The Strange Case of Joseph Rago’s Sarcoidosis Death

by Dee McLachlan

On July 20th, 2017, a young Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Joseph Rago, died suddenly in his New York apartment at the age of 34.

On the 21st, the New York Times reported that “Foul play is not suspected,” but several alt-news sites suspected that he was “silenced,” because he was was about to expose something on big pharma and insurance.

For me the story became more interesting when, a few days ago, I read that the cause of death was sarcoidosis.

The WSJ reported (September 12, 2017) the New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner conclusion: cause of death is sarcoidosis involving lungs, heart, spleen, hilar and mediastinal lymph nodes.

This seems quite odd. I had not heard of a young person just dying very quickly from sarcoidosis.

The Death of Jospeh Rago 

Joseph Rago (1983 – July 20, 2017) was a political writer, known for his work at The Wall Street Journal. Rago was an outspoken critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and in 2011, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for challenging the health care reform advocated by President Obama.

He died on the 20th, and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote this on the 21st (updated on the 22nd):

“The New York Police Department found Mr. Rago dead in his apartment at 7:40 p.m… The authorities went to check on Mr. Rago after he didn’t show up for work on Thursday. Paul Gigot, the editor of the Journal’s editorial page, had alerted the paper’s security officials, who then contacted the police. Mr. Rago was found with no obvious signs of trauma and emergency responders declared him dead at the scene… [No foul play suspected]

“Mr. Gigot said in an interview… ‘Through his editorials, he had enormous impact on events in Washington,’…

He died in his apartment. Dying from an sever inflammation illness, one would expect that you’d land up in hospital or have some symptoms, but Gigot reports that Rago’s last article was on Wednesday (19th) and was titled, ‘The ObamaCare Republicans.’

Rago doesn’t pitch for work the next day, Thursday (20th), — so the cops are called. Tens of thousands of people don’t pitch for work every day. Are cops called? Those living in New York might have an explanation.

Medical Assassinations

It is well known that people have been assassinated via various techniques that appear “natural” (e.g., imitating a heart attack, or inducing cancer) — and these these poisons are undetectable by general autopsy procedures.

To quote a Global Research article:

“In 1931, Cornelius Rhoads, a pathologist from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, purposely infects human test subjects in Puerto Rico with cancer cells; 13 of them died… [and] In 1975, during the Church Committee hearings, the existence of a secret assassination weapon came to light. The CIA had developed a poison that caused the victim to have an immediate heart attack. This poison could be frozen into the shape of a dart and then fired at high speed from a pistol…”

I asked my contact about whether “they” might use something that could imitate sarcoidosis. His reply didn’t address my question directly, but, in general, and regarding medical assassinations, he said, “They can’t help themselves. They are totally mad.”

He also added, “the ice gun shown to Congress is bullsh*t.” I suspect that maybe the theatrics was a distraction and to make it sound preposterously complicated — which poisoning someone is not.

The Cancer Case of the Shoe Thrower

I digress briefly to mention that I remain cautiously suspicious over the cancer death, in 2011, of Australian environmental activist, 30 year-old, Peter Gray. He is known for hurling his shoes at former prime minister John Howard during and ABC Q&A broadcast. But in 2006, Gray had taken the Government of New South Wales to court — and won — over its environmental assessment of the Anvil Hill Coal Mine. After this landmark case, and he began working on another. He was a serious corporate pest.

But in this article I will concentrate on this sarcoidosis death.

Sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis is a condition in which “sarcoid granulomas” appear in the body’s tissues. It is essentially an inflammation — and can get better over time. In rare chronic or progressive cases, treatment with prednisolone or cortisone may be required. Some deaths are recorded, but may present itself in a cough, or fever with chest pain or other symptoms.

I thus phoned my medical specialist friend and asked. Can a seemingly healthy 34-year-old person be okay one day and be dead from Sarcoidosis the next. The answer, “Yes.”

But… “it is very very rare.”

People can die from sudden cardiac death, with the autopsy finding that sarcoidosis of the conduction tissues of the heart may have explained the cardiac arrest. It is so rare that a quick review of the literature reveals very few papers: In May 2017, Jotterand et al report a single case of a 32 year old woman who died of sudden cardiac death. And in 2011 Bagwan et al report on a case series. Of 1720 sudden cardiac deaths, 17 were found at autopsy to have SCD of the heart (but not necessary the cause of death).

My doctor friend said that evidence of sarcoidosis may be associative — and not the cause of death.

But in Rago’s case, the examiner involves the “lungs, heart, spleen, hilar and mediastinal lymph nodes.”

SCD can be asymptomatic, but it seems in severe cases it is not. Was he coughing or showing medical distress the the weeks, or days before? Surely his fellow journalists at the WSJ would have mentioned that in their reports.

Rago’s Research

Rago was allegedly investigating how a Russian Pharmaceutical firm could have been purchased in 2014 by an American Pharmaceutical firm while Sanctions against Russia existed against such business transactions. The halturnerradioshow reports that

“the dead journalists investigation was how then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton influenced the transaction to be finalized, but only AFTER her husband Bill was paid $500,000 for giving a speech in Moscow.”

There are reports, which I have no way of verifying, that Rago had requested an interview with Russian consular officials just before he died.

In this very long video they discuss that Rago might have been about to uncover a pharma scam, and that Abbott Laboratories acquired VEROPHARM (a Russian company) in December 2014 — 9 months AFTER Sanctions were imposed. Established on January 21, 1997, VEROPHARM is one of the top manufacturers of Anti-Cancer drug products — and certain people were going to make a lot of money from the company’s generic drugs being listed and paid for by Obamacare insurers.

Of note is that Hilary Clinton has flown in Abbott Lab planes.

Crossing swords with the Medical Industrial Complex can be bad for anyone’s health. (On my ‘to read list’ is “Dr. Mary’s Monkey,” a book by Edward T. Haslam involving polio vaccines, secret laboratories, a gruesome death, monkeys.)

Considering the circumstances in this case, I would say there is more to learn. It maybe that SCD was not the cause of death — but without any other obvious cause, the presence of SCD provides an easy closure to this case for the authorities.  I will write to the WSJ asking if anyone there has seen the details of the autopsy report.

Depository of Work in Progress

This case reminds me of Michael Hastings, who was allegedly investigating CIA Director John Brennan, before was killed/murdered in a strange fiery crash in June of 2013. I wish we could read what Hastings was working on.

So, on that note, I suggest that a “depository of articles in progress” be set up for journalists working on “dangerous” material. In the event of a person’s suspicious death — the key or code is unlocked, which results in automatic release (open source) of the data. Instead of murder covering up secrets — it would be a trigger for the release of sensitive material. It might be incentive to not add to the ever-growing body count.