Recommended Book: “Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care”, by Dr Marty Makary MD

Don’t you want to know about Dr. HODAD?

Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care, by Dr Marty Makary MD @AMAZON

This is stuff you MUST be aware of should you seek care in any hospital or medical facility.

It might save your life, or your quality of life, and your mental health, at the least. And your finances too, in a variety of ways.

Intravenous Vitamin C: “COVID patient with sepsis makes 'remarkable' recovery following megadose of vitamin C”

Five months ago back in June, I posited that Vitamin C might be able to cure COVID. But what MD will listen to an untrained person like me who can’t possibly know anything about it, let alone try something for which social pressures make unacceptable as “unproven”. Which it is not—ignorance of history and science is the problem.

Vitamin C: a cure for lethal viral infections including Poliomyelitis, and could it cure COVID-19? The Groundbreaking Work of Doctor F.R. Klenner and How It was Ignored

Your Doctor is NOT Responsible for Your Health—YOU Are! Recommended Reading to Open Your Mind and Ask the Right Questions, Because Your Life Depends On It

COVID patient with sepsis makes 'remarkable' recovery following megadose of vitamin C

Oct 26, 2020

A young Australian man who was critically ill with COVID-19 and suffering early stages of sepsismade a remarkable recovery after being given massive doses of vitamin C, according to his doctors.

...Professor Bellomo knew researchers at the Florey Institute had some promising experimental findings using megadose vitamin C to treat sepsis.

The man was given an initial dose of 30 grams of sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) over 30 minutes, then a maintenance dose of 30 grams over six and a half hours.

...The Florey Institute's Professor Clive May had collaborated with Professor Bellomo for many years, keeping him up to date with the promising results they were seeing in the lab with the sepsis treatment.

"He didn't believe us. He said 'this can't be true'," Professor May said.

Colleague Dr Yugeesh Lankadeva sent the intensive care doctor videos of what was happening in the lab.

"Professor Bellomo literally rocked up at the laboratory door the next day … because he was just like, 'I need to see this for my own eyes'," he said.

"When he came and when they saw it, they were all very amazed at how quickly the disease just reversed by doing this treatment."

..."If the treatment works as well in patients as it does in our animal studies, I think it's going to totally revolutionise the treatment of septic patients in intensive care units all over the world," Professor May said.

...

The feckless ignorance of the modern medical establishment (as a whole) is on display here: 30,000 IU of Vitamin C is not a “massive dose”, as the work of F.R Klenner in curing polio and other viral diseases proved long ago. Dr Klenner used doses of that magnitude (and less, and more), along with specific protocols the medical establishment has chosen to IGNORE for 80 years. And he occassionally used dose 15X higher than that in severe cases.

The doctors in this article were shocked because of BLINDERS-ON TRAINING: they are trained to implement standardized medical procedures that overwhelmingly favor Big Pharma drugs as the the one hammer for almost all nails; if it ain’t in the medical textbooks, it doesn’t exist and can’t work.

What the modern medical establishment has done is to turn a blind eye to good science for 80 years. in this case. But it is not just Vitamin C—there exists a fearsome legacy of intellectual corruption has damaged so many for so long, e.g., the continuing low-fat diet mania and statins come to mind as some of the worst hoaxes ever foisted on the public.

I’m so glad that finally there is some new attention coming to something that no Big Pharma company will profit from. Which might mean it just goes away again for another 80 years.

Long Haul COVID-19: “JAMA: Coronavirus Disease 2019 and the Athletic Heart Emerging Perspectives on Pathology, Risks, and Return to Play”

See long-haul COVID-19.

This applies directly to me and other highly active people. I’ve monitored my heart rate during exercise for 20 years, including the past 7 months. While I’ve been unable to excercise for many days in the past 7 months, those times I have done so, I have seen normal heart rate for the same power output—no deviation. Other than the +15 bpm or so increase from detraining, but that is a yearly cycle, and also normal. But none of that means I am necessarily free from cardiac sequelae.

A cardiologist tells me the following about how to check for cardiac issues post-COVID, but it’s complicated for an athlete like me:

1.  Adequate history and physical exam (good lick with that)
2. Resting ECG (not critical and non-specific, but may helpful in suggesting underlying cardiac dysfunction if changes from prior ECGs.
3.  Echocardiogram to look for evidence or abnormal cardiac chamber enlargement, abnormal wall motion, systolic (contraction) or diastolic (relaxation) function. One issue here for you as an aerobic master athlete, you could have enlarged cardiac chambers and increased wall thickness, so-called “athlete’s heart”. Those changes usually resolve after 3-6 months of cessation of training. With you having been ill for several months, you wouldn’t know if enlargement (if present) was due to training or intrinsic dysfunction. 
4.  Occasionally additional information may be obtained with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR). The basic thing sought with this modality is evidence of scarring in the heart muscle. 

Below, the article is a good start, but only a very basic start—it does not address other critical factors, like overwhelming Epstein Barr Virus infections following COVID, or in my case, the development of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (an auto-immune disease and AI diseases are increasing being seen as part of long-haul COVID) along with what I deem “vagal nerve disfunction”.

JAMA: Coronavirus Disease 2019 and the Athletic Heart Emerging Perspectives on Pathology, Risks, and Return to Play

Oct 26, 2020

Importance  Cardiac injury with attendant negative prognostic implications is common among patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Whether cardiac injury, including myocarditis, also occurs with asymptomatic or mild-severity COVID-19 infection is uncertain. There is an ongoing concern about COVID-19–associated cardiac pathology among athletes because myocarditis is an important cause of sudden cardiac death during exercise.

Observations  Prior to relaxation of stay-at-home orders in the US, the American College of Cardiology’s Sports and Exercise Cardiology Section endorsed empirical consensus recommendations advising a conservative return-to-play approach, including cardiac risk stratification, for athletes in competitive sports who have recovered from COVID-19. Emerging observational data coupled with widely publicized reports of athletes in competitive sports with reported COVID-19–associated cardiac pathology suggest that myocardial injury may occur in cases of COVID-19 that are asymptomatic and of mild severity. In the absence of definitive data, there is ongoing uncertainty about the optimal approach to cardiovascular risk stratification of athletes in competitive sports following COVID-19 infection.

...Multicenter registry data documenting cardiovascular outcomes among athletes in competitive sports who have recovered from COVID-19 are currently being collected to determine the prevalence, severity, and clinical relevance of COVID-19–associated cardiac pathology and efficacy of targeted cardiovascular risk stratification...

...Reports of presumptive myocarditis among several athletes with high profiles have magnified concerns about COVID-19 CV sequelae in athletes.6,7 Our combined experience suggests that most athletes with COVID-19 are asymptomatic to mildly ill, and to date, RTP risk stratification has yielded few cases of relevant cardiac pathology. However, we underscore that these observations may not reflect the true prevalence and attendant prognosis of COVID-19 CV involvement in athletes.

If you are a serious athlete, adaptations in your heart muscle make diagnosing heart issues much more challenging:

At present, there is no widely accepted definition of what constitutes clinically relevant myocardial injury secondary to COVID-19 infection among athletes in competitive sports...

Similarly, benign consequences of longer-term exercise training, including mild reductions in left ventricular ejection fraction21 and nonischemic myocardial fibrosis, may further complicate the diagnosis of cardiac injury secondary to COVID-19...

...normal hs-cTn reference ranges for athletes, stratified by age and sex, do not exist, which can lead to clinical dilemmas in interpreting borderline or mildly elevated values...

Lack of reference data makes it difficult to know if the prevalance of post-COVID myocardial inflammation in athletes:

... more recent observational data set included only young athletes in competitive sports. In this single-center, cross-sectional case series of athletes in US collegiate sports who were asymptomatic or mildly ill (N = 26) with normal electrocardiogram (ECG) results, hs-cTn levels, and echocardiography results, the authors reported a 15% prevalence (all men; 2 with no symptoms) of CMR findings meeting criteria for myocardial inflammation27 and 46% prevalence of mild LGE without evidence of active inflammation.9 However, the absence of an appropriate control population, normative CMR data among young athletes, and details pertaining to study methods render the clinical implementation of these findings uncertain.

...Myocarditis preceded by a viral infection30,31 is a common causative mechanism of sudden cardiac death in athletes32 and military personnel33 and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of athletes with persistent symptoms and prior COVID-19 infection. Symptoms including chest pain, exercise intolerance, ventricular arrhythmias, and abnormal findings on basic testing...

Whether All Athletes With Positive Test Results for COVID-19 Need CMR Imaging

At present, there are insufficient data to support CMR-based screening of all athletes with suspected or confirmed prior COVID-19 infection...

The Appropriate RTP Approach for Masters-Level Athletes With COVID-19

Aging athletes harbor traditional CV risk factors and established forms of disease, and athletes at the masters level constitute most patients seen in sports cardiology clinics. At present, CV sequelae and outcomes among athletes in masters-level endurance sports with prior COVID-19 infection remain unknown. Taking into account the logistics required for widespread CV screening of athletes at the masters level, coupled with the anticipated low risk of clinically significant cardiac injury in the context of mild infection, routine RTP CV assessment in this population is not recommended. However, masters athletes older than 65 years, particularly those with preexisting CV conditions (eg, hypertension, coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation, diabetes) and those with persistent symptoms may benefit from risk stratification. Similarly, those with moderate to severe prior COVID-19 infection should be evaluated by a cardiologist for consideration of RTP risk stratification. An approach to individualized RTP risk stratification for athletes at the masters level is presented in Figure 2.

My symptoms lasted about 20 days initially, and here I am 7 months later with months of trouble. But it seems that I haven’t died yet, and testing is complicated and dubious at best due to many unknown. I *did* use a “gradually escalating” resumption of training, but it took me down so hard in mid-June (about 6 weeks after the initial 20 day phase), I could hardly walk for a week.

... In athletes infected with COVID-19 with mild symptoms that completely resolve during 10 days of self-isolation after a positive test result or symptom onset, RTP CV risk stratification appears to be low yield. Accordingly, we do not advocate CV RTP risk stratification among athletes in competitive sports with mild, self-limited disease. However, CV testing should be considered on an individualized basis for athletes with protracted symptoms (≥10 days). Among all athletes with COVID-19, regardless of symptom severity, a gradually escalating approach to training is recommended. The optimal duration of this process remains to be defined and will likely vary. Severity and duration of infection coupled with baseline fitness levels and short-term athletic goals may be used to develop individualized plans. If symptoms develop, comprehensive CV evaluation, as recommended following moderate or severe COVID-19 infection, is recommended.

Long-Haul COVID aka Chronic Viral Sequelae— the Single Thing that Works Best for (slow) Recovery

See long-haul COVID-19.

This note for anyone suffering from long-haul COVID-19, which is a confusing term, because COVID-19 as a viral infection is long gone. A better term would be something like chronic COVID-induced fatigue (CCIF), or, since it is my view that viruses in general can induce chronic fatigues, chronic viral sequelae (CVS).

It’s more than just fatigue, for example, 5 months of gastrointestinal issues including very loose stools and reactions to foods for no apparent reason. Along with various other issues, which can very by person.

It is my hypothesis that CVS is actually a vagus nerve nerve issue, possibly involving the brain stem and brain itself. This would explain all sorts of strange apparently unrelated symptoms. This hypothesis is not about saying that other body areas are without additional issues, but that numerous physiological systems throughout the body cannot restore themselves to homeostasis because the “boss” (vagus nerve and brain) are all out of kilter.

Key factor — sleep half the day, keep regular hours.

What I am finding is that best days come when I stick to a 12-hour sleep regimen. That’s frustrating as hell to sleep that long (leaves a pretty short day), but it always seems to help.

• Go to bed at 8 PM, using melatonin if need be (often, nothing is needed). The hours could vary but I'd suggest syncing it to the solar cycle as well as can be done. Block ALL light and ALL sound to the extent feasible.
• I find that I almost always awake about 5 hours later eg at 1 AM. To return to sleep is sometimes possible, so I give it half an hour. If that does not work, I have lain awake until 4 AM. I gave up on that an force myself to sleep with a sleep aid, but I caution anyone to use a minimal dos.
• Wake up around 8 AM, but if still feeling like needing rest, let 'er run till 10 AM or whatever. After a particularly nasty “wipe out” one day, I slept from 5 PM to 9 AM (16 hours), nearly unbroken.

Such is the life of a CVS patient.

Nutritional support

Nutrition IMO will NOT cure the issue, but is ESSENTIAL for provding the physiological basis for recovery. A complex ecosystem like the body cannot repair itself and fight off infections.

• Eliminate all added sugar (fruit is OK).
• Eliminate grains, or at least wheat. Do NOT eat wheat!!!!
• No alchohol, no smoking.
• Eliminate factory-farmed meats (e.g., grass-fed meat, eggs, yogurt).

Further reading:

• Boost Mitochondrial Function with CoQ10, Acetyl L-Carnite, Magnesium
• Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients: Best Sources for Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C
• nutrient deficiency

Believe it or not, the vast majority of doctors do not have a clue for improving health—only symptom suppression or mechannical fixes that may do more harm than good. Nearly all doctors see the body as a single-variable test tube, and have had nil training in nutrition. Doctors actively damage people by failing to understand even basis physiological requirements., harming (literally) the bulk of the world’s population in deadly ways.

Even neurologists are generally clueless about the mind-body NON-dichotomy, most having long ago made cognitive commitments involving the archaic and thoroughly disproven idea of the brain being non-plastic, the body and brain and gut being just parts having no particularly ineresting relationship, rather than a complex interconnected and indivisible ecosystem in whichi everything matters to everything else.

General Symptoms (some come and go, some have evolved away as new ones arise)

I am not alone—sharing these things with an MD acquaintance also suffering from it, we share many of the same issues. Like me, his EBV was a post-COVID nuke to his system.

I have had six months of many symptoms:

• Exercise intolerance — initial recovery was OK, but each time I went to normal baseline, I get whacked really hard for days or a week. I am weaker now than 5 months ago. A one-mile walk is sometimes too much, two miles is a strain unless it’s a strong day—and I pay dearly for it (for days) if I misgauge.
• Highly disrupted sleep — needing to sleep, unable to sleep. Sometimes a need for two naps per day up to two hours each.
• Extreme fatigue — needing to sleep 14 hours a day or more.
• Entire body aches (especially the back, very bad recently), joint aches (mostly resolved).
• Motivation — wanting to just sit and do nothing
• Attentional issues — concentration.
• Unexplained shortness of breath (no environmental causes). Fortunately, magnesium deals with it longer and better than any prescription inhaler.
• Gastrointestinal issues — diarrhea and loose stools for months, then resolving but being intolerant of some foods.
• Total loss of appetite, apathy towards any food for up to 30 hours (twice recently).
• Evolving symptoms that keep me guessing.
• Cyclical effects that keep me guessing.

Long-Haul COVID: WSJ — the Single Thing that Works Best for (slow) Recovery

See long-haul COVID-19.

This note for anyone suffering from long-haul COVID-19, which is a confusing term, because COVID-19 as a viral infection is long gone. A better term would be something like chronic COVID-induced fatigue (CCIF), or, since it is my view that viruses in general can induce chronic fatigues, chronic viral sequelae (CVS).

It’s more than just fatigue, for example, 5 months of gastrointestinal issues including very loose stools and reactions to foods for no apparent reason. Along with various other issues, which can very by person.

It is my hypothesis that CVS is actually a vagus nerve nerve issue, possibly involving the brain stem and brain itself. This would explain all sorts of strange apparently unrelated symptoms. This hypothesis is not about saying that other body areas are without additional issues, but that numerous physiological systems throughout the body cannot restore themselves to homeostasis because the “boss” (vagus nerve and brain) are all out of kilter.

...

Symptoms (some come and go, some have evolved away as new ones arise)

I am not alone—sharing these things with an MD acquaintance also suffering from it, we share many of the same issues. Like me, his EBV was a post-COVID nuke to his system.

I have had six months of many symptoms:

• Exercise intolerance — initial recovery was OK, but each time I went to normal baseline, I get whacked really hard for days or a week. I am weaker now than 5 months ago. A one-mile walk is sometimes too much, two miles is a strain unless it’s a strong day—and I pay dearly for it (for days) if I misgauge.
• Highly disrupted sleep — needing to sleep, unable to sleep. Sometimes a need for two naps per day up to two hours each.
• Extreme fatigue — needing to sleep 14 hours a day or more.
• Entire body aches (especially the back, very bad recently), joint aches (mostly resolved).
• Motivation — wanting to just sit and do nothing
• Attentional issues — concentration.
• Unexplained shortness of breath (no environmental causes). Fortunately, magnesium deals with it longer and better than any prescription inhaler.
• Gastrointestinal issues — diarrhea and loose stools for months, then resolving but being intolerant of some foods.
• Total loss of appetite, apathy towards any food for up to 30 hours (twice recently).
• Evolving symptoms that keep me guessing.
• Cyclical effects that keep me guessing.

Long-Haul COVID: WSJ — Doctors Begin to Crack Covid’s Mysterious Long-Term Effects

WSJ — Doctors Begin to Crack Covid’s Mysterious Long-Term Effects

Sept 3 2020

Nearrly a year into the global coronavirus pandemic, scientists, doctors and patients are beginning to unlock a puzzling phenomenon: For many patients, including young ones who never required hospitalization, Covid-19 has a devastating second act.

Many are dealing with symptoms weeks or months after they were expected to recover, often with puzzling new complications that can affect the entire body—severe fatigue, cognitive issues and memory lapses, digestive problems, erratic heart rates, headaches, dizziness, fluctuating blood pressure, even hair loss.

What is surprising to doctors is that many such cases involve people whose original cases weren’t the most serious, undermining the assumption that patients with mild Covid-19 recover within two weeks. Doctors call the condition “post-acute Covid” or “chronic Covid,” and sufferers often refer to themselves as “long haulers” or “long-Covid” patients.

“Usually, the patients with bad disease are most likely to have persistent symptoms, but Covid doesn’t work like that,” said Trisha Greenhalgh, professor of primary care at the University of Oxford and the lead author of an August BMJ study that was among the first to define chronic Covid patients as those with symptoms lasting more than 12 weeks and spanning multiple organ systems. 

For many such patients, she said, “the disease itself is not that bad,” but symptoms like memory lapses and rapid heart rate sometimes persist for months.

...

Another possibility is that the virus causes some people’s immune systems to attack and damage their own organs and tissues, researchers said. A June study found roughly half of 29 hospitalized ICU patients with Covid-19 had one or more types of autoantibodies—antibodies that mistakenly target and attack a patient’s own tissues or organs.

Doctors say some patients appear to be developing dysautonomia, or dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that regulates involuntary functions like breathing, digestion and heart rate, some researchers and doctors said.

David Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, said the majority of the more than 300 long-Covid patients being seen at its Center for Post-Covid Care appear to have developed a dysautonomia-like condition. About 90% of such patients report having symptoms of exercise intolerance, fatigue and elevated heartbeats. About 40% to 50% also report symptoms such as gastrointestinal issues, headaches and shortness of breath.

...

WIND: worth a read, if you are a sufferer of long-haul COVID, like me.

I am not alone—sharing these things with an MD acquaintance also suffering from it, we share many of the same issues. Like me, his EBV was a post-COVID nuke to his system.

I have had six months of many symptoms:

• Exercise intolerance — initial recovery was OK, but each time I went to normal baseline, I get whacked really hard for days or a week. I am weaker now than 5 months ago. A one-mile walk is sometimes too much, two miles is a strain unless it’s a strong day—and I pay dearly for it (for days) if I misguage.
• Highly distrupted sleep — needing to sleep, unable to sleep. Sometimes a need for two naps per day up to two hours each.
• Extreme fatigue — needing to sleep 14 hours a day or more.
• Entire body aches (especially the back, vey bad recently), joint aches (mostly resolved).
• Motivation — wanting to just sit and do nothing
• Attentional issues — concentration.
• Unexplained shortness of breath (no environmental causes). Fortunately, magnesium deals with it longer and better than any prescription inhaler.
• Gastrointestinal issues — diarrhea and loose stools for months, then resolving but being intolerant of some foods.
• Total loss of appetite, apathy towards any food for up to 30 hours (twice recently).
• Evolving synmptoms that keep me guessing.
• Cyclical effects that keep me guessing.

COVID-19, NIH: “Citizen Scientists Take on the Challenge of Long-Haul COVID-19”

MORE: long-haul COVID

I had my COVID-19 IgG antibody test about 4.5 months after my 2.5 week April health episode. My working theory has been that my ongoing EBV/Hashimoto’s problem might have been triggered by CV19.

But at this point I am still operating at half my normal energy level (on good days) and wiped out for a few days after a workout if I do not stay within my “energy envelope” (on the rare days I can push a little). That is, dare to ride beyond 90% of my baseline output for just an hour (e.g. below my 10-15 hour pace for double centuries). My Bicycle power meter tells the objective truth: I used to ride at ~195 to 230 watts every day of the week all year. Now I am lucky to hit 170 watts twice a week (but see this update below, where walking 100 yards was infeasible).

Update Oct 31: I had a few low energy but otherwise good days, but Oct 29 got hit with a whole body ache and weakness so severe that I was bedridden all day followed by sleeping from 5 PM to 9 AM straight (16 hours). Some energy returned October 30 and 31 in the sense of 5-6 hours of being able to function at a low level with no exertion. Associated symptoms duing the acute phase include ache over entire body but particularly the back, mild headache, extreme fatigue, loss of appetite (~400 calories in 30 hours yet not hungry). Paradoxically, last night could not sleep until 3 AM and then only with stronger sleep aid (melatonin was ineffective) and yet felt as good upon awaking at 11 AM as previous day.

In other words, I am a “long haul COVID-19” patient. Strikingly, this issue seems to whack a population with nil diabetes and obesity—athletes and those in good physical condition prior.

I can check off most of the symptoms below, for example, shortness of breath (magnesium deals with it well, when it flares), gastrointestinal issues (ah the joy of a solid turd after 5 months, finally), intolerance to physical or mental activity (slowly improving), dull aching hands and feet that keep me awake for hours some nights, arthritic-like pain in two joints of my right hand, fatigue, difficulty concentrating. These symptoms come and go and are slowly improving and some days are not there. But they cycle back regularly and are definitely not gone.

Add in Epstein Barr Virus apparently precipitating Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis as complicating factors which I cannot distinguish nor is there any basis to do so.

My working theories are that some viruses and especially COVID-19 (1) damage mitochondrial energy production, and (2) toggle various genetic and epigenetic switches, which mess up all sorts of physiological systems.

Citizen Scientists Take on the Challenge of Long-Haul COVID-19

Sept 3 2020

Coronaviruses are a frequent cause of the common cold. Most of us bounce back from colds without any lasting health effects. So, you might think that individuals who survive other infectious diseases caused by coronaviruses—including COVID-19—would also return to normal relatively quickly. While that can be the case for some people, others who’ve survived even relatively mild COVID-19 are experiencing health challenges that may last for weeks or even months. In fact, the situation is so common, that some of these folks have banded together and given their condition a name: the COVID “long-haulers”.

Among the many longer-term health problems that have been associated with COVID-19 are shortness of breath, fatigue, cognitive issues, erratic heartbeat, gastrointestinal issues, low-grade fever, intolerance to physical or mental activity, and muscle and joint pains. COVID-19 survivors report that these symptoms flair up unpredictably, often in different combinations, and can be debilitating for days and weeks at a time. Because COVID-19 is such a new disease, little is known about what causes the persistence of symptoms, what is impeding full recovery, or how to help the long-haulers.

[WIND: yes, yes, yes, yes!!!— this is what it is like — no way to know if the day (or night) will be a total clusterfuck. And don't expect allopathic medical doctors to know a damn thing about how to help]

More information is now emerging from the first detailed patient survey of post-COVID syndrome, also known as Long COVID [1]. What’s unique about the survey is that it has been issued by a group of individuals who are struggling with the syndrome themselves. These citizen scientists, who belong to the online Body Politic COVID-19 Support Group  , decided to take matters into their own hands. They already had a pretty good grip on what sort of questions to ask, as well as online access to hundreds of long-haulers to whom they could pose the questions.

...

Most long-haulers in the online group had gotten sick in March and April, but weren’t so sick that they needed to be hospitalized. Because COVID-19 testing during those months was often limited to people hospitalized with severe respiratory problems, many long-haulers with mild or moderate COVID-like symptoms weren’t tested. Others were tested relatively late in the course of their illness, which can increase the likelihood of false negatives.  [WIND: that’s me (mid April) and tested 4.5 months after]

...

And the findings so far. Striking to me is the high physical fitness (as a group) of the survey participants, and the term “cyclical”, which is a word I’ve used repeatedly to describe my symptoms.

Report: What Does COVID-19 Recovery Actually Look Like?

..despite most respondents experiencing COVID-19 symptoms for weeks, the majority tested negative once they were able to get a test. Since the respondents who tested positive were tested earlier on in their illness on average than the people who tested negative, this could reinforce the importance of testing symptomatic people early...

The majority of the participants reported being moderately to very physically active (68%) before the onset of symptoms. After the onset of symptoms, a majority of respondents reported being sedentary or mostly sedentary (70.6%).
[WIND: my activity level dropped off 90%]

...

Other common responses describing the nature of symptoms participants included under the “Other” option are summarized as following:

• Symptoms came back or intensified with physical activity
• Slow progression of symptoms
• Most symptoms have subsided but a few symptoms remain (most noted were fatigue and shortness of breath especially with exertion; others mentioned cough, skin rash, and elevated temperatures)
• General improving trajectory 
• Intensity of symptoms decreased but psychological burden increased
• Most severe symptoms were during weeks 2-3
• Very slow recovery with return of certain symptoms in a cyclical nature
• Symptoms got better and then worse again
• Some symptoms were consistent the whole time
• Symptoms would disappear for a few days then come back

...

Classic medical training leaves most doctors wandering about like blind mole rats:

Below are descriptive responses pulled from the survey on respondents sharing the experiences they had with physicians and medical staff:

“They are confused and reluctant to say, recommend, advocate or prescribe anything. They are totally at a loss.“ 

“I felt the medical team was dismissive. There were a lot of ‘we don’t know.’ Which is understandable, but difficult. One provider suggested that my shortness of breath was due to anxiety. As a person who does high intensity exercising 3x a week to a person who now gets short of breath changing her bedsheets, I found that dismissive.”  

“My doctor was available via messaging, telephone, and telemedicine. She also contracted COVID-19 so she shared her experience with recovery and it helped me stay calm that I was on the right track.” 

Relevant to this point, below are descriptive responses pulled from the survey on respondents sharing thoughts on the medical community focus:

“At this point, most physicians and researchers are so overwhelmed treating the covid19 patients who are at risk of immediate death, that they don’t have the ability to even recognize that people like me exist. Hopefully, with enough documentation, once the number of hospitalized patients decline, doctors will be able to concentrate on those of us who have persistent symptoms.”

“I don’t think the medical community is able to digest all of the information because they are busy treating patients. I believe people who experienced this offer the best answers at this juncture.”

Fatigue and Low Energy? Chronic Fatigue? Long-Haul COVID? Mitochondria Energy Production Might be the Core Issue — Boost Mitochondrial Function with CoQ10, Acetyl L-Carnite, Magnesium

Most of the population is already deficient or highly deficient in key things, like magnesium, Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, etc. See Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients: Best Sources for Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C.

Riding double centuries at highly competitive pacing for 10-15 hours, I can fairly say that my mitochondrial energy production is (or was) truly exceptional. Yet my April 2020 infection has devastated my energy even here six months later in October.

Whatever that infection was (seemingly COVID-19), it apparently flipped genetic/epigenetic switches to let Epstein Barr Virus wreak havoc, which in turn might be responsible for developing the auto-immune disease Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I learned today that many fit people (nil incidence of diabetes or obesity) have lingering effects from COVID. Go figure.

My working hypothesis is that mitochondrial energy production is the core issue.

Accordingly, I have been using supplements that are critical to mitochondrial energy production. Magnesium is key of course, but so too ar CoEnzyme Q10 and Acetyl L-Carnitine, both heavily involved in energy production (directly or as precursors to key molecules). CoQ 10 is particularly important for the heart.

Here then are several high-quality brands to try. I don’t have a strong answer on which is best but I know other stuff which is definitely inferior.

Please bookmark this page and order from here each time—as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Co-Enzyme Q10

Skip ubiquinone—poor bioavailability and neither my daughter nor I could see any benefits. You’ll have to pay up for high quality Ubiqnonol @AMAZON. Look for brands that avoid soy and other unwanted ingredients.

Here are four good choices:

Life Extension COQ10 Super Ubiquinol @AMAZON

Nordic Naturals - Nordic CoQ10 Ubiquinol @AMAZON

Healthwise Naturals Ultimate CoQ10 UBIQUINOL @AMAZON

Doctor's Best Ubiquinol with Kaneka QH @AMAZON

Acetyl L-Carnitine

I have little experience here, but there appear to be several good brands of Acetyl L-Carnitine @AMAZON:

NOW Supplements, Acetyl-L Carnitine @AMAZON

D-Ribose

D-Ribose @AMAZON is involved in creating important precursors.

Solgar D-Ribose Powder @AMAZON

COVID-19, WSJ: “Covid-19 Outbreaks Led to Dangerous Delay in Cancer Diagnoses”

I had my COVID-19 IgG antibody test about 4.5 months after my 2.5 week April health episode. My working theory has been that my ongoing EBV/Hashimoto’s problem might have been triggered by CV19. The findings below cast doubt on that theory. However, a single small study is never something to rely on, and the work doesn’t go beyond 4 months.

If “protection against reinfection” is not immunity, then I don’t know what it is. Maybe someone fact-check the fact-checkers at Twitter and their ilk.

Covid-19 Outbreaks Led to Dangerous Delay in Cancer Diagnoses

A decline in mammograms and other screening procedures after the coronavirus pandemic struck is leading to missed and delayed cancer diagnoses, according to data from insurance claims, lab orders, Medicare billings and oncology-practice records, an emerging pattern that is alarming oncologists.

Hundreds of thousands of cancer screenings were deferred after worries about Covid-19 shut down much of the U.S. health-care system starting this spring. Because many cancers can advance rapidly, months without detection could mean fewer treatment options and worse outcomes, including more deaths. 

“There’s really almost no way that doesn’t turn into increased mortality,” with the full effects likely to play out over a decade, said Norman E. “Ned” Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute. Missed screenings and other pandemic-related impacts on care could result in about 10,000 additional deaths from breast and colon cancer alone over the next 10 years, the NCI projected earlier this year. Dr. Sharpless said the estimate now appears low.

...

WIND: tip of the iceberg. Even setting aside deaths from dozens of killing diseases and conditions whose treatment has been impacted, the death toll from the economic carpet bombing of the world will kill far more people. That a plunging economy kills people is a hard fact borne out from many decades of actuarial tables, for the #Artists reading this.

Setting aside the destruction of hopes, dreams, savings, plans (a massive impact on its own), the policies around COVID-19 are killing people, and will kill many more people (and worldwide), and those responsible will never be held to account—because two or ten years from now, even when the awful toll is understood, those responsible will surely rationalize away their sociopathic behavior, like the grotesquely anti-science anti-rational anti-life 105 Stanford doctors that are unwilling or unable to think in risk assessment terms, but feel that engaging in character assassination is a positive act.

Death Toll From Covid-19 Pandemic Extends Far Beyond Virus Victims

Researchers are finding growing evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic’s deadly reach is stretching far beyond people who died from coronavirus infections.

From Alzheimer’s disease deaths to fatal heart attacks, federal data show deaths in 2020 have exceeded those of previous years in numerous categories. Doctors and health researchers say the fatalities reflect the ways the pandemic has amplified stress and financial strain while causing many people to avoid hospitals for fear of infections.

“For a long period of time there was a pretty dramatic drop-off in ER visits, elective-surgery screenings, things that Americans do all the time to keep themselves healthy,” said Tom Inglesby, who directs the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University.

The effects are piling up. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tracked thousands of deaths this year beyond expected levels for conditions that also include hypertension, strokes and diabetes. Physicians say the surge was especially notable in the spring, when the pandemic hit New York and other parts of the Northeast hard.

...

COVID-19, Harvard Gazette: “Protection against reinfection: COVID patients may be protected for up to four months”

2012-08-31: SARS-COV-2 IGG QUAL Neg
A negative test result means that SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies were not detected in the specimen above the limit of detection... This test was performed using Diasorin Liaison XL methodology which is designed to detect IgG antibodies to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 lab tests are currently reviewed by the FDA under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).

I had my COVID-19 IgG antibody test about 4.5 months after my 2.5 week April health episode. My working theory has been that my ongoing EBV/Hashimoto’s problem might have been triggered by CV19. The findings below cast doubt on that theory. However, a single small study is never something to rely on, and the work doesn’t go beyond 4 months.

If “protection against reinfection” is not immunity, then I don’t know what it is. Maybe someone fact-check the fact-checkers at Twitter and their ilk.

Protection against reinfection: COVID patients may be protected for up to four months

People who survive serious COVID-19 infections have long-lasting immune responses against the virus, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

The study, published in Science Immunology, offers hope that people infected with the virus will develop lasting protection against reinfection. The study also demonstrates that measuring antibodies can be an accurate tool for tracking the spread of the virus in the community.

...The researchers found that levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin G (IgG) remained elevated in infected patients for four months and were associated with the presence of protective neutralizing antibodies, which also demonstrated little decrease in activity over time.

“That means that people are very likely protected for that period of time,” said Charles. “We showed that key antibody responses to COVID-19 do persist.”

They also found that measuring IgG was highly accurate in identifying infected patients who had symptoms for at least 14 days...

In another finding, Charles and her colleagues showed that people infected with SARS-CoV-2 had immunoglobulin A (IgA) and immunoglobulin M (IgM) responses that were relatively short-lived, declining to low levels within about two and a half months or less, on average.

“We can say now that if a patient has IgA and IgM responses, they were likely infected with the virus within the last two months,” said Charles.

...

Peter K writes:

Antibody testing just has many limitations, and the fact that your body actively filters them out as part of its daily cleanup isn’t helping them to register on tests.

Since you’re an athlete, and I’m assuming still riding at least one bike, you’re helping the process of filtering them out. So it’s no surprise to me that you tested negative.

As an anecdote, my sister developed Covid toes, which is an indisputable sign she had antibodies in her system. Yet, 2-3 months later, negative antibody test.

Another example would be me, as a celiac. As long as I’m not ingesting gluten or any of its components, negative antibody test. Even if I start ingesting them, it won’t show sufficiently for a diagnosis. If I ingest moderately and exercise heavily, still insufficient, even though I have clear symptoms. It’s only after prolonged exposure and buildup in the body that antigens will show sufficiently. It’s just the nature of the tests, you have to be sick enough for long enough for it to show in the results.

WIND: I was in exceptionally strong condition prior to my 2.5-week April episode (having come off strong fitness from two double centuries in March as well as being fully acclimatized to high altitude). I've long felt that my body in such condition just deals with stuff aggressively—I hardly ever get sick, and my body seems to eliminate toxins and drugs quickly.

It took me 3-4 weeks after that to get my fitness up to acceptable levels again (for me), and I was seemingly OK on and off, but any hard physical effort seemed to wipe my out like it never had before, such as my ascent of White Mountain Peak. Normally I’d recover from that relatively moderate effort (see hard core) in a day or so, but I could hardly walk 1/4 mile on level ground without feeling exhausted. It took a full week to feel semi normal, which is not to say strong. Whatever hit me has had a lasting impact even here in mid-October eg EBV and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.

Mail-In Ballots Raise Risk of Ballot Fraud by Exposing Name, Address, Signature

See also:
New Data Analysis Finds 353 Counties With 1.8 Million More Registered Voters Than Residents
Officials Allay Concerns That Voter Portals Allow Cancelling Other Voters’ Mail-in Ballots in Some States
Reports Claim 440K Questionable Ballots Sent To Deceased Or Inactive Voters In Calif

In no way is this a partisan statement; it is all about the security of the mail-in ballots and our right to vote with a secret ballot, without which we’re just a banana republic. Yet what we now have now enables exactly that.

My signature and name and address are fully disclosed on the OUTSIDE of the ballot, visible to anyone at a glance, in particular a cell phone camera or similar. I recall that in the past, my absentee ballot had a privacy fold-over flap. So why is my name, address, signature now exposed for anyone to see?

Everyone deserves to have their ballet counted, and everyone deserves the right of privacy. There should not be security weaknesses with ballots, so why can’t we have a double envelope, which would solve this risk entirely? Or go back to the fold-over security flap that I recall using in the past?

Insta-scan ballot against a name/address database?

In short: imagine a QR-code scanner for ballots, referencing name/address against databases.

This is the age of the internet. With OCR via a cell phone and a database, it is short work to look up just about anyone and deduce their party affiliation with high accuracy, by referencing any number of databases.

Off-the-shelf technology with a bit of customization (an "app") would enable anyone person to aim a cell phone at a ballot and get a near-instantaneous readout which could surely approach 90% accuracy by querying appropriate databases. And who knows what is in that bar code—maybe it contains party affiliation outright.

Bad actors need only discard (or delay) a small percentage of “undesirable” ballots , with 2-3% ample to swing a national election—and very difficult to detect. Bad actors could do this at key junctions: mailbox, mailperson*, ballot collection boxes, the tallying point, etc.

Is this being done? I make no claim that is is. But it could be done, and that makes the entire process a petri dish for problems, this election or the next. And it sure as heck is what I would try as a state actor (China, Russia) or an intelligence agency (any country including USA), or any organization seeking to control elections—low-hanging fruit for malefactors.

* The postal service union first endorsed Bernie Sanders, and then Joe Biden. Every day we read about mail-in ballots being found in the trash or similar. Whatever your political views, the idea that a partisan entity should be responsible for ballots is chilling.

Extremely unreliable mail

Mail service this summer has been the worst in 35 years. In just two months, we’ve seen a valuable check go missing (another 2 week delay?), we’ve received DMV license plates for someone a mile away, we’ve seen 2-week delays, we regularly get mail addressed to neighbors, etc. You cannot trust the post office to deliver mail, let alone trust that postal workers or facilities are secure. The delay of mail is election-changing all by itself. In other words, the postal service is so incompetent that malfeasance would scarcely be detectable. At this point, I would NEVER willingly use the US Postal Service for any significant document or check. Why the hell would I trust my ballot to it? Accordingly, I sent and dropped off my ballot in the town ballot collection box.

Reader Comment on Magnesium: “hayfever subsided, asthma much better, cramps subsided”

re: magnesium
re: Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients: Best Sources for Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C
re: BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis”
re: Don’t Treat Asthma, CURE It! Magnesium Supplementation has Banished My Small Airway Pulmonary Issues; ZERO need for prescription inhaler for 18 weeks running
re: Magnesium Supplementation Personal Findings: Brain, Lungs and Asthma, Sleep, Urinary Flow, Muscle Spasms

Reader Thorsten K writes:

Please keep up the good reporting in WIND. It’s so good to know that not everybody in this world has gone insane…

As for the magnesium: I’ve been taking 1000mg per day since June, and things are getting better with my shoulder and muscle cramps. Not to mention that my hayfever subsided. My family got curious and also started to take Mg, and their asthma has gotten much better.

Thanks again for your info on this! I had researched this high and low but somehow never came upon Magnesium Chloride until your reporting.

WIND: magnesium deficiency is the norm, and it’s degrading the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide, yet it’s exceedingly rare for doctors to ever mention magnesium to their patients, let alone know how to correctly test for magnesium deficiency—unacceptable, but sadly the norm.

The modern food supply is badly deficient in many things but particularly magnesium which is critical in hundreds of physiological processes, including mitochondrial energy production. Adequate dietary intake of magnesium via food is not really a solution; magnesium is one of those things you really cannot fix with dietary choices—you’d have to eat 5000 calories a day due to depleted soils and hence poor Mg content in food.

See my recommendations in Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients: Best Sources for Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C

Getting adequate potassium in diet is fairly hard too—I say that based on carefully calculating intake on a day when I was trying to eat potassium-rich foods and yet barely getting to the RDA. Consider both RnAReset Pico Potassium @AMAZON and RnARset Remag @AMAZON.

Also, a great way to get magnesium is ReMag lotion @AMAZON, also by RnAReset.

COVID-19: the WHO Says that Lockdowns are a Bad Idea, Hurting the Most Vulnerable Hardest — “lockdown policies producing DEVASTATING effects on short and long-term public health”

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

RE: The Doctor Is In: Scott Atlas And The Efficacy Of Lockdowns, Social Distancing, And Closings.
RE: Martin Kulldorff, professor, Harvard Medical School: Letter to the editor: Scott Atlas and lockdowns
RE: COVID-19: Great Barrington Declaration by Medical Professionals and Epidemiologists
RE: The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
RE: Time to Steepen the Curve and Accelerate Infection of Low-Risk People
RE: What the Pandemic Has Taught Us About Science

Science slowly tries to get it right, slowly succeeds, but most of it is bullshit along the way. That’s a fact that even scientific organizations acknowledge.

By comparison, leaders make choices. A good leader says “we can’t know”, and knows that we have to manage our risk (risk assessment), and default to freedom. That has been the meta message in the blog here for the past 6 months, if you weren’t paying attention.

I’ve said before that the WHO and CDC cannot be trusted, and that’s true and proven in myriad ways during this crisis. But even blind squirrels find acorns, and sometimes an organization finally has to wake up and finally do the right thing, or collapse under the crushing weight of its own hypocrisy.

“Trust the science, trust the doctors” is now revealed as the bullshit propaganda that it always has been (and always will be*). Still, this WHO reversal (like its mask reversal) is welcome, even though so much damage was done by the time they got it right.

Never before has so much damage been done to so many by so few based on understanding so little.

Lockdowns made sense for a short while when no one really knew the risks of COVID-19. But they stopped making sense months ago. The damage done by lockdowns is irreversible for millions of people, and the death toll caused by lockdowns will far exceed COVID-19 deaths.

Hysterical anti-scientific policies around COVID-19 have been the goal of too many politicians and especially the social programming networks (“news”), whose very business model is scaring people, dividing people, getting people to freak out/stress out/hate anyone not in their 'tribe'.

* See first paragraph—“the science” is not a thing unless you reject science because no one who says the science is settled is qualified to discuss it.

The WHO is in effect stating that President Trump has been right about lockdowns all along. That ought to make a few heads explode right before the election, particularly since the WHO leadership is hardly a fan of Trump. The 'spin' should be interesting, but my guess is that it will be ignored by most of the media, because it breaks the narrative in favor of the truth. Indeed when I checked today, this bombshell news is not even mentioned at CNN.com, not even under “Live COVID updates”. If the suppression of this bombshell policy position is not prima facie evidence for the press being the enemy of the people, nothing is. How many people do these scum plan on killing just to fuel their money-making model?

WHO Official Urges World Leaders to Stop Using Lockdowns as Primary Method Against CCP Virus

October 10, 2020

“We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” David Nabarro told The Spectator in an interview aired on Oct. 8. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

Nabarro pointed to the collateral damage that lockdowns are having worldwide, especially among poorer populations.

“Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry, for example in the Caribbean or in the Pacific, because people aren’t taking their holidays. Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world because their markets have got dented. Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. Seems that we may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition because children are not getting meals at school and their parents, in poor families, are not able to afford it,” Nabarro said.

“This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe actually,” he added. “And so we really do appeal to all world leaders: Stop using lockdown as your primary control method, develop better systems for doing it, work together and learn from each other, but remember—lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.

Nabarro isn’t the only scientist opposing lockdowns. A number of medical or public health scientists and medical practitioners have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which states that “current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

...

When language this strong is used by a stodgy organization like the WHO, you know that the policies around COVID-19 have been the biggest clusterfuck in the history of the world.

Over 14,000 Health Experts Sign Petition Against COVID-19 Lockdowns

The Great Barringtion Declaration (which Google is trying to suppress) is making headway. The signatory page is malfunctioning as of Oct 11, but it was working a few days ago. But you can still read and sign it.

As of Oct. 8, more than 9,400 medical practitioners and 4,900 medical and public health scientists have joined more than 120,000 members of the general public in signing the petition, which was created on Oct. 4 and co-authored by Harvard professor of medicine Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Oxford professor Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Stanford Medical School professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection,” reads the petition, which is titled the Great Barrington Declaration, after the Massachusetts town where it was signed.

The petition calls for an end to current lockdown policies, saying that they are producing “devastating effects” on short- and long-term public health.

Some of these devastating effects, the doctors wrote, include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health. They argue that this will, in the future, lead to greater excess mortality, with the working class and younger generation “carrying the heaviest burden.”

“Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice,” the petition continues. “Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.”

Hypothesis: Could COVID-19 Provoke a Flare-Up of Epstein Barr Virus?

re: Personal Health: Cyclical Extreme Fatigue Explained: Diagnosis of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Epstein Barr Virus
re: Dealing with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV): a Few Things that Have Helped

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

Although I tested negative for COVID-19 antibodies in early September, that was 4.5 months after my 2.5 week mid-April episode that was consistent with CV19 symtoms. So I had written of the April episode as “unknown pathogen”.

However, since then, a physician friend of mine has told me that antibody tests that far out are sketchy. Thus a negative test might not mean much. Furthermore, a physician friend of his is suffering from Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) for months, just like I have been suffering (and still do)—it has been a long haul and I still only have a fraction of my strength. This is too strikingly similar.

Epstein Barr virus is known to hide-out in the body permanently, flaring up opportunistically. Moreover, it is my own life experience that a virus can flip genetic switches—in my case a lifetime of no allergies or asthma turned into a 10-year ordeal to get both under control, following a severe pulmonary viral infection at age 20 (all my allergists have confirmed this as a real thing).

So what I am getting at is the possibility that this ongoing fatigue (similar to mononucleosis, though my WBC count is normal) might in fact be EBV or some genetic switch-flipping thing. So it might take a loooooong time to recover from.

Hypothesis

Yeah, I know all this is “anecdotal” as physicians like to say, and I am well aware of confirmation bias, but I am not making a conclusion, only a working hypothesis:

Might a COVID-19 infection trigger the flare-up of other latent viral problems such as Epstein Barr Virus? And/or other viruses (perhaps varicella zoster eg Shingles)?

I hope to speak directly to this other physician with EBV, so we can compare notes. Of course, whatever I had might have been some other virus, so the hypothesis is a general one.

COVID-19: The Pandemic that Killed Debate

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

Repudiating rational debate on science is as ANTI-science as it gets, yet this attitude has become the new norm in not just the social programming networks (“news”) but it is being used to harass, intimidate and silence those in science and medicine who dare to disagree.

RE: The Doctor Is In: Scott Atlas And The Efficacy Of Lockdowns, Social Distancing, And Closings.
RE: Martin Kulldorff, professor, Harvard Medical School: Letter to the editor: Scott Atlas and lockdowns
RE: COVID-19: Great Barrington Declaration by Medical Professionals and Epidemiologists
RE: The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
RE: Time to Steepen the Curve and Accelerate Infection of Low-Risk People
RE: AIER: “The Pandemic that Killed Debate”

Emphasis added.

AIER: “The Pandemic that Killed Debate”

October 6, 2020

Carl Sagan famously said, “the cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.” This wisdom has been sadly forsaken during the COVID19 pandemic, when one powerful narrative has taken not only the public, but the scientific community, by storm...

Even as evidence proving that lockdowns do not stop the virus rolls in by the truckload, the scientists who argue for a different approach are marginalized, censored, affixed with disparaging labels, and ostracized. Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell was accused of “leading Sweden to catastrophe” and of “experimenting” on the Swedish people. Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt’s careful studies and models were labeled “lethal nonsense” as he weathered attacks left, right and center. John Ioannidis, one of the world’s most productive scientists, found his studies smeared and ignored. Sunetra Gupta, one of the world’s foremost epidemiologists at The University of Oxford, found that expressing her wide-ranging infectious disease knowledge suddenly made her “unethical and dangerous.”

The latest smear target is neuroradiologist and health policy expert Dr. Scott Atlas, formerly of Stanford. A longtime lockdown dissenter, his principal and latest offense seems to be agreeing to serve on The White House’s coronavirus task force...

...[WIND: read the Kulldorf letter and reply in the article]

...Professor Kulldorff received no reply to this offer, so The Soho Forum — a highly respected debate platform — took up the case, personally inviting the scientists to participate in an online, one-on-one debate via Zoom, taking the negative on this resolution:

To minimize mortality and optimize public health, the U.S. should implement a targeted coronavirus strategy that better protects the old and other high-risk groups, while letting children and young adults live close to normal lives.

This offer was emailed to Dr. Philip Pizzo, the chief signatory of Stanford’s letter in opposition to Atlas, who replied simply: “Thank you for the invitation. We have conveyed what we have to say in our letter and do not have additional comments to offer.” From both a public policy and scientific standpoint, this blanket refusal to engage in discourse is concerning. When someone can level an accusation of dishonesty at a public figure, refuse to debate the substance with the accused, and suffer no consequences for this behavior, this stifles the free expression of opinions and ideas...

The alternative — some narrative-maker decides the information that will be provided, withholds contradictory relevant information, and forbids the defense from speaking at all— is fascism. It is tyrrany. It is certainly not American.

...

WIND: real science has been decaying for many years now. As an avid reader about science my entire life, I have watched an increasing intellectual corruption in publications like Scientific American and similar places—obvious confirmation bias and cognitive commitments having no scientific basis are readily found in the prose. Offhand statements lacking any proof is seen in far too many articles—this is persuasion @AMAZON technique and I read it all the time. Opposing viewpoints are simply not published. The “press” then amplifies this ten-fold, taking care to never discuss the other side.

Non-replicable studies: confirmation bias, selection bias, financial corruption, non-public data, falsifying data, excluding key factors (intentionally or through lack of imagination)—these all have led to a crisis in science.

Test-tube thinking: particularly in medicine, the failure to realize that the human body is a complex synergistic ecosystem with myriad feedback mechanisms and wildly varying “software” (genetics and epigenetics and biome), not a test-tube where single variables can be studied.

Financial corruption: look no further than the sordid history of the chimeric cholesterol hypothesis and the history of statins—see my see my recommended reading list.

Vast peer pressure: the very topic discussed above. And for example in climate science, where only a fool could expect to question the consensus and expect to secure grants or make a living. It has become an echo chamber with little or no discussion of the known and fully feasible solution for the Golden Age (eg Gen 4 Nuclear Power). Climate science is now so structurally corrupt that it is best seen as a religious movement—apropos the term “denier” as in “denier of the faith”. The issue is not about whether and how much the Earth is warming, it is about whether it can even be discussed without repercussion. So it’s a religion, not a science.

Collapse of independent medical opinions: very few doctors remain free to prescribe or treat as they see fit, or even to speak freely about some medical topics—employer pressure (fire at will), mandatory treatment protocols (many of which have little basis in science and are all about Big Pharma profits), insurance companies that enforce conformity and suppress practice out of the consensus, an total failure to improve health instead modern allopathic medicine focuses almost entirely on bandaids that suppress symptoms. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease and numerous other modern maladies have only gotten worse, and this is no accident but a fact of medical ignorance masquerading as science, for manu decades.

The hysteria about COVID-19 has turned a crisis into a total nuclear meltdown. The whole thing is as anti-scientific as I have seen in my lifetime.