Dealing with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV): a Few Things that Have Helped

I was diagnosed with Epstein Barr Virus and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis in early September 2020.

This post is to share a few things that have helped me in dealing with Epstein Barr Virus and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis which have resulted mainly in extreme fatigue, but also a monthlong joint problem in the knuckles of my hand.

I did have one joyous day of nearly full strength, riding my bike nearly three hours (1900 calorie ride, first ride in 11 day)... but the next day was weakness and I was wiped out the day after that with legs that felt like the muscles had gone dead. The oscillation in energy is extreme, from feeling hardly able to stand up straight to doing that bike ride a day later.

Is the fatigue the result of EBV or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis? Yes, meaning either or both and who can really know. It seems that I am going to need some weeks of rest and care to try to heal. Hopefully it’s mainly EBV and the thyroiditis part will calm down.

Magnesium

Being involved in perhaps as many as 1000 metabolic processes, magnesium has many healing and modulating functions within the body. For example, it is a strong pulmonary relaxant which cured my asthma (far more effective than prescription inhalers for me), and a moderate muscle relaxant. It supports the immune system and protects the cardiovascular system and brain, and helps the body to eliminate toxins. Most people are magnesium deficient, so this is a baseline nutritional requirement to fix.

Vitamin C

After suffering for a month from arthritic-like pain in two knuckles of my right hand, I had a thought to try Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C. Within 24-36 hours, all the pain had gone. Perhaps a coincidence (?) in my N=1 experiment that many doctors would guffaw at as anecdotal nonsense*. Or maybe it helped kill off some virus and/or had anti-inflammatory effects. The fact is the pain disappeared almost overnight.

* Which is why doctors rarely can help with anything complicated and mult-factorial—closed minds in the context of an extremely complex ecosystem (the synergistic human body and mind). Functional medicine doctors (hard to find) would likely be much more open to hypotheses.

CBD

CBD at bedtime helps relax me, but (this might be peculiar to me) seems to increase sensation and flexibility in my feet and toes. I am hoping it will modulate my immune system and help me heal out of the EBV and perhaps even the Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, by tuning down inappropriate immune system functions.

Did China Create the CCP Virus? Tucker Carlson Interview of Chinese Virologist

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it — Lloyd Chambers. That applies to climate science, COVID-19, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. Repudiating rational debate on science is as anti-science as it gets.

The technical details of the papers by Chinese virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan claiming that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) CREATED the COVID-19 virus are way beyond me, so I’ll leave it to the experts—except that the WHO and CDC have been shown to be utterly corrupt, so I don’t know who can really weigh in on the matter.

It seems that only Tucker Carlson has the “gall” to actually interview a credible person on the CCP virus. With China disappearing anyone who speaks out and controlling all information in media in China (and often abroad), such voices are critical.

Tucker Carlson Interview of Chinese Virologist

The Chinese government intentionally manufactured and released the COVID-19 virus that led to mass shutdowns and deaths across the world, a top virologist and whistleblower told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday.

Carlson specifically asked Dr. Li-Meng Yan whether she believed the Chinese Communist Party released the virus "on purpose." "Yes, of course, it's intentionally," she responded on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

Yan said more evidence would be released but pointed to her own high-ranking position at a World Health Organization reference lab as a reason to trust her allegation. "I work[ed] in the WHO reference lab, which is the top coronavirus lab in the world, in the University of Hong Kong. And the thing is I get deeply into such investigation in secret from the early beginning of this outbreak. I had my intelligence because I also get my own unit network in China, involved [in] the hospital ... also I work with the top corona[virus] virologist in the world," she said.

"So, together with my experience, I can tell you, this is created in the lab ... and also, it is spread to the world to make such damage."

Yan's comments conflicted with the opinion of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and White House coronavirus adviser, who previously cast doubt on the idea the virus was artificially created. In May, he told National Geographic: "If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats, and what's out there now is very, very strongly leaning toward this [virus] could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated — the way the mutations have naturally evolved."

I don’t see how Dr. Fauci is credible, given his spineless track record, and the flat-out lies he promulgated about the spread of COVID-10, and about masks early on—he strikes me as someone who never heard of a bullshit meter.

Presumably our national security apparatus can figure out whether the claims made by Dr. Li-Meng Yan are true, but since the answer is fraught with geopolitical considerations, will the truth ever be known to the public?

And I wonder if Dr. Yan will die unexpectedly in an “accident”. Dr Yan is inredibly brave to stand up and speak out (China surely wants to disappear her as has been done with everyeone else), even if her claims turn out to be bad science.

See also: CHINESE VIROLOGIST ACCUSES BEIJING OF CORONAVIRUS COVER-UP, FLEES HONG KONG: 'I KNOW HOW THEY TREAT WHISTLEBLOWERS'

CCP Virus: “The Doctor Is In: Scott Atlas And The Efficacy Of Lockdowns, Social Distancing, And Closings”

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it — Lloyd Chambers. That applies to climate science, COVID-19, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. Repudiating rational debate on science is as anti-science as it gets.

...

I was struck this letter from 105 Stanford doctors attacking Dr Scott Atlas in which they ignore numerous data-based and science-based points that Dr Atlas has made.

This group claims to promote science, but instead repudiates science and reason by making an ad-hominem attack on Dr. Atlas, not addressing or even mentioning a single claim made by Dr Atlas. Not one. The “debate” is all about refusing to debate, and thus as anti-science as it could possibly be.

Stanford Letter criticizes Trump COVID-19 appointee

As infectious diseases physicians and researchers, microbiologist and immunologists, epidemiologists and health policy leaders, we stand united in efforts to develop and promote science-based solutions that advance human health and prevent suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. In this pursuit, we share a commitment to a basic principle derived from the Hippocratic Oath: Primum Non Nocere (First, Do No Harm).

To prevent harm to the public’s health, we also have both a moral and an ethical responsibility to call attention to the falsehoods and misrepresentations of science recently fostered by Dr. Scott Atlas, a former Stanford Medical School colleague and current senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. Many of his opinions and statements run counter to established science and, by doing so, undermine public-health authorities and the credible science that guides effective public health policy. The preponderance of data, accrued from around the world, currently supports each of the following statements:...

By refusing to look at reality outside a tiny area of their expertise, these doctors are de-facto killing many more people than COVID-19 ever will. Their stunning display of any knowledge of risk assessment across disciplines is prima facie evidence of incompetence to advise anyone.

The interview video which set off this firestorem was censored from YouTube for vague reasons (e.g. political reasons), but it is available below. I watched the video and I was startled at how Dr. Atlas reeled off point after point of data-based and science based concerns about COVID policy, while adding appropriate balance and nuance and context. It was so unlike the dogmatic broken-record crap most of the world hears and believes.

The point is not that everything Dr. Atlas claims is true, the point is that there is so much that badly needs debating that refusing to do so becomes a serious intellectual crime. Shame on those doctors, because the wrong decisions will result in staggering numbers of deaths from COVID policies.

Decide for yourself — watch the video, read the transcript

VIDEO: The Doctor Is In: Scott Atlas And The Efficacy Of Lockdowns, Social Distancing, And Closings

TRANSCRIPT: The Doctor Is In: Scott Atlas And The Efficacy Of Lockdowns, Social Distancing, And Closings

PLEASE: no correspondence unless you read the ENTIRE transcript and think about each point carefully and have a rational argument to make based on specific points.

Dr Atlas covers so many bases, so many that I’ll bet 99.9% of the public never even thought of most of them. He hits all the nails on the head about how to think about COVID policies, and this is only a tiny sampling:

• Costs vs benefit risk assessment in numerous areas are all strongly in favor of dropping the current policies, with compelling data that far more harm than good is being done.
• The deaths from economic reasons using long-established actuarial tables (the stuff insurance companies use) is already TWICE the deaths from COVID-19 itself—and those are very conservative numbers.
• Stroke and heart attacks are not getting to the emergency room, with huge life consequences for those experiencing them.
• The proper way to evaluate is “life years lost”, not deaths.
• “the most heinous misapplication of public policy in modern America”

Just applying to children and schooling alone:

• Emergency room visits for child abuse are up 35%, and mostly horrific cases.
• The #1 way to detect child abuse is through schools. With schools locked down, this doesn’t happen. Nor do glasses, hearing aids, school lunch, vaccinations.
• Loss of many skills like reading; half of children in some states don’t even login for online learning. This can have long-term consequences for millions of children.

There are so many fact-based and science-based assertions by Dr Atlas that clearly the ONLY thing left for these Stanford doctors to do was to IGNORE every one of numerous valid points—ignore all the facts pretending they do not exist—because they could not possibly debate most of the claims without looking like the idiots. Those doctors are the people you trust with your life to make judgment calls. God help me at Stanford*!

That these feckless Stanford doctors are comfortable with repudiating rational debate should be shocking enough given their credentials. But for them to do so when millions of lives are at stake is just de facto criminal.

It is a stunning display of why medical professionals should NEVER be who decides public policy—that’s the job of our leaders. These medical experts are blind to anything outside their specialty, but this is no surprise indeed it is routine—these “experts” don’t even know a tiny fraction of the field of medicine very well (hence getting handed-off to multiple doctors is commonplace), so to think they are qualified to advise on public policy crossing many fields of medicine, along with economics and social and individual lives and rights—that’s the line of Bad Thinking of children who don’t belong in the discussion.

* At Stanford, I had a superb ex-military surgeon sew up my face after my December 2018 crash, but in March 2018, only incompetent emergency room doctors with respect to my concussion (“you can go back to work in 3 days”)—ignorant quacks. The words “I don’t know” have never come out of a doctor’s mouth to my ears. A license to practice medicine is not a license to make shit up and pretend it is certain.

Tigger Cat Goes Nuts over Duck Fat

We adopted a handsome feral stray tomcat about a year ago (now neutered). I wish he would stick to squirrels, rabbits, gophers and leave the birds and lizards alone—the one thing I don’t like about him is the toll of ~50 birds a year, at least. But I respect the nature of an animal designed to kill and eat prey.

Turns out that Tigger loves duck fat, in particular EPIC Duck Fat, Keto Friendly, the same stuff I fry steaks in sometimes. Short of catnip, it’s his favorite, even more than animal brains.

He’ll stand up on hind legs to get at it, which is hilarious. Gotta think it’s far more healthy than cat treats with nasty fillers and preservatives.

Tigger

f1.8 @ 1/120 sec, ISO 50; 2020-08-10 11:20:09
iPhone 11 Pro + iPhone 11 Pro 4.2 mm f/2.8 @ 26mm equiv (4.2mm) ENV: altitude 503 ft / 153 m

[low-res image for bot]

Lawsuit: FDA Is Hoarding Life-saving Drugs While Americans Die

See also: Hydroxychloroquine is Effective and Safe for the Treatment of COVID-19, and May be Universally Effective When Used Early Before Hospitalization: A Systematic Review.

The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons has filed a lawsuit against the FDA for withholding hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) that could be used to save lives.

FDA Is Hoarding Life-saving Drugs While Americans Die [Excerpts]

Emphasis added.

In a brief filed Sep 1 in its case demanding that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) release the hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) for public use, the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS) writes:

...

AAPS asserts in its brief that FDA has tacitly conceded that:

• “the HCQ stockpile contains 60 million doses donated for the purpose of treating COVID-19”;
• “experts, including Yale Professor Dr. Harvey Risch, observe that release of the HCQ Stockpile could save 50,000-100,000 American lives”;
• “HCQ has been approved as safe by the FDA and used safely since 1955, and the CDC officially declares HCQ to be safe today”;
• “foreign countries have kept their mortality rates far lower—sometimes 90% lower—than the United States’ rate, by encouraging use of HCQ”; and that
• “treating COVID-19, like treating the flu, requires taking medication as early as possible in the exposure to or progression of the disease.”

The FDA has argued that its decisions are not reviewable by a federal court. AAPS writes: “Under Defendants’ view they could dump the entire HCQ Stockpile into the Potomac River and there would be no legal accountability.”

...

WIND: I’ve said for years that the FDA’s job is to kill people by denying life-saving treatments and by imposing masssively costly bureaucracy, and (especially with big bucks involved e.g., statins) via outright corruption in league with Big Pharma (as in penalizing whistleblowers harshly, well documented fact). So this seems like pretty much standard operating procedure for the FDA.

But is HCQ life-saving or not? The preponderance of evidence looks increasingly against that notion. Yet if there is a 30% chance it works for a good chunk of patients using the right protocol, it is premature to shut off the possibility. Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Hydroxychloroquine is Effective and Safe for the Treatment of COVID-19, and May be Universally Effective When Used Early Before Hospitalization: A Systematic Review

See also: FDA Is Hoarding Life-saving Drugs While Americans Die.

This study below is not yet peer reviewed and not a gold standard clinical trial. We should all want to see the TRUTH about hydroxychloroquine revealed with multiple large-scale clinical trials done with the right protocols, because COVID-19 is an equal-opportunity killer. Whatever that truth is.

See: Fraud in the Study of Hydroxychloroquine: can you trust medical experts of any kind any more?

Gold standard clinical trials using hydroxychloroquine with the right protocols were abandoned due to falsified data and political and press pressures. Incompetent and feckless institutions took made-up fake data as real and acted without even the most rudimentary due diligence. These people and institutions have needlessly killed tens of thousands of people by causing the abrupt halt to studies of hydroxychloroquine. At some point, it becomes criminal negligence, not just for the fakers, but for the people who failed to do their jobs properly, not doing even the most basic due diligence.

Most studies on hydroxychloroquine studied the wrong thing with the wrong protocols, making them irrelevant. For example, giving it to people rapidly approaching death. The evidence suggests that giving hydroxychloroquine at that point is a bad idea, but that using it might be a win—but what is the right protocol?

How many people has CNN killed, in effect, by prematurely stifling research (whatever the findings)? The press is complicit in actively misleading the public on the reality of potential benefits, quoting irrelevant trials with the wrong protocols, etc. Given the looming election here in the USA, there will be intense pressure to suppress the truth if that truth trends to safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine. Anything to make President Trump look bad, no matter how many have to die. I don’t care what the truth is either way so long as it really is the truth (of course we all hope for a drug that works!). It’s not a political issue for me, but I’m forced to wade through the muck of trying to discern the truth, given its politicization by the "news", which means ALL the news (brainwashing) networks.

Studies that study the wrong thing, or don’t look for the right things are the norm in medicine and science. History shows that over and over. That’s why I have a lot more confidence in meta analysis than any particular study. But even meta analysis fails if all the studies use differing protocols and all make the same types of errors.

HCQ has become so politicized that it’s hard to believe any study unless the motivations of its authors and funders are scrutinized (in addition to methodology, timing, concurrent administration of other drugs, etc). We’ve already seen falsified data that The Lancet failed to notice (sloppy and incompetent!), and selection bias (intentional or unavoidable) in studies is commonplace for everything. Randomization is ideal, but inappropriate testing protocols (known or not known) repeated only prove that the particular protocol does not work. It’s really hard to prove that a drug works or does not, and to know when and how to use it.

The only thing I care about is a true, unbiased, scientific answer. I don’t want to see anyone hurt by any premature erroneous conclusion about HCQ, either yeah or nay on its efficacy. That wish might be a fantasy prior to the Nov 2020 election.

Update Sept 13: at least one double-blind study concludes that HCQ is not effective as a prophylactic (I do not see it as stating “peer reviewed”). The study omits both zinc and azythromycin, targets a healthier group, has a poor methodology for validating real infections, and it relies on unproven assumptions. Read carefully ("Discussion"), the study itself raises serious doubt about its apparently clear conclusion. Also worth looking into is whether financial contributors include the "Alliance of Chinese Organizations" are pro-CCP or not. Note that the majority of scientific studies are later debunked, so it would not be reasonable to consider the matter anywhere near settled. I quote: “the study itself has significant limitations that prevent it from being a final word on the subject”.

I’m going to do the proper risk management thing: go with the odds—while the odds for HCQ being effective, the odds are not zero. I’m going to go with a 30% chance that it works using some treatment protocol on some good-sized chunk of patients.

Hydroxychloroquine is Effective and Safe for the Treatment of COVID-19, and May be Universally Effective When Used Early Before Hospitalization: A Systematic Review [Excerpts]

Emphasis added.

Introduction

There is a need for effective treatment for COVID-19 infection. Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), with or without azithromycin, has been found to have efficacy as a treatment for COVID-19 in some studies, while other studies have not shown efficacy.

Some physicians have stated that HCQ has greater efficacy if given earlier in the course of the disease. Several studies showing negative efficacy have been withdrawn due to methodological improprieties [7].

We hypothesized that HCQ clinical studies would show significant efficacy more often than not for COVID-19; and that efficacy would be greater if HCQ were used earlier in the course of the disease. We also hypothesized that some studies that failed to show efficacy would be biased against positive efficacy and that no unbiased studies would show worsening. We also hypothesized that HCQ would be found to be safe.

RESULTS

HCQ was found consistently effective against COVID-19 when used early, in the outpatient setting. It was found overall effective. No credible study found worse outcomes with HCQ use. No mortality or other serious safety issue was found

CONCLUSIONS

HCQ is consistently effective against COVID-19 when used early in the outpatient setting, it is overall effective against COVID-19, it has not produced worsening, it is safe.

...Some studies used HCQ alone, some had the addition of azithromycin or zinc. No outcome difference was seen with the addition of azithromycin (table 4). There were no deaths reported as a result of HCQ, azithromycin or Zinc treatment.

...

TIMING OF HCQ USE: It was striking that 100% of the 11 of the studies which used HCQ early in the disease on an outpatient basis showed positive results.

OVERALL EFFICACY: 23 of the 43 studies (53%) showed a definite positive effect of HCQ vs COVID-19. However if negatively biased studies are removed and the clinically important positive trends from underpowered studies are moved to the positive efficacy group the ratio changes to 28 positive vs 9 no effect: a 75% positivity ratio of positive HCQ studies. Interestingly none of the no-effect studies showed a clear trend toward worsening.

...SIGNIFICANCE: We believe our findings have substantial societal global importance since there have been numerous edicts either preventing HCQ use for COVID-19 or limiting it to the inpatient setting which we believe have resulted in many unnecessary deaths. Our findings showing efficacy and safety of HCQ against COVID-19 indicate that HCQ should be freely available to patients and physicians who choose to use it. And it should especially be freely available to be used on an outpatient basis before hospitalization where it appears to be more effective and where early fears of fatal heart arrhythmias have been shown to be unfounded[45]. This is particularly important because the only drug to show efficacy, Remdesivir, has shown no significant benefit in a recent study [46].It is also expensive and not widely available.... We also do not believe that randomized controlled studies are necessary before HCQ is authorized for general use because the efficacy seen in studies already done indicates that control patients in such studies might die unnecessarily; and because the time delay to do any such study would cause yet more deaths by preventing HCQ use when it is most needed – which is immediately

COVID-19 aka CCP Virus RED PILL — Dr. Malcom Kendrick: Why Terminology Really, Really Matters “probably the biggest single mistake that has ever been made in the history of the world”

Most medical experts and politicians have gone off the deep end on COVID-19.

No effort will be spared to avoid embarrassment of the “experts” that sent us all into lockdown and will ultimately kill millions of people from bad public policies around COVID-19. Expect a full propaganda campaign in the news media and governments around the world to insist that policies were warranted (this has been underway since March 2020 and it will intensify).

I’m a fan of Dr. Malcom Kendrick in part because of his excellent exposé of the moral and financial corruption in the statin industry; see The Great Cholesterol Con.

Dr. Malcom Kendrick – why terminology really, really matters [Excerpts]

Thus, lo and behold, COVID is a less severe infection than swine flu – the pandemic that never was. That’s what these figures appear to tell us. They tell us almost exactly the same in France where they ‘appear’ to have a current case fatality rate of 0.4%.

On the other hand, if you look at the figures from around the world, they are very different. As I write this there have been, according to the WHO, 25 million cases and 850,000 deaths. That is a case fatality rate of more than 3%. Ten times as high.

Why are these figures so all over the place? It is because we are using horribly inaccurate terminology. We are comparing apples with pomegranates to tell us how many bananas we have. Our experts are, essentially, talking gibberish, and the mainstream media is lapping it up. They are defining asymptomatic swabs as cases, and no-one is calling them out on it. Why?

...

The good news

At the start of the epidemic, the only people being tested were those who were being admitted to hospital, who were seriously ill. Many of them died. Which is why, in France, there was this very sharp, initial case fatality rate of 35%. In the UK the initial case fatality rate was I think 14%. Last time I looked at the UK figures, the case fatality was 5%, and falling fast.

This fall has occurred, and will occur everywhere in the World, because as you increase your testing, you pick up more and more people with less severe symptoms. People who are far less likely to die. The more you test, the more the case fatality rate falls.

It falls even more dramatically when you start to test people who have no symptoms at all. In fact, as you broaden your testing net, something else very important happens. You gradually move from looking at the case fatality rate to the infection fatality rate.

The infection fatality rate is the measure of how many people who are infected [even those without symptoms, or very mild symptoms] who then die. This is the critical figure to know because it gives you an accurate assessment of the total number of deaths you are likely to see.

...

It [case fatality rate] is falling, falling, everywhere. Where does it end up, this hybrid case/infection fatality rate? Remember, we are still only testing a fraction of the population, so we are missing the majority of people who have been infected, mainly those who do not have symptoms. Which means that these rates must fall further, as they always do in any pandemic.

...I am going to make a prediction that, in the end, we will end up with an IFR of somewhere around 0.1%. Which is about the same as severe flu pandemics we have had in the past. Remember that figure. It is one in a thousand.

It may surprise you to know that I am not the only person to have made this exact same prediction. On the 28th February, yes that far back, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (A.S.F., H.C.L.); and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. 4 

In this paper ‘Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted’ they stated the following:

‘On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate (my underline) may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’  

A case fatality rate considerably less than 1%. Their words, not mine. As they also added, ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’  

At this point, you may well be asking. Why the hell did we lockdown if COVID was believed to be no more serious than influenza? Right from the start by the most influential infectious disease organisations in the World.

It is because of the mad mathematical modellers. The academic epidemiologists. Neil Ferguson, and others of his ilk. When they were guessing (sorry estimating, sorry modelling) the impact of COVID they used a figure of approximately one per cent as the infection fatality rate. Not the case fatality rate. In so doing, they overestimated the likely impact of COVID by, at the very least, ten-fold.

...Which means that, unless COVID was going to turn out nearly 100% fatal, we could never get anywhere near 1%, for the infection fatality rate. Even Ebola only kills 50%.

...So yes, it does seem that ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’

...

....The mortality rate Dr Fauci? Could it possibly be that he failed to understand that there is no such thing as a mortality rate? Did he mean the case fatality rate, or the infection fatality rate? If he meant the Infection mortality rate of influenza, he was pretty much bang on. If he meant the case fatality rate, he was wrong by a factor of ten.

So, we got Lockdown. The US used the Fauci figure and got locked down. The world used that figure and got locked down.

That figure just happens to be ten times too high.

...

I would like to thank Ronald B Brown for pointing out this catastrophic error, in his article ‘Public health lessons learned from biases in coronavirus mortality overestimation.... I am simply drawing your attention to what has simply been – probably the biggest single mistake that has ever been made in the history of the world.

RAY of HOPE: The First Clinical Trial to Support Vitamin D Therapy For Covid-19/CCP Virus finds a Vitamin D Metabolite Calcifediol Works Miracles (needs confirmation)

I recommended Vitamin D as well as sunlight exposure months ago, and repeatedly.

Vitamin D by itself is a fraction of the nutritional equation. Top of your list should be magnesium and Vitamin K2 along with Vitamin D—a synergistic trio. And you CANNOT get enough magnesium and Vitamin K2 via diet unless your diet is highly unusual—it’s almost impossible in a modern diet on modern farmlands. Don’t forget other nutrients, minimize sugar and carbohydrates, and get plenty of Vitamin C.

Why is the USA medical community fiddling while Rome burns? My lifetime experience as well as conversations with many doctors tells me clearly: on the whole and excepting a few doctors, the allopathic medical establishment is ignorant about nutrition, or even the value of sunlight because they (medical doctors) get nil training in it. And doctors don’t go looking for stuff they don’t understand.

I know that when I suspected that I had COVID-19, my doctor didn’t even mention Vitamin D (nutrition is a non-topic, poisons like statins are so much easier).

OK, so not every medical specialty has to step up, but why can’t at least internists and infectious disease doctors get their act together? Or the big medical organizations?

Why don’t we ALREADY have a dozen gold-standard studies on Vitamin D already completed here in the USA? What feckless organizations besides Big Pharma are failing to do these studies... or perhaps actively lobbying against studying such inexpensive treatments?

How many people have to die so that Big Pharma can sell us $3000-per-treatment drug that hardly work?

This study could be wrong, it could be faked, etc. But it claims to be randomized controlled study (the gold standard), and the results are so outrageously GOOD that maybe this whole damn mess could be ended tomorrow with some $0.25 pills.

The researchers here used the metabolite the body makes from Vitamin D3, but since either sunlight or Vitamin D supplementation will produce this metabolite in short order, the results are likely to hold simply via prevention for a huge portion of the at-risk population.

Effect of Calcifediol Treatment and best Available Therapy versus best Available Therapy on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Pilot Randomized Clinical study [Excerpts]

Oral calcifediol, the main metabolite of vitamin D3, reduced ICU admission from 50% to 2% among Covid-19 patients.

•  The Vitamin D endocrine system may have a variety of actions on cells and tissues involved in COVID-19 progression.
•  Administration of calcifediol or 25-hydroxyvitamin D to hospitalized COVID-19 patients significantly reduced their need for Intensive Care United admission.
• Calcifediol seems to be able to reduce severity of the disease.

The Vitamin D endocrine system may have a variety of actions on cells and tissues involved in COVID-19 progression especially by decreasing the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Calcifediol can rapidly increase serum 25OHD concentration. We therefore evaluated the effect of calcifediol treatment, on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality rate among Spanish patients hospitalized for COVID-19.

Results

Of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission... Of the patients treated with calcifediol, none died, and all were discharged, without complications.

The 13 patients not treated with calcifediol, who were not admitted to the ICU, were discharged. Of the 13 patients admitted to the ICU [not treated], two died and the remaining 11 were discharged.

Conclusion

Our pilot study demonstrated that administration of a high dose of Calcifediol or 25-hydroxyvitamin D, a main metabolite of vitamin D endocrine system, significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of patients requiring hospitalization due to proven COVID-19. Calcifediol seems to be able to reduce severity of the disease, but larger trials with groups properly matched will be required to show a definitive answer.

RED PILL Yourself on Sun Exposure vs Skin Cancer Melanoma, Sunlight and Ultraviolet and Vitamin D

Note: Vitamin D by itself is a fraction of the nutritional equation. Top of your list should be magnesium and Vitamin K2 along with Vitamin D—a synergistic trio. And you CANNOT get enough magnesium and Vitamin K2 via diet unless your diet is highly unusual. Don’t forget other nutrients, minimal sugar and low carbohydrates, and of course, Vitamin C.

Or, put another away: Ethics in Medicine: the Disinformation and Halfpinion Claims of the Allopathic Medical Establishment vis-a-vis Sunlight and UV Exposure and Vitamin D.

Every dermatologist so far has told me that my skin is in excellent condition for my age. In spite of a great deal of sun exposure, much of it at very high altitude (8000 feet to 14000+ feet). I have never had any skin cancer even though I have quite a few moles starting at young age. My natural skin color is quite light, tanning to a pleasing brown with sun exposure.

How many people are BEING KILLED because of BAD MEDICAL ADVICE regarding sunlight?

Many more details below, but here are key take-aways:

“Vitamin D supplements are not an effective substitute for adequate sun exposure”...

The only identified risk associated with the amount of non-burning sun exposure needed to achieve serum 25(OH)D levels of 30 ng/mL is some possible increased risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer.

... risks of inadequate non-burning sun exposure include increased risks of all-cause mortality, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer disease, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, statin intolerance, macular degeneration and myopia.
— NIH “The risks and benefits of sun exposure 2016”.

As a youth, I loved to fish and be outdoors. I was burned and tanned very satisfactorily as a youth, including blistering on my face at age 16 after skiiing in March. In summar, I had a very dark tanned back and bleached blonde hair—dang it feels good to be in the sun as a kid! That kind of excessive sun exposure is surely Not Good—no argument.

Donna writes:

....Being a past scientist, having done research in Molecular and Cellular Biology at UC Davis and Los Alamos National Lab, and being a trained hazard and risk analysis professional at LANL, and trained in contamination control and response to bio- and rad-attacks.... [WIND:see comment in yesterday’s blog post].

I also think the Vitamin D slant has merit and think that the folks at Oak Ridge National Lab have come up with an interesting bradykinin hypothesis. That said, I think you state the Vitamin D case and getting 20 minutes of sun in the middle of the day a bit strongly.

I agree that we need Vitamin D and that some people are deficient. I agree that sunscreen has the potential to be shown to be harmful in the long run. But I don’t agree with having to get out in the mid day sun to get your Vitamin D.
[WIND: my full advice incorporates geography and much more, and Miami is not San Fran, see below]

About 2.5 months ago, during the peak of COVID in Miami, I had the pleasure of going to the Miami Cancer Center for melanoma surgery on my arm plus a one node lymph node extraction. I was lucky and they got it in time and it had not yet spread (but it was way too damned close.) Anyway, I looked up an article on Yale Medicine and I’m thinking we can get enough vitamin D in the morning sun, even in shade and minimize risk to skin cancer and avoid sunscreen. It’s a win win.

WIND: I am so glad that Donna got her skin cancer caught in time. May we all be so fortunate! But my family has seen a curious absence of skin cancer, in spite of being very outdoorsy—I’d bet on a strong genetic component, and perhaps nutrition too. But Miama is not Wisconsin or Northern California and the sun intensity varies a lot over the year in northern areas.

My sun-exposure advice

My sun-exposure advice is much more nuanced than “20 minutes of sun in the middle of the day” — it involves skin color, geographic location, time of year, time of day and avoiding any reddening of the skin. It might mean 3 hours a day in winter (very hard to find the time), or 10 minutes at high altitude in July.

I do *not* advocate excessive sun exposure, only moderate regular mild sun exposure, e.g. for a caucasion male like me in my mid-50's: 15 minutes daily (roughly 10 to 2 PM) in the summer, and up to an hour in our weak winter sun, at my latitude. Reduce the figures for more intense sun (time of year, geography) and increase the time for dark skin substantially. And use the less exposed areas for shorter duration while avoiding sun on high-exposure area. In other words, sun your belly and sunscreen your face!

NIH: The risks and benefits of sun exposure 2016 [Excerpts]

So let’s get to a quality paper which actually does risk assessment across fields. Emphasis added in places.

Public health authorities in the United States are recommending that men, women and children reduce their exposure to sunlight, based on concerns that this exposure will promote skin cancer. On the other hand, data show that increasing numbers of Americans suffer from vitamin D deficiencies and serious health problems caused by insufficient sun exposure.

The body of science concerning the benefits of moderate sun exposure is growing rapidly, and is causing a different perception of sun/UV as it relates to human health. Melanoma and its relationship to sun exposure and sunburn is not adequately addressed in most of the scientific literature. Reports of favorable health outcomes related to adequate serum 25(OH)D concentration or vitamin D supplementation have been inappropriately merged, so that benefits of sun exposure other than production of vitamin D are not adequately described.

This review of recent studies and their analyses consider the risks and benefits of sun exposure which indicate that insufficient sun exposure is an emerging public health problem. This review considers the studies that have shown a wide range health benefits from sun/UV exposure. These benefits include among others various types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer disease/dementia, myopia and macular degeneration, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

The message of sun avoidance must be changed to acceptance of non-burning sun exposure sufficient to achieve serum 25(OH)D concentration of 30 ng/mL or higher in the sunny season and the general benefits of UV exposure beyond those of vitamin D.

Public health authorities in the United States are currently advising that human sun exposure be reduced.1 At the same time, NHANES data show that 32% of Americans suffer from vitamin D insufficiency.a

In this paper we review the current state of the science of the risks and benefits of sun exposure and suggest that public health advice be changed to recommend that all men, women and children accumulate sufficient non-burning sun exposure to maintain their serum 25hydroxyvitaminD [25(OH)D] levels at 30 ng/mL or more year-round.

...A letter signed by many respected vitamin D scientists and physicians recommends 40–60 ng/mL70 which is in line with what the Endocrine Society recommended as the preferred range for health... [WIND: that is 3X HIGHER than the 20 ng/ml figure cited by the Yale article]

.... Using the Endocrine Society's definition of vitamin D sufficiency of 30 ng/mL, the level of vitamin D insufficiency increased from 55% of the US population in NHANES III to 77% in NHANES 2001–2004,38 which indicates that the vast majority of Americans have an insufficient vitamin D status.

All-cause mortality

...study found an inverse association of circulating 25(OH)D with risks of death due to cardiovascular diseases, cancer and other causes (RR 1.35, 95% CI 1.22–1.49 for all cause mortality... authors further estimate that 9.4% of all deaths in Europe and 12.8% in the United States could be attributable to vitamin D insufficiency... found that the overall age-adjusted hazard ratio for all-cause mortality comparing the lowest (0–9 ng/mL) group to the highest (greater than 50 ng/mL) was 1.9 (95% CI 1.6–2.2), indicating that individuals in the lowest [Vitamin D] group had nearly twice the age-adjusted death rate as those in the highest quantile..

...As compared to the highest sun exposure group, the all-cause mortality rate was doubled (RR 2.0, 95% CI 1.6–2.5) among avoiders of sun exposure and increased by 40% (RR 1.4, 95% CI 1.1–1.7) in those with moderate exposure...

...measured low 25(OH)D levels in the general population associated with increased mortality...

Colorectal cancer

...patients in the highest quintile of prediagnostic circulating 25(OH)D concentration (more than 40 ng/mL) had a 42% reduced risk of colon cancer as compared to patients with the lowest quintile (less than 10 ng/mL)....

Breast cancer incidence and mortality

...breast cancer mortality which found that patients in the highest quintile of 25(OH)D (more than 32 ng/mL) had approximately half the death rate from breast cancer as those in the lowest quintile...

Non-hodgkins lymphoma, colorectal, prostate and breast cancer, and multiple sclerosis

[WIND: sunlight has MORE benefits than just Vitamin D production]

1) there is an inverse association between sun exposure and both colorectal cancer risk and colorectal cancer mortality; 2) there is an inverse association between vitamin D status and both colorectal cancer risk and colorectal cancer mortality; 3) there is a negative association between sun exposure and prostate cancer risk and prostate cancer mortality but not between vitamin D status and prostate cancer risk or mortality; 4) there is an inverse correlation between sun exposure and breast cancer risk and breast cancer mortality, and possibly between 25(OH)D and breast cancer mortality, but studies on the association between 25(OH)D and breast cancer risk are inconclusive; 5) there is a negative association between sun exposure and NHL risk and NHL mortality but not between vitamin D status and NHL risk or mortality; 6) there is a negative association between sun exposure and lymphoma risk, but no association between lymphoma risk and vitamin D intake or 25(OH)D levels; and, 7) for multiple sclerosis, both experimental and epidemiological studies show that the preventative role of sun exposure is independent of vitamin D production.

Bladder cancer

...reduced risk of bladder cancer associated with 25(OH)D concentrations above 30 ng/mL compared to less than 15 ng/mL...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD)

[WIND: sunlight has MORE benefits than just Vitamin D production]

...stores of nitrogen oxides in the human skin are mobilized to the systemic circulation by exposure of the body to UVA radiation, causing arterial vasodilation and a resultant decrease in blood pressure independent of vitamin D...

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) and type 2 diabetes

...higher 25(OH)D levels were associated with lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome... low 25(OH)D levels are associated with type 2 diabetes independently of BMI...

...individuals with 25(OH)D levels above 25 ng/mL had a 43% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes (95% CI, 2457%–) compared with individuals with 25(OH)D levels below 14 ng/mL, and that vitamin D supplementation had no effect...

Alzheimer disease and cognitive decline

...participants with serum 25(OH)D levels below 10 ng/mL were more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer disease than participants with serum 25(OH)D levels greater than 20 ng/mL... the probability is about 140% that an individual without Alzheimer would have a higher 25(OH)D level than an individual with Alzheimer if both individuals were chosen at random from a population...

Multiple sclerosis (MS), type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis

...findings support the long-held view that the incidence of MS is inversely related to UVR exposure... more sun exposure in the third gestational trimester was associated with lower risk of type 1 diabetes in male children...

Psoriasis

...Vitamin D deficiency was associated with psoriasis independently of other factors (OR 2.50, 95% CI 1.18–4.89).

Liver disease

[WIND: sunlight has MORE benefits than just Vitamin D production]

...circulating vitamin D levels may represent a proxy for bodily exposure to sunlight122 explaining the observation that mediators induced by sun exposure other than vitamin D may play important roles in curtailing NAFLD...

Statin intolerance and muscle pain, weakness

...statin intolerance because of myalgia, myositis, myopathy, or myonecrosis associated with serum 25(OH)D less than 23 ng/mL can be resolved with vitamin D supplementation raising serum 25(OH)D to 53 ng/mL. Aleksic et al. 2015123 found that low vitamin D levels are a potentially significant and correctible risk factor for statin-related myopathy, especially in African-Americans.

Macular degeneration

....6.7-fold increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) among women with serum 25(OH)D levels less than 12 ng/mL who also had genetic risk for AMD, and noted that previous studies had found that decreased odds of AMD are associated with high compared to low concentrations of 25(OH)D...

Dental caries in infants

...low prenatal 25(OH)D concenratations were associated with increased risk of dental caries among offspring in the first year of life...

Obesity

UVR exposure may be an effective means of suppressing the development of obesity and metabolic syndrome through mechanisms that are independent of vitamin D but dependent on other UVR-induced mediators such as nitric oxide...

Myopia

... children who spend more time outdoors are less likely to be or to become myopic, irrespective of how much near work they do or whether their parents are myopic. The likely mechanism for this protective effect is visible light stimulating release of dopamine from the retina, which inhibits increased axial elongation, the structural basis of myopia. The authors describe the effect of time outdoors on the risk of myopia as robust.

Other benefits of sun exposure

prevailing amount of sunlight affects brain serotonergic activity. Deficiencies in serotonin and brain serotonergic activity have been linked to sudden infant death syndrome,134 seasonal affective disorder,133 depression,135 schizophrenia,136 Alzheimer disease,137 and migraine headaches.138 Beta-endorphin, a neuorohormone that acts as an analgesic, has been known for many years to be released in the human body by exercise,139 producing a feeling of wellbeing similar to the feeling of wellbeing induced by sun exposure.

Vitamin D supplements vs. sun exposure

...vitamin D supplements are not an effective substitute for adequate sun exposure.

Balancing the risks of moderate non-burning sun exposure against the risks of inadequate sun exposure

The only identified risk associated with the amount of non-burning sun exposure needed to achieve serum 25(OH)D levels of 30 ng/mL is some possible increased risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer. The amount of sun exposure required to produce this level of Vitamin D varies among individuals and according to time of year, time of day and latitude.

White people with Type II skinsh at 40 degrees latitude can obtain their annual requirements of vitamin D by spending about 15 minutes in the sun with face, arms and legs exposed (half that time if in a bathing suit) 2 to 3 times a week between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. during the months of May through October.141 In comparison, nonmelanoma skin cancer is associated with many thousands or tens of thousands of cumulated hours of lifetime sun exposure.16,52,53 Moreover, inadequate acclimatization to UVR in daily life carries the risk of sunburn and corresponding increased risk of both nonmelanoma skin cancer and melanoma.

The risks of inadequate non-burning sun exposure include increased risks of all-cause mortality, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer disease, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, statin intolerance, macular degeneration and myopia.

People with darker skins require more time in the sun to produce their requirements of vitamin D but also have lower risks of nonmelanoma skin cancer, and people with Type I skins, who are unable to tan, require less time in the sun but have higher risks of nonmelanoma skin cancer. All persons should avoid sunburns, which are associated with substantial increased risk of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer.

Correlation is not causation, but the idea that the human body evolved for millenia to make lots of Vitamin D from sunlight as some kind of genetic accident replaceable by a single crude supplement, and that all these powerful correlations are accidental... that just defies all logic.

Don’t get me started on impairing the body’s key building block for Vitamin D production via statin drugs—the morally and financially degenerate use of statin drugs by the medical establishment is grotesque in its dishonesty and anti-scientific basis.

Criticquing a typical “expert” halfpinion article — Yale Medicine

Halfpinion = the intellectual malpractice of having a viewpoint based on swiss-cheesed understanding of the myriad factors involved in any complex issue, typically far less than half the perspective needed to understand a

The referenced Yale Medicine article “Vitamin D Myths 'D'-bunked” is halfpinion dogmatic medical malpractice misinformation, chock full of serious flaws and major omissions includin. These “experts” are just promulgating “fake medical news”. Just for starters:

• Following the cited advice to avoid sun exposure is a recipe for numerous health problems, including other cancers. See the NIH article that follow.
• The authors are seemingly ignorant of the key role that magnesium plays in calcium regulation (“you may absorb too much calcium”), not once mentioning that high calcium levels might be a sign of magnesium defciency and that you CANNOT absorb it properly without Vitamin K2 and magnesium. Indeed, the doctor had to use “medications” instead of recognizing a more basic nutritional possibility, possibly putting the baby (patient) at much higher risk than instead assessing dietary inputs.
• Intellectual incompetence of conflating indvididuals health and genetics with populations as in “Testing is important only for certain populations...”. What twaddle—reminds me of the BMI bullshit with categorized me as “borderline obese” at 8% body fat.
• Citing dubious RDA guidelines e.g., 20 ng/ml for Vitamin D.
• The “body is a test tube with one ingredient” idiocy of taking supplements in isolation: “majority of people can get their vitamin D from nutritional supplements”. And what about the non-majority? Nutrition is a highly synergistic and extremely complex system, and some supplements have problems, like lead contamination.
• Being outdoors with the body almost entirely covered as I see most people doing is the norm around my neighborhood is probably KILLING people from COVID-19 due to low Vitamin D levels needed to combat all sorts of immune system challenges (not just CV19). I see older people covered head to toe—and they are the crowd most at risk from COVID. Ironically, there is a CV19 warning on the page, yet no mention of the role sunlight and Vitamin D might have in fending off CV19.
• Following the cited advice in winter and in northern latitudes and/or with dark skin is dangerously bad advice. Articles that don’t even mention these critical considerations are the worst of the worst halfpinions, misleading tens of millions of people in the USA alone.
• The scientific evidence for skin cancer has NOT shown direct causation—only correlation and correlation is not causation. Researchers isolate a single factor, then choose to NOT STUDY the 100 other factors that might be involved, either because they lack imagination or have a financial agenda, or because they have no training in nutrition or lifestyle factors. The human body is not a god-damned test tube; it is a complex organism with thousands of inputs, including nutrition and microbiome and genetics and environmental toxins.
• Sunblock may make skin cancer WORSE by blocking the critical production of Vitamin D (blocking UV-B rays), needed for the body to destroy cancers of many kinds! Focusing on a single cance while ignoring dozens of upsides is anti-health and anti-science.
• The author’s claim that the bulk of the population is not Vitamin D deficient is bunk, based on bad science and arbitrary cutoffs, and it ignores dark-skinned individuals, who may need hours in the sun for adequate Vitamin D. Citing bogus statistics and generalizing so casually is the hallmark of bad medicine and bad science and just plain Bad Thinking.
• The author fails to mention that breast milk might not have enough D because the mother is deficient.
• Direct causation of melanoma has NOT been proven, nor has it ever been proven that moderate daily sun exposure raises the risk of skin cancer (see quotes from NIH that follow).
• That the author of the Yale article recommends expensive food (salmon, which might be farmed and contain toxins), mercury-high food (tuna), unpalatable food (beef liver), and high-sugar foods (orange juice, cereal) shows he is an ignoramus about nutrition and total healthm, that at best his competence is reading a food label. Does that author understand anything about health or nutrition, or that the body is a complex system with thousands of health threats and hundreds of important nutritional inputs?

Dermatologists who fail to do total health risk assessment are just demonstrating intellectual blind spots, expressing their single-variable halfpinions and thus putting millions of people at increased risk of many ailments. Those same doctors have a near complete ignorance of nutrition, having received nearly nil training in it, let alone any scientifically defensible training—the food pyramid is what most doctors still point you at—unbelievable.

SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19 aka CCP Virus: Hysterical Anti-Scientific Policies for COVID-19 Remain a Massively Destructive Economic Earthquake Which Will kill MILLIONS Worldwide

• SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Recommendations for Healthy Body and Immune System
• Recommended Books for Health and Wellness
• SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Low Vitamin D Puts You at Risk; get it Via Sunlight
• Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin C, Vitamin D
• Do Experts have Functioning Brains in Terms of Minimizing Damage?
• View all SARS CoV2 posts.

I posted this graph back in July; this page contains an updated graph and commentary.

The key changes are (1) massive economic destruction is even worse, and (2) very few people have died. It is now clear that lockdowns are proven ONLY to cause massive economic losses and have ZERO SCIENCE to show they save lives. And the deaths are almost entirely those with short lifespans and at high risk of dying from just about anything without the far higher baseline death rate being subtracted out. It is intensely anti-scientific and anti-reason to continue with lockdown policies in the face of the facts.

....

You won’t hear this on the “news”*.

San Mateo County, CA: COVID-19 statistics as of Sept 3, 2020

The whole state of California continues to engage in anti-scientific “leadership” by “experts”, that is self-aggrandizing cowards in the medical field along with feckless politicians. NONE of those making decisions are qualified to do any kind of total risk assessment.

The massive harm done to those who are out of work and hope sure make me think that these “leaders” are the worst kind of recklessly callous people: those who desire power over others and are willing to use it to crush the downtrodden, all while pulling in cushy salaries and benefits that keep rolling in. No skin in the game at all. When millions must suffer loss of their income and rights under the implicit point of a gun (government force), maybe calling these leaders sociopaths is not too strong a term. Enough is enough: I cannot read minds, but they are acting like sociopaths and it doesn’t matter one damn bit what their inner thoughts might be to those crushed by their policies.

The mass hysteria resulting in massive economic and social disruption will end up killing far 10X to 100X people than COVID-19, and killing younger people too—the loss of many more years of lifespan. It will kill people in the short, medium, and long terms for myriad reasons.

Is the CCP virus “just the flu”? That is a freshly legitimized debatable question since the real death rate for cases looks to be approaching 0.25% in spite of a non-vaccinated public. And the death rate for infections is surely much lower, perhaps 0.025% (infections and “cases” are entirely different things). In other words, bald-face lies are being told about the seriousness of COVID-19 (which doesn’t mean that individual cases are not horrific, some are, only that in an epidemiology sense we are just not seeing anything remotely approaching what it is hyped to be).

While we did not know that in February and March how things would play out, we do now. Now it is all about mass hysteria, crushingly destructive policies, outright tyranny and... the right policy is infecting as many low-risk people as quickly as possible—not crushing lives and income for years on end based on anti-science hysteria and a failure to even attempt credible risk assessment, for which few to no doctors have any qualifications whatsoever.

Discussion follows.

Source: https://www.smchealth.org/coronavirus-county-data-dashboard

San Mateo County, CA: COVID-19 statistics as of September 3, 2020

All graphs and data mislead for various reasons, but here are some key points:

• As shown, the deaths from COVID-19 are through September 3 , but it’s not over yet and there will be more deaths. Still, the deaths versus the population of 771000 people amount to 0.0175%, or 1 in 5711 people. Compare that to all-cause mortality ( the premature death rate is about 112 people per month for the county population). Yet in 7 months COVID-19 has killed only 135 people in San Mateo County. So we lock down 3/4 million people?
• The case fatality rate should not be confused with the infection fatality rate: “cases” are NOT infections! Terminology matters in risk analysis and in forming public sentiment. The “leaders” are engaging in propoganda by using the case fatality rate, which is very low. But the infection fatality rate is far lower!
• And 95% of those deaths are those 70 years or older, whose expected lifespan ranges from short to very short. Most of those had serious underlying comorbidities such that their true expected lifespan might be as low as 7 years on average. How much of the high-risk population was actually infected... no one knows.
• The statistics are grossly misleading without subtracting the baseline death rate for the victims—is that 10% or 50% or what? It’s not zero, and given that the most victims had comorbidities, a significant portion of the alleged CV19 deaths would have occurred from some other cause. In other words, it might be that 40 of those 135 people would have died one way or another without CV19. Unless this baseline is subtracted out, the statistics are little better than government propaganda.
• The alleged cases are bullshit GIGO—the number of infections is surely far higher. Anyone lacking overt symptoms is discouraged from getting tested, and we have no random sampling program in place. Worse, the tests themselves have very high error rates—15% or even 30% false negative rates. Worse, it can take two weeks to even get a test result (that’s what it took for my daughter!), so what the hell is the point of testing at all?

So many statistical questions remain untold by authorities and for those that exist, the data is GIGO junk data.

Doctors, most of you have little useful knowledge outside your narrow specialty and most of you are far less qualified than I am on statistics and data analysis. And when I thought I was infected it was clear that I was far more knowedgeable than my internist doctor. Worse and this is an ongoing debacle for decades now—doctors are for the most part useless for prevention—idiot savants that never address nutritional deficiencies as a means of strengthening public health—medical malpractice to be overly kind—consider the strong correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 deaths and it’s clear the entire medical establishment is asleep at the wheel and grossly derelict in their duties: coordinated public prevention strategies in terms of immune system health are non-existent.

Of what use is testing when they cannot tell you within one day what the results are? Afterall, in 7-10 days an infected person in the wrong place could infect dozens or hundreds of people.

I have two 80-year-old parents and I don’t want them to die—but I’m not going to submit to the intellectual fraud of the “news” media, the incompetence, lies and ignorance of the allopathic medical establishment, nor the feckless physical tyranny of our idiot politicians.

Going out on a nice sturdy limb, I’ll claim that the impact of economic and social damage will be at least 10X worse than COVID-19, in terms of lifespan years lost, and that excludes the massive psychological and financial toll and loss of hopes and dreams for small business owners in particular, or anyone who has been forced out of work.

Even today, epidemiologists estimate that (worldwide) 14500 people per day are dying because of programs halted due to COVID-19—not from COVID-19 itself! The idiocy of hysterical government policies is literally killing far more people than COVID-19. See for example Developed World’s Lockdowns May Be Catastrophic for Third World Poor, or see comments by Stanford epidemiologist John Ionnadis (now targeted for destruction for questioning COVID dogma).

We should be seeking maximum infection rates that keep the hospitals viable!

Death by Policy

[And this doesn’t even account for the death toll on the world’s most vulnerable people]

Otherwise, today’s young physicians will have to start entering a new cause of death on death certificates—“public policy.”

* The social programming networks. Only the rare person actually has an independent opinion, rather it is assigned to them via the social programming networks (“news”).

Donna K writes:

I went down the rabbit hole by reading up on your COVID-19 posts. First I generally agree with you regarding hysteria - not just regarding COVID, but generally. I am an equal-opportunity politician and media hater, regardless of stated political disposition. Since I currently live in the Florida Keys and need to be aware of hurricanes, I’ll throw in most weather people as equally hysteria-dependent (the only weather guy I follow is Levi Cowan on Tropical Tidbits).

Being a past scientist, having done research in Molecular and Cellular Biology at UC Davis and Los Alamos National Lab, and being a trained hazard and risk analysis professional at LANL, and trained in contamination control and response to bio- and rad-attacks, I generally ask myself, “What the f*ck are these people smoking?”

WIND: see continued reader comment on the UV radiation / sunlight exposure issue vis-a-vis Vitamin D.

Low Vitamin D Strongly Associated with Risk of COVID-19 Death / More Severe Outcomes

When 75% of the population is deficient in Vitamin D, and it’s possible that the RDA could be 10X too low and all the evidence shows a stunningly high correlation between low-D and calamity from CV19, it is medical malpractice to not aggressively promote Vitamin D supplementation* as a critical public health policy. Better yet, get out into the sun every day!

Getting Vitamin D levels to robust levels within the population should be the #1 public health priority today. We know that Vitamin D is critical to the body, we know that most of the population is deficient, and yet there is no general public health effort whatsoever to fix this situation (AFAIK). WTF?

It’s absurd that the critical information is nowhere near being properly evaluated... isn’t this a public health emergency that has locked down the entire country and destroyed the health and livelihoods of tens of millions? Fiddling while Rome burns.

ClinicalTrials.gov trials of Vitamin D vs COVID-19

Sadly, that’s not what is happening—sad because Vitamin D might not fix things once they are serious; it is more likely to be a strongly preventive measure in improving baseline health, and thus helping ward off infection severity and slowing down progression. The policy of “wait till it’s broken” is beyond stupid—it’s deadly.

To those “experts” who fallback on saying that the preventive aspect is unproven: have any of those done a risk assessment? It’s an untenable and unethical position, given the very low risk of modest D-supplementation and/or sunlight—OK for researchers to intellectually ponder as if there were no urgency, but incompetent risk assessement and terrible public health messaging.

Compelling findings: Vitamin D COVID death rate

Vitamin D supplementation* is cheap and can be used by entire populations at extremely low risk—risk assessment says that if we can get a million people with low-D using it, that’s more than ample to see how their outcomes from COVID vary from the general population. The reward to risk ratio is highly promising. This needs to be done 5 months ago!

At the least more data should be gathered: every COVID patient should have the Vitamin D levels taken and the correlation proven out with a very large cohort as to bad outcomes. But I’d go much farther and say it is awful medicine to not make sure ever at-risk person have the Vitamin D levels tested. Supplementation or sun exposure should be used to push that level to at least the middle of the “normal” range.

IMO, a double-blind study would be highly unethical, so strong is the correlation. Just make sure everyone is well above the recommended RDA, aiming to the high end of the range. The body makes 10000 IU in just 15 minutes of strong sun (fair skin).

This could be done in a matter of a month or less to generate a huge dataset from a very large cohort, making it possible to study gender and racial and age-related trends.

* IMPORTANT: always magnesium supplementation and Vitamin K2 with Vitamin D supplementation. See Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients: Best Sources for Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C.

See also:

• RED PILL Yourself on Sun Exposure vs Skin Cancer Melanoma, Sunlight and Ultraviolet and Vitamin D
• Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients: Best Sources for Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C
• SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Recommendations for Healthy Body and Immune System
• Science Daily: “Vitamin D determines severity in COVID-19 so government advice needs to change”
• BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis”
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin K2
• Magnesium

CCP Virus: Is COVID-19 killing people because of Vitamin D Deficiency? Is the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for Vitamin D off by a factor of 10X?

View health topics.

Someone out there fact check me but AFAIK:

The single strongest single correlation for DEATH from CV19 is Vitamin D deficiency.

Is the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for Vitamin D off by a factor of 10X due to a bonehead statistical error? If so, the RDA has been faux science for a long time time, with major implications for harm and death.

It is incompetent and irresponsible risk management to not address a probable or unknown Vitamin D deficiency in the face of COVID-19. The government and the allopathic medicine establishment are complicit and guilty here, and ought to be held to account somehow. Of course, had the evil and feckless CCP not cursed the world with CV19, none of this would be quite so pressing.

NOTE: Vitamin D supplemention MUST be take with magnesium and Vitamin K2 for full benefits and to avoid unbalanced nutritional impacts from cholecalciferol alone. See Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients: Best Sources for Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C.

See also:
Science Daily: Vitamin D determines severity in COVID-19 so government advice needs to change
NIH: Evidence that Vitamin D Supplementation Could Reduce Risk of Influenza and COVID-19 Infections and Deaths
Vitamin D deficiency contributes directly to the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
THE ROLE OF VITAMIN D IN SUPPRESSING CYTOKINE STORM IN COVID-19 PATIENTS AND ASSOCIATED MORTALITY

TheEpochTimes.com: Why Are We So Vitamin D Deficient?

...A statistical error has reduced our daily required dose of the 'sunshine vitamin' to our own detriment.

The RDA is the intake considered necessary to meet the nutritional needs of 97.5 percent of the population. The measurement the IOM used in their calculations was the blood level of vitamin D derivative (25-hydroxy vitamin D) at 20 ng/ml to achieve the 97.5 percent criterion, however, due to a statistical error,  the 20 ng/ml value was actually the level to ensure almost the opposite. 

Investigators from the University of Alberta published a paper in the journal Nutrients in which they showed that the IOM had made this statistical error in defining the intake needed to reach and maintain a vitamin D level of 20 ng/ml. Had the IOM calculated it correctly, the RDA would have been ten times greater in agreement with Heaney and Garland.

Using the same studies on which the IOM had based its calculation, Veugelers & Ekwaru determined 8895 IU of vitamin D per day would be necessary to achieve 20 ng/ml in 97.5 percent of the population. Again, using the same set of IOM studies, Heaney’s group found that 7000 IU would bring 97.5 percent of people above 20 ng/ml.

...

...Conventional thinking among vitamin D scientists and physicians is that between 3,000 and 5,000 IU per day is appropriate for most healthy adults. While these amounts may seem like a lot, keep in mind that your body ‘uses’ 4000 IU per day and that the skin can generate 10,000 IU of vitamin D after 10 minutes of full-body summer sun exposure.

...

Quiz: Why do cold-blooded animals sun themselves? To get warm, right? Wrong. Lizards injected with vitamin D prior to being placed in the sun don’t sun themselves as long as lizards injected with a placebo. Furthermore, the effect is dose-dependent; the more vitamin D that’s injected into the lizard, the less time it spends in the sun. The lizard is responding to blood levels of vitamin D and regulating sun exposure based on those levels. The lizard is ‘smart’ enough to go into the sun to get its vitamin D. Do you go in the sun?

William F. Supple Jr., Ph.D., received his doctorate in neuroscience from Dartmouth College in 1986. He is one of the founders of StarPower LifeSciences, a research and educational foundation in South Burlington, Vt., that serves to inform regarding the power and benefits of vitamin D in health, disease, and longevity. Learn more about the health benefits of vitamin D at StarPowerLifeSciences.org.

WIND: I have not verified the claim above, but it makes sense: based on human biology: why would the human body make 10000 to 15000 IU of Vitamin D with only 15-20 minutes of sun exposure if it needed only 600 IU per day?

* For someone with fair skin, darker skin can require hours of exposure,

Are the allopathic medicine profession and the government in effect killing people by not making Vitamin D supplementation a public health priority on a national right-now scale? At least it is critically important to prove or disprove the correlation vs causation of Vitamin D and COVID-19 deaths. But it’s all probably about the rampant financial and ethical corruption problems in the industry—no drug company can make profits off Vitamin D, and public health officials have proven themselves to be know-nothings for a century when it comes to nutrition.

James T writes:

I have really appreciated your recent blog posts.

I spent my teen years in East Africa, on the Equator - sea level. Being of a rather pale complexion (Swiss, Germany, Irish descent) I burned easily and had to gradually tan up. This was in the 60's - no sunscreen existed.

I'm of the conclusion that we, humans, were designed to get our vitamins from natural sources - from sunlight - from multi-colored food(s) - et al. NOT from pills. NOT from dietary supplements.

I'm also of the opinion that the widespread use of sunscreen does more harm than good. Again, we were designed to be in the sun. Our melanin layer thickens giving us protection. It's not perfect but neither are we.

WIND: agreed, excepting exposure leading to reddening or burning more than infrequently.

My Personal Health: Cyclical Extreme Fatigue Explained: Diagnosis of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV)

Update: see things that I think are helping.

It’s not welcome news, but I finally have insight into the debilitating cyclical fatigue cycles I’ve been having—the last 6 weeks have been particularly unproductive and frustrating, but it was really severe for a week in June and also back in mid-April when I thought it might be COVID-19—apparently not.

The two things might not be coincidental.

The role of Epstein-Barr virus infection in the development of autoimmune thyroid diseases

Based on the present studies, EBV infection can cause autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Sjögren’s syndrome, and autoimmune hepatitis. The EBV has also been reported in patients with autoimmune thyroid disorders. Although EBV is not the only agent responsible for the development of autoimmune thyroid diseases, it can be considered a contributory factor.

NCBI: Epstein Barr Virus may have a link to inducing autoimmune thyroid disorders like Hashimoto’s disease.

We assume that high prevalence of EBV infection in cases of Hashimoto's and Graves' diseases imply a potential aetiological role of EBV in autoimmune thyroiditis. The initiation of autoimmune thyroiditis could start with EBV latency type III infection of follicular epithelium characterised by LMP1 expression involving the production of inflammatory mediators leading to recruitment of lymphocytes.

Tests and prognosis

With a thyroid peroxidase antibody test (“Thyroid Perox AutoAb”) result of 233 IU/ml vs a cutoff of 60, my doctor tells me that confirms a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. Which one of my daughters has suffered from for years, long a source of distress for me as a parent (no parent likes seeing a child suffer). So far, my T3 and T4 hormones are at normal levels.

Also a positive antibody test (“EBVNA Ab,IgG Qual”) for recent Epstein Barr Virus (aka mononucleosis), which is odd since I literally touched no one for four months from March through June. Since apparently EBV can lie dormant and erupt again, I now wonder if my hard core ultra endurance efforts periodically triggered it—that would explain fatigue cycles over the years that I could not otherwise explain.

Besides fatigue, some joint paint and aches mean I’ll have to do a lot of resting/sleeping, which is a bit tough when hiking in the mountains soon for my photography work. Maybe I will take a lightweight sleeping pad, and take a solid nap mid-day out there somewhere, plus give up days when I don’t feel strong. I am hoping that I can resume double centuries next spring.

Forest Fires in California, plus Health Hazards of Smoke and HEPA Air Purifier to Manage It

RECOMMENDED: Get IQAir HEPA air filter at Amazon ASAP while you still can. More on IQAir HEPA filters further below.

Update, August 23 @ 19:30 : We're losing the smoke battle. With 4 IQAir air purifiers each capable of 300 cfm per minute (the best, medical grade, bought 'em 10-15 years ago) and all windows sealed, the house is still starting to smell inside. We are effectively locked down, with hazardous air outside and blue smoke thick in the air just 80 feet out. Maybe the wind will shift tomorrow...

All of us have headaches now, and eyes and noses are becoming irritated (indoors!). My lungs are slightly impaired now also. It is now a serious health issue and there is nowhere to go. Soon we'll all need to wear N100 masks inside the house; I might sleep with one if I can. We have only one per family member in reserve and due to COVID-19 we cannot obtain more.

• P100 / N100 Particulate Respirator Works for Smoke and particulate respirator and air quality
• Save your Lungs and Your Health if Traveling in California, But Applies to Much More than Smoke.
• Air Quality in the San Francisco Bay Area is the Worst I’ve Seen it in 35 Years — from the 'Camp Fire'
• The Ferguson Fire near Yosemite Valley: Save your Lungs and Your Health if Traveling in California, But Applies to Much More than Smoke

Dry-lightning started hundreds of fires in northern California about 5 days ago. My daughter and I saw the first of these early last week, east of Mono Craters near Lee Vining (east of Sierra Nevada). We largely avoided the smoke, but had to drive through some nasty stuff for a short time and sleep in the van with windows sealed one night.

As we drove home to the San Francisco Bay Area, we saw more lightning-strike fires, with a dark pall of smoke over the central valley (Manteca area) coming from a huge fire near Livermore. Then again near my home—all in one day coming, all from the same storm.

Continues...

 

Smoke Plume from Santa Cruz area wildfire

f2.8 @ 1/60 sec, ISO 32; 2020-08-18 19:39:23
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 6.6 mm f/2.8 @ 57mm equiv (6.6mm)

[low-res image for bot]

Ironically, air in the Sierra Nevada had been the cleanest in years due to daily thunderstorms, with crystal-clear skies. It was awesome for 10 days or so.

But here at home, fires are burning to the north an south. The fire to the south is 10-15 miles or so away, which is way too close for comfort—a strong wind can eat up many miles of territory in a single day.

Air quality at our place

Air quality aside, my thoughts are turning to what to throw into our car and my van, should we have to evacuate. One new lightning strike in the wrong place...

2020-08-23 Red Flag Warning

Affected Area: San Francisco Bay Shoreline Description ...

RED FLAG WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 PM PDT MONDAY FOR DRY LIGHTNING AND GUSTY ERRATIC OUTFLOW WINDS OVER EXISTING WILDFIRES... AFFECTED AREA... IMPACTS...Increased likelihood for new fire starts with any lightning. Erratic gusty outflow winds may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.

We’ve watched a huge plume of smoke to the southwest mostly blow away from us during mid-day to midnight, then as the wind changes, acrid smoke intrudes.

But today August 23 starting around midnight the smoke moved in, and it is now thick with yellow/orange sunset-tone lighting, and nasty acrid smoke outside.

Update: AQI at my home of 405 is is 3.2X worse than the worst air quality in the world today. It hit 540 later in the day, then settled back down to the 430 range.

 

2020-08-23: air quality index (AQI) of 405 at my home — hit 540 later in the day

 

N100 particulate respirator for exercise in smoky conditions

Health and air

The psychological aspects of having to evacuate one’s home in the face of a forest fire threat are awful, and the loss of one’s home even worse—my heart goes out to anyone affected. But assuming survival, the next thing is avoiding long-term health effects from dangerous air quality (smoke). Toxins enter the bloodstream from the lungs (and skin) and can remain. And ultra-fine smoke particles can lodge in the lungs and never come out.

Bad air quality and especially dense smoke degrades all systems in the body, but especially the respiratory system and cardiovascular system. Toxins enter the bloodstream directly via the lungs, which causes further damage. Pregnant mothers and young children should be especially concerned, and with COVID-19 running around, a weakened body from smoke could be a nasty multiplier.

Accordingly, your smart move is stay indoors and keep the air as clean as possible. That is, if you have electricity* to run an air cleaner.

If you cannot keep the air clean or must go out: the useless COVID mask that the feckless medical establishment deems OK will NOT protect you: you MUST wear a properly sealed N95 or N100 or P100 respirator, preferably a P100, which also blocks airborne oils. Of course, you can’t really get them anymore, which is outrageous.

* The irresponsible jackasses running California cannot keep the lights on, due to 'green' policy that has shuttered dozens of fossil-fuel plants (mostly natural gas) over the past decade. When the sun goes down and it’s still 105°F, everyone still needs the power to run air conditioning. These feckless assholes have turned California into a 3rd-world country, with rolling killer blackouts. These people are killers: at-risk people can DIE when the electricity is cut off.

HEPA air filters — a HUGE range of effectiveness

I am not going to recommend a 2nd-rate or 3rd-rate product here—do it right or forget about it. If you think you can read a specifications sheet and make a decision that way, or understand all the issues around efficiency, recirculated air patterns (filtering the same air over and over), fan noise, filter life, true performance, durability, etc, then go ahead and learn the hard way. Or you can get a medical grade filter that you will see in doctor's offices and that I know works having used them for ~15 years.

 

IQAir HyperHEPA GC MultiGas Air Purifier

We are running four medical-grade HEPA air filters constantly now and the smoke is still creeping in (the house is old and somewhat leaky). So the air is getting bad inside now too. My chest hurts a little and I have a headache now—maybe that’s a coincidence and maybe not but I’ve not had such an issue for weeks.

If we lose electricity* (it takes ~1.2 kW to runs those cleaners), it’s going to be awful. We don’t have air-conditioning, so it’s going to be an indoor barbecue experience should we lose electricity*.

Many claimed HEPA filters are either toys that don’t work very well, or have capacity so small that they can deal with something the size of a closet—don’t waste your money on such things.

I recommend the IQAir HEPA air filters, as I have used them for ~15 years now with great results. They are highly effective. I recommend adding the activated charcoal filter ("gas and odor") for smoky conditions. They are great for all conditions, but critical for severely impaired air quality. They have 99.5% filtration, compared a lot of faux-HEPA filters that can be as low as 37% efficiency—you get what you pay for, don’t be suckered into an ineffective product.

But it’s a lot more complicated than one rating—what happens to the truly dangerous particles, the “ultrafiles” that go right the bloodstream (e.g. smoke and smoke particles)? Most all purifiers are SILENT on this issue, but see the claims below from IQAir, right down to 0.003 microns — that’s 100X smaller (linearly) than 0.3 microns, which means particles a million times smaller in volume*.

Manufacturers of ordinary air filtration systems claim that their systems filter particles larger than 0.3 microns. IQAir's HyperHEPA filtration is proven and certified to filter at least 99.5% of all particles down to 0.003 microns - the smallest that exist... including bacteria and viruses.

* V = 4/3πr^3, diameter of 300 nanometers vs 3 nanometers eg (300/2)^3 / (3/2)^3 = 150^3 / 1.5 ^3 = 1000000 (one million times difference in spherical volume).

Get IQAir HEPA air filter at Amazon (most other sites backordered/sold out as I write this). Given that it’s smoke which also smells bad, consider the medical-grade IQAir GC MultiGas Air Purifier HyperHEPA.

Not even a virus gets through HyperHEP
Only IQAir's exclusive HyperHEPA filtration technology can stop ultrafine particles down to 0.003 microns - 10x smaller than a virus!Independent testing verifies that IQAir HyperHEPA filtration stops at least 99.5% of all particles down to 0.003 microns for unequaled protection against fine and ultrafine particles, including bacteria and viruses.

Ultrafine particles are smaller than 0.1 microns in diameter and comprise about 90% of all airborne particles. The tiny size enables them to be easily inhaled, deposited into the lungs and absorbed directly into the bloodstream. From there, they travel to all vital organs, including the brain. Viruses, smoke and diesel soot are all ultrafine particles.

Manufacturers of ordinary air filtration systems claim that their systems filter particles larger than 0.3 microns. IQAir's HyperHEPA filtration is proven and certified to filter at least 99.5% of all particles down to 0.003 microns - the smallest that exist.*

* While typical HEPA air filtration systems are only certified to filter particles large than 0.3 microns, IQAir HyperHEPA filtration is proven and certified to filter at least 99.5% of all particles down to 0.003 microns, 100 times smaller than what's captured by ordinary HEPA filters.

Below, this is looking like good air quality compared to what came later in the day.

 

Acrid smoke hanging in air

f1.8 @ 1/1250 sec, ISO 20; 2020-08-23 14:33:12
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/2.8 @ 28mm equiv (4mm) ENV: altitude 504 ft / 154 m

[low-res image for bot]

Statins might not slash the risk of dying from heart disease: study claims the cheap cholesterol-busting pills offer 'no consistent benefit'

I’ve studied the research on statins extensively. Being trained in statistics and critical thinking, and having a world-class bullshit meter, I can say unequivocally that statins are one of the biggest frauds in medical history. Actually, that’s putting it kindly: they are actively damaging tens or hundreds of millions of people in just about every area of health, degrading a critical area of physiological function and thus affecting everything in a bad way (except perhaps a mild anti-inflammatory benefit, which is probably the only benefit they have).

But... your doctor is under considerably pressure to prescribe statins: paint-by-numbers medicine with real consequences for not following guidelines. Few doctors can resist those pressures.

Very few doctors have ever done a critical-thinking study of statins in order to make an informed decision, relying instead on dogmatic assertions by an unethical medical establishment. Fewer still have ever questioned the increasingly weak cholesterol hypothesis. The evidence is just not there, and the glaring flaws in financially and ethically corrupt studies are glaring.

If you speak to doctors off the record (I have) you’ll get a very different message than in an official setting. If you raise the glaring problems with studies, you’ll find that no doctor will be able to assert any persuasive argument when it comes to statins—at best you’ll get a “might help in some extreme cases” response, at least if the doctor is honest.

All about statins and statin reading list.

BMJ: Hit or miss: the new cholesterol targets

Emphasis added.

...These population studies suggest that, despite the widespread use of statins, there has been no accom- panying decline in the risk of cardiovascular events or cardiovas- cular mortality. In fact, there is some evidence that statin usage may lead to unhealthy behaviours that may actually increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The evidence presented in this analysis adds to the chorus that challenges our current approach to cardiovascular disease prevention through targeted reductions of LDL-C. Given the lack of clarity on how best to prevent cardiovascular disease, we encourage informed decision-making. Ideally, this includes a discussion of absolute risk reduction and/or number needed to treat at an individual patient level in addition to reviewing the potential benefits and harms of any intervention.

WIND: note the refreshing sanity check of "absolute risk reduction”, versus the unethical (highly misleading) relative risk reduction approach quoted by statin makers and most doctors. While the conclusions are weak sauce, the massive harm that is being done makes any voice that questions the wisdom of poisoning a key biological system very welcome.

Even with this voice of sanity, the limited analysis that is being done is ludicrous because 75% of the story is missing—at a minimum, 75% of statin side effects are never reported—and that has been proven in multiple studies—doctors just do not bother and frequently dismiss complaints. Not to mention the damage that is done is rarely if ever diagnosed properly and attributed to the true root cause—statin usage.

Below, I’m quoting here below from The Daily Mail—not exactly my preferred source—but I’ll find the original studies and read up on the apparent re-awakening to actual scientific analysis.

Daily Mail: Statins may not slash the risk of dying from heart disease: Controversial study claims the cheap cholesterol-busting pills offer no 'consistent benefit'

Scientists analysed 35 studies into the effects of the drugs which lower 'bad' LDL cholesterol and found the pills have no consistent benefit.

The research, published in the British Medical Journal, found three quarters of all trials reported no reduction in mortality among those who took the drugs.

...

Lead author Dr Robert DuBroff, from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, said that 'it seems intuitive and logical' to target LDL cholesterol because it is considered essential for the development of cardiovascular disease.

But, they added: 'Considering that dozens of trials of LDL-cholesterol reduction have failed to demonstrate a consistent benefit, we should question the validity of this theory.

Commonly reported side effects include headache, muscle pain and nausea, and statins can also increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, hepatitis, pancreatitis and vision problems or memory loss.

WIND: what they did NOT study was the myriad and horrible side effects of statins!

Side-effects are under-reported by at least 75%. Zero benefit, myriad problems, some horrible and debilitating life changing problems. Prescribing statins is with rare exception medical malpractice, by any objective standard.

Commonly reported side effects include headache, muscle pain and nausea, and statins can also increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, hepatitis, pancreatitis and vision problems or memory loss.