SNA official Francisco Ciscomani said the Executive Secretariat is the “pillar” of the anti-corruption system and should not be eliminated. Twitter
A National Anti-Corruption System (SNA) official has called on President López Obrador to rethink a plan to get rid of one of its key components.
López Obrador intends to send a bill to Congress proposing the abolition of the Executive Secretariat of the SNA, an autonomous federal entity whose role is to coordinate the different institutions that make up the anti-corruption system.
Among those institutions are the Ministry of Public Administration, the National Institute of Transparency, the Federal Auditor’s Office and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
The Executive Secretariat of the SNA has a budget of 123.2 million pesos (US $5.9 million) for 2022. Savings generated by its elimination would likely go to the funding of the federal government’s social programs.
Francisco Ciscomani, president of the SNA’s coordinating committee and citizens participation committee, said Thursday that he was worried about the president’s plan given the Executive Secretariat is the “pillar” of the anti-corruption system.
While “the president’s intention to send this money to social programs is laudable, the work of the Executive Secretariat is indisputable and necessary to solidify the National Anti-Corruption System,” he said at an online SNA meeting on Thursday evening.
Ciscomani noted that the secretariat’s budget was cut by more than 40% last year as part of the government’s austerity drive and its workforce was reduced by 20%. Yet it remains an “efficient institution” that has contributed to the construction and defense of the SNA, he said.
“… The citizens participation committee is going to … respectfully ask the president to … rethink the [plan to dismantle the Executive Secretariat] and to allow the work of this branch [of the SNA] to continue,” Ciscomani said.
He called on the attendees of the virtual meeting, among whom was Public Administration Minister Roberto Salcedo, to urge López Obrador to rethink his plan, but none committed to doing so.
María de la Luz Mijangos, head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, was the only attendee to respond to Ciscomani’s exhortation, but she was non-committal, asserting she wasn’t in a position to comment on the matter.
Eduardo Bohórquez, Mexico chief of the international nonprofit organization Transparency International, questioned why López Obrador – who has made combatting corruption the central objective of his government – wants to get rid of the Executive Secretariat when it is a “small, efficient body” that coordinates the anti-corruption actions of the various public institutions.
The president’s intention to find more money for social programs was “laudable” but the SNA Executive Secretariat is necessary to the fight against corruption, Ciscomani said at Thursday’s online SNA meeting. Screenshot
“… Like all administrative and government bodies it could be improved but if we analyze its cost in relation to its benefits, [we see that] it would be more expensive to eliminate it than to strengthen it,” he told the news website La Silla Rota.
Khemvirg Puente, a political science academic at the National Autonomous University who specializes in transparency and legislative issues, asserted that the only thing that abolition of the Executive Secretariat would achieve is to “hinder” the SNA.
He noted that the secretariat is not mentioned in the constitution and therefore the president’s proposal to eliminate it could pass Congress with the support of a simple majority, which the ruling Morena party and its allies have in both houses.
Without the secretariat, “what entity or area will be in charge of following up on the implementation of anti-corruption policies?” Puente asked.
In the president’s opinion, he said, the fight against corruption shouldn’t “necessarily involve organized civil society and other actors” outside the federal government.
He indicated more than a year ago that his government was planning to incorporate autonomous organizations into federal ministries in order to save money and avoid having more than one body doing the same thing.
“… We have to review all these bodies so that there is no duplication [of responsibilities] because we have to save, be efficient, not have so many apparatuses that eat up the budget,” he said in early January 2021.
The president’s critics say that he wants to concentrate government power while getting rid of autonomous organizations that might expose corruption or shortcomings in his administration.
López Obrador’s bill proposing the elimination of the SNA’s Executive Secretariat would also result in 16 autonomous organizations being absorbed into government departments. The newspaper Reforma, which has seen the initiative, listed the organizations that would be affected.
Among them are the National Council to Prevent Discrimination, which would be incorporated into the Interior Ministry; the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change, which would become part of the Environment Ministry; and the National Institute for the Elderly, which would be absorbed into the Welfare Ministry.
There were 569 recorded thefts against taxi and ride share passengers in 2021
Attacks on Mexico City taxi passengers dropped during the lockdowns of 2020, but came back with a vengeance in 2021.
According to federal data, theft against taxi and rideshare passengers in Mexico City in 2021 was the second worst year according to available records, with 75% more recorded robberies than in 2020. The worst year was 2019.
There were 569 recorded thefts against passengers in 2021 compared to 326 in the previous year, according to Public Security Ministry data. Of the 569 robberies, 270 were violent.
The attacks were more common in some boroughs than in others. In 2021, the highest incidence of such thefts was seen in Cuauhtémoc, 93, Iztapalapa, 79, Benito Juárez, 56, Miguel Hidalgo, 52, Venustiano Carranza, 50, Álvaro Obregón, 49 and Gustavo A. Madero with 48.
One victim, Jennifer Espinosa, was robbed in a taxi in the city center. The driver stopped the taxi, allowing two men in, who blinded her with an ointment. “They told me it was an assault and that they needed my credit cards, money and whatever else I had with me. Sure enough, they took the cards out of my wallet. Later … we stopped at an ATM and they forced me to give them my PIN numbers and they took out the money. After that they took my rings, chains, earrings, bracelet, watch, and they told me that if I behaved well nothing was going to happen to me. That they were thieves, not rapists,” she said.
Another victim, Regina, was involved in a violent robbery. She took a taxi on Reforma Avenue in the historic center. Seven kilometers south, the driver stopped citing a mechanical failure. "I tried to get out, but there was no way to move the handle to open the door … I saw another person was standing by the door. [The driver] told me, we are not going to rape you, we just want your paycheck."
Regina was warned to close her eyes and keep her head down, while she was beaten in the face and stomach. “They took everything I brought of value … they even took my Metro card … it is still difficult for me to get into a taxi, the truth is that they beat me a lot, they hit my face, they hit my stomach a lot, I could not work for a long time,” she said.
Doctors attend to a COVID patient in serious condition in Mexico City.
Reported COVID-19 deaths have spiked this week while confirmed case numbers also increased sharply after dipping on Sunday and Monday.
The Health Ministry reported 475 additional fatalities on Tuesday, 532 on Wednesday and 495 on Thursday. Wednesday’s figure is the highest daily death toll since early October. It came a week after a new single-day record of over 60,000 cases was reported.
Mexico’s official COVID-19 death toll increased to 304,803.
An additional 44,902 reported infections on Tuesday, 48,627 on Wednesday and 49,150 on Thursday lifted Mexico’s accumulated case tally to 4.82 million. The estimated active case tally is 302,473.
The top five states for active cases on a per capita basis are Baja California Sur, Mexico City, Colima, Tabasco and Nayarit.
The nationwide occupancy rate for general care hospital beds is 45%, while 28% of those with ventilators are taken. There are currently more than 8,750 hospitalized COVID patients.
In other COVID-19 news:
• President López Obrador defended Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell on Thursday after a judge last week ordered the federal Attorney General’s Office to investigate the coronavirus czar to establish his responsibility for Mexico’s high COVID-19 death toll.
“The services provided to society by Dr. Hugo López-Gatell have been exceptional. He’s a professional of the first order. It’s good fortune that we have a professional with so much knowledge in such difficult circumstances as these. He’s one of the best pandemic specialists in the world. He’s an authority [on the subject], a decent, honest person, an authentic public servant,” the president said.
He asserted that “conservatives” were behind the complaint filed against the Johns Hopkins University-trained epidemiologist.
The case against López-Gatell is the “product of rancor, hate and politicking,” López Obrador claimed.
As cases rise, a teachers’ organization has called for a temporary suspension of in-person classes.
• The average cost of treatment for COVID-19 in a private hospital has increased 108,000 pesos (US $5,200) in the space of a year, according to data from the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions.
A hospital stay cost 412,000 pesos on average in January 2021, but it now costs 520,000 pesos (about US $25,000) – a 26% increase.
“Inflation was 2.83% last year and is 5.59% this year. However, the [price] increases at private hospitals have been 15% to 20%,” Profeco chief Ricardo Sheffield said September 29.
• A teachers’ group has called for in-person classes to be suspended until the omicron-fueled fourth wave recedes.
Alianza de Maestros, which has members in 18 states, urged the Ministry of Public Education to close schools until case numbers begin to decline.
“While the authorities have insisted that schools are not spaces of contagion, let me tell you that’s what schools are becoming,” said Carlos Aguirre, the group’s director.
“… We need to put a stop [to in-person classes] at a national level, … for two, three, four weeks, classes should be virtual,” he said.
UPDATE (5:50 p.m. CST Friday, January 28): The Ministry of Health reported 45,115 new cases on Friday afternoon and another 437 deaths.
President López Obrador on a morning walk in Guerrero, in an image he shared before his election. Facebook
President López Obrador has accused the media of invading his privacy by taking photos of him while he exercises.
He told reporters at his regular news conference on Thursday that he had begun walking on the advice of his doctors.
The president suffered a heart attack in 2013 and recently underwent a cardiac catheterization, a procedure to check the health of the heart. He also recently recovered from his second bout of COVID-19.
“Yesterday I went [to a sports complex] to walk because my doctors recommended it, and they [the media] go there to take my photo and they take cameras. It’s a complete invasion of my scant, limited privacy,” López Obrador said.
“Since I started going – … my doctors recommended that I walk for 20 or 30 minutes [per day] so I become stronger … – they’ve been climbing up a building, a bank, and from there they’ve been taking my photo, and it was with conventional telephones. But yesterday … it was [with big] cameras,” he said, using his hands to emphasize their large size.
“And I have to put up with it, respect them, but they’re going too far,” AMLO said.
He claimed their intention was to show him “dragging his feet” and “doddering,” but asserted that he was fighting fit.
“The doctors already told me that I’m 100% [healthy],” the president declared.
Diego Cárdenas got the idea to build bikes with frames of bamboo after seeing a still-functional one that was made in 1890.
It wasn’t the very first question out of my mouth, but it was close.
“How can bamboo be stronger than metal?”
A tinge of exasperation swept across Diego Cárdenas’ face, but he launched into an explanation anyway.
“Metal has the characteristic that if you bend it, it starts to take on that form; it has a certain flexibility if you apply force to it,” he said. “It’s resistant, but the truth is you can bend a piece of metal and it stays bent. Bamboo receives force and sends it back to you. It doesn’t have that flexibility, the plasticity. Bamboo will do nothing until you hit it hard enough to break. In terms of compression, it’s the same; it’s much stronger.”
Later, he explained that this was the No. 1 question that people ask him about his bamboo bikes, his face giving away his fatigue at convincing people of this one simple fact.
Bamboo is lighter and more resistant to bending than metal, according to Cárdenas. “It’s much stronger,” he said.
Knobby and earth-toned, Cárdenas’ bamboo bikes appeal to cyclists who want something completely unique but also super slick. Their base prices range from the more economical — about 8,000 pesos — all the way to bikes costing in the neighborhood of 35,000 pesos.
He started building bamboo bikes in his mom’s garage in 2010. The first model was just for him. But when he rode it through the city, people peppered him with questions: where and how they could buy a bike just like it? After a while, he was convinced that bamboo bikes might be a good business.
In his shop, Bamboocycles in the San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood of Mexico City, sit delivery bikes, skinny-tired street bikes, fat-tired mountain bikes and piles of bamboo tubing and carbon fiber, the latter for the lugs that connect the bikes’ bamboo frames.
A returning client (who already owns two of Cárdenas’ bikes) arrives to discuss the recumbent bicycle that Diego will build for him in the next few weeks. Three other customers test out models, riding up and down the street.
“I mountain bike,” says one of the women. “Not here, but in Mérida. There aren’t really mountains, but there are a lot of different types of rocks; I was using an Orbea brand bike and they are relatively heavy; if you pick this one up, it’s so light.”
The weight of Cárdenas’ bikes is frequently mentioned as one of their best virtues. That and the fact that the bamboo absorbs more vibration than metal, making for a more pleasurable ride, especially in a city known for its potholes and uneven pavement. Oh yeah, and there’s the fact that this bike is biodegradable and will be folded back into the earth at the end of its lifetime – though that won’t be for a while.
A satisfied customer visits with her Bamboocycles bike.
“If you maintain [the bike] in a place without too much humidity or too much sun,” says Cardenas, “It could last all your life. The example that I found from the 1800s, it’s still around.”
He’s referring to the inspiration for this entire project, an 1890 bamboo bike that he stumbled upon while studying industrial design at the National Autonomous University.
“I thought, ‘Wow, I want one of those,’” he said.
While the process of perfecting the design was laborious — how do you ensure alignment in a tube that is a natural, organic thing? — bamboo as a plant had impressed him; it produces 30% more oxygen than other trees and is one of the fastest-growing plants on the globe.
Cárdenas had already experienced how liberating it could be to move through a city by bike while studying one summer in Europe. When he came back to Mexico City’s traffic and mayhem, he just didn’t want to get back into a car.
Bamboocycles ended up in the national spotlight in 2016 when he presented the project on the TV series Shark Tank México, although he didn’t get the financial support he had hoped for.
Today, he is proving his critics wrong. There are 2,200 Bamboocycles bikes out in the world, bought both nationally and internationally, all owned by cyclists who got its appeal right away.
“There are clients who will never be convinced [to buy one] no matter how many facts you put in front of them,” says Cárdenas, “and then there are people that you don’t have to say anything to and they just show up. Word of mouth is my best publicity.”
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
PAN Deputy Iván Arturo Rodríguez Rivera said the ASF was more concerned about pleasing the president than providing an accurate cost estimate of the airport's cancellation.
A National Action Party (PAN) lawmaker has criticized the Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) for the lack of clarity surrounding the cost of canceling the previous government’s Mexico City airport project.
The ASF has given three different estimates on the cost of canceling the partially built airport in Texcoco, México state. Most recently it said the cost was 184.5 billion pesos (US $8.9 billion).
The ASF provided an estimate of almost 332 billion pesos in February 2021 but revised it to 113.3 billion pesos last May after President López Obrador disputed the higher figure and called on the auditor to explain how it reached it.
He had long argued against the US $15 billion project, the signature infrastructure undertaking of former Institutional Revolutionary Party president Enrique Peña Nieto.
Construction at the proposed Mexico City airport in Texcoco, before the project was canceled.
PAN Deputy Iván Arturo Rodríguez Rivera charged that the ASF was more concerned about pleasing the president than providing an accurate estimate on the cost of canceling what would have been a “world-class” airport.
“… After the complaint the president made to the auditor’s office, the office concerned itself more with getting along with him than with fulfilling its duty to ensure transparency and accountability,” he told the newspaper Reforma.
“… The inaccuracy and inconsistencies in its work is now a constant,” Rodríguez said.
The lawmaker said it was incredible that three years after the airport was canceled there is still no clarity about the cost of the decision. Rodríguez, secretary of a committee that oversees the ASF, also said that the PAN will request a report detailing who is responsible for the different estimates provided by the auditor.
“The role the Federal Auditor’s Office has played in this very important issue is regrettable,” he said.
The deputy also lamented the decision to cancel the airport, asserting that it would have been the most important air travel hub in Latin America. “Hundreds of billions of pesos of Mexican [taxpayers] went to waste,” Rodríguez said.
“There are no formal accusations for the supposed acts of corruption in the construction of the project that the president pointed to, nor are there culprits for the terrible work carried out by the auditor’s office,” he added.
The deputy said the PAN has previously supported the ASF but on this occasion cannot be an accomplice to an institution that appears to be looking after “other interests” rather than fulfilling its duty.
“… The actions of the officials involved will be reviewed in detail and responsibilities will be defined in order to act in consequence,” Rodríguez said.
In addition to rescuing animals and finding them homes, Zadrigman spreads a message about loving and respecting animals. Facebook
Fulfilling a promise he made to his dog before he died, a 25-year-old man-cum-superhero has been rescuing animals from the streets of Morelia, Michoacán, for the past eight months.
“Zadrigman was created on May 11, 2021,” the animal rescuer – who declined to reveal his identity – told the newspaper Milenio.
Before his Siberian husky, Duke, died of a bacterial infection in December 2020, the man made a promise to his pet that he would help animals in need.
“The idea was that both of us would go out together to rescue animals, both with a costume, because he liked to help. I’m fulfilling what I promised to him,” Zadrigman said.
He was immediately well-received by the residents of Morelia, who frequently thank him for what he does and stop for photos.
Children crowd around Zadrigman during a classroom visit. Facebook
The man told Milenio that he cried tears of gratitude after his first appearance as Zadrigman because he didn’t think he would make an impression on people so quickly and because he had begun to fulfill his promise to Duke.
Eight months later, the superhero has rescued and found homes for almost 60 dogs and cats. Among them are dogs he found after they were hit by cars.
“… I take them to the vet to be operated on, they recover and they’re put up for adoption,” Zadrigman said.
Originally from Tijuana, the man said that another of his objectives is to be a good role model to children.
“They normally tell me that they want to be superheroes in order to help animals. I try to cultivate that love in them so that they grow up with the idea of loving, caring for and respecting animals,” he said.
He admitted that he has considered giving up on his noble pursuit “two or three times,” in part due to the costs he incurs while looking after the animals he rescues.
“But I remember that I don’t do this for myself, I do it for Duke and all animals that have died, because he is a representation of all animals. For me this is a life mission,” the man added.
In addition to winning acclaim on the streets, Zadrigman has built up a strong following on social media, with more than 5,000 followers on his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The U.S. approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5-11 in November 2021. Shutterstock
A clandestine “clinic” in a México state house where children were illegally vaccinated against COVID-19 was promptly dismantled by its operators after a media report exposed its existence.
The Milenio media group reported Tuesday night that a house in a residential area of Atizapán de Zaragoza – a municipality in the greater Mexico City metropolitan area – was functioning as a vaccination center for children as young as five as well as adolescents and adults.
The first shot of a Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine cost US $150 for children while a second shot of the first two vaccines cost $100. Adults had to pay $150 for a single booster shot. It is unclear how many people were vaccinated at the clandestine clinic, but it only began operating last Friday, reports suggest.
The vaccines apparently came from Texas and recipients were reportedly given an official United States vaccination record card.
The federal government hasn’t offered shots to children aged under 15, with the exception of those 12 and over who have an underlying health condition that makes them vulnerable to serious illness if they contract COVID. Private health care providers are prohibited from importing, selling and administering COVID-19 vaccines in Mexico.
A woman injects a child with a supposed COVID-19 vaccine in footage obtained by the newspaper Milenio.
According to a report by the newspaper Milenio, an Aguascalientes-based company called Tancastev Trading was operating the clandestine clinic in Atizapán. It reportedly told people that it had an agreement with a clinic in Laredo, Texas, to administer vaccines in Mexico.
Appointments were scheduled via email and required a $50 deposit. Appointments were also reportedly scheduled for Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí earlier this month.
Milenio reported that a white women with a United States accent was responsible for administering the vaccines at the México state house.
Shortly after Milenio Televisión broadcast a report about the illegal vaccination center on Tuesday night, the house was vacated and all evidence was removed, according to neighbors.
By Wednesday morning the clinic had been dismantled and its operators had vanished, Milenio said.
Officials from the health regulator Cofepris and the México state Attorney General’s Office visited the house on Wednesday but no vaccines or medical equipment were found, the newspaper said.
The proof-of-vaccination cards provided by the illegal clinic.
The Cofepris representatives said that a criminal complaint would be filed against the operators of the clinic. The regulator said in a statement that it would collaborate with law enforcement agencies on the case.
It also said that an “active pharmaceutical monitoring group dedicated to this case” had been established and called on the parents of children vaccinated at the makeshift clinic or any other clandestine vaccination centers to report any adverse reactions to a Cofepris email address.
“Any product commercialized as a COVID-19 vaccine, regardless of its packaging, brand or location, constitutes a fraud and is a risk to health due to being of doubtful origin,” Cofepris said.
“… The application of the vaccine … is free and each batch must be inspected and analyzed by regulatory authorities to check its effectiveness and safety,” the statement said.
Francisco González, the owner of the house where vaccines were illegally administered to children, told Milenio that he had loaned his property to an acquaintance.
González denied involvement in the scheme and said he would file a complaint against him.
According to Milenio, there are “a handful of entrepreneurs” who are illegally offering COVID-19 vaccines in Mexico. It didn’t name the others.
Health authorities have administered just under 162.9 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in Mexico, according to the latest data, while some Mexicans have traveled to the United States to get a shot. Children aged five and older are eligible for vaccination in the U.S.
There is a very good chance that you have seen this artist’s work, but have no idea who he is.
Drive into and around metropolises such as Mexico City, Chihuahua, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Cancún, Veracruz, Torreon, Campeche, Toluca, Cuernavaca, Colima, Chetumal, Nayarit, Villahermosa and more and you will see at least one of the monumental sculptures by the Mexican artist known best as Sebastián. They have a distinct abstract or semi-abstract style; once you see a few, you will recognize others.
Many of the pieces are enormous, meant to make an impression on those visiting the city, either as they enter or as they arrive into important areas. College campuses, corporations and other organizations also see value in his work to make statements about themselves and their ideals.
Although his work can be found in many parts of the world, by far his most common and most loyal patrons are the public and private entities of Mexico. He gives even Mexico’s obsession with mural painting a run for its money — no mean feat in a country where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are still the king and queen of the fine arts.
The main reason for the popularity of Sebastián’s works is that they are uplifting rather than political and easy for the general public to relate to.
Gate to Chihuahua. Jonathan Hernandez
Sebastián’s personal history could have steered him in a very different direction. He was born Enrique Carbajal Gonzalez in 1947 in the little town of Santa Rosalía de Camargo, Chihuahua. He was accepted into Mexico’s National School of Fine Arts (today the Faculty of Art and Design of UNAM) in 1964, working several jobs to get through school. More importantly, he was a student during the demonstrations that led to the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1968.
Rounded up with other protesters, he spent two weeks in a military prison not knowing if he would ever be released. He had reason to worry; more than a few student activists disappeared during this time — their fates still not known today.
He was already highly dedicated to his craft during his school years, renaming himself “Sebastián, the sculptor” (a reference to St. Sebastian by Botticelli). Upon finally being released from military custody, Sebastián became obsessively prolific, driven by the aim of making an impact both in Mexico and the world.
But Sebastián prefers to use his art to help “diminish the suffering of people” rather than make political statements, focusing on providing inspiration to the human spirit to help get through the hard times.
His “gate” sculptures are designed to welcome those coming into a city. Famous works of this type include the gates of Chihuahua and Monterrey and, in the case of the border city of Matamoros, the gate into Mexico itself. Those destined for city centers, marinas and the like often depict something related to the city or region. These include the sailfish sculpture in Manzanillo, Colima, and the “hungry coyote” sculpture in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl, México state.
A number of cities have adopted his sculptures as official city symbols, such as those for Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl, Chimahualcan, México state, and the Japanese cities of Tsuro and Kadoma.
Originally from Chihuahua, Sebastian’s real name is Enrique Carbajal.
In a country as dependent on tourism as Mexico, his works in visitor destinations such as Cancún, Ixtapa, Los Cabos, Loreto, Huatulco, Manzanillo, Cozumel and Playa Espiritú play a significant role in bringing visitors and helping them remember their stays fondly. Former Secretary of Tourism Enrique de la Madrid said that Sebastián’s work has “…raised the status of [Mexico’s] name in the world.”
His most famous piece among Mexicans is the relatively modest Caballito, at only 28 meters in height, located in front of an office building on Paseo de Reforma in Mexico City. It is a modern reinterpretation of the famous equestrian statue by Manuel Tolsá in 1803 found in the same city.
Despite his young age, Sebastían’s attitude towards art is more in line with the Ruptura art movement of 1950s Mexico than the politically and socially-charged movements that followed in the 1970s and 1980s. The Ruptura was about breaking with muralism of Diego Rivera and company, towards art that was more international, abstract, apolitical and even looked towards scientific principles.
It was quite controversial but eventually found favor with authorities as the avant-garde moved toward works that were anti-government.
Sebastián does not limit himself to monumental sculpture, dabbling in many types of expression including installations, digital art and even jewelry making. He has exhibited in major museums all over Mexico, the U.S., Europe and Asia and has lost count of the number of works he’s produced.
At 74 years of age, he has no interest in slowing down, still living and working hard in Mexico City. “For the artist, there is no retirement, since if you retire, you are no longer an artist,” he said.
The Sailfish at the marina in Manzanillo, Colima. Yaomautzin Ohtokani Olvera Lara
He does admit that he is at the age where the documentation and preservation of his past work is now important and has established a foundation and museum in the city of Chihuahua to this end.
He has no problem being remembered for his monumental work, stating, “Monumental urban art is not a fashion, nor is it a way to exhibit [artistic] tendencies … It is a human condition, a necessity of the human spirit since [we lived in] caves.”
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Since the fall of 2020, Wolfe has been encouraging foreigners from the US, Canada and beyond to come join him for treatment and training in the Ixtapa Palace Hotel. Facebook
Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo has become the home base for the Braveheart Nation, a group of alternative medicine practitioners and patients from the United States, Canada and beyond led by controversial U.S.- Canadian natural medicine practitioner Darrell Wolfe.
Wolfe, who refers to himself as the Doc of Detox, founded the Ixtapa World Training and Healing Center inside the Ixtapa Palace Hotel in the Guerrero resort destination in late 2021.
Since then, an estimated 20–30 people, mostly from Canada and the United States, have reportedly followed Wolfe to the Ixtapa Palace, where he has created a headquarters and a teaching and treatment center.
Wolfe’s online websites and YouTube channels have been advertising seminars and training sessions designed to teach patients and potential new practitioners certification in his self-developed treatments and protocols since at least October. In these online venues, Wolfe claims to be expecting between 300 and 400 people to come from outside Mexico to attend.
Wolfe’s various websites state that his methods — which can include nutritional and diet advice; emotional counseling; his own alternative bodywork treatments, many of which bear his name; or the use of “advanced energy medicine” devices — can treat or eliminate a wide variety of health issues. His International Training Institute of Health’s website says, “There is nothing we cannot treat. Your body is amazing. Let us help you heal.”
Darrell Wolfe, as he appears on his Doc of Detox and International Training Institute of Health websites.
Wolfe previously lived in Kelowna, Canada, where, according to his LinkedIn bio, he founded the International Training Institute of Health in 1989. His bio there also lists him as the former president of the North American Institute for The Advancement of Colon Therapy in Toronto from 1984 to 2001 and says that he headed “one of North America’s leading natural cancer treatment and preventative care centers,” although he does not specify which one. He lists his credentials as a Doctor of Natural Medicine and a Doctor of Humanitarian Services.
The International Training Institute of Health is a website dedicated to promoting Wolfe’s treatments and training sessions for potential patients as well as for people interested in becoming “New World Practitioners” — people certified as trained in Wolfe’s techniques by the Institute, whose courses are in turn advertised as certified by the Board of Integrative Medicine (BOIM), which according to its website is based in Ontario.
BOIM appears on a 2021 list of “questionable” organizations that are “non-recognized accrediting/credentialing/licensing agencies” on the medical fraud watchdog site Quackwatch.
According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which in 2020 investigated a complaint by the United States Better Business Bureau about Wolfe’s specious claims regarding a product called “Black Gold,” Doc of Detox is a Canadian entity that goes by several names, including the aforementioned International Institute of Health, the International Health Initiative and the International Training Institute of Health. Wolfe refers to believers in his treatment methods as members of the “Braveheart Nation”
The FTC’s investigation into Wolfe and the Black Gold product found that Wolfe was claiming the product “treats, cures, or prevents a variety of diseases and serious conditions.” According to an email between the FTC and the BBB, the case was resolved in October 2020 by Wolfe agreeing to discontinue his claims about the product.
Since late 2021, Wolfe has been uploading videos recorded in Mexico in which he gives extemporaneous talks in English to groups of people. His topics range from the body’s ability to heal itself to the value of changing one’s eating patterns to personal development-styled emotional advice. These talks are often filled with remarks showing skepticism and hostility toward medical science, the pharmaceutical industry and doctors.
In some of his videos and on his web pages for docofdetox.com, he has been encouraging viewers to travel to Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo to stay at the hotel or in the area to be “part of our community.”
Wolfe’s online content also indicates a strong anti-COVID-19 vaccination stance. In videos, he repeatedly denies that COVID-19 exists and expresses unhappiness with government attempts to encourage widespread vaccination through mandates and restrictions. He refers to U.S. President Joe Biden and his chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as murderers and uses the phrase “liar, liar, pants on fire” to refer to government officials in general.
“Everything you hear from the media is a lie,” he said in one video. “People in the government are morons and they are ass-kissers because they are selling their brothers and sisters.”
“Here’s the truth about flying,” Wolfe said in an online video posted on October 31, speaking about Canada’s decision at the time to extend a vaccination mandate deadline for passengers on Canadian buses, trains or airlines.
“Guess what? Now they say you can’t fly without a vaccination until November 28,” Wolfe said. “Understand this: this is not about [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau being nice. Understand this: he got slapped by the Justice Department because this is a crime against humankind. So you can fly — they can’t stop you; they can’t vaccinate you, and they can’t make you get a vaccine passport, and they can’t lock you up. All they’ve done is corrupt your mind. Don’t let them do that.”
His treatment protocols, according to his website, start with what he calls a “Perfect Day” one-hour consultation, which allows him and his practitioners an opportunity to assess the needs of the client before compiling a treatment plan Wolfe says will be suited to their specific needs.
The Ixtapa Palace hotel in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, where Wolfe has opened a treatment and training center attracting foreigners.
This is accompanied by a thick, illustrated book sold by Wolfe, which serves as a roadmap of everything Wolfe advises to maximize health, including a nutritional guide and advice on exercise and lifestyle. It also is a shopping cart of all his treatment protocols needed for healing, including services, supplements bearing the Doc of Detox label and courses from the Ixtapa World Training and Healing Center on how to become a master practitioner of Wolfe’s treatment methods in six weeks. Courses can easily start at US $8,000. Treatment protocolscost upward of US $150.
“One month with me is like a six-month to one-year course,” Wolfe says in one of his online videos, “and you can hold me to the fire on that.”
Once the initial consult is completed, appropriate treatments can include a combination of any of the following:
One of Wolfe’s treatment techniques, deep tissue massage — also known as deep tissue restoration or Wolfe nonsurgical bodywork — involves the practitioner using his elbow to apply intense pressure in a circular motion to an afflicted area of the body, a technique that seems to be a repackaging of the intensive massage technique known as Rolfing.
Wolfe maintains that deep tissue massage “will facilitate the proper blood flow, lymph and energy flow returning to the area of concern.” He also says that this technique can replace any surgery or drugs and can in fact heal anything in mere minutes, including cancer, arthritis, fibromyalgia, joint issues and a host of other problems.
One former patient, who asked to remain anonymous and who experienced this treatment on his knee, called the treatment “archaic, barbaric and useless.” He said it left him sore for a week with no improvement. However, he did say that others he spoke to had felt they had benefited from the treatment.
But no one he talked to had reported being cured of their ailment, he said.
Other treatments include detoxification methods — teas, fasting, supplements and colon flushes among them. Wolfe also uses something called CellSonic therapy, which uses a machine to deliver high-intensity pulses of energy on the skin on an afflicted area of the body.
Andrew Hague, the CellSonic machine’s inventor, has no accredited medical training, according to his LinkedIn bio. But he states on his website that his machine “can cure cancer tumors within minutes,” and in 2021 promoted it online as a cure for COVID-19 infection in the U.K.
Another patient, who also wished to remain anonymous because treatment with Wolfe is ongoing, says he is willing to try anything to cure his cancer. His treatment includes Wolfe’s deep tissue massage on his cancer tumor, supplements costing US $458 and CellSonic treatment.
Although proof of success will only be evaluated once he returns to his own country for assessment, this patient said that it will all be worth it if he becomes cancer-free. He also said that Wolfe offers no money-back guarantees.
In a review on Yelp, a person who identified themselves only as “Danny J.R.” who claimed to have sought treatment with Wolfe, said, “When his son, who is a master trainer, performed three sessions of the so-called incisionless scar removal on me, not only I did not get results, I got worse and suffered internal bruising.
Wolfe photographed last month in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo.
“When you do a consultation with him, he will recommend so many products and comes up with treatment regimens that make no sense. If you challenge Dr. Wolfe on the phone, he shuts you up. His tissue sessions are supposed to be refundable if you don’t see results, and not to my surprise that turned out to be bogus as well. I feel bad for all the people that will sustain pain and damage by falling into his trap. He’s dangerous and selfish for doing this.”
The reviewer also added, “When you’re desperate, you’re willing to try anything, and this is exactly what fuels this business. [The] problem is, by getting distracted [by] thinking that his methodology works, one can fall behind [on] getting sensible treatments and/or getting properly diagnosed.”
Wolfe also sells a polarized light therapy machine, made by Bioptron, owned by the Swiss company Zepter, which makes consumer goods and medical devices for direct sales and through stores. The Bioptron website claims its machine improves cell metabolism in minutes a day and that it can be used for sports injuries, skin repair and immunity correction as well as help fight COVID-19 by boosting one’s immune system, especially important for people who are frail and immunocompromised.
It also features testimonials on its use for a wide variety of ailments — including chronic fatigue syndrome, arthritis and respiratory diseases — from both medical professionals and individual customers, mainly from Russia, Eastern Europe and Africa.
According to CBC Marketplace, a Canadian investigative program renowned for sussing out fraudulent claims and business practices, Wolfe practiced alternative medicine in the 1990s in Toronto at The Wolfe Clinic, where he specialized in naturopathic treatments and sold ozone machines, primarily to AIDS patients, for around US $3,000 each.
Tests in Europe have shown that ozone can kill the HIV virus in blood in a test tube. The United States Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada, however, state that there is no scientific evidence yet that it works on people.
Dr. Gary Garber, an infectious diseases physician at Ottawa Hospital, a past president of the Ontario Medical Association section for Infectious Diseases and one of Canada’s foremost experts on AIDS at the time, has said that ozone therapy is not based on fact or scientific evidence and called it a “sales pitch.”
Jeff Mowat, an AIDS patient in Toronto, bought one of the ozone machines sometime between 1993 and 1994 in a last-ditch effort to save his life. One of the ways practitioners recommend using it is by drawing the blood of AIDS patients, treating it with ozone and then reintroducing it into the bloodstream.
The other way the machine can be used, which was employed by Mowat, according to a Marketplace interview with his friends, is to insert a tube into the rectum, thereby introducing ozone into the body.
According to his friends, Mowat found the treatment an ordeal and did not believe it was doing anything for him. In fact, they told Marketplace that he felt it did more harm than good. He died three weeks later.
After his passing, his sister Sandra attempted to contact The Wolfe Clinic to find out what staff there had been telling her brother, but no one replied to her repeated requests for a meeting or returned her calls. She then reached out to Marketplace, which resulted in the investigative piece, which aired in 1994.
In that piece, AIDS patient Joe Sheffield called The Wolfe Clinic to find out about the ozone machine. In a secretly taped phone interview, Wolfe stated that the machine would cure AIDS.
WHY THE EVIL ELITE ARE IN CHARGE
A video of one of Wolfe’s lectures with an audience of foreigners in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo.
“OZONE Is curing HIV and AIDS more than any other therapy on the planet,” he told Sheffield.
When Sheffield asked for examples of results the clinic was seeing, Wolfe replied, “Well people are going HIV-negative.”
Marketplace then sent an undercover reporter who posed as an HIV patient. Wolfe reiterated his claims of curing AIDS and cited several people who had been cured.
“And, guess what?” Wolfe added during the videotaped conversation. “If you do it in the ear, it will also shrink brain tumors.”
In the recorded conversation, Wolfe dropped names of well-known supposed fans of the procedure, including the deputy surgeon general of the Canadian armed forces, Commodore Michael Shannon. When contacted by Marketplace, however, Shannon said he had never met Wolfe, nor did he endorse his claims.
A Marketplace reporter also called Wolfe, asking if he had made the above-mentioned claims, to which Wolfe replied, “That is absurd; there are no guarantees,” denying he made any such statement of cures.
The tape was then played back to him on air, after which he hung up. He also refused to answer questions by a Marketplace crew when they confronted him on a Toronto street.
Wolfe closed his clinic in Toronto shortly thereafter.
The YCancer Foundation — a U.S. organization of scientists, doctors and others focused on unearthing cures for cancer that are tried, true or otherwise — gathers data from hospitals and leading health organizations worldwide and disproves incorrect information and debunks myths about cancer. Their database includes information on medicines and their correlation to causing cancer.
In an article about fraudulent alternative healers, William M. Landon talks about the various ploys that such healers use to defraud patients, singling out two people, one of whom is Wolfe, as some of the worst offenders. He also questions Wolfe’s credentials as a doctor.
“At first, I thought the Ac.Ph.D. following his name onscreen … might be a typographical error and that he might be an L.Ac. [licensed acupuncturist] who happens to also have a Ph.D. in some field. So I checked his docofdetox.com site, which indicates that he’s a resident of Kelowna, British Columbia.
“I found that he refers to himself there as Dr. Darrell Wolfe without indicating what kind of doctor he is. But on one page at drdarrellwolfe.com, he presents himself as “Dr. Darrell Wolfe Ac.PhD,” though without any mention of the institution that conferred the degree.”
Dr. Caesar A Maciel Vargas, director of the Mediciel Hospital in Zihuatanejo, expressed concern about the alternative practices of the Wolfe organization as it was explained to him by Mexico News Daily.
“Alternative healing is not recognized by doctors who believe and follow the science when looking for treatment plans and cures,” he said. “The vaccine is still the only viable alternative to getting us through the pandemic.”
When asked if he felt that the healing methods of using one’s elbow to dissipate cancerous tumors, combined with electronic pulses and supplements could be effective, he said, “absolutely not.”
