Brownstone Institute was founded in the US in 2021 in response to the policy decisions made during the covid event. Its articles are regularly republished in TCW.

BROWNSTONE Institute was a proud exhibitor at the huge Children’s Health Defense conference in Austin, Texas, from November 7-9. The event was filled with exuberance and trust among the more than 1,000 attendees, all of whom were thrilled to be with real friends at a time in which trust in nearly everything else is in freefall.

Within this social context, two 30-something men with British accents were making the rounds to decry fake meat and proclaim the superiority of real meat. This is a position with which probably everyone there agreed. They also looked the part: well-dressed and clean-shaven.

The main actor said his name was Aldrich Willows. He explained that he runs the ‘Alliance for Sustainable Protein’. The site is down as of this writing but it was created in March 2025. If anyone questioned their authenticity, pulling up their website on the phone was the first riposte, which is what they did with me.

The goal was to get people on film with the camera they had set up outside the security zone. Just before going on camera, they present the victim with a study that they say proves that fake meat causes autism. They have you stand in front of a ridiculous graphic with a patty of real vs fake meat, then they turn on the camera, first eliciting permission to use what is filmed.

Next they push the person to endorse their study. If you are wary, as I was, the cameraman says, ‘It would be best for you to clearly state that fake meat causes autism while holding the study.’ It’s an intimidating moment because the people being interviewed hate fake meat, suspect that the cause of autism is environmental, and feel a bit of sympathy for these guys. If the victim does not comply, they keep pushing, clearly trying to get people on camera to say something ridiculous.

The study in question is entirely fake, with no author, and generated entirely by artificial intelligence. (Later I generated a study using Grok showing a causal link between eating waffles and going bald. Anyone can do this in about five seconds.) But they are moving so fast that it is hard to follow what is going on.

I quickly forgot about the entire strange episode. I figured that it was some naïve activists who were drawing unconfirmed connections between two bad things. Such events draw all types.

It was not until the next morning when it dawned on me what they were doing. They were scammers who had targeted the health freedom movement. They were piecing together a film for a documentary that would claim that all of us are naïve and rallying around fake science to advance our political agenda.

Very clever.

Read More – Caught! The hoaxers who tried to trap health campaigners