination blood test that tells you how much antibody you have says nothing about what kind of antibody you have. After multiple boosters, that distinction matters.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Not all antibodies are the sameYour body makes several types of antibodies, labeled IgG1 through IgG4. When you encounter a virus or receive a vaccine for the first time, your immune system mostly produces IgG1 and IgG3. These are your fighter antibodies. They do two key things:• They block the virus from entering your cells (this is called neutralization).• They recruit other immune cells to find and destroy cells the virus has already infected. This second function is called ADCC (antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity), and it depends on a part of the antibody called the Fc region.IgG4 is different. It is sometimes called the tolerance antibody. In normal life it appears in small amounts, mostly in situations where your immune system has been exposed to something repeatedly and decided it is not a threat, like bee venom in beekeepers or allergens in people completing immunotherapy. IgG4 can neutralize a virus, but it cannot perform ADCC, activate complement (another arm of the immune defense), or engage immune cell receptors that recruit other defenders to clear an infected cell.In other words, IgG4 is a blocking antibody. It recognizes the virus and gets in the way, but it does not tell the rest of the immune system to attack.IgG4 neutralizes the virus. It does not clear infected cells, activate complement, or recruit immune effectors. These are not equivalent things.What repeated boosting does to that balanceAfter your first two COVID vaccines, your immune system produces mostly IgG1 and IgG3. The same is true after natural infection. That is the normal, expected response.But something changes after a third dose, and in some case after the second dose, and becomes more pronounced with each additional dose. Multiple peer-reviewed studies now document that repeated mRNA boosting drives a progressive shift toward IgG4 in the antibody response specifically targeting the spike protein. This shift:• Is not seen after natural infection alone.• Is not seen after adenoviral vector vaccines (like AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson).• Is more pronounced with the Pfizer vaccine than with Moderna.• Has been documented in children as young as 5 after only two pediatric doses.A 2025 study (Kalkeri et al., Journal of Infectious Diseases) provided the first direct functional evidence of what this switch costs. Researchers found that higher IgG4 levels were negatively correlated with the ability to neutralize the virus and with all three measured immune effector functions (the cellular and molecular processes that clear infected cells). People who had received mRNA vaccines had IgG4 levels more than 150 times higher than those who had received a protein-subunit vaccine. Note: that study was funded by Novavax, which makes a protein-subunit vaccine, and most of its authors work for Novavax. The conflict of interest is real and should be weighed. The findings are also consistent with other independent research.A separate 2025 study (Martín Pérez et al., Journal of Infection) found that healthcare workers who developed this IgG4 shift were more likely to get subsequent COVID-19 infections. This is the first published study to associate the IgG4 switch with a real-world adverse health outcome. It requires confirmation in larger studies, but the direction of the finding is exactly what the biology predicts.Why repeated boosting causes this shiftYour immune system learns from repetition. When it encounters the same antigen (in this case, the spike protein) over and over in a relatively calm context, it gradually classifies that antigen as a persistent but non-threatening presence and shifts its response toward tolerance rather than attack. This is actually a useful feature in normal life. It is the same mechanism that lets beekeepers stop reacting to bee stings and lets allergy immunotherapy work.The shift is driven by a molecule called IL-10, a chemical signal produced inside lymph nodes during the immune response. IL-10 acts locally, in the germinal centers where new antibodies are designed and refined. When IL-10 is present in those local environments, immune cells are steered toward producing IgG4 instead of IgG1 or IgG3.An important clarification: this is not broad immune suppressionYou may have read claims that COVID boosters suppress the immune system overall through elevated IL-10. This is not supported by the evidence. The quantities of IL-10 produced by vaccination are in the low picogram-per-milliliter range, tiny amounts that clear quickly. The levels required to suppress NK cells, impair T cell responses, or cause the kinds of immune dysfunction seen in cancer patients are thousands of times higher than what vaccination produces.The real concern is not systemic immune suppression. It is a targeted, local reprogramming of the antibody production machinery inside lymph nodes. The distinction matters: broad suppression would be temporary and reversible. These local lymph node effects may impact on both immune responses to the spike antigen, as well as to other antigens being presented in the same lymph node.  What the research documents is different from systemic immune suppression. It is encoded into immune memory and happens at the level of individual lymph nodes.The memory problemOnce IgG4-producing immune cells are created in germinal centers, they take up permanent residence in bone marrow as long-lived plasma cells. They continue producing IgG4 for years. They cannot be turned off by waiting, and they are not reversed by stopping vaccination. Every subsequent encounter with the spike protein (or other antigens that have elicited similar responses in specific lymph nodes), whether from a booster or from an actual infection, triggers these cells to produce more IgG4.Additionally, a 2024 review (Kim, Immune Networks) synthesized evidence that the mRNA-LNP vaccine platform creates unusually prolonged immune reactions in lymph nodes, lasting six months or more. This extended activity enables each booster to further engrave the IgG4 pattern into memory. The same property that makes mRNA vaccines immunologically powerful also makes them structurally prone to this effect when given frequently.Why booster spacing mattersWhen boosters are given before the immune response to the previous dose has fully resolved, the signals overlap and amplify each other. This process is referred to as signal stacking. Each overlapping dose reinforces the IL-10 regulatory environment and pushes the IgG4 shift further. Boosters given at least a year apart allow the immune response to fully resolve and reset before re-exposure, reducing the probability of the IgG4 shift.What the research has found: known and potential harmsThis analysis divides the adverse event findings into two tiers: those documented with published evidence and those that are biologically plausible but not yet confirmed in large studies.What is documented1. Increased risk of breakthrough COVID infectionMartín Pérez et al. (2025) found that healthcare workers who developed the IgG4 shift were more likely to get COVID afterward. This is the first published study to link the antibody shift to an actual adverse health outcome. It needs replication, but the direction is predicted by the biology.2. Loss of the immune functions that clear infected cellsKalkeri et al. (2025) directly measured the functional consequences. Higher IgG4 was correlated with reduced capacity for three distinct immune clearance mechanisms: ADCC (r = –0.53), complement deposition (r = –0.53), and phagocytosis (r = –0.40). These are not theories. They are published measurements.3. The damage is written into immune memoryIrrgang et al. (Science Immunology, 2023) found that 14.4% of the long-term immune memory cells targeting the spike protein were IgG4-producing after repeated boosting. These cells persist for years. The impairment does not fade when vaccination stops.4. Children are also affectedKobbe et al. (Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, 2024) confirmed IgG4 switching in children aged 5 to 11 after only two standard pediatric doses. The effect is not limited to adults who received many boosters.What is plausible but not yet confirmedThe following risks have not been confirmed in large studies. They are raised because the biological mechanism is understood and the conditions for harm are present. Absence of confirmation here means the studies have not been done, not that the risks have been ruled out.•IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD).A rare inflammatory condition affecting the pancreas, kidneys, salivary glands, and other organs, driven by exactly the same immune environment that repeated boosting reinforces. Case reports of new or worsening IgG4-RD following COVID vaccination exist. No systematic surveillance has been conducted.•Impaired cancer immune surveillance.The immune system kills early cancer cells partly through ADCC. If ADCC capacity is reduced, the body’s ability to catch and eliminate abnormal cells before they become tumors may be reduced. This is particularly relevant to patients receiving cancer immunotherapy drugs like rituximab or trastuzumab that rely on the same mechanism.•Interference with cancer treatments.High circulating IgG4 may compete with therapeutic antibodies for the Fc receptor sites on immune cells, potentially blunting the effectiveness of ADCC-dependent cancer drugs in patients who received boosters during treatment.•Weakened response to other vaccines and infections.The regulatory B cells expanded by repeated boosting also suppress immune responses more broadly. Whether this reduces the effectiveness of flu shots, pneumonia vaccines, or other routine immunizations given at the same time has not been studied.•Immunological imprinting.The immune cells created by primary vaccination dominate future responses and crowd out cells that would respond to new variants. This means repeated boosters may progressively reduce your immune system’s ability to mount a fresh response to a significantly different future virus.•Autoantibody generation.The spike protein shares structural similarities with some human proteins. The elevated mutation rates documented in mRNA-driven immune reactions create conditions for cross-reactive antibodies that might target the body’s own tissues. This has not been systematically studied.The absence of data on these pathways does not mean they are not happening. It means no one has been looking. The surveillance system was not designed to find them.Who this matters for, and howThe most important point in this entire paper is that the same immune shift has completely different implications depending on who you are.High-risk adults: elderly, immunocompromised, serious chronic illnessFor people who are genuinely at high risk of severe COVID, repeated boosting is likely still the right call. COVID-19 kills primarily through excessive inflammation, not through direct viral damage. The IgG4 shift, which dampens that inflammatory response while maintaining the ability to neutralize the virus, may actually be protective for people whose biggest risk is the body’s own overreaction. The documented benefit of vaccination against severe disease and death in this group is real.That said, even for this group, the evidence supports spacing boosters at least a year apart, considering lower doses, and possibly using a protein-subunit vaccine (like Novavax) for boosting to avoid amplifying the IgG4 shift.Healthy adults and young peopleFor healthy adults who are not at elevated risk of severe COVID, the calculation is different. The individual risk of serious illness is very low. The benefits of additional boosters are small in absolute terms. And the adverse immune events documented here (loss of Fc clearance function, durable IgG4 memory encoding, immunological imprinting) are not offset by a commensurate benefit. Clinicians advising this group have an obligation to explain these trade-offs, not to present continued boosting as obviously beneficial.ChildrenThe findings for children are particularly concerning. Children face near-zero individual risk of severe COVID. The documented justification for vaccinating them rested almost entirely on reducing transmission to others. But the IgG4 shift produces an antibody profile that is poorly suited to preventing infection and transmission. And the shift occurs after only two standard pediatric doses, before any booster is even given.The paper argues that pediatric clinicians should treat the question of continued boosting in healthy children as a clinical ethics issue, not a bureaucratic one. These adverse immune events are being imposed on individuals who face almost no risk of the disease being prevented, without their or their families’ informed understanding of what is happening to their immune systems.Why your blood test cannot tell you any of thisStandard post-vaccination blood tests measure total anti-spike IgG. This number goes up after each booster. It has been used by regulatory agencies and clinicians as the primary measure of how well vaccination is working.Total IgG titer does not distinguish between IgG1, IgG2, IgG3, and IgG4. A high number could mean you have robust protective immunity dominated by IgG1 and IgG3. It could also mean you have high antibody levels in which a substantial fraction is IgG4 and therefore cannot perform ADCC, cannot activate complement, and negatively correlates with the very neutralizing titers it is supposed to measure.Patients who have received four or five boosters and had their antibody levels tested have no way of knowing, based on that test alone, which situation they are in. Neither do their doctors. The standard test is structurally blind to the primary adverse event.A high antibody number after multiple boosters may reflect protection. It may also reflect a growing fraction of tolerance antibodies that actively interfere with infection clearance. The test cannot tell you which.What needs to changeThe recommendations based on this analysis are straightforward, though none of them are currently standard practice.•Space boosters at least a year apart.Annual minimum intervals reduce IgG4 induction by allowing the immune response to fully resolve before re-exposure. Boosters given more frequently should be treated as carrying a known adverse cost that needs to be weighed explicitly against the benefit.•Test for IgG subclasses, not just total IgG.Total antibody titer cannot detect the primary adverse event. IgG subclass testing should be standard in clinical trials, required by regulators before authorizing additional boosters, and available to multiply-boosted patients who want to know what kind of antibody response they actually have.•Use absolute, not relative, risk numbers.Patients deserve to know how much a booster actually reduces their absolute risk of infection, not just what percentage improvement it produces relative to an unspecified baseline. Relative risk numbers without absolute context make small benefits appear large and prevent meaningful weighing of benefit against harm.•Re-evaluate pediatric booster policy with new data.Pediatric booster guidelines should not be derived by scaling down adult high-risk recommendations. Children need their own evidence base, with IgG subclass outcomes measured, before continued boosting is recommended as standard care.•Start the surveillance studies that should have been started years ago.At minimum: prospective studies measuring COVID outcomes by IgG subclass composition; review of IgG4-related disease cases linked to vaccination; studies of outcomes in cancer patients on ADCC-dependent therapies who also received boosters; and long-term immune follow-up in children.•Clinicians must disclose these trade-offs.Patients who received multiple boosters under the understanding that more was always better deserve an accurate accounting of what the immunological evidence now shows. That is what informed consent means.The bottom lineThe current data indicate that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines work for reducing the incidence of severe disease and death in high-risk patients. They have prevented serious illness and death in many people who were genuinely at risk. That is not being disputed in this analysis.  Whether the risk/benefit analysis is positive for these products for any cohort is another matter entirely, and not being addressed in this analysis.What is under dispute is whether repeated boosting is uniformly beneficial across all populations, whether the antibody tests used to justify it measure what matters, and whether the people receiving these boosters have been given an accurate picture of what is happening to their immune systems.The answer to all three questions is no. The immune shift documented in this research is real, it has measurable functional consequences, it compounds with each additional booster, it is invisible to standard testing, and its long-term effects are unknown because the studies needed to characterize them have not been done.None of that requires catastrophic projections or “conspiracy theories”. It does require honesty.The question is not whether the vaccines worked. The question is whether we understood what we were doing to the immune systems of tens of millions of people, and whether we are willing to find out now.Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.Share

Summary: A plain-language guide to what the research now shows