Feb 23, 2026 3-5pm ET
Monday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:
Hour 1
40 Attorneys General Urge Congress to ‘Tie Online Access to ID’ Forty state and territorial attorneys general signed a February 10, 2026, letter urging congressional leadership to pass the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA, S. 1748) over the House companion bill (H.R. 6484), arguing the Senate measure better protects minors from social media harms while preserving state authority to address evolving online threats. The AGs emphasized the Senate bill’s inclusion of a federally enforceable “Duty of Care” requiring platforms to actively reduce harms to minors through content moderation, algorithm adjustments, and safety features, covering social media, video games, messaging apps, and streaming services frequented by children. They opposed the House version for its expansive preemption language that could interfere with existing and future state laws designed to protect children online. The Senate bill mandates a study by the Secretary of Commerce, in coordination with the FCC and FTC, on methods to verify age at the device or operating system level, with a report due to Congress within one year. Critics including privacy and free speech group Reclaim The Net warn this provision could lead to embedding age verification in computers, cellphones, and operating systems, effectively tying internet access to digital identity checks through government-issued IDs, third-party vendors, or persistent authentication systems, blurring the line between age and identity verification and creating de facto digital ID checkpoints for broad internet use. Greg Glaser of Reclaim The Net stated, “By embedding identity checks into apps, hardware, or operating systems, the bill would create a de facto digital ID checkpoint for broad internet use,” and warned that gating content for minors requires verifiable identity credentials like government-issued IDs or biometrics, risking government overreach to censor protected speech for adults under child safety pretexts. The article highlights concerns that anonymous access to lawful speech is a First Amendment value, and ID requirements or continuous monitoring could chill expression while failing to prevent harm on shared devices without re-login. Critics argue alternatives like strong data privacy laws and parental controls are preferable to identity mandates, noting risks of data breaches from storing identifying information and ineffectiveness against determined minors. The letter was sponsored by the AGs of Connecticut, Hawaii, Ohio, and Tennessee, joined by those from American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Wyoming. The piece frames the push as part of broader efforts to regulate online harms but warns of privacy and free speech implications from potential digital ID systems.
Special Guest: Leslie Manookian
Leslie Manookian, MBA, M.L.C. Hom is president and founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund. She is a former successful Wall Street business executive. Her career in finance took her from New York to London with Goldman Sachs. She later became Director of Alliance Capital in London running their European Growth Portfolio Management and Research businesses.
Leslie is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker. In 2011 she released The Greater Good to rave reviews and awards; a documentary she wrote and produced, which explores the debate surrounding vaccines. This impactful film brings increased awareness to this issue and the importance of health freedom.
Protecting Americans medical and health freedoms inspired Leslie to found Health Freedom Defense Fund. After observing the trampling of our constitutionally protected, inalienable rights for the past two decades, she was filled with trepidation as 2020 unfolded, aware of various pieces of legislation in place which would facilitate further erosion of the rights of Americans. HFDF was the result.
Leslie’s and HFDF’s mission rests on the foundational principle that bodily autonomy is the most sacred and precious of human rights and must be fervently guarded. Leslie and HFDF endeavor each and every day to instill that notion in the public consciousness and codify it in law.
Hour 2
The Real Pandemic Profiteers: How a Handful of Billionaires and Their Foundations Engineered the Greatest Wealth Transfer in History\ The COVID-19 pandemic served as the mechanism for an unprecedented upward transfer of wealth from the global middle and working classes to a small network of billionaires, pharmaceutical corporations, central banks, and aligned institutions, with the total wealth increase among the world’s billionaires reaching approximately $5 trillion between March 2020 and early 2022 while hundreds of millions lost livelihoods, businesses, and savings through lockdowns, business closures, and economic restrictions. Key figures such as Bill Gates, whose net worth rose by over $33 billion during the period, positioned the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a central player in pandemic response through massive investments in vaccine development, distribution networks like GAVI and CEPI, and influence over global health policy via the WHO, where the foundation became the second-largest funder after the U.S. government. The article details how Gates-linked entities profited from patents on mRNA technology, diagnostic tools, and therapeutics, with Moderna receiving significant early funding from the foundation and DARPA-related programs, leading to stock valuations that enriched insiders and investors while public funds covered much of the research and liability risks. BlackRock and Vanguard, major shareholders in Pfizer, Moderna, and other vaccine manufacturers, saw their assets under management balloon amid central bank money printing and stock market surges fueled by stimulus, with these firms also holding substantial stakes in media conglomerates that shaped public narratives around lockdowns, masks, and vaccination. The piece highlights Operation Warp Speed’s $18 billion allocation to accelerate vaccine development, much of which flowed to companies with pre-existing patents and partnerships tied to the same investors and foundations, creating a closed loop where public money funded private profit with minimal risk to shareholders due to PREP Act immunity. Lockdowns disproportionately harmed small businesses and low-wage workers while accelerating the shift to Amazon, Walmart, and big-box retailers, whose owners and investors saw exponential gains; Jeff Bezos added roughly $75 billion to his wealth during the period. The author argues this was not accidental but the result of long-planned pandemic preparedness exercises like Event 201 (October 2019) and Clade X (2018), coordinated by Johns Hopkins, the Gates Foundation, and the World Economic Forum, which simulated coronavirus outbreaks and emphasized centralized control, digital tracking, and rapid vaccine rollout. The convergence of these simulations with the actual event enabled swift implementation of restrictive measures and emergency authorizations that bypassed standard safety protocols, while suppressing dissenting scientific views through censorship on social media platforms influenced by the same stakeholders. The article concludes that the pandemic response functioned as a wealth-transfer mechanism disguised as public health necessity, with the real profiteers being those who controlled the narrative, the funding, the patents, and the policy levers, ultimately widening global inequality and consolidating power in fewer hands under the guise of saving lives.
Massive Supplement Broadside in the Works Proposed changes to the FDA’s Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) rules, driven by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to address ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and their role in poor metabolic health—where only 12.2% of American adults are metabolically healthy and 74% are overweight or obese—could establish a pre-approval system that threatens access to thousands of safe, natural supplement ingredients currently marketed under the self-affirmed GRAS pathway. The GRAS designation, in place since 1958, was intended to reduce regulatory burdens on ingredients with established safety records through either FDA affirmation or industry self-determination based on scientific evidence, allowing both potentially harmful UPF additives and beneficial natural compounds in supplements, functional foods, and medical foods to enter the market without mandatory pre-market review. RFK Jr. and former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler, in a recent “60 Minutes” segment, criticized the self-affirmed GRAS loophole as enabling Big Food to introduce UPFs linked to obesity, with Kessler filing a Citizen Petition to revoke GRAS status for processed sweeteners and starches, noting the FDA’s 1980s formal review concluded sugars pose no unique obesity risk. However, upcoming FDA proposals—potentially mirroring legislative reforms—may not adequately distinguish between safe, historically used natural ingredients in supplements and dangerous synthetic additives in junk foods, risking removal or restriction of supplements under a precautionary approach while the agency has historically approved questionable synthetics like Red 40, Yellow 5, BHA, sodium nitrite, aspartame, and potassium bromate via formal GRAS. This could create regulatory backlogs, increase costs, limit consumer access to dietary supplements protected under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), and disproportionately impact the natural health industry by favoring pharmaceutical alternatives. The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA) warns that well-intentioned food safety reforms could inadvertently target supplements, calling for public action to ensure radical transparency and a rational GRAS reform system that protects natural products, as outlined in their February 17, 2026 press release emphasizing the need to end “Secret GRAS” without compromising health freedom. The article urges readers to contact policymakers and stay informed to prevent overreach that could compromise access to safe, natural health options amid broader efforts to clean up the food supply.
A Single 3g Dose of Beetroot Extract Significantly Improves Cognitive Performance in Healthy Adults A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial published in the European Journal of Nutrition demonstrated that a single 3-gram dose of beetroot extract standardized to 2.5% nitrates (approximately 75 mg nitrates) significantly enhanced cognitive performance in healthy young adults compared to placebo, with improvements observed in reaction time, accuracy, and executive function tasks within 2–3 hours post-ingestion. The study involved 24 participants aged 18–35 who consumed either the active beetroot extract or an identical placebo on separate occasions separated by at least one week, followed by a battery of computerized cognitive assessments including the Stroop test, N-back task, and choice reaction time measures. Results showed faster reaction times on the Stroop incongruent trials (p < 0.05), reduced error rates in the 2-back working memory task (p < 0.01), and improved overall accuracy across multiple domains, with effect sizes ranging from moderate to large (Cohen’s d = 0.5–0.9). These cognitive benefits were accompanied by increased plasma nitrate and nitrite levels peaking at 2 hours, confirming effective nitrate absorption and conversion to nitric oxide, which likely mediated the effects through enhanced cerebral blood flow, improved mitochondrial efficiency, and reduced oxidative stress in brain regions responsible for attention, working memory, and executive control. The extract was well-tolerated with no reported adverse effects, and the acute improvements occurred without changes in blood pressure or heart rate, distinguishing the findings from chronic supplementation studies that often report cardiovascular benefits alongside cognitive gains. The authors suggest the rapid onset aligns with nitrate pharmacokinetics and nitric oxide-mediated vasodilation in the cerebrovasculature, potentially offering a natural, non-stimulant nootropic option for situations requiring sustained mental performance such as studying, work, or athletic competition involving cognitive demands. While the sample was relatively small and limited to healthy young adults, the crossover design strengthened statistical power and minimized inter-individual variability. Previous research on beetroot nitrate supplementation has primarily focused on exercise performance and blood pressure reduction in older or clinical populations, but emerging evidence supports acute cognitive benefits in younger cohorts, consistent with nitric oxide’s role in neurovascular coupling and synaptic plasticity. The article notes that beetroot extract provides a convenient, concentrated source of dietary nitrates compared to whole beetroot juice, which requires larger volumes for equivalent dosing and may cause gastrointestinal discomfort. Overall, the findings add to growing interest in nitrate-rich foods and supplements for brain health, suggesting potential applications in cognitive enhancement, fatigue resistance, and age-related decline prevention, though longer-term studies are needed to confirm sustained effects and safety.
Parents’ Gut Feeling About Sick Child Often Correct, Study Finds Parents’ intuitive sense that something is seriously wrong with their child during illness proves highly accurate in predicting the need for hospital admission or further medical intervention, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in Archives of Disease in Childhood that synthesized data from 30 studies involving over 25,000 children across various healthcare settings including emergency departments, primary care, and pediatric wards. The analysis found that when parents expressed a strong “gut feeling” of concern—defined as an instinctive worry not fully explained by observable symptoms or measured vital signs—the likelihood of the child requiring hospital admission increased significantly, with an odds ratio of 4.5 (95% CI 3.1–6.6) compared to cases where parents had no such concern, and the positive predictive value reached 68% for serious outcomes like sepsis, dehydration requiring IV fluids, or respiratory distress necessitating oxygen or ventilation. This parental intuition outperformed several standard clinical scoring systems and individual vital sign abnormalities in identifying children at risk of deterioration, particularly in young infants and those with nonspecific symptoms such as fever without clear source, lethargy, poor feeding, or irritability. The review included prospective cohort studies, diagnostic accuracy studies, and qualitative reports from high-income countries, with parental concern consistently emerging as an independent predictor even after adjustment for age, comorbidities, and clinician-assessed severity scores like the Pediatric Early Warning Score or National Early Warning Score adaptations for children. Researchers noted that parents’ prolonged observation of subtle behavioral changes—such as reduced interaction, altered cry, pallor, mottling, or unusual sleepiness—often precedes measurable physiological deterioration, providing a valuable early warning signal that complements objective data. The findings support clinical guidelines recommending that healthcare providers take parental concern seriously as a “red flag” prompting closer evaluation, escalation to senior clinicians, or admission for observation, especially when the child appears unwell to the parent despite initially reassuring examination findings. Limitations of the evidence include heterogeneity in how “gut feeling” was defined and measured across studies, potential publication bias favoring positive associations, and reliance on mostly observational data without randomized intervention trials testing the impact of systematically incorporating parental intuition into decision algorithms. The authors call for further research to develop validated tools that integrate parental concern with clinical parameters to improve triage accuracy and reduce both missed serious illness and unnecessary admissions. Overall, the study reinforces the clinical value of listening to parents as experts on their own child’s baseline and deviations from it, suggesting that dismissing or underweighting this subjective input risks delayed recognition of life-threatening conditions in pediatric care.Question of The Day!
QOTD: Dr Bell
First case my husband 62, has come off the statins atorvastatin after I have told him of the side effects, his doctor agreed to him coming off, so he is on half dose to wean off we haven’t started yet because of money the supplements I will talk about. He will be having bloods checked in a few months or when he has completely come off I’m not sure if they will check in between while on lower dose before stopping or just checking after. Now we both know it will be sky high and triglycerides too.
He is a type 2 diabetic.
He is also taking a PPI and I would like him off those side effects bad too, there is one problem he has Barrett’s oesophagus if he stopped, I know we would have to wean off he has been on them 20 years as I was as of October 24. He still as I did get reflux, do these do anything for protection of Barrett’s ? I am guessing NO.
My plan is to support his cholesterol and oesophagus using Berberine, Apple cider vinegar, milk thistle, and digestive enzymes.
Do you think this is ok or do you have any suggestions.
Next case
My Son 32, type 1 diabetic, obesity, High cholesterol and triglycerides. His blood sugars are up to 15 and over many occasions they are extremely hard to control he is on insulin and metformin. He does not eat all day does have rather too big portions but weight does not move and no way is he going on the GLP 1 jabs.
He does take vitamin D 1000iu per day see what next August’s bloods are and adjust if needed.
I really want him off the statins atorvastatin and I will do same procedure with the herbs for him, but I am frightened as he is so unpredictable with bloods has a fear/phobia of hospitals and blood tests. I don’t want to bring anything up.
He is not I’m glad to say is not on the PPI but would he benefit from digestive enzymes as he does get Diarrhoea a few times a week they have said related to Metformin insulin and high blood sugars. What are your thoughts for my son.
If I need to add more, I will include the others I am taking vitamin D3 which I was overload lol on 10,000 a day, I can’t go out due to my own issues so thought this would be fine, gone back to 1000iu a day am now approx. 72 and I am going to aim for a bit higher so may go to 2000iu per day. Doctor was shocked. I hear loads of people on high levels but maybe they don’t test as it really is something you can’t guess and I suspect that we all make it differently some need more some less. Slippery elm, marshmallow root, if money will stretch to support us both. He also is a difficult one to get to even take the vitamin D.
We are all 4 times jabbed didn’t see the lies till 2 years ago, no more vaccines ever. No problems with any of us at this moment but probably ticking time bombs, I am aware of the fibrin and the amyloid in blood. About time this was out in the open.
I have tried to keep it as simple as possible but have had to let you know some facts to be able to answer my questions. As I do not wish to take too much of your time you may give me a yes or a no on both seperate cases
Thank you very much
Jackie.
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