Policy

Policy articles provide in-depth analysis of social and public policy, examining their wide-ranging impacts on economics, social life, public health, individual liberty, evidence-based decision-making, and institutional accountability.

We cover critical areas such as healthcare and vaccination policies, pandemic responses and WHO, economic subsidies, national security strategies, withdrawals from international bodies, and pathways to reform that restore freedom, truth, and human dignity over centralized control.

All articles from Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages to support global access, foster international dialogue on governance and reform, and empower readers worldwide to challenge flawed interventions.

Brownstone Institute - EU Farmers Rise Against the Climate Cult

EU Farmers Rise Against the Climate Cult

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Independently from the merits of EU climate policy, two things are clear: first, EU leaders and environmental activists appear to have vastly underestimated the backlash their policies would spark in the farming community; and second, the apparent success of this dramatic EU-wide protest sets a spectacular precedent that will not go unnoticed among farmers and transport companies, whose operating costs are heavily impacted by environmental regulations like carbon taxes.

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Brownstone Institute - Our Last Innocent Moment

What Killed Informed Consent?

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In more and less formal ways, COVID was the tool that transformed our supposedly inalienable right to make informed choices about our private lives into a public and readily dispensable good. It was almost as if we had built such a network of infinitesimal choices creating the powerful illusion of choice that we didn’t notice when we were asked to give it all up in an instant.

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Brownstone Institute - The Legal Batteries That Supercharge the Bureaucratic State

The Legal Batteries That Supercharge the Bureaucratic State

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There is a legal thing called “Chevron deference” and it has encouraged the massive growth of the power and scope of the bureaucratic state over the past 40 years. Named after a 1984 legal case, the doctrine holds (in a nutshell) that courts must defer to the wisdom of the implied expertise of a government agency when deciding certain legal questions.

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Brownstone Institute - The Loosening of Rules on Informed Consent

The Loosening of Rules on Informed Consent

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On January 22, 2024, amendments to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations (21 CFR 50) covering Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) were finalized and implemented. The amendments added a new section 50.22 that allows for exceptions to informed consent requirements for minimal risk research. 

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Brownstone Institute - Disease-X and Davos: This is Not the Way to Evaluate and Formulate Public Health Policy

Disease X and Davos: This is Not the Way to Evaluate and Formulate Public Health Policy

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To gain legitimacy, public health policy must be vested in institutions answerable to the public and based on reliable evidence. In the case of the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) venture in public health policy advocacy in Davos, neither of these measures of legitimacy were met. Also in question is legitimacy in the media coverage, where the basic tenets of journalism – questioning evidence, corroborating sources, providing context, and awareness of conflict of interest – seem to have gone missing.

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Brownstone Institute - Science-Totalitarianism Now Threatens Liberalism

Science-Totalitarianism Now Threatens Liberalism

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Faced with the techno-scientification of everything, those of us wedded to the ideals of liberalism urgently need to recognise this threat. We need to recognise that though it is often useful, science cannot transcend the human condition. However much opportunity it brings, it cannot save us from being the limited, complex creatures that we are. 

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Brownstone Institute - The DOJ Quietly Prosecutes the Covid Resistance

The DOJ Quietly Prosecutes the Covid Resistance

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There is no indication that the powerful will be held accountable for the damage they imposed. Instead, the Biden Administration has decided to target citizens who resisted its irrational edicts. The same edicts for which they insist they must be granted an “amnesty.” Such actions only increase the devastation from a disastrous policy response.

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Brownstone Institute - Who Will Deliver Justice to Our Service Members?

Who Will Deliver Justice to Our Service Members?

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While Pfizer & Moderna were testing rats in their labs, our government had their own guinea pigs lining up for the largest biomedical experiment the world has ever seen, except these were not test animals. These were our United States service members–our men and women in uniform. 

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Brownstone Institute - REPPARE

Before Preparing for Pandemics, We Need Better Evidence of Risk

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There should be time, and urgency, to fix this evidence gap. Not because the next pandemic is just around the corner, but because the costs of getting things wrong will have long-term implications that may be far harder to address once wholesale changes are initiated. As a result, what is prudent is to give the evidence pause for thought, to identify the knowledge gaps, address them, and to pursue better evidence-based policy.

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