Welcome to Grappy's Soap Box - a platform for insightful commentary on politics, media, free speech, climate change, and more, focusing on Australia, the USA, and global perspectives.
Sometimes a story breaks that forces you to stop and ask:
How on earth was this allowed to happen?
We now know that the FDA is considering a black-box warning — the strongest warning it can impose — for mRNA COVID vaccines given to children and teens. Why? Because the agency has finally acknowledged multiple child deaths linked to the shots, with experts warning the real number may be higher .
Let that sink in.
These vaccines were mandated for schoolchildren. Kids were expelled for refusing them. Parents were ridiculed for hesitating. Scientists who raised concerns were smeared, silenced, or de-platformed. And now — four years later — the truth is surfacing.
This wasn’t a mistake.
It was a systemic failure of transparency, accountability, and basic morality.
While credible physicians warned of myocarditis risks in teens, especially boys, the public was told it was “rare,” “mild,” or “misinformation.” Even cases of serious harm within vaccine trials were quietly excluded from the results. Instead of open debate, we got censorship, political pressure, and a media more interested in enforcing a narrative than protecting children.
Megyn Kelly was attacked as an “anti-vaxxer” for questioning the safety of these shots in kids.
Turns out she — and others — were right to ask.
But those who pushed the mandates?
Those who insisted it was “safe and effective” for children without long-term data?
Those who mocked, shamed, and silenced dissenting voices?
They now fall silent.
No apology.
No accountability.
No explanation.
And the media?
Complicit.
They amplified the official line, demonised sceptics, and ignored emerging evidence until it became impossible to hide. They helped create the climate where debate was forbidden, and parents were kept in the dark.
In a healthy democracy, truth is tested through open discussion — not crushed because it’s inconvenient. Yet throughout COVID, we allowed governments, tech companies, and health bureaucrats to decide which facts we were permitted to hear.
Today’s black-box warning discussion is not just a medical story.
It is a moral indictment of the institutions that failed our children.
We must demand answers.
We must insist on transparency.
And above all, we must never again allow fear, politics, and censorship to trump truth and child safety.
Parents deserved honesty.
Children deserved protection.
They got neither.
Australia has finally reached the moment where reality smashes into ideology. The Opposition has dumped its previous Net Zero commitment — and rightly so. That decision must not just be defended; it must be prosecuted with absolute conviction.
Because Net Zero, as currently pursued by Labor and the Greens, is not a climate policy.
It is a national economic suicide note.
The arguments against Net Zero are overwhelming, practical, and already visible across Europe — where the experiment is collapsing in real time.
And Australia is marching straight down the same path unless someone has the courage to pull the handbrake.
Below are the clear, undeniable reasons Net Zero must be abandoned — not politely questioned, not gently “rebalanced,” but rejected as the destructive, unworkable fantasy it is.
🔹 1. Net Zero Destroys Energy Security
Europe went all-in on wind and solar — and the result has been catastrophic:
Intermittent renewables left the grid exposed to weeks-long energy shortfalls (“Dunkelflaute”)
Australia is copying the same blueprint.
Labor is shutting down our coal stations without any proven replacement, gutting our energy security and placing us in permanent dependence on foreign gas imports and batteries that do not yet exist at industrial scale.
This isn’t strategy.
It’s delusion.
🔹 2. Renewable Intermittency Can’t Run a Modern Nation
Renewables are “unreliables” — entirely dependent on backup baseload power they do not provide themselves .
Batteries?
Today’s best large-scale batteries store 6–8 hours, while low-wind periods can last two weeks.
Australia is betting its national grid on a storage technology that:
does not exist
cannot exist at the required scale
and is nowhere near cost-viable
This is not “transition.”
This is ideological gambling with the nation’s power supply.
🔹 3. Net Zero Causes Massive Electricity Price Increases
This is not theory. It’s now lived reality.
Europe’s electricity prices exploded — industrial prices up 5–7 times those of the US and China .
Germany and the UK — once industrial powerhouses — are now cautionary tales.
Businesses fleeing to the US where energy is cheap
Entire supply chains hollowed out
Marshall warns that Europe is “wiping out its industrial base” in the name of Net Zero .
Australia is smaller, more vulnerable, and more exposed.
We won’t just lose manufacturing — we’ll lose:
mining
refining
smelting
heavy industry
food processing
agriculture
regional towns built around energy-intensive work
This is unilateral economic disarmament.
🔹 5. Net Zero Devastates Landscapes and Wildlife
Labor and the Greens constantly invoke environmentalism while pushing the greatest environmental destruction in Australian history:
T
housands of kilometres of transmission lines bulldozed through farmland, forests and heritage land
Wind turbines plastered across rural Australia
Solar farms consuming entire regions of arable land
Whale populations disrupted by offshore wind
Birds and wildlife killed by turbines
Europe is already recognising this disaster.
Australia is simply arriving late to the bonfire.
🔹 6. Net Zero Makes No Global Difference
This is the most important truth of all:
Australia could disappear tomorrow and global emissions would not change.
China builds two new coal plants per week.
India adds two per month.
Both have Net Zero deadlines so far in the future they can be safely ignored for decades.
Neither intends to cripple itself the way Europe has.
Yet Labor wants Australia — a 1.2% emitter — to commit economic suicide to impress nations who laugh at the idea.
🔹 7. Renewables Need Fossil Fuels to Exist
Every wind turbine, solar panel, and battery requires:
massive mining
diesel machinery
fossil-fuel-based metals and chemicals
shipping across the world
gas or coal backup during downtime
“Clean energy” cannot exist without “dirty energy.”
The irony is inescapable.
🔹 8. Net Zero Punishes the Poor Most
Marshall is right: Net Zero is a policy that immiserates the poor .
Higher electricity prices
Higher food prices
Higher rent and mortgages
Lost jobs
Lower wages
Higher cost of living everywhere
Rich elites cope.
Ordinary Australians pay the price.
🔹 9. Australia Risks Becoming Europe 2.0
Europe tried to “lead the world.”
Nobody followed.
Now Europe is scrambling back to coal, reopening gas fields, and begging the US for LNG.
Australia is still pretending this model works.
Labor is pushing us into the same catastrophe — but with even fewer industrial strengths to lose.
🔹 10. A Sensible Energy Policy Is Possible
Australia can embrace
Clean, affordable next-gen nuclear
High-efficiency, low-emission coal
Domestic gas
Hydropower
Renewables only where economically justified
Technology-driven emissions reduction, not ideology-driven deadlines
This is not “anti-environment.”
It is pro-reality.
The LNP Must Hold the Line — No Backsliding
Net Zero is collapsing everywhere it has been tried.
It is not “the future.”
It is a failed experiment.
The LNP must argue forcefully, unapologetically, and with total clarity:
Net Zero destroys jobs.
Net Zero raises prices.
Net Zero weakens the nation.
Net Zero does nothing for the climate.
Australia cannot afford another decade of this fantasy.
The Opposition has finally stepped away from a policy that never made sense.
Now it must go further:
Expose it.
Discredit it.
And bury it for good.
Before Labor buries the country along with it.
Please watch Paul Marshall's presentation at this year's ARC conference in February. I have used his arguments in the above blog.
Every now and then, someone from the mainstream breaks ranks and says what everyone else can see but few in public life dare acknowledge. Erin Molan — long a familiar face in Australian media — is one of those voices. Her recent long-form interview with PragerU lays bare a set of uncomfortable truths: about mass immigration, media dishonesty, the decline of Western confidence, and the cultural void young people are falling into. The whole conversation is well worth watching, but here are the key themes that stood out.
From Sports Desk to Security and Politics — and Why She Had to Leave
Molan didn’t start out as a political lightning rod. Her entry into the national conversation was through sport — hosting football and tennis, and becoming the first woman to hold several major roles. But, as she explains, sport was the last genuinely apolitical part of the media landscape.
Once she moved to Sky News, she found herself confronting the very permission structure of mainstream media: conservative opinions were taboo, even where facts supported them; left-wing narratives were simply assumed as truth.
After October 7, that tension became unmanageable. What should have been a clear moral line — condemning a terrorist massacre — became “controversial.” The absurdity of this pushed her out of the strained “neutral by morning, opinionated by night” existence.
The Collapse of Media Integrity
One of Molan’s most cutting observations is what’s happened to journalism itself. Legacy media, she argues, has moved from reporting facts to laundering activist talking points.
Public broadcasters in Australia even reported terrorist propaganda as fact — with no accountability, no consequences, no retractions anyone would ever see. Accuracy is optional; narrative is supreme.
Meanwhile, young people — who’ve abandoned legacy outlets entirely — are turning to influencers, independent journalists, and alternative media for the truth. It’s a shift America experienced earlier; Australia is only just waking up to it.
The Moral Vacuum Among Young Men
Molan also speaks frankly about a crisis afflicting young men. Not a crisis of strength, but of identity. Boys are told masculinity is toxic, leadership is oppressive, and the traditional roles men once inhabited are inherently suspect.
The predictable result? They seek purpose from all the wrong places. Online extremists, pseudo-macho influencers, and nihilistic forums become their surrogate mentors.
It is not that masculinity has become dangerous — it’s that society has pathologised it. And now it wonders why so many young men are lost.
Mass Immigration Without Shared Values
Perhaps the most explosive portion of the interview concerns immigration.
Not immigration itself, but the complete abandonment of integration.
Molan points out the glaring reality: Australia is bringing in large numbers of migrants from countries where extremist ideologies are widespread, where hatred of the West is taught in schools, and where liberal democratic values are alien concepts. There is almost no vetting. No expectation to assimilate. No cultural guardrails at all. And the results — post–October 7 — have shocked even those who thought they were paying attention.
She contrasts this with her own upbringing in Indonesia, where her family respected local customs, adapted, learned the language, and understood they were guests. Today’s model is the complete opposite: host countries are expected to transform themselves to fit the migrant, not the other way around.
Western leaders, Molan argues, have forgotten the basic principle that built cohesive multicultural societies: shared values matter more than shared geography.
The Rise of Intolerance — and Leaders Too Weak to Confront It
The Opera House chants of “Gas the Jews” were a turning point for many Australians. For Molan, the scandal wasn't just that the chants happened — but that there were no consequences.
Weak leadership doesn’t neutralise intolerance; it rewards it.
When extremists see that nothing happens after such acts, they push further.
Australia, Molan says, is at risk of following the UK’s path: losing confidence in its own identity to the point where immigrants with stronger cultural convictions simply replace the weakened norm.
China’s Influence and the West’s Strategic Blindness
One of Molan’s most intriguing points is her view on China.
She believes Beijing actively fuels Western wokeness because division weakens competitors. China would never tolerate this ideology on its own soil — but it is delighted to see it tear the West apart.
Meanwhile, China buys up Australian infrastructure, expands its influence through proxies, and prepares for an increasingly unstable world. All while Western leaders are distracted, scolding their own citizens instead of addressing real threats.
A Broader Warning: The West Is Losing Its Confidence
In the end, the interview is more than a critique — it’s a diagnosis. The West is suffering from a crisis of confidence.
Our media lies to us.
Our leaders refuse to defend our values.
Our institutions are paralysed by fear of being called names.
And our borders are open to the very ideologies that despise the freedoms we take for granted.
Molan’s message is simple: if we want our civilization to survive, we have to fight for it. That means honest media. Sensible immigration policies. Cultural self-respect. And leaders who are willing to tell the truth, not just the comforting lie.
For anyone concerned about the future of Australia — and the broader Western world — this interview is essential viewing.
Every so often, a medical story emerges that should spark intense global interest — but instead slips into silence.
The recent case-series on fenbendazole, published in Cancer Reports (Karger), is precisely that kind of story.
Fenbendazole is a cheap, widely used anti-parasitic drug — primarily for animals — that has been around for decades. Yet in this published case-series, late-stage cancer patients who had exhausted all conventional options experienced remarkable improvements after beginning fenbendazole. Tumour markers dropped, scans improved, pain lessened, and survival extended well beyond what oncologists had anticipated.
These weren’t mild, ambiguous shifts.
These were significant clinical changes in people who were already written off by the system.
And still… almost no reaction from the medical establishment.
Dr John Campbell recently covered the paper, outlining the extraordinary nature of the findings. I also touched on this issue in my post “When Low-Cost Cures Are Left to Die.” But the more you look at this story, the more troubling it becomes — not because fenbendazole is guaranteed to work, but because of the institutional indifference to even finding out.
If Fenbendazole Were a $10,000 Pill, It Would Be a Global Headline
Let’s be honest:
The problem here isn’t the science — it’s the economics.
Fenbendazole is:
off-patent
cheap
widely available
not owned by any pharmaceutical giant
impossible to turn into a blockbuster drug
In our current system, that is the kiss of death.
If a new biotech company had produced the same clinical outcomes with a $100,000-a-year therapy, it would already be hailed as a breakthrough. Trials would be green-lit overnight. Investors would be lining up. Oncologists would be fighting to participate.
Instead, because the drug costs a few dollars, nobody with institutional power seems interested.
This is not how genuine science works.
This is how profit-driven gatekeeping works.
The Data Doesn’t Claim Miracles — It Claims Promise
The Karger paper does not say fenbendazole is a cure for cancer.
It does not promise universal benefit.
It does not offer sweeping conclusions.
What it does provide is something incredibly valuable:
a series of late-stage cancer cases showing meaningful clinical improvement after starting a low-cost drug.
That alone should trigger:
urgent clinical trials
mechanistic studies
replication attempts
open scientific discussion
Instead, we get an eerie lack of curiosity.
And that’s the real scandal here.
Patients Deserve Answers — Not Silence
No one is saying fenbendazole is the answer.
But the idea that such striking results can be shrugged off because the drug isn’t profitable is morally indefensible.
A responsible medical system investigates promising leads — especially when they are safe, cheap and widely accessible.
But our system does the opposite:
It fast-tracks expensive treatments and quietly ignores low-cost ones.
It rewards profit, not potential.
It prioritises patents over patients.
And fenbendazole may now be the clearest example of that dysfunction.
Final Thought
If the medical community truly believes in evidence, then it must follow the evidence — even when the evidence points to a drug with no financial value. The fenbendazole case-series doesn’t prove a miracle cure, but it absolutely proves the need for serious, immediate investigation.
Science advances by curiosity.
Medicine advances by courage.
And right now, both seem to be in short supply.
Until we confront this uncomfortable reality, we will continue to miss — or ignore — low-cost breakthroughs hiding in plain sight.
Here is Dr Campbell's video covering these case studies.
