Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency: Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine biological product file

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

The FDA wants to slow-walk the Pfizer documents for COVID vaccines, taking 55 years to release all of it. No rational person can look at that delay, without at least wondering whether fraud and corruption are at work. I smell a rat.

Personally, I’m very flexible on this, and am willing to give the FDA 55 days to release all of it. If Pfizer and Moderna and their ilk get blanket immunity for side effects along with tens of billions in prepaid orders and profits, a government working for you and me would require that they agree to release all documents instantly. But the FDA and CDC are de facto controlled by Big Pharma, so the full data dump will likely never see the light of day in my lifetime*.

* Although a freshened-up ruling class could get it done overnight and maybe nationalize the vaccine program for good measure. While we’re at it, a windfall profits tax on Big Pharma gravy-train profits would be justified, given the near-zero risk taken on by Big Pharma—nothing remotely approaching a free market capitalism system.

Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency

Four days after the Pfizer vaccine was approved for ages 16+, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request to the FDA for all of the data within Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine biological product file. We have now sued the FDA for not releasing the data. Click below for court documents and for productions of Pfizer’s documents from the FDA.

...

WIND: I don’t have much hope for the lawsuit. Pfizer has armies of lawyers and they’ve been successful at delaying previous lawsuits for years, even if ultimately losing.

Below is one of the first released documents. I’m in no position to understand the significance of the huge number of side effects. And it is only through February 2021. You have to compare the AE’s (Adverse Events) against a baseline, and ideally against a control group (which Pfizer and Moderna have dissolved, how convenient for them).

5.3.6 CUMULATIVE ANALYSIS OF POST-AUTHORIZATION ADVERSE EVENT REPORTS OF PF-07302048 (BNT162B2) RECEIVED THROUGH 28-FEB-2021

Total Number of BNT162b2 Adverse Events by System Organ Classes and Event Seriousness

Denied (Delayed) Medical Care Because I Was Exposed to COVID

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

I had dental surgery a week ago. Two days later my daughter got a positive COVID test. She had some congestion, but kept right on lifting weights throughout and she is fine and never had anything worse than the common cold.

So here a week later, the one-week followup for my surgery is off the table. I have no symptoms and never did. They offered that I could get a COVID test and be seen sooner. I declined, because I don’t want to waste hours of my day on a worthless test that would still not get results to me this week anyway. And why the fuck would a symptom-free person (after ten days of exposure!!!) get an unreliable test prone to false positives? The whole scheme is to feed mass hysteria.

My wife had COVID a month ago, it didn’t touch me. My daughter had COVID this past ten days, it didn’t touch me. In the same very small house. Apparently, my 19-month-old natural immunity is still going strong. You know, the immunity up to 27X better than the half-assed “vaccinations”, the immunity that probably half of the “unvaccinated” already have.

Meanwhile the anti-science morons in charge deny natural immunity and encourage the ongoing never-to-end pandemic of the vaccinated, who are still dying in droves among the elderly, after being double-vaxxed or even triple-vaxxed.

My case is minor, as things seem to have healed quickly and well. But what’s the point of a 7-day surgical followup 20 days later?

The likelihood is, over time, more people will die from delayed medical care than ever die from COVID; that is already a fait accompli from 2020 and part of 2021, one of the grossest human rights abuses in my lifetime. And it’s far worse than just mortality, with all sorts of suffering involved, mental and physical. Look it up, that’s not just my claim.

The Epoch Times: COVID-19 a Pandemic of Fear ‘Manufactured’ by Authorities: Yale Epidemiologist

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Takes a lot of courage to speak out this way.

The Epoch Times: COVID-19 a Pandemic of Fear ‘Manufactured’ by Authorities: Yale Epidemiologist

2021-12-05, by Isabel van Brugen and Jan Jekielek

The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of fear, manufactured by individuals who were in the nominal positions of authority as the virus began to spread across the globe last year, according to Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch.

... “Overall, I’d say that we’ve had a pandemic of fear. And fear has affected almost everybody, whereas the infection has affected relatively few,” said Risch.

“By and large, it’s been a very selected pandemic, and predictable. It was very distinguished between young versus old, healthy versus chronic disease people. So we quickly learned who was at risk for the pandemic and who wasn’t.

“However, the fear was manufactured for everybody. And that’s what’s characterized the whole pandemic is that degree of fear and people’s response to the fear.”

Risch has authored more than 300 original peer-reviewed publications and was formerly a member of the board of editors for the American Journal of Epidemiology.

...Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has said that 96 to 98 percent of Americans need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before the nation can “go back to normal,” pushing the rhetoric that unvaccinated Americans are to blame for slowing down the nation’s economic recovery.

...

WIND: spot-on.

Now our feckless leaders are manufacturing fear for parents, so they will vaccinate their children who have nil risk of harm from COVID. Child abuse is not the limit for the authoritarian control freaks, so what will be?

With the intellectual bankruptcy of science, authorities can do whatever the fuck they want, human rights be damned.

Glenn Greenwald: To Deny the "Lab Leak" COVID Theory, the NYT and WPost Use Dubious and Conflicted Sources

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

This is not a post about fake news (rampant), or about where COVID really came from.

Rather it is about the politicized nature of science, which makes it anti-science. What a disaster for humanity.

Glenn Greenwald: To Deny the "Lab Leak" COVID Theory, the NYT and WPost Use Dubious and Conflicted Sources

2021-12-02

A bizarre and abrupt reversal by scientists regarding COVID's origins, along with clear conflicts of interest, create serious doubts about their integrity. Yet major news outlets keep relying on them.

That COVID-19 infected humanity due to a zoonotic leap from a "wet market” in Wuhan — rather than a leak from a lab in the same Chinese city — was declared unquestionable truth at the start of the pandemic. For a full year, anyone dissenting from this narrative was deemed so irresponsible that they were banned from large social media platforms, accused of spreading "disinformation.” No debate about COVID's origins was permitted. It had been settled by The Science™. Every rational person who believed in science, by definition, immediately accepted at the start of the pandemic that COVID made a natural leap from bats or pangolins; that it may have escaped from a lab in Wuhan which just so happens to gather, study and manipulate novel coronaviruses in bats was officially declared a deranged conspiracy theory.

The reason this consensus was so quickly consecrated was that a group of more than two dozen scientists published a letter in the prestigious science journal Lancet in February, 2020 — while very little was known about SARS-CoV-2 — didactically declaring “that this coronavirus originated in wildlife.” The possibility that COVID leaked from the Wuhan lab was dismissed as a "conspiracy theory,” the by-product of “rumours and misinformation” which, they strongly implied, was an unfair and possibly racist attack on “the science and health professionals of China.

For months, that letter shaped the permissible range of debate regarding the origins of COVID. Or, more accurately, it ensured that there was no debate permitted. The Science™ concluded that COVID was a zoonotic virus that naturally leaped from non-human animal to human, and any questioning of this decree was deemed an attack on The Science™.

That Lancet letter has fallen into disrepute due to the key role in its publication played by one of its signatories, Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance. To say that Daszak had a gigantic but undisclosed conflict of interest in disseminating this narrative about the natural origins of COVID is to understate the case. Daszak had received millions of dollars in grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to conduct research into coronaviruses in bats, and EcoHealth awarded part of that grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab which would be the leading suspect, by far, for any COVID lab leak.

All of this led to an unraveling of the Official Consensus. In May of this year — fifteen months after The Lancet pronounced the debate closed — Facebook reversed its policy of banning anyone who suggested that the virus may have come from the Wuhan lab... Weeks later, President Biden “ordered intelligence officials to 'redouble' efforts to investigate the origins of Covid-19, including the theory that it came from a laboratory in China.” The president's statement noted that “the US intelligence community was split on whether it came from a lab accident or emerged from human contact with an infected animal.” Suddenly, mainstream outlets such as The New York Times began publishing claims that, just months earlier, were officially declared "disinformation” and resulted in removal from social media platforms: “some scientists have argued that it’s possible SARS-CoV-2 was the result of genetic engineering experiments or simply escaped from a lab in an accident,” said the Paper of Record in October. The Official Consensus had undergone a 180-degree turn in the course of just over a year. "Lab leak” went from insane conspiracy theory that must be censored to serious possibility that must be investigated.

...

WIND: we have strayed so from science that “scientists” are literally the antithesis of it.

Surely it should be a crime to engage in political discourse while pretending it is science—those dirtbags calling themselves “scientists” should be barred from ever publishing anything again.

Don’t get me started on the non-existence of real journalism among all mainstream platforms.

Or how formerly prestigious journals like The Lancet are revealed more and more to be little better than a scientifically-bent National Enquirer—a repository for fraud along with the grotesque infiltration of wokeness and political ideology into faux scientific papers. Science is rotting from within.

Believing “the science” is for idiots.

A note on sampling biases in the Bangladesh mask trial

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

There has been no credible scientific study on mask wearing having any influence on commnity spread of COVID—ever. Good quality masks are sure useful in some settings, but that’s really an entirely different case.

The Bangladesh mask trial was one of those “scientific” studies claimed to show that masks have a benefit. The media took it and ran with it. But like most studies it was total garbage from a scientific standpoint, with methodological fraud and numerous biases baked-in.

arXiV: A note on sampling biases in the Bangladesh mask trial

2021-12-02

...We suggest that the very large causal effects on consent rates and thus population denominators urge caution in interpreting the small differences we see in symptomatic seropositivity between treatment and controls, which are already not statistically significant according to standard non-parametric paired tests. Additionally, as the trial shows that the intervention studied can have large and highly significant effects even on unintended aspects of behavior, including staff surveying behavior, bias-susceptible endpoints that depend on subjective reports of symptoms from participants to staff should be used with care.

WIND: the Bangladesh mask trial was one of those frauds used by the media to promote the narrative of mask usage. Anyone on the peer review committee should lose all their scientific credibility, and be banned from publishing any research for the rest of their life. The authors of the farce study should be shamed out of academia.

The opinion below references the study above.

Coronamonomania Lives Forever

The inaptly named journal Science saw fit to publish the methodologically and analytically dreadful Bangladesh mask trial.  In normal times this would never pass peer review, but Science is a completely politicized publication at this point.  Breaks my heart to see this misuse of “science”.

In any event, here is one of the many good critiques of this study.  People seem to forget that the primary outcome of the study was actually just whether the intervention increased mask wearing.  The authors then decided to try to twist that into effect on cases.  Just a grotesquely confounded and biased study, with a weird analytic approach designed to try to show an effect, after a standard analysis showed no effect.  This paper, far better than I ever could, destroys the methods and reported results from this study, which of course, is getting lots of attention from the media.  (Arvix Paper)

WIND: IMO

BMJ: Time to Assume that Health Research is Fraudulent Until Proven Otherwise + The more Certain Someone is about COVID-19, the Less You Should Trust Them

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Everything is political now, especially medical “science”. And your life is on the line.

Let’s kick this off with a paper from 16 years ago, since the problem has only gotten worse.

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

John P. A. Ioannidis, August 30 2005.

...Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias...

It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.

...

Corollaries

Corollary 1: The smaller the studies conducted in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true...
Corollary 2: The smaller the effect sizes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true...
Corollary 3: The greater the number and the lesser the selection of tested relationships in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true...
Corollary 4: The greater the flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true...
Corollary 5: The greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true..
Corollary 6: The hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true...

...

Most Research Findings Are False for Most Research Designs and for Most Fields

Claimed Research Findings May Often Be Simply Accurate Measures of the Prevailing Bias

...

WIND: real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

BMJ: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

2021-07-06

...Research authorities insisted that fraud was rare, didn’t matter because science was self-correcting, and that no patients had suffered because of scientific fraud. All those reasons for not taking research fraud seriously have proved to be false, and, 40 years on from Lock’s concerns, we are realising that the problem is huge, the system encourages fraud, and we have no adequate way to respond. It may be time to move from assuming that research has been honestly conducted and reported to assuming it to be untrustworthy until there is some evidence to the contrary.

WIND: always follow the money, and never trust without verifying.

Why published research is untrustworthy

2021-07-06

...The present status of research that is “misleading, exaggerated or plain wrong” is reminiscent of the news media. The attitude that scientists are always right should be changed; they are most often wrong [1]!

nstead of trying to make cosmetic changes to their results, they should openly and frankly recognize the weakness of the results. Researchers need to change from a “butterfly behavior” [24] to a more altruistic approach so that an issue (the “flower”) can be fully exploited in search of a breakthrough, before moving on to the next flower [24]. As pointed out by Douglas G. Altman in 1994 we still need “less research, better research and research done for the right reasons” [2].

WIND: scientific integrity was on its deathbed twenty years ago. It is now an old oak rotten and hollow inside, ready to topple over with the first winter storm.

BMJ: The more certain someone is about covid-19, the less you should trust them

2020-10-19

...Returning to our starting point, two unequivocal authorities have written that “As our understanding of influenza viruses has increased dramatically in recent decades we have moved ever further from certainty about the determinants of, and possibilities for, pandemic emergence.”15 Their point is illustrated by the largely unexpected pandemic of coronavirus disease hitting a world bristling with influenza pandemic management plans.

When deciding whom to listen to in the covid-19 era, we should respect those who respect uncertainty, and listen in particular to those who acknowledge conflicting evidence on even their most strongly held views. Commentators who are utterly consistent, and see whatever new data or situation emerge through the lens of their pre-existing views—be it “Let it rip” or “Zero covid now”—would fail this test.

WIND: put the CDC and FDA through this filter, and nothing passes.

Nature: The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science

2020-10-19

...“The effect is devastating,” says Li, about the impacts on Chinese science. “The literature environment published in Chinese is already ruined, since hardly anyone believes them or references studies from them.”

“Now this plague has eroded into the international medical journals,” he adds. The fact that people use paper mills also affects China’s reputation globally, says Futao Huang, a Chinese researcher working at Hiroshima University in Japan.

The prevalence of problem papers is leading some journal editors to doubt the submissions they get from Chinese hospital researchers. “The increasing volume of this ‘junk science’ is wreaking havoc on the credibility of the research emanating out of China and increasingly casting doubt upon legitimate science from the region,” said a February 2021 editorial2 in the journal Molecular Therapy.

...

WIND: anything out of CCP-controlled China is not to be trusted.

Sebastian Rushworth MD: A reflection on covid mania

by Sebastian Rushworth M.D.., 23 September 2021. Emphasis added.

...

It’s hard to maintain faith in science when it is so wilfully distorted to accord with a political agenda, and when many doctors and scientists so happily go along with what is handed down from on high. I recently learned that an excellent study on the covid vaccines, carried out at a prestigious institution, has spent months trying to get published in a peer-reviewed journal, but has been denied again and again, because its results don’t align with the official dogma. Clearly, the journals are engaging in politically motivated censorship.

When this is the case, peer-review becomes a harmful process, whose only purpose is to determine the political acceptability of research, not it’s quality or usefulness. It becomes impossible for the lay person, and even for doctors and scientists, to know what the truth is, because uncomfortable truths remain buried or remain at the pre-print stage, which makes it all too easy to dismiss them – “Oh, that’s just a pre-print, it hasn’t been peer-reviewed”. That is the world we live in.

...

WIND: “follow the science” ===> “follow the officially approved science”!

A note on sampling biases in the Bangladesh mask trial

2021-12-02

...We suggest that the very large causal effects on consent rates and thus population denominators urge caution in interpreting the small differences we see in symptomatic seropositivity between treatment and controls, which are already not statistically significant according to standard non-parametric paired tests. Additionally, as the trial shows that the intervention studied can have large and highly significant effects even on unintended aspects of behavior, including staff surveying behavior, bias-susceptible endpoints that depend on subjective reports of symptoms from participants to staff should be used with care.

WIND: the Bangladesh mask trial was one of those frauds used by the media to promote the narrative of mask usage. Anyone on the peer review committee should lose all their scientific credibility, and be banned from publishing any research for the rest of their life. And of course, the authors of this farce study.

A disaster for humanity

Trust the science? Trust your government? Trust the experts? Mantras for fools used by manipulators. But the public propaganda outlets formerly known as “news” can easily brainwish the public, most of whom have have only a dim understanding of science, statistics, etc. Science is now “what I say it is” as the experts will tell you.

Only over decades does scientific truth slowly emerge.

And the peer review process has become a joke, with its heavy infusion of social approbation and clubby approach to what is right or wrong. Major journals are now rife with anti-scientific wokism and pandering. The whole situation is disgusting and a pox on humanity.

Can CBD (Cannabidiol) Help with COVID or its Aftermath, by Modulating the Immune System?

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Can CBD (Cannabidiol) Help with COVID or its Aftermath, modulating the immune system?

Since it is not a drug that Big Pharma can patent and thus exploit for huge profits, no one is going to fund a large expensive clinical trial. And you probably cannot trust studies by the CBD vendors. So all you can do is try it and see for yourself.

The idea/claim is that CBD modulates the immune system and especially inflammation. A lot of scientific studies show that very clearly. And inflammation is the hallmark of COVID, including lungs and blood vessels. With the whole world impacted by COVID, it seems criminal to not aggressively research substances like CBD, but what do you expect with the CDC and FDA being lackeys for Big Pharma?

Get 20% off with coupon code diglloyd20 at NuLeafNaturals.com.
I get a small commission when you use that link, so thank you!

I relate two personal experiences which are anecdotal as bear grease. I am not making any scientific claims here, just relating my own experience. Your might vary.

CBD and asthma

When I was having serious small airway impairment back in 2018, my prescription inhaler used for two weeks at double the dose (4 puffs a day) did absolutely nothing to resolve the breathing problems other than perhaps keep it from getting out of hand.

CBD (Cannabidiol)—Eliminated My Small Airway Impairment (Asthma)

My internist (MD) laughed at me when I told him it had resolved things in 24 hours or so (dismissing it out of hand without consideration), lumping it together with bear grease claims by another patient (literally, bear grease). It was a bit insulting and ignorantly dismissive, but I let it go. Intellectual curiosity and compelling anecdotes need not apply, even in the face of overnight improvement. I wonder how much patients suffer needlessly because of doctors dismissing things that really do help (some), because there is no Big Pharma study they can make themselves comfortable with? So they slowly degrade their patients with drugs that fix nothing and take their toll over time.

CBD and Long-Haul COVID

It might be a coincidence, but I saw a slow and steady improvement after taking CBD for 15 days in mid-August, including the elimination of various arthritic pains. Here in early December, my condition is steady and while I am not my March 2020 self, I can function as well as I have in two years.

COVID Omicron Variant: First to be Infected are the Vaccinated?

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

The first person in the US happens to be in the 81%-vaccinated San Francisco Bay Area to be infected was... fully vaccinated.

After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday, Dec. 1, that the nation's first case of the omicron variant of COVID-19 has been reported in San Francisco, city officials said the city won't be updating any health orders for now.

The patient, who had returned to San Francisco from South Africa on Nov. 22, only showed mild symptoms and is currently recovering. The person is fully vaccinated but had not received a booster shot, according to officials with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

... "The overall message to the public is get vaccinated," Mayor London Breed said...

The irony seems to be lost on public health officials that vaccinated people are getting infected like crazy all over the world (see below). An Alice in Wonderland situation now, one scarcely worth noting, as if it is not happening. The “news”, the government and all authorities are skilled at not giving the public credible and solid information on just what is going on. But that has been true from day zero. Total lack of trust then or now.

I 'get it' that being vaccinated might improve your odds of avoiding severe health consequences, but just how long and how much is very much an open question. Studies purporting to show the benefits of vaccination use statistical sleights of hand to make things look better (arbitrary timeline cutoffs, ignoring natural immunity among the vaxxed, and numerous confounders). Still, I’ll concede that vaccination is almost certainly a net plus for those at risk.

But my skepticism is increasing that vaccination is the right course for the young and healthy, who at the least might be better off with a single jab. And vaccinating children remains child abuse driven by intellectual dishonesty, given their nil risk (vaccinate and risk the health of a million children to save the life of one high-risk child?). Children’s rapidly growing bodies have all sorts of unknown behaviors relative to new anything—they are NOT adults and that is why most medical things approved for adults have contraindications for children until well-studied.

The anti-science attitudes that suppress all dissent along with the coercion aspect makes it all stink to high heaven.

I do not get the anti-scientific antagonism towards those with natural immunity. Until and unless public health officials get their heads out of their asses on natural immunity, I must necessarily default to approaching all messaging as non-credible propaganda.

Vaccination is increasingly a failure for stopping transmission, which makes vaccination a stunning failure in terms of ending the pandemic, and an endless gravy train for Big Pharma.

The intellectual and ethical sketchiness of it all should be mortifying to all medical professionals. How about we look at infection rates for the “unvaccinated” with natural immunity (half this country’s population by now?), vs the vaccinated without natural immunity?

Everything we’re being spoon-fed might prove out to be bullshit a year or two from now. Or it might not. But the suppression of viewpoints and the coercion have to stop, as they do no-one any good.

Majority of England's Omicron cases ARE double-vaccinated: Health chiefs reveal 55% of those with Covid super-strain had both jabs amid fears it can dodge shots - as UK daily cases creep up

2021-12-03

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said 12 of the 22 known cases up to November 30 — 55 per cent — were in people who had at least two doses. 

...

WIND: I’d say this is awfully misleading headline give the tiny numbers as yet. Plus it’s just flat-out stupid in its false premise—the vaccinated are already readily infected by any strain.

We need to wait two weeks for several thousand cases before it can be said if these initial figures will hold up. The numbers are as yet too small to rely upon. Nor does anyone know how the Omicron variant will really play out for seriousness vs prior variants.

Don’t rule out good luck with the Omicron variant: if it is a mild strain that is highly infectious, then it will serve as the best possible vaccination, and could end this pandemic by basically turning into the common cold (another coronavirus). But its mildness or strength is as yet unknown.

Daughter Over COVID, Anti-Science Doctors and Administrative Thugs Say She Must Get 2nd Pfizer Jab — Ignoring the Science of Natural Immunity

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

My daughter is wrapping up her COVID experience (infected with COVID about 9 days after the first Pfizer jab), with hardly any symptoms left. Good efficacy, that Pfizer jab, eh?

She lifted weights as uusal, and felt good even when sick and with some lung congestion—no big deal, it hardly slowed her down.

In their unethical anti-scientific hubris, the doctors who deny natural immunity say she should get the 2nd Pfizer jab... today more or less. Never mind that she still technically has COVID, and is not even out of her 10 day isolation period.

The administrative thugs at her college will not let her register for classes until she gets the 2nd jab. Never mind her natural immunity.

These people demanding vaccination while denying natural immunity are human scum who belong in prison. They’re violating legal and ethical boundaries that no one has any right to cross. May their evil karma boomerang-back one day.

See also: Organizations That Impose COVID Mandates Must Also Be Responsible for Harms They May Cause: Ethicist

Are Booster Jabs Worthwhile? WHO not Supportive

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

I don’t trust anything the WHO says, but that doesn’t mean their reasoning is always without merit.

WHO: Interim statement on COVID-19 vaccine booster doses

Dec 1 2021 version

There are several reasons why COVID-19 vaccine booster doses may be needed: (i) waning protection against infection or disease, in particular severe disease, over time (i.e., waning immunity), (ii) reduced protection against variant(s) of concern (VOC), or (iii) inadequate protection from the currently recommended primary series for some risk groups for which evidence from the Phase 3 clinical trials may have been lacking. The rationale for booster doses may differ by vaccine product, epidemiological setting, risk group, and vaccine coverage rates.

Factors to consider 

1. Waning immunity

Neither an immune correlate of protection nor an immune correlate for the duration of protection has been established to date...

2. Vaccine effectiveness  

 Data are currently insufficient to determine if there is a significant decline in vaccine effectiveness against any form of clinical illness from SARS-CoV-2 infection beyond 6 months after vaccination. However, some reduction in vaccine effectiveness has been reported for some VOCs...

3. Global vaccine supply and global and national equity

National vaccination programme policy decisions to add a booster dose should take into account the strength of evidence regarding the need for these doses and global availability of vaccines...

Conclusions

...

Introducing booster doses should be firmly evidence-driven and targeted to the population groups in greatest need. The rationale for implementing booster doses should be guided by evidence on waning vaccine effectiveness, in particular a decline in protection against severe disease in the general population or in high risk populations, or due to a circulating VOC. To date, the evidence remains limited and inconclusive on any widespread need for booster doses following a primary vaccination series...

WIND: President Cornholio says everyone should get their booster.

Strength of evidence” seems to be a fresh new concept over at the WHO versus their stonewalling as to the origins of the virus. What I cannot understand is why the CCP puppetmasters would go along with this... to weaken the West perhaps? Maybe strength of evidence could be applied to masks, and Vitamin D and magnesium as well?

Beware Investigational Monoclonal Antibodies for COVID — Not all the Same, MAJOR Side Effects

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

See my prior post: COVID in the Family, One More of Us

The cure can be worse than the disease.

My brother acquired a fairly bad case of COVID recently, and though not one requiring hospitalization, he was given monoclonal antibodies.

Only today did we learn that his week of suffering was not due to COVID, but from severe side effects of the monoclonal antibody treatment he was given. That’s what his doctor concluded, though of course there was surely some compounding/mix of symptoms. He suffered horribly for 5 days, only finally getting improvement today, and finally able to eat and ambulate again.

Did the treatment help him, or were the side effects worse than the disease? We have no way of knowing for sure. Nor do we know if this product was chosen for profit, for lack of availability of Regeneron, or exactly what the motivation was. It took 5 days for him to find out what he had been given. Do they just do whatever the fuck they want now?

Monoclonal antibody treatments

Warning; one of the disqualifiers for monoclonal antibody treatments is hospitalization. Get the treatment before hospitalization, or you will find it denied.

Monoclonal antibodies are not authorized for use in patients who:

• Are hospitalized due to COVID-19
• Require oxygen therapy due to COVID-19
• Require more oxygen that they normally would due to COVID-19 and those on chronic oxygen therapy due to an underlying non-COVID-19 related condition
• Are between the ages of 12-17 and weigh less than 88 pounds
• Are under age 12

There are three monoclonal antibody treatments in use. Of these, I have so far heard good things only about the Regeneron one, but that’s only an impression. Still, I would insist upon the Regeneron product. Or you can be a guinea pig like my brother and get hammered and maybe die.

There is a 4th monoclonal antibody treatment from a small startup that is claimed to not work at all, and YouTube banned the company's video just recently under government pressure. Makes me wonder if that company just didn’t have the “pull” with the FDA that the Big Pharma companies do, that is, the Eli Lily product might be dangerous garbage for all I know, but Eli Lilly surely has ample resources and many friends at the FDA.

My brother was given the Eli Lily product (Bamlanivimab + Etesevimab). Given his experience, I’d be scared to death of it, and I’d insist on the Regeneron product. But very sick patients are hardly in a position to know this, and might not have any choice. And I cannot rule out his experience as more than just bad luck. But it makes me leery of the Eli Lily offering.

What mAb products are currently available?

Bamlanivimab + Etesevimab:

• Manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company
• Authorized for emergency use on Feb. 9, 2021
• Fact sheet for patients and caregivers: English / Spanish

Casirivimab + Imdevimab:

• Manufactured by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Authorized for emergency use on Nov. 21, 2020
• Fact sheet for patients and caregivers: English / Spanish

Sotrovimab:

• Manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline LLC
• Authorized for emergency use on May 26, 2021
• Fact sheet for patients and caregivers: English / Spanish

The fact sheet makes it plain that these treatments are rife with serious and poorly-understood risks, and that they are testing things by seeing what Bad Stuff happens.

My brother did not sign up for a clinical trial, but that is pretty much what is de facto going on—an experiment, but with no patient knowledge of the risks—he did not know what he had been given until 5 days later. I wonder if his case will ever be reported to VAERS or even be a data point in the safety of the treatment.

Fact Sheet for Patients, Parents and Caregivers Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of Eli Lily Bamlanivimab and Etesevimab for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Dec 1 2021 version

Bamlanivimab and etesevimab are investigational medicines used together in adults and children who are at high risk for developing severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death...

Bamlanivimab and etesevimab are investigational because they are still being studied. There is limited information known about the safety or effectiveness of using bamlanivimab and etesevimab to treatment or prevention of COVID-19...

What are the important possible side effects of bamlanivimab and etesevimab?

Possible side effects of bamlanivimab and etesevimab are:

• Allergic reactions...

• Worsening of COVID-19 symptoms after bamlanivimab and etesevimab therapy for active infection: You or your child may experience new or worsening symptoms after infusion for mild to moderate COVID-19, including fever, difficulty breathing, rapid or slow heart rate, tiredness, weakness or confusion. If these occur, contact your or your child’s healthcare provider or seek immediate medical attention as some of these events have required hospitalization. It is unknown if these events are related to treatment or are due to the progression of COVID-19.

...These are not all the possible side effects of bamlanivimab and etesevimab. Not a lot of people have been given bamlanivimab and etesevimab. Serious and unexpected side effects may happen. Bamlanivimab and etesevimab are still being studied so it is possible that all of the risks are not known at this time.

It is possible that bamlanivimab and etesevimab could interfere with your or your child’s body's own ability to fight off a future infection of SARS-CoV-2. Similarly, bamlanivimab and etesevimab may reduce the body’s immune response to a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. Specific studies have not been conducted to address these possible risks.

...

WIND: my brother experienced nearly all of the side effects: “fever, difficulty breathing, rapid heart rate, tiredness...”

Magnesium and Vitamin D Deficiency as a Potential Cause of Immune Dysfunction, Cytokine Storm and Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation in COVID-19 patients

re: Vitamin D
re: magnesium and magnesium deficiency

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Magnesium is a critical nutrient that is difficult if not impossible for most people to get enough of through their modern dietary practices. So most people walk around with chronic magnesium deficiency. This leads to massive public health problems.

BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis”

Could nutrient deficiency lead to bad COVID outcomes? How could any nutrient-deficient organism large or small fend off any disease efficiently when in a compromised state?

Magnesium and Vitamin D Deficiency as a Potential Cause of Immune Dysfunction, Cytokine Storm and Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation in covid-19 patients

February 2021. Emphasis added.

Magnesium and Vitamin D each have the possibility of affecting the immune system and consequently the cytokine storm and coagulation cascade in COVID-19 infections. Vitamin D is important for reducing the risk of upper respiratory tract infections and plays a role in pulmonary epithelial health. While the importance of vitamin D for a healthy immune system has been known for decades, the benefits of magnesium has only recently been elucidated.

Indeed, magnesium is important for activating vitamin D and has a protective role against oxidative stress. Magnesium deficiency increases endothelial cell susceptibility to oxidative stress, promotes endothelial dysfunction, reduces fibrinolysis and increases coagulation. Furthermore, magnesium deficient animals and humans have depressed immune responses, which, when supplemented with magnesium, a partial or near full reversal of the immunodeficiency occurs. Moreover, intracellular free magnesium levels in natural killer cells and CD8 killer T cells regulates their cytotoxicity. Considering that magnesium and vitamin D are important for immune function and cellular resilience, a deficiency in either may contribute to cytokine storm in the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection.

Magnesium Deficiency Leads to Immune Dysregulation

It was recently discovered that intracellular free magnesium regulates the cytotoxic functions of natural killer (NK) and CD8+ T cells and that decreased intracellular free magnesium causes defective expression of the natural killer activating receptor NKG2D on NK and CD8+ T cells and impairs their cytolytic responses...

Magnesium Deficiency Increases Oxidative Stress and Cytokine Storm

Magnesium deficiency leads to increased oxidative stress and intracellular glutathione depletion. There is also an increase in inflammatory cytokine release from monocytes, macrophages and leukocytes during magnesium deficiency... Thus, having a low magnesium status may increase the risk for inflammatory cytokine storms, damage to the endothelium and trigger the coagulation cascade leading to disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC)...

Magnesium Deficiency Increases Endothelial Dysfunction and Coagulation

Magnesium deficiency increases the susceptibility of endothelial cells to oxidative damage and promotes endothelial dysfunction whereas magnesium supplementation improves endothelial function. Magnesium also has antithrombotic effects...

Magnesium is Required to Activate vitamin D

Magnesium is needed to move vitamin D around in the blood and to activate vitamin D.Magnesium deficiency can also reduce active vitamin D (1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D) levels and impair parathyroid hormone response...

Vitamin D and Its Importance for Immune Health

It is estimated that one billion people worldwide are vitamin D deficient and around half the global population is vitamin D insufficient. Epidemiologically, influenza infection is most common worldwide when vitamin D levels are at their lowest...

As noted previously, vitamin D insufficiency is highly prevalent in severe COVID-19 patients.3 This provides sound scientific reasoning for vitamin D supplementation in COVID patients. Patients who have had their vitamin D levels measured in the year before COVID-19 testing, the relative risk of testing positive for COVID-19 was 1.77 times greater for those who were deficient in vitamin D compared to those who were sufficient...

Table 1

Reasons why Magnesium and Vitamin D Deficiency may lead to Immune Dysfunction, Cytokine Storm and Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation in COVID-19 patients

• Low intracellular free magnesium levels in NK and CD8+ T cells reduces their cytotoxicity.
• Patients with genetically low intracellular free magnesium, who are supplemented with magnesium, have a partial or near complete reversal of dysfunctional NK and CD8+ T cells and a reduced viral load.
• Dysfunctional CD8+ T cell cytotoxicity leads to increased proinflammatory death in virally infected cells and healthy bystander cells, as opposed to silent apoptotic death, increasing the risk of cytokine storm in the lungs.
• Magnesium activates vitamin D into the hormone calcitriol.
• Active vitamin D is required to boost the expression of cathelicidins.
• Magnesium deficiency slows fibrinolysis and increases coagulation and thrombosis.
• Low magnesium status increases damage to tissues and cellular membranes and reduces antioxidant defense systems leading to increased oxidative stress and damage.
• Magnesium deficient animals have a depressed immune response.

...

Conclusion

Magnesium and vitamin D supplementation should be considered in the general population with special consideration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WIND: see the full paper for detail. This paper is starting point for investigation, not a proof. Much larger and better studies are needed. But no nutrient-deficient organism large or small can fend off any disease efficiently when in a compromised state.

What might widely distributed Vitamin D and magnesium (MgCl or at least citrate) have done for public health vs COVID? It shocks the conscience that our so-called experts on COVID never talk about key nutrients. But it’s not surprising.

Why would you knowingly take a chance on your health by walking around being deficient in any nutrient?

Vitamin D and magnesium supplementation are no-brainers. You don’t need a study to know that it won’t hurt, and might help, if only to create a stronger immune system overall, COVID or otherwise. Make sure you are not magnesium deficient, because magnesium is required for Vitamin D to be activated, as well as to prevent excess calcium from going where it should not.

Magnesium takes part in as many as 800 different physiological process, as well as being crucial to the most critical cellular functions such as mitochondrial function. It is thus inherently unsafe to be deficient in it. You don’t need to wait 30 years for science to get its shit together to know that no organism can see anything result but grief in a state of nutrient deficiency.

Do NOT buy supplements with magnesium oxide (MO)—they do not absorb and will quickly give you toilet fun. Use magnesium chloride for best absorption, or magnesium citrate (less good but not bad). Shun excitotoxin forms like magnesium aspartate.

Some doctors think magnesium is “useless”, dismissing it out of hand—I heard this very recently as a direct quote. Few doctors are even aware of the accurate test for it (hint: not serum magnesium). It is best to assume that your doctor is so ignorant of nutrition the s/he will jeopardize your health because of it—you will be right nearly every time. I’m keeping track, and I’ve yet to visit a doctor who demonstrates anything remotely approaching competence when it comes to nutrition and how it affects health. No organism deficient in nutrients can have optimal health.

So follow the money—medical science is a big business uninterested in baseline health and vitality as a rule—it’s about bandaids in the full sense of the word. Nutrition doesn’t make the profitability cut, even if it could separate itself from another huge industry and its shenanigans (Big Food). Medicine is a business like any other; it’s primary driver is not health and well-being, but money. Hence fix it when it breaks is the highly profitable mantra with a guaranteed steady supply of new and repeat customers that you will likely never see fixed.

So instead of raising the health of the population as a whole, we instead mandate vaccines. We try to save people too late, using rigidly proscribed care that discourages anything outside dubious “best practices”, which have a track record of poor outcomes.

Sebastian Rushworth MD: 'COVID-19: a New Look at Vitamin D'

re: Sebastian Rushworth MD
re: Vitamin D

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Because most scientific studies are false, what you want to look for is a viewpoint that takes that into account, and considers competing findings and their relative strengths and weaknesses. As well as a viewpoint that understands that correlation is not causation. As well as admitting when data is weak, or conflicting. Which is what Dr Rushworth regularly does.

You should never accept information about medical studies from the propaganda machinery known as “news”. Because they select the study or talking head that best suits their preferred narrative and ignore all else.

Sebastian Rushworth MD: 'COVID-19: a New Look at Vitamin D

2021-12-03. Emphasis added.

...when I last wrote about Vitamin D, in January, it was still unclear whether it had any role in the treatment of COVID-19 or not. Well, has anything changed since then?

Although the randomized trials of Vitamin D have been few and far between, there has been a massive amount of observational data produced. In recent months, two meta-analyses of cohort studies have been published that look at the relationship between vitamin D levels and death, one in the journal Nutrients, and another in the Nutrition Journal.... the two meta-analyses reach the exact opposite conclusions, with one claiming that if we can just get everyone up to 50 ng/ml of vitamin D in the blood stream, then we can literally prevent all COVID deaths, while the other says that there is no correlation whatsoever between vitamin D levels and covid mortality.  How is this possible?

...the two meta-analyses vary in terms of which particular studies they include... Only two of the seven studies in the Nutrients meta-analysis are included in the Nutrition Journal meta-analysis, and only two of the eleven studies in the Nutrition Journal meta-analysis are included in the Nutrients meta-analysis. No wonder they’re able to reach such divergent results!

This really showcases how easy it is to manipulate meta-analyses so that they show what you want them to show, just by choosing the date on which you extract data and by choosing which specific search terms to use. It’s easy to keep modifying search terms slightly until you get a list that includes the studies you want in, and excludes the studies you want out. Which is why we should always be skeptical of meta-analyses, just as we are with other types of studies.

...So we have one meta-analysis which shows a large benefit, and one which shows a trend towards benefit... Correlation is not causation, and even if a correlation is seen between Vitamin D and death from COVID in observational studies, that doesn’t mean it’s the Vitamin D that’s preventing the deaths.

...Since then, three new randomized trials have been published,... all three were small, with the largest of the three only including 87 patients. Additionally, all three gave regular inactivated vitamin D, not the part-activated form that was found to have an effect in the earlier Spanish study... the new studies don’t add anything on top of the store of knowledge that we already had in January.

So, we’re actually more or less in the same situation that we were in regarding vitamin D back in January. The observational data suggests that there is a benefit to supplementing with regular vitamin D for prophylaxis, which is in line with a systematic review that was published in the British Medical Journal in the pre-covid era, which found that people with low vitamin D levels who supplement daily with vitamin D reduce the frequency of respiratory infections by half. And the limited randomized trial data that exists suggests that the part-activated 25-hydroxyvitamin D formulation can reduce the risk of bad outcomes if given on admission to hospital. But the evidence is still too weak to draw any firm conclusions.

It’s quite shocking that more data isn’t available to answer this question conclusively at this late stage in the pandemic. I do personally think though, based on the evidence that is available, that it makes sense to take a daily vitamin D supplement. 4,000 IU (100 mcg) is a reasonable dose. It’s safe, it’s cheap, it might well help, and it can’t hurt.

WIND: Vitamin D is a no-brainer. You don’t need a study to know that it won’t hurt, and is likely to help, if only to create a stronger immune system overall, COVID or otherwise. But make sure you are not magnesium deficient, because magnesium is required for Vitamin D to be activated, as well as to prevent excess calcium from going where it should not.

As I understand it, the stuff you want via IV infusion at the onset of symptoms is “activated” Vitamin D, specifically 1,25-dihydroxy Vitamin D3. Sadly, and perhaps causing thousands of deaths, Big Pharma and government have studiously avoided doing trials of it. Because it cannot be patented, and therefore it’s not profitable and therefore it is de facto worthless to the moneyed interests. Who the hell cares if thousands are dying who could be saved, if there is not a blockbuster profit to be had? It might work, it might not work, but when there is a strong correlation that no one cares to study properly, the only rational viewpoint is that it’s all about money, not science or health.

Are most scientists intellectual crooks? Which is to say, not scientists at all? These days, science is all about grants (money), and availability of that money means social approbation. As it is inconceivable that scientists are unaffected when their income and status and career are concerned, it follows that systemic viewpoint bias is baked into the system. Follow the money will rarely if ever lead you astray, whether the effects are consciously appreciated or not. Real science that follows the topics and outcomes leads to unwanted intellectual stepchildren. This is why real science is on its deathbed in far too many fields. Science is not about someone in a lab working for years on their own, and has not been so for many generations.

COVID in the Family, One More of Us

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

See my prior post: COVID in the Family, I Count Myself Lucky, and How Does One Decide or Not?

My wife acquired COVID 3.5 months after her second Pfizer jab, my unvaccinated brother is having a very tough time at day 7 (even with treatment but not hospitalization), and I finally seem to be emerging from an 18-months Long-Haul COVID ordeal, wondering if I will ever regain my former strength.

Now my youngest doctor has caught COVID from several co-workers, all young and all three fully vaccinated.

The emerging truth for which more and more evidence is piling up is that we have a pandemic of the vaccinated. The government propagandists and media continue to suppress and refuse to even mention directly ( “get your booster”), because it would undermine the idiotic narrative. But the truth is important: the vaccinated are running around infecting others while demonizing the unvaccinated (and infecting them).

Ironically, it popped up 9 days after her first Pfizer jab, which she was forced to get by her school in order to continue her studies. Aside form a cough and congestion, she feels good, but has cut her 2+ hour weight lifting bouts down to only an hour or so. I told her not a good idea to work-out with COVID (home garage, private), but she says she feels good and shrugged it off. Her school will still require her to get the 2nd Pfizer jab, which is about as scientific as astrology. But COVID policies are intellectual ghettos.

The idea that the unvaccinated are the problem is at this point a Big Lie, pure totalitarian propaganda in which the government wants to be your doctor. Get the jab to protect yourself if you decide based on guessing which of two risks you prefer, but we should stop the unscientific hysteria about the unvaccinated being at fault for the continued spread of this plague.

One more daughter to go, and the most at risk due to an auto-immune disease. Maybe she can get lucky with a mild case of the Moronic variant, if it is as mild as early reports indicate.

As for myself, I’m just fine so far. I guess my natural immunity from April 2020 (19 months ago!) is still going strong. Or I’ve just been lucky, having neither my wife nor my daughter pass the bug along to me. To be clear though: I do not count myself as fully protected or immune from re-infection since 19 months is a long time, but I’d bet I have far better protection than fully vaccinated people only 4 months later, for whom science shows lousy protection.

Of course, I could be wrong on two counts. First, it is always possible that my April 2020 infection was some weird virus that mimicked the symptoms of COVID (I spent the 2+ weeks in isolation in the mountains, and was never tested). It could also be that my natural immunity has fallen off enough to make me ready for re-infection. I can’t know either, but I have no plans to get the jab—medical science has damaged me in 3 major ways in my lifetime, and I am not going to fuck around with my auto-immunity issues, which still pop up erratically. So I’m placing my bet on doing just fine without the vaccine.

The Epoch Times: Dying COVID-19 Patient Recovers After Court Orders Hospital to Administer Ivermectin

re: Ivermectin

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Doesn’t matter that this case is anecdotal—the hospital itself gave up on this man and refused to follow his family’s wishes. They were ready to let him die rather than administer a drug that might help.

The Epoch Times: Dying COVID-19 Patient Recovers After Court Orders Hospital to Administer Ivermectin

By Matthew Vadum, 2021-12-01

An elderly COVID-19 patient has recovered after a court order allowed him to be treated with ivermectin, despite objections from the hospital in which he was staying, according to the family’s attorney.

...Medical doctors are free to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19, even though the FDA claims that its off-label use could be harmful in some circumstances. Clinical human trials of the drug for use against COVID-19 are currently in progress, according to the agency.

... The daughter went to court on her father’s behalf and on Nov. 1, Judge Paul M. Fullerton of the Circuit Court of DuPage County granted a temporary restraining order requiring the hospital to allow ivermectin to be given to the patient. The hospital refused to comply with the court order.

...At a subsequent court hearing on Nov. 5, Fullerton said one physician who testified described Sun Ng as “basically on his death bed,” with a mere 10 to 15 percent chance of survival. Ivermectin can have minor side effects such as dizziness, itchy skin, and diarrhea at the dosage suggested for Ng, but the “risks of these side effects are so minimal that Mr. Ng’s current situation outweighs that risk by one-hundredfold,” Fullerton said.

...For more information on ivermectin and how to obtain it, Erickson said people should visit the website of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance at Covid19CriticalCare.com.

...

WIND: this case infuriated me when I heard about it. As far as I’m concerned, the hospital staff involved should all face attempted manslaughter charges. At the least, the hospitial and individuals involved should be personally liable for millions in damages. Human scum unwilling to let a dying man’s family try something, or anything.

The judge involved should be censured also, for not immediately jailing hospital officials until they complied with his order. Just to make a point, going himself to the hospital with police, and having the turds over there arrested and charged. After all, a life was on the line. So disappointing. But at least it worked out in the end.

The narrative that “Ivermectin doesn’t work for COVID and therefore is to be denied” is an outrageous anti-scientific claim, as there is a lot of evidence that it might work. It certainly has not been proven to be ineffective entirely. It has never gotten a fair shot. Follow the money. I’d bet that it is WAY more effective than Merck’s dubious new COVID pill (30% effective).

Medical doctors working for institutions are NOT free to prescribe Ivermectin, as they will be threatened with firing and maybe even loss of medical license, and at the very least harrassed by management.

Dental Implant for a New Molar—nearly painless, get it done if you need it

For anyone out there with a bad tooth— dental implants can go pretty seamlessly and painlessly. At least for molars.

I just had an implant for a new tooth, to replace a molar that had cracked and was infected and had to be pulled-out 6 months ago.

It’s hardware store stuff in concept—essentially a screw to go into the jawbone and a screw-on cap that will later be used to bolt down an artificial tooth, once things grow in. Go with only the very best tightest-tolerances for such implants. You don't want the mechanism to have more than a few microns of “slop”, which cheaper ones do.

It was with some trepidation that I went in yesterday for the implant, I guess because pulling a tooth seemed less bad than inserting a titanium screw.

I opted for full anesthesia. It took 30-45 minutes (so I’m told), and I ended up at home somehow (my wife drove), with no memory of the procedure or immediate aftermath. Maybe local anesthesia would have been fine, but I really don’t like cutting and screwing sounds.

That day, I had a slight jaw ache and no pain, not enough to warrant any treatment, or even to really notice. The implant is covered over with tissue and stitched closed. The body now has to grow bone around the screw for 3 months or so. As I understand it, the tissue is cut open to allow access to the hardware when it comes time to bolt in the new tooth, and a similar process occurs in healing that new tooth into the gum tissue.

I’m looking forward to having two molars for chewing again. It’s striking how one can take front teeth and molars for granted until they are lost!

Sebastian Rushworth MD: The True Cause of Heart Disease, interview with Dr Malcom Kendrick

re: ethics in medicine
re: Recommended Books for Health and Wellness
re: cholesterol, statins, atherosclerosis
re: BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis”
re: What is a “Rogue Doctor”?
re: Dr Malcom Kendrick

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

A video is probably the worst place to start on a medical stopic, so I’d encourage anyone interested in this topic to read extensively instead. I recommend The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It and various other books for enough context to start thinking critically. You’ll need a few hundred hours of study to get a sense of things. Weigh such information against the failed mainstream dogma, and see what your bullshit meter reads.

Start at around 14:00 or so to get to some more interesting details. But be warned, it’s pretty slow going and your time may be better spent in reading.

WIND: whether Kendrick’s thrombogenic hypothesis (clotting related) will be proven right over ensuing decades remains to be seen, but the claim is that it fits things far better than the diet-cholesterol hypothesis (which IMO is now zombie junk science).

Comments below are mine, not Kendricks—

Do we see heart disease, diabetes, stroke and many more diseases all in steady decline for decades now? We might be able to treat bad events better when they happen, akin to fixing a broken-down car. But it’s still a broken-down car, steadily degraded over a lifetime, with modern healthcare failing to even do the equivalent of a single oil change. I would argue that many alleged COVID deaths are in fact deaths from a lifetime of bad living, the system being pushed over the edge.

Politicized food pyramids aside, there is still no agreement on what a “good diet” really is, though we can say what it is not (most of what most people eat!). All biological and other systems work well or poorly based on their inputs. That means diet/nutrition. And the medical profession (including most nutritionists), still takes itself seriously?

With regards to the diet-cholesterol hypothesis and low-fat diet craze, follow the money: it’s very difficult to get someone to believe in something, if their livehihood depends on not doing so. That characterizes nearly the entire food and medical industry, vast conveyor belts feeding a guaranteed and endless supply of unhealthy people into a massively profitable system. Just check out the supermarket offerings to see that this poisonous messaging is still being served for dinner, along with doses of excitotoxins. The food and medical industries are corrupt beyond repair, IMO.

Professionals having built their careers on the evils of cholesterol are not about to be objective about the diet-cholesterol hypothesis. And cognitive commitments and cognitive dissonance are powerful barriers against real science. So we now get a ludicrous (pathetic!) banter about good-good and good-bad and bad-bad and really-bad and dozens of other kinds of cholesterol. As if a theory needs to be made far more complicated and that will make the whole fallacious heap of manure smell good. Were it not so serious, it would be laughable.

Just how ridiculous can it get?

Most doctors believe what their senior doctors tell them without questioning it, along with preserving as truth the half of their medical learning (lore!) found to be wrong two decades later.

About two years ago, one of my primary doctors (family medicine) at first congratulated me on my excellent cholesterol results. I asked him if his opinion would change based on my CT heart calcium score (to be expected, perhaps) and his reponse was almost funny in the tortured way he retracted his first opinion.

A year later and following a long visit in which I discussed my severe symptoms of Long-Haul COVID, he actually called me after the visit and badgered me to get a cardiac stress test, suggesting that all my problems could be due to heart disease. He had literally zero to offer on the symptoms (I asked). Never mind that I have 20 years of data, and that current data showed my heart operating as consistently as ever. Never mind that only 9 months prior I had done things far in excess and far more strenuous than any lab test, and had done so for over a decade. Never mind that I have never had a single clinical symptom of heart disease, even at 14252 feet at my maxiumum heart rate. In other words, never ever mind reality or evidence. This is the way doctors are trained these days—to overdiagnose and medicalize! Of course, I could drop dead unexpectedly. That would not make me wrong and him/them right as this Long-Haul COVID thing did me a lot of damage.

This same doctor was wholly ignorant of the role of magnesium deficiency in heart disease, a rather critical factor in my case of over a decade of extreme exercise.

COVID Damage to a Generation of Children: Massive Decline in Test Scores

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

The damage from government COVID policies will resonate for a generation to come.

PANDEMIC SCHOOLING MODE AND STUDENT TEST SCORES: EVIDENCE FROM US STATES

November 2021

...We demonstrate first that, across all 12 states in our sample, there were large reductions in test scores between 2020-21 and previous years. The average decline in math is 14.2 percentage points, versus 6.3 percentage points in English language Arts (ELA). These changes are well outside typical year-on-year variation.

Following this, we show our main finding: the decline in students’ 2021 test scores as compared to prior years was significantly larger in districts which offered less access to in-person schooling. For example, we estimate that offering full in-person instruction rather than fully hybrid or virtual instruction reduces test score losses in math by 10.1 percentage points (on the base of 14.2 percentage points). In ELA, the loss is reduced in fully in-person settings by 3.2 percentage points. These interactions between test score losses and schooling mode are highly significant.

Overall, our data suggest significant learning losses as measured by state assessments as a result of the pandemic, and larger losses in districts with less access to in-person learning. From a policy standpoint, our results highlight the non-health implications of the pandemic, which may be longlasting.

...

WIND: a society that sacrifices its children has turned to evil.

Government schools run by the teacher’s unions have long been the single biggest source of de facto systemic racism (a non-education for the worst-off). And now these indoctrination centers fully embrace the ideology of tribalism, rotting minds from an early age, for the destruction of this country from within.

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Dr Scott Atlas: A Plague Upon Our House

re: ethics in medicine

Read it and weep, because little has changed, if anything.

A Plague Upon Our House, by Dr Scott Atlas @AMAZON

Available in Kindle, audiobook, hardcover.

City Journal: Covid’s Three Blind Mice

How could public officials vowing to “follow the science” on Covid-19 persist in promoting ineffective strategies with terrible consequences? In a memoir of his time on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Scott W. Atlas provides an answer: because the nation’s governance was hijacked by three bureaucrats with scant interest in scientific research or debate—and no concern for the calamitous effects of their edicts.

las’s book, A Plague Upon Our House, is an astonishing read, even for those who have been closely following this disaster. A veteran medical researcher and health-policy analyst at the Hoover Institution, Atlas, a radiologist, joined the Task Force six months into the pandemic, after he had published estimates that lockdowns could ultimately prove more deadly than Covid.

Atlas expected to spend his time at the White House discussing scientific data and debating the best strategies for protecting public health. Instead, he found that the Task Force included “zero public health policy experts and no experts with medical knowledge who also analyzed economic, social, and other broad public health impacts other than the infection itself.” Vice President Mike Pence chaired the Task Force, but Atlas says that Pence and the other members were regularly cowed into submission by three doctors who dominated from the start: Deborah Birx, the Task Force’s coordinator, along with Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control.

Atlas calls them “the troika” because of their strategy for presenting a united front, never disagreeing with one another during the meetings in the White House Situation Room. (Reporting later revealed that they had made a pact to resign in unison if any of them was fired.) These veterans of the federal bureaucracy had worked closely together during the AIDS epidemic, and their track record was hardly reassuring. Their long and costly quest to develop an AIDS vaccine ultimately failed, but they did manage to persuade the public that AIDS would spread widely beyond gay men and intravenous drug users. Redfield, with some help from Fauci, was the chief prophet of a “heterosexual breakout,” a threat that terrified Americans for more than a decade but never materialized.

...
The politician who comes off best is Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who had, Atlas observes, “a far more detailed understanding of the pandemic than anyone I had encountered in the Task Force.” Trump comes off fairly well, too, in his conversations with Atlas, as he frets about the harms of the lockdowns and instinctively recognizes the futility of the troika’s strategies. But Atlas lays the ultimate blame for the lockdowns—“a crime against humanity”—on Trump himself, because he allowed Birx and her allies to remain in charge. “This president, widely known for his signature ‘You’re fired!’ declaration, was misled by his closest political intimates,” Atlas writes. “All for fear of what was inevitable anyway—skewering from an already hostile media.” ...

WIND: Fauci, Birx and Redfield should be all be sent to prison for life (or executed) for killing thousands of Americans. As for Trump, he wielded the power and he fucked up for not getting rid of these parasites.

The Epoch Times: Treating Long-Haul COVID

re: long-haul COVID
re: Over a 60X increase in pro sports adverse events since the vaccines rolled out
re: risk assessment

While I think some claims of Long-Haul COVID are perhaps erroneous, nothing in my lifetime ever did a 'job' on me like this. Still, I think that real LHC is probably around 5% and at most 10% of patients. Those most likely to notice it will be people in the prime of health/fitness, as I was prior to infection. Others in less fit condition have a less-clear-cut reference versus their prior condition, making it fuzzier.

Below, maybe there is something here that will help others shorten the time to recovery. But my sense is that systemic damage from COVID takes a very long time for the body to repair, and only with excellent nutrition and lots of sleep and minimizing all stresses on the body and mind.

Even recovery that leaves things just 1% below before can mean becoming non-competitive for an athlete. In my case, I can say objectively (bicycle power meter) that I am still a huge ~15-20% below my former ability (18 months ago), so I have a long way to go. I hope that over another year I can get back to where I was. But at least no more brain fog and ultra-severe fatigue and aches/pains, etc—those things seem to be gone now.

The Epoch Times: Treating Long-Haul Syndrome

2021-11-27, by Joseph Mercola

Long COVID, also known as long-haul COVID, chronic COVID, or long-haul syndrome, refers to symptoms that persist for four or more weeks after an initial COVID-19 infection. Board-certified internist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough discusses potential treatments for long-haul COVID in an interview with ​​Dr. Al Johnson posted on YouTube, including which tests may be necessary and when to seek emergency medical care.

...

Signs and symptoms of long COVID, which persist for four weeks or more after you’ve been diagnosed with COVID-19, include fatigue, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, coughing, joint pain, chest pain, memory or concentration problems, sleep problems, muscle pain or headache, a fast or pounding heartbeat, the loss of smell or taste, depression or anxiety, fever, dizziness when you stand, or worsened symptoms after physical or mental activities.
[WIND: I’ve bolded all the stuff I experienced personally for a month or more at 2+ months out from recovery from infection]

These symptoms are a result of damage to the following body systems: pulmonary/lungs, immune/allergy, mitochondria/energy system, heart, or central/peripheral nervous system.

According to McCullough, a paper that was presented by Dr. Bruce Patterson at the International COVID Summit in Rome, Sept. 12 to Sept. 14, shows that in “individuals who’ve had significant COVID illness, 15 months later the s1 segment of the spike protein is recoverable from human monocytes.”

“That means the body literally has been sprayed with the virus and it spends 15 months, in a sense, trying to clean out the spike protein from our tissues. No wonder people have long COVID syndrome,” he said.

...

Neurologic syndromes also occur in long COVID, although they aren’t well described. Symptoms include joint and muscle pain, headaches, brain fog, and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Some people also have changes in the autonomic nervous system, such as an elevated heart rate and sensory neuropathies, including numbness and weakness in the legs.

[WIND: absolutely, most of these things for many months, plus hugely increased sleep needs]

COVID’s Effects Versus Vaccine Effects

McCullough detailed the non-fatal syndromes that are occurring after COVID-19 vaccinations, which cause symptoms similar to that of long COVID in many cases. The vaccine-induced syndromes fall into four areas: cardiac, neurological, immunologic, and hematologic.

[WIND: see the article for more. It’s plausible but I take no position on the claims at this time]

...

WIND: while I cannot speak to all the specific claims in the article (some are surely true, others unsubstantiated and perhaps sketchy), I do think that viruses in general can wreak havoc, including causing cancers and disrupting all sorts of systems in the body.

I don’t think that any credible doctor disputes that the COVID vaccines can cause damage, sometimes severe or fatal. The issue is how often. IMO the whole thing has been very poorly studied, to the point of incompetence and willful negligence.

I advise anyone recovering from COVID to allow at least 3 months before resuming any hard athletic training or heavy work schedule.

I also think that introducing the spike protein into the body via the vaccines does indeed carry some of the risks of COVID itself. But how that risk balances against COVID itself is NOT at all obvious in many cases, such as for young healthy people and especially children where the risk seems high relative to reward. This is the Big Lie of the whole farce—one-size-fits-all medical malpractice, which never has and never will be appropriate in medicine.

COVID 'Moronic' Variant (Omicron)

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Caution: this post might trigger you into cognitive dissonance as it already has for one reader, who disputes even natural immunity as a thing.

...

All public policies have been proven to be moronic here in 2021, causing massive encomic and psychological damage to 1000X more people than COVID itself (well-off people and corporations made out like bandits). The twaddle-dee-twaddle-dum “we are all in this together” trope surely was invented by parasites in government, and welcomed by the virtue signalling wealthy. But ordinary folk have been hammered.

So it is only fitting that the anagram for the COVID Omicron variant is Moronic.

At least one South African doctor speaks about the Moronic variant as “very mild”. Maybe so, maybe not, but a new variant is a terrible thing to waste, as the “news” will educate you on.

To throw cold water on the fear-mongering COVID terrorists: what the world needs is an effective natural 'vaccine' to end this train wreck—a highly infectious but very mild variant that yields the far superior natural immunity.

Maybe the Moronic variant will get us there, and maybe it won’t. Probably it is still too dangerous to too many. But a wimpy COVID variant would be ideal, because it should be obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than a donkey that COVID is otherwise not going away anytime soon. And vaccines lasting 3-5 months and only working partially at that are not getting the job done to stop transmission.

Vaccines have been a total failure in terms of stopping waves of infections, a fact stunningly absent from the “news”, even if they have saved lives. But is even the saving lives part credible? The death toll with vaccines is far higher here in 2021 than in 2020, with a very large segment of the population being vaccinated and another massive segment having natural immunity. How can that be? It sure looks like something is happening that no one is being truthful on. Sure looks like a pandemic of the vaccinated. Of course, I could be wrong. But so far no experts have done anything but mis-predict from the start.

And all I want for XMAS is the CDC Pfizer trial documents printed on a 32-pack of toilet paper.

Anon writes:

Stick to cameras, lenses and the like or set up an entirely unlinked account for your attitudes to covid treatments , your ideas about vaccines and possible immunity from infection.

Your exaggerated reactions to the covid pandemic and treatments make me wonder about the trustworthiness of your camera and lens reviews. INMHO

WIND: luckily, I get very few emails of this nature.

They are characterized by one key trait that stands above all the rest: a failure to engage in the realm of ideas combined with denigrating the speaker, directly or subtly. That is what makes them unpleasant. An honest disagreement and its reasons are productive, and I might learn something.

This reader was triggered into cognitive dissonance, for which there are at least two "tells". First, it attacks the speaker instead of the ideas ("exaggerated reactions", "trustworthiness", "attitudes", etc). Attacking the speaker is always a "tell" for cognitive dissonance, with narcissism often flavoring the brew. Second, a failure to provide reasons/arguments related to even a single idea.

You and I learn nothing from this kind of ugly.

We all experience cognitive dissonance as part of brain function. I’ve had to work hard to consciously and proactively defuse triggers for it, and to monitor myself for my reactions. But it’s always a challenge.

COVID in the Family, I Count Myself Lucky, and How Does One Decide or Not?

re: ethics in medicine

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

My wife acquired COVID 3.5 months after her second Pfizer jab, my unvaccinated brother is recovering from it (a rough ride for 5 days or so), and I finally seem to be emerging from an 18-months Long-Haul COVID ordeal, as I am able to ride my bicycle most days again, though sleep remains a time-demanding challenge.

UPDATE Dec 2: see COVID in the Family, One More of Us.

So all of that is to say that COVID can be serious, and should be taken seriously. Which means being as healthy as possible (nutrition, exercise, sunlight, etc). Which hardly anyone does.

And then considering the vaccination, which is not risk-free. Anyone who tells you there is no risk is either a fool or a manipulator. And they have no skin in your game. It might save your life, and it might hurt you. Life is full of difficult choices.

If you have already had COVID and thus natural immunity, the whole thing is simplified: all science suggests that with rare exceptions, you’re 'good'. Since half the country or so has such immunity (including a probable super majority of children), the whole vaccine thing has become a mass hysteria, IMO.

Risk assessment by guessing

But how much risk of what kinds and duration (both vaccines and infection)... the data is highly suspect IMO, and I think the only fair thing to say is that it is poor data and poor science heavily influenced by those who stand to benefit financially, but also that the vaccines probably saved lives.

But if that is true, why are there far more deaths in 2021 vs 2020 after the weakest of us succumbed early-on, and nearly all high-risk people are now vaccinated as well as a super majority of the population along with a super-super majority of vaccination+natural immunity? It makes no sense. My bullshit meter is pegged-out at redline. Statistical sleights of hand by the CDC are not going to persuade me that we have a net gain on this one until at least two years have passed.

But again to repeat: for some people vaccination is a no-brainer, as their bodies are not likely to withstand COVID. Everyone else? That’s a far more complex question.

The disbanding of the control groups was/is terrible 'optics', as it works great to hide problems, relegating us to the scientifically sketchy area of observational studies over time. Two months of data to authorize a vaccine is absurd. And no control groups for even a one-year control along with a 55-year schedule for releasing the documents. Calling that out as possible scientific fraud is entirely justified, because it sure looks like it.

Which is not to say the vaccine is bad, or more risky than COVID for many, but maybe it is for some. The only thing you can know for sure is that you cannot trust authorities to be truthful, let alone be proactive in seeking truth. They would have to unfollow the money and offer-up mea culpas. They are not going to do that until safely dead.

We cannot rule out that vaccination of healthy people will cause inferior toy-grade immunity that results in far more harm in the next several years. Very much like how modern medicine treats disease—hook 'em on a little of X, add more X, then add Y and Z, for a lifetime of expensive bandaid treatment and steadily declining health. Very possibly the vaccinations will turn out to follow that proven “care” model. And maybe not, who can say yet?

Immune response is far more complex than just some proxy test of antibody levels! Natural immunity is surely far superior, since it involves all the mechanisms of the immune system. All credible evidence supports that notion and it is obvious that the vaccines have failed to stop COVID or even slow it down. You can argue about net harm/gain and for whom but it’s clear that vaccines are a failure in terms of what a classical vaccine was expected to do (durable and rigorous immunity).

Vaccine effectiveness is now acknowledged to fade rapidly in a few months. No one disputes that; with only minor quarrels of how much benefit if any remains after six months (some, apparently, but far less than needed for the infirm). Boosters are proof of the marginal results.

When doing risk assessment, no one in authority that I am aware of has objectively factored in the risks of vaccination and weighed that against the very short-term protective duration, particularly the young and healthy with long lives ahead... the equation is far less obvious. Maybe the vaccines would never have been generally approved had they been studied for six months? But now they are gifts to us, which we are fools to refuse, so we’re told. Life is never that simple.

What it comes down to is guessing at whether COVID itself will cause more harm than the vaccine for you as an individual. The science on that is pathetically bad with at best modest persuasiveness for the young/healthy (even if you trust the statistical sleights of hand of the CDC). Experts will quote you epidemiological data which is by definition a crude probabilistic guess when applied to an individual, and one that ignores all risks of vaccination. Ignore the harms (don’t ask / don’t tell) and consider only the benefit = fraud. How significant it is no one can yet say with certainty. Maybe nothing, maybe something nasty yet to come, and something no one has foreseen—doubtful but not ruled out.

So what is really comes down to is letting the authorities mandate your decision in a one-size-fits-all approach. We are now so degraded in humanity that our own individual circumstances and psychology are grist for The Machine. And that is a real harm that no one is acknowledging.

You can never trust the government or Big Pharma. Yet I would caution against using that as the only reason in deciding about vaccination, because vaccination might nonetheless be your smart move, for your particular situation.

What is a “Rogue Doctor”?

re: ethics in medicine
re: Peer Review of Medical/Scientific Papers has become a Farce Driven by Political and Financial Concerns

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

As far as I can tell, a rogue doctor (as used by the “news” today) is a doctor who:

• Strictly and respectfully follows the most core tenet of medicine (“first, do no harm”). Particularly for the vulnerable, such as children.
• Is willing to say “I don’t know”.
• Recognizes that some psychological harms can be far worse than some physical harms or risks.
• Regularly questions dogmatic medical beliefs with weak foundations, at least inside his/her own head.
• Recognizes the standard of care guidelines as deeply flawed when mechanistically applied to individuals.
• Understands that individuals are not the same as epidemiological datasets.
• Understands that anecdotal cases can be either worthless or highly valuable, because individuals and specific facts matter. Understands that if something works, it works, and that’s what matters for a specific patient. And that it might work for others.
• Understands that harm comes in many forms, can be short or long term, and can by physical and psychological. And that no doctor and noone could ever anticipate what can happen in a highly complex biological system.
• Understands that mind and body are inseparable.
• Maintains a high-level of skepticism of pharmacological treatments vs lifestyle changes.
• Engages in critical thinking. Sadly, many doctors I’ve met are memorization drones and that’s as far as it goes. Wisdom and insight benefit from a wide base of knowledge across many fields (rare!), but do not stem from it.
• Strives for risk assessment in every individual case. And not by a formulaic standard of care guideline.
• Is always looking for a better way to treat patients, to cure the issue and not just mask it.
• Does not work for an institution.

A “good” doctor today must lack most of the above qualities or at least hide them.

The nail that stands up gets hammered down by the employer and the state medical board and the insurance companies and his/her peers. Being a doctor today is surely one of the most difficult professions imaginable.

Sebastian Rushworth MD: “Is saturated fat unhealthy?”

re: ethics in medicine
re: Recommended Books for Health and Wellness
re: cholesterol, statins, atherosclerosis
re: BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis”
re: What is a “Rogue Doctor”?

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Lies and deceit run around the world overnight, while the truth is still looking for its shoes. Then the lies kick the truth in the head each lap.

Sebastian Rushworth MD: “Is saturated fat unhealthy?”

2021-11-27

In a sense, I can’t believe I’m writing this article. From a scientific perspective, this issue has been firmly settled. The answer is very clearly “NO!”. And yet, if I google “is saturated fat unhealthy?”, then seven of the top nine results proclaim with great certainty that “yes, it is”.

...And here’s what the US government tells its citizens: “Eating too many foods high in saturated fats can be bad for your health. By replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats, you may lower your risk of getting heart disease.”

To be fair, the US government doesn’t sound quite as confident as the UK health authorities. There’s a lot of “can” and “may” in that sentence. Which is actually a bit funny, when you consider that it was the US government that got the whole world to cut down on saturated fats in the first place.

Interestingly, none of the self-appointed fact checking organizations that have sprung up in recent years has yet tried to pull the NHS or the US government off the internet for spreading misinformation.

The claim that saturated fat is unhealthy originated with physiologist Ancel Keys in the mid-part of the twentieth century. He initially believed that cholesterol in the diet was what caused heart disease. Unfortunately, he soon noticed that feeding people cholesterol had no effect whatsoever on the cholesterol levels in their blood streams. So he was forced to abandon that line of thinking. On doing some further research, he noticed that increasing the proportion of saturated fat in the diet did however appear to increase cholesterol somewhat.

This led him to develop the diet-heart hypothesis, which basically says the following: Saturated fat in the diet leads to increased cholesterol levels in the blood stream, which causes heart disease. So it’s a two part hypothesis. As I’ve already discussed before on this blog, the second part of the hypothesis has been disproven – cholesterol in the blood stream does not cause heart disease.

...

The authors of the meta-analysis identified 21 prospective cohort studies, with a total of almost 400,000 participants. That’s a big data set. The studies followed participants for between five and 23 years. So, what did they find? The difference in risk of cardiovascular disease... was exactly zero...

...Let’s move on and look at what the randomized controlled trials show. A Cochrane review was published in 2020 that looked at the ability of a diet low in saturated fat to prevent heart disease and death... In the low saturated fat group, 6.4% of participants died, while in the high saturated fat group, 6.2% of participants died. So 0.2% more people died in the low saturated fat group than in the high saturated fat group. As you would expect for such a small difference, it isn’t statistically significant.

...

So it’s not possible to conclude that a diet high in saturated fat increases overall mortality. What about if we look specifically at heart attacks? ...So the people in the high saturated fat group actually experienced fewer heart attacks than the people in the low saturated fat group. Again, after statistical weighting, it appears that there should have been slightly fewer heart attacks in the group with the low saturated fat diet (rougly 0.3% less). Just as before, however, the difference isn’t statistically significant.

To conclude, the sum of all the observational and randomized trial evidence now available to us does not allow us to conclude that there is any increased risk of cardiovascular disease or death with increased intake of saturated fat. Considering that the data sets that these conclusions are based on are massive, we can be certain that even if there were a benefit, it would be so tiny as to not be worth bothering with. It is therefore shocking that public health agencies still tell their populations to cut down on saturated fats, instead of focusing on the things that have actually been shown to make a difference.

WIND: no shock here: following the science runs head-on into follow the money.

In the last 20 years, the (lame at best) case for the diet-cholesterol hypothesis has disintegrated, but dogma takes decades to fade away, requiring a generation or two of atherosclerotic intellects to literally die away. And no matter the field, cognitive committments and confirmation bias always has a long drawn-out demise, if ever. Fifty years from now, expect holdouts—which is good—science needs competing viewpoints.

The cholesterol hypothesis fraud of Ancel Keys is the orginal and best-designed medical fraud in history. Tens of millions remain on the slow-drip poison we call statins while consuming a shopping cart full of sugar a year. “Follow the money”* has neve been more apt than today’s utterly corrupt “healthcare” industry.

US Government Issues New Nutritional Guidelines Pandering to BigAg and BigFood — “Gimme the Sugar”

For your own amusement, ask your doctor about saturated fat and what is a “good diet”. But run for your life from any doctor who is certain that it is unhealthy (reasonable doubt may be tolerable), or who quotes you the food pyramid or BMI. Women should be especially wary of doctors who prescribe them a statin; these maintream doctors are quack doctors, as statins have no benefit for women as a group, and all sorts of harms.

Modern medical “care” is mostly about medicalizing if not infantalizing the populace with a wide array of “bandaids” that never cure anything or improve baseline health, but paper-over problems so that more and worse problems result, which then accelerate the decline of health. All while ignoring real factors that are absolutely deadly for health, indeed, being wholly ignorant of them. I’m stunned at the sheer ignorance of the doctors I’ve had.

“Standard of care” is a brilliant and almost unstoppable psychological match to patient hopes and expectations (and laziness), and it fits like a glove with follow the money. Trust your doctor to follow the standard of care (paint by numbers medicine), with rare exceptions. I applaud the holdout doctors with the courage to remain in independent practice and think for themselves.

Recommended Books for Health and Wellness

BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis”

* From “follow the money” spring the lesser offspring of follow the power/status/quasi-religious beliefs. It ultimately comes down to money, but often manifests as authority/power/status/etc.