I am one of the physicians who signed the Great Barrington Declaration and one who used ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat adult patients, although admittedly a very small cohort. I am glad that Science is retiring, although that begs the question as to why the vast majority of doctors abdicated their responsibiliti…
I am one of the physicians who signed the Great Barrington Declaration and one who used ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat adult patients, although admittedly a very small cohort. I am glad that Science is retiring, although that begs the question as to why the vast majority of doctors abdicated their responsibilities to evaluate and honestly report on treatments that appeared to show promise - political pressure from The Swamp notwithstanding. Their job, and their sworn duty, per that dead white guy Hippocrates, is to take care of their patients; why didn't they do that?
Now I see that some medical schools are lowering their standards in the name of "equity." When I was a medical student I had the same conversation with the Associate Dean, Dr. David Z. Morgan, may he rest in peace. When I asked him if the school would lower its standards to accommodate calls for "diversity," his comment was that if forced by politicians to lower standards, he and the dean had agreed they would publicly shut down the school. Where are men such as these?
Thank you for your high ethical standards and courage. Only a few doctors raised to the occasion like you did. And thank you for verbalizing what we all have been wondering about for the last two years: why did doctors abandon their Hippocrates oath? Out of fear? Cynicism? What kind of doctors our medical schools produce? Robots? Political hacks? I come from a family of two generations of doctors. My elderly mom keeps repeating in shock: how could these doctors send people from the hospital to die at home if they were not candidates for a ventilator instead of helping them with any medication available? Millions of lives could be saved. It was a crime of unprecedented proportion. And we may fully realize it only when we look at it from a distance.
Thank God for you and all of the Great Barrington docs! Sanity in an insane world. The effort put forth by Fauci and others to discredit, dismiss and denigrate you and Bhattacharya and all of the others told us exactly what we already knew. You were onto them.
Jim, I do not know any doctors socially, and I would like to know something. How do treatment decisions in cases like this actually work? Is there a standards-book that tells prescribes your actions to essentially any disease? Are your choices confined by CDC? By FDA? By your insurance? For example, did your carrier raise any objections to your use of "unsanctioned" treatments? Would they have if they'd known? I'm just trying to understand how the system works, with a goal of figuring out how to improve it. I'd love to hear your ideas for the top 3 things that could be done to improve it. Thanks.
Thanks to both of you. I was trying to figure out if this level of oversight (the total freakout about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for example) was typical or something really unusual. It sounds like it was EXTREMELY unusual. Thanks.
I am familiar with off-label freakouts. About 6 years ago, the FDA pulled lidocaine ear drops from the market. As you both know, in low concentrations, lidocaine is about the safest product in the world, and mothers had been using lidocaine ear drops for infant ear aches literally for 50 years. Suddenly, FDA determined such drops were illegal because they hadn't been proven "safe and effective". Ever since then, I stock up on medications whenever I can.
All this is ironic when marijuana is legal in so many states. A mind altering, potential gateway drug that's stronger than ever and the FDA regulation and oversight is, shall we say, nebulous.
You want to live virtuously, we'll come down on like a ton of bricks. Virtue implies objective standards, and objective standards would interfere with people's pleasure, thus you can not be allowed to believe in virtue. But we'll defend your right to consequence free drugs and sex to the hilt.
Also, to chime in, physicians have always used certain medication off label -- meaning that other non-intended uses with good outcomes have been discovered, often by accident, for many drugs. Then there is a process to get the FDA approval for use in a different capacity other than the one for which the drug was invented. Take Botox as an example. A migraine headache pain relief injection discovered to relax wrinkles. Dermatologists used Botox in this way for years before it was approved by the FDA cosmetically. With Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine a physician's discretion to prescribe and use these (long prescribed, safe, on the market forever) drugs off label was challenged. Most pharmacies would not honor the prescription. One had to go on line and through various sites and other resources to get them from pharmacies willing to dispense or from India (where they are OTC). There seemed to be federal dictates prohibiting doctors from prescribing these medications. Insulting and irrational.
I'm not a good example. I'm retired and have no malpractice insurance, since I'm not actively practicing, so I don't answer to THEM, but they always had conceded to a physician's training and experience anyway. They figure that with over a decade of training, you probably have a good idea of what you are doing.
The people I have treated have all been relatives or close friends; it was a bit serendipitous, actually. In March, two years ago, I had seen the congressional testimony of several doctors who had been actually treating CCP-virus patients, and they were compelling. They were working 80-90 hours per week with no letup - remember this was in the thick of the pandemic. You could see they were exhausted. But they had considerable experience - I think the three of them working together had over 200 papers published - and their experience and frustration with the "protocols" had led them to try other treatments that, again, in their many years and thousands of hours of experience and training, might offer better results.
It was amazing to watch them testify. I didn't realize at the time the extent that this whole lockdown and treatment propaganda was being used to test Americans' willingness to knuckle under to the government, and I watched the video with the usual curiosity of a lifelong academic.
So, purely by chance, I suppose, the next week I received a call from my relative-the-pilot, living in another state, telling me that he, his wife, and twenty-something year-old daughter had tested positive and were getting really sick really fast. The were terrified at the prospects of hospitalization, well aware of what happened there: people were essentially imprisoned, put on ventilators, and died.
I remembered the protocol I'd seen on the congressional testimony, although I was a little puzzled that I couldn't find it on YouTube, still not realizing that with all the politics going on, and of course Google (who owns YouTube) in the thick of it, it had been taken down.
I called in prescriptions for him, his wife, and daughter in the early afternoon. Checking in that evening, they were "a little better." Next morning, "much better." Two days later, "cured."
So, as I say, it was serendipity to some degree. I did not realize at the time I was afoul some federal political fatwa, though it wouldn't have made a difference.
Perhaps you treated only a small cohort with that cocktail, but I, and plenty of people I know directly and through hearsay, used it and went from symptomatic (hardcore muscles aches for me) to 90% better within 24 hours. It is sick and criminal that these drugs were not the first line of care. Everything I've read from the like-minded has said that if they were, over half the deaths from covid would have been avoided. Based on my first hand experience, I believe it.
One of the people I treated was terribly sick and getting more so by the hour. Her husband is a pilot and had a pulse oximeter handy; her oxygen saturation was in the 'eighties - that's really low - very short of breath, and near panic. The results with ivermectin were nothing short of remarkable; she has told me several times since then that the treatment "saved my life."
After this horror show I have gotten new doctors. Any doctor pushing the AMA narrative is a doctor I don’t need. Makes my job a little harder, but at least I have more confidence in the information I’m receiving. I don’t trust anyone now.
I think I've mentioned it before, but when people ask me what I do in retirement, I only half-jokingly tell them that I protect my friends and family from my colleagues.
Agreed. I took the vaccine because, having worked in an mRNA research lab at Johns Hopkins between college and med school, I am pro vaccine for myself. I doubted the vaccine would be highly effective, or remain so, due to the highly mutable nature of corona viruses. The mandates and neglect of natural immunity, however, were repugnant to me. The declaration by an individual that he “is science” should be disgusting to every scientist. I read and discussed real science with my patients regarding mRNA viruses, vaccines, natural immunity, efficacy of masking, and any topics they wished, without regard to Fauci’s dogma. Fortunately for me, I live in Florida, and our governor yielded to political pressure for a much shorter time than most.
You might comment on the below: my reading suggests that the Wuhan virus, as are all viruses, was relatively simple in structure, and that it displayed five proteins available for attack, one of which was the "spike protein." As I understand it, the "vaccines" by attacking only the spike protein, promoted immunity pretty much limited to a single viral variant, with no significant cross-immunity to others, whereas natural immunity stimulated activity against all five proteins, meaning at least some immunity against multiple variants.
Also, initial viral replication in the nose stimulates production of "secretory IgA," which takes place primarily in the lungs, hence when the virus eventually makes its way down to the lungs, they already have a defense in place. Of course, the vaccines bypass that, which may explain the very high prevalence of severe disease in jabbed individuals.
My overall understanding is that this particular virus' threat was very little different and no more virulent than dozens of other flu variants that we have dealt with since time began. Old people were at quite high risk, as were the infirm. Everybody else dealt with it just fine. I'm certainly open to better data.
Very much agree. The issue with mRNA viruses, and corona viruses in particular, is multifactorial (isn't everything). The fragility of mRNA limiting vaccine distribution due to storage issues was evident. Your point about lack of stimulation of secretory IgA is very important (witness Jill Biden's second bout in as many weeks). Corona viruses are particularly mutable, so vaccines have very short durations of efficacy. As I've told many people, the mortality of COVID-19 in over 65s is somewhat less than acute hip fracture mortality, and no one is outlawing throw rugs and small dogs.
yes and many people who read the original pfizer study documents knew that the vax was unlikley to stop infection , spread and transmission b/c it was not shown to be a sterliizing agent. It was specificaly developed to reduce the chance of severe illness and death and hosptitaization , which it did do for some for a short time but then the vax itself produced escape variants and people became tolerant of it. If there had been a simultaneous effort to roll the vax out to the most vulnerable as well as intensely focus on early outpatient treatment then far fewer people would have ended up in the hosp and dead. this is what happens when you mix politics and medicine
There was a theory awhile back that masks helped make the already infected even sicker as the mask concentrated and confined the virus to the nasal sinuses by greatly reducing air flow. Haven't heard much about it for while but it would seem to make sense (at least to a lay person).
Then there were the ventilators which where initially the go-to treatment for the hospitalized, from which many could never be taken off of without killing them. "The operation was a success, however the patient has died."
We've certainly learned a lot over the past 2 1/2 years, not least of which is whom to trust and whom to not.
if you have EVER trusted the CDC or NIH you are a fool. Governments in general should never be believed or trusted at all for any reason. Everything gov says in a lie or is perverted through a political and ideological lens. The US gov is no different. The founders of the US knew this . this same thing has been happening for thousands of years. The romans had a republic and it degnerated into an empire and the emperor WAS TRUTH! no jesus not science the EMPEROR.
if a group of politicians and bureaucracts tell you to think a certain way or believe something DONT!
if they tell you they are going to do somthing to help you : grab your children and hide your wallet and RUN!
If they tell you to take a drug you dont want and dont need: DONT DO IT.
Everything gov touches it destroys. everything gov does it ruins.
Every problem gov tries to solve it makes worse.
Here we had a new flu virus slightly worse than the usually seasonal influenza for most. And it turns out the the virus itself might hav ebeen a product of a gov lab and everything they did in the name of "solving" covid turned into a global hysteria and resulted in the deaths of millions of people for lack of early outpatient treatment and a dangerous vax.
We went from 2 weeks to slow the spread to MASS DEATH.
Never trust anything gov agencies or officers have to say. This was the whole point of the United states.
That’s exactly right. This mechanism of IGA mucosal immunity is the reason why vaccines given a shot for respiratory viruses have not been very successful. The natural infection is always in everywhere better than vaccine immunity.
The COVID-19 virus is simply not any more dangerous to most healthy adults than a regular flu
This whole episode was a giant fiasco. They were powerful forces in the permanent bureaucracy in the United States government didn’t want Donald Trump reelected and they used Covid and weaponized the entire public health bureacracy And used it against Trump to defeat him
Well said. The shot was available for anybody who wanted it. It was too bad that it wasn’t more effective and safer than it turned out to be. But it wasn’t entirely unexpected because it was a new experimental product. There hasn’t been a good track record with these types of products against respiratory viruses in the past. So whoever wanted to get the shot could get it. It did not protect other people just the person receiving it. The level of coercion and propaganda Floyd to coerce people was disgusting
Jim, you say: “…begs the question as to why the vast majority of doctors abdicated their responsibilities to evaluate and honestly report on treatments that appeared to show promise….” You seem to be unaware that the doctors were being responsible; unlike you, it’s time for you to offer a mea culpa!
“A phase 3 randomized, controlled trial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that three drugs repurposed for the treatment of COVID-19—metformin, ivermectin, and fluvoxamine—didn't prevent hypoxemia, an emergency department (ED) visit, hospitalization, or infection-related death, although a secondary analysis finds that metformin may hold some promise.”
Not unaware at all. I read that article the morning it came out. The flaws in it are legion and have been pointed out multiple times, probably one of the worst being the administration of these drugs late in the course of the disease, where they have always been known to be ineffective.
The Wuhan-virus syndrome typically follows a three-phase pattern: First three or so days, in which viral replication takes place. The second phase is several days thereafter, during which the body's own "cytokine storm" does the majority of damage. Not everybody gets that. The third stage is what I call the "clotting" phase, during which coagulation defects predominate. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are relatively ineffective after the first (viral replication) phase.
Do a little research vis à vis federal laboratory funding, and you will see that these physicians are very, very far from having no dog in the hunt. Not that that would possibly affect perfect independence, objectivity or cause skewed reporting ....
"Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are relatively ineffective after the first (viral replication) phase."
That first phase is also largely asymptomatic; the symptoms show up in the 2nd phase. So you're describing a treatment that only works if administered BEFORE the patient starts showing symptoms. That's not a very practical treatment, because by the time you know the drugs are needed it's too late for them to do much of anything.
Jim, that dog won’t hunt; you can use all kinds of word salad, you can tell me, up is down, and down is up, it’s all bull patties in the pasture; you need to ante up some proof!
Out of curiosity, just me, what proof would be acceptable to you that did not come from the very "Science, Inc" people that have universally opposed such treatments.
It's a little like global warming. "If you think global warming isn't real, go do a study and prove it! Of course, we control the money for climatology and only give grants to studies that attempt to prove it is real. But why haven't you produced the proof yet!?" When one side is outspent by the other to a ratio of 1000:1, it makes it hard to determine the veracity of any claim in that field.
Brian, are you proposing that ivermectin is like Galileo's heretical belief that the earth was Heliocentric, not geocentric? Do you believe the new England journal of medicine is a: ecclesiastical tribunal?
When the entire institutional Science apparatus has been captured by a single point of view, getting at the truth becomes very hard, because science (as in actual experiments intended to find truth) are essentially impossible since the grant money requires experiments to be skewed to find only "acceptable" outcome.
I used the example of global warming above, but a similar dynamic can be seen in the debate over transgenderism, which has also fully captured institutional Science. And just like with COVID, dissenting voices must be crushed.
COVID captured institutional Science with a vengeance and speed I have never seen before. In 2020, you couldn't get a major journal article published critically examining ivermectin, lab vs bio origins, mask usage, lockdowns, or anything else re: COVID. (Interestingly, grants for these sorts of projects were Fauci's precise responsibility.) That makes me highly suspicious. I'm not saying that ivermectin et al are effective. I honestly have no idea. But I have enough familiarity with the process to be highly skeptical of "scientific" results published in fields that have been institutionally captured by single points of view.
Brian, how can you substantiate this comment: “…are essentially impossible since the grant money requires experiments to be skewed to find only “acceptable” outcome.”?
I know enough about how experiments are designed, and I have seen enough poorly designed ones to suspect it wasn't accidental. Replicability and reproducability are known to be serious problems in many fields, and not just in social sciences, but even in medicine. I have also seen a few grant application in my life, and they always made implicitly clear what the goal was. Education researchers taking money from the Gates Foundation know full well they aren't doing experiments to find out charter schools don't work. Every climate researcher knows what NOAA funds, and what happens to your future grant opportunities if a couple of your studies confirm the null hypothesis.
My academic background is in philosophy and economics though, so I know quite a bit about human nature and how humans respond to incentives. Monocultural environments generally produce poorer outcomes (that's why we spend so much time talking about diversity.) I find it very hard to believe that good science can be done in a highly mono-cultural environment. I've now given you 2 external examples of what I mean by that, and I hope you would agree that both represent cases where essentially only 1 side is presented in the grant-based science apparatus that I would call "Science, Inc."
I do notice you haven't answered my original question. I agree that "clinically proven" claims like Jim's are generally unreliable. But if the institutional science apparatus is completely homogenous on an issue and therefore can not explore alternatives (and you have not argued that to be false), what other options does one have but to fall back on the anecdotal cases of "clinically proven"? More importantly, when dealing with known safe drugs that are decades old and now available as cheap generics, what harm is there in doing so? What could possibly justify the wholesale substitution of bureaucratic for physician judgement about a novel virus?
Brian, I don’t accept your basic premise (“Science, Inc”), for example, climate change; it’s beyond doubt the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly, and there’s a scientific consensus that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The whole ivermectin debacle, which was driven out of ignorance and fear, and I’m certain humanity will replicate it in the future.
I had to witness the struggle my naturally immune physician husband had to endure for being under the imposition of a vaccine mandate. He eventually relented (me: make them terminate you!) and got one JNJ but it was not without a fight.
This wasn't the first round. About two years before I retired, the Evil Empire for whom I worked decided that everybody in the hospital must have "flu shots." Having watched a local optometrist with flu-vaccine-induced Guillain-Barré struggle to recover, I said no. They said, "it's mandatory." I said no. They said, "You have to wear a mask, then." "No."
They said, "We'll fire you." My response? "I've always wanted to own a small hospital, ditto a small house to use for vacations. Your hospital and your house will do nicely, and I will guarantee you that my attorney, who is so mean he scares ME, will have the suit papers in your office and at your front door tomorrow morning."
We were at an impasse until the neurosurgeons, who brought in millions in revenue, refused as well, and the admin retired from the field of honor suitably chastised.
never took that shot, made no sense from a risk /benefit standpoint. less than 0.15 percent change of severe illness or death to me. No reason to take experimental drug. got natural covid in aug 21. Noone would rec superior nat immunity. Was enraging. the medical communitu around me was and still is delusional cowardly ignorant.
My husband has seen a lot of changes in his almost 30 years practicing medicine. It's only become "corporate" recently and he's been able to sidestep much of the corporate BS. He has about 20 more months until he goes part time.
Alas, those men are of the past. When decisive people do things—like change scheduling for new CT scanners so they can erase 6 week backlogs—everyone hates them. For about three days. Most “leaders”of today can’t think 3 days ahead. They only think of the current news cycle.
I am one of the physicians who signed the Great Barrington Declaration and one who used ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat adult patients, although admittedly a very small cohort. I am glad that Science is retiring, although that begs the question as to why the vast majority of doctors abdicated their responsibilities to evaluate and honestly report on treatments that appeared to show promise - political pressure from The Swamp notwithstanding. Their job, and their sworn duty, per that dead white guy Hippocrates, is to take care of their patients; why didn't they do that?
Now I see that some medical schools are lowering their standards in the name of "equity." When I was a medical student I had the same conversation with the Associate Dean, Dr. David Z. Morgan, may he rest in peace. When I asked him if the school would lower its standards to accommodate calls for "diversity," his comment was that if forced by politicians to lower standards, he and the dean had agreed they would publicly shut down the school. Where are men such as these?
Thank you for your high ethical standards and courage. Only a few doctors raised to the occasion like you did. And thank you for verbalizing what we all have been wondering about for the last two years: why did doctors abandon their Hippocrates oath? Out of fear? Cynicism? What kind of doctors our medical schools produce? Robots? Political hacks? I come from a family of two generations of doctors. My elderly mom keeps repeating in shock: how could these doctors send people from the hospital to die at home if they were not candidates for a ventilator instead of helping them with any medication available? Millions of lives could be saved. It was a crime of unprecedented proportion. And we may fully realize it only when we look at it from a distance.
Thank God for you and all of the Great Barrington docs! Sanity in an insane world. The effort put forth by Fauci and others to discredit, dismiss and denigrate you and Bhattacharya and all of the others told us exactly what we already knew. You were onto them.
Jim, I do not know any doctors socially, and I would like to know something. How do treatment decisions in cases like this actually work? Is there a standards-book that tells prescribes your actions to essentially any disease? Are your choices confined by CDC? By FDA? By your insurance? For example, did your carrier raise any objections to your use of "unsanctioned" treatments? Would they have if they'd known? I'm just trying to understand how the system works, with a goal of figuring out how to improve it. I'd love to hear your ideas for the top 3 things that could be done to improve it. Thanks.
Thanks to both of you. I was trying to figure out if this level of oversight (the total freakout about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for example) was typical or something really unusual. It sounds like it was EXTREMELY unusual. Thanks.
I am familiar with off-label freakouts. About 6 years ago, the FDA pulled lidocaine ear drops from the market. As you both know, in low concentrations, lidocaine is about the safest product in the world, and mothers had been using lidocaine ear drops for infant ear aches literally for 50 years. Suddenly, FDA determined such drops were illegal because they hadn't been proven "safe and effective". Ever since then, I stock up on medications whenever I can.
All this is ironic when marijuana is legal in so many states. A mind altering, potential gateway drug that's stronger than ever and the FDA regulation and oversight is, shall we say, nebulous.
You want to live virtuously, we'll come down on like a ton of bricks. Virtue implies objective standards, and objective standards would interfere with people's pleasure, thus you can not be allowed to believe in virtue. But we'll defend your right to consequence free drugs and sex to the hilt.
What the 60's revolution hath writ.
Also, to chime in, physicians have always used certain medication off label -- meaning that other non-intended uses with good outcomes have been discovered, often by accident, for many drugs. Then there is a process to get the FDA approval for use in a different capacity other than the one for which the drug was invented. Take Botox as an example. A migraine headache pain relief injection discovered to relax wrinkles. Dermatologists used Botox in this way for years before it was approved by the FDA cosmetically. With Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine a physician's discretion to prescribe and use these (long prescribed, safe, on the market forever) drugs off label was challenged. Most pharmacies would not honor the prescription. One had to go on line and through various sites and other resources to get them from pharmacies willing to dispense or from India (where they are OTC). There seemed to be federal dictates prohibiting doctors from prescribing these medications. Insulting and irrational.
I'm not a good example. I'm retired and have no malpractice insurance, since I'm not actively practicing, so I don't answer to THEM, but they always had conceded to a physician's training and experience anyway. They figure that with over a decade of training, you probably have a good idea of what you are doing.
The people I have treated have all been relatives or close friends; it was a bit serendipitous, actually. In March, two years ago, I had seen the congressional testimony of several doctors who had been actually treating CCP-virus patients, and they were compelling. They were working 80-90 hours per week with no letup - remember this was in the thick of the pandemic. You could see they were exhausted. But they had considerable experience - I think the three of them working together had over 200 papers published - and their experience and frustration with the "protocols" had led them to try other treatments that, again, in their many years and thousands of hours of experience and training, might offer better results.
It was amazing to watch them testify. I didn't realize at the time the extent that this whole lockdown and treatment propaganda was being used to test Americans' willingness to knuckle under to the government, and I watched the video with the usual curiosity of a lifelong academic.
So, purely by chance, I suppose, the next week I received a call from my relative-the-pilot, living in another state, telling me that he, his wife, and twenty-something year-old daughter had tested positive and were getting really sick really fast. The were terrified at the prospects of hospitalization, well aware of what happened there: people were essentially imprisoned, put on ventilators, and died.
I remembered the protocol I'd seen on the congressional testimony, although I was a little puzzled that I couldn't find it on YouTube, still not realizing that with all the politics going on, and of course Google (who owns YouTube) in the thick of it, it had been taken down.
I called in prescriptions for him, his wife, and daughter in the early afternoon. Checking in that evening, they were "a little better." Next morning, "much better." Two days later, "cured."
So, as I say, it was serendipity to some degree. I did not realize at the time I was afoul some federal political fatwa, though it wouldn't have made a difference.
Perhaps you treated only a small cohort with that cocktail, but I, and plenty of people I know directly and through hearsay, used it and went from symptomatic (hardcore muscles aches for me) to 90% better within 24 hours. It is sick and criminal that these drugs were not the first line of care. Everything I've read from the like-minded has said that if they were, over half the deaths from covid would have been avoided. Based on my first hand experience, I believe it.
One of the people I treated was terribly sick and getting more so by the hour. Her husband is a pilot and had a pulse oximeter handy; her oxygen saturation was in the 'eighties - that's really low - very short of breath, and near panic. The results with ivermectin were nothing short of remarkable; she has told me several times since then that the treatment "saved my life."
After this horror show I have gotten new doctors. Any doctor pushing the AMA narrative is a doctor I don’t need. Makes my job a little harder, but at least I have more confidence in the information I’m receiving. I don’t trust anyone now.
Much less the American Academy of Pediatrics advocating for medical and surgical gender reassignment in prepubertal children.
The AMA is useless. The AMA’s completely captured by pharmaceutical companies and woke ideologues
No argument here. I resigned my membership about 30 or 35 years ago. At this point, I think something like 20% of American doctors or members.
I was never a member . I finished med school in 95. Ama always came across as a toxic lobbying group to me
By then it was. Back in the day, it was a reasonable group. Then it went sideways.
What city are you in?
Boston!!!!!
We know a lot of docs in Boston who are quite good. Let me know if you need a referral.
Thank you!
I think I've mentioned it before, but when people ask me what I do in retirement, I only half-jokingly tell them that I protect my friends and family from my colleagues.
Love that! You’re a credit to your profession!
Agreed. I took the vaccine because, having worked in an mRNA research lab at Johns Hopkins between college and med school, I am pro vaccine for myself. I doubted the vaccine would be highly effective, or remain so, due to the highly mutable nature of corona viruses. The mandates and neglect of natural immunity, however, were repugnant to me. The declaration by an individual that he “is science” should be disgusting to every scientist. I read and discussed real science with my patients regarding mRNA viruses, vaccines, natural immunity, efficacy of masking, and any topics they wished, without regard to Fauci’s dogma. Fortunately for me, I live in Florida, and our governor yielded to political pressure for a much shorter time than most.
You might comment on the below: my reading suggests that the Wuhan virus, as are all viruses, was relatively simple in structure, and that it displayed five proteins available for attack, one of which was the "spike protein." As I understand it, the "vaccines" by attacking only the spike protein, promoted immunity pretty much limited to a single viral variant, with no significant cross-immunity to others, whereas natural immunity stimulated activity against all five proteins, meaning at least some immunity against multiple variants.
Also, initial viral replication in the nose stimulates production of "secretory IgA," which takes place primarily in the lungs, hence when the virus eventually makes its way down to the lungs, they already have a defense in place. Of course, the vaccines bypass that, which may explain the very high prevalence of severe disease in jabbed individuals.
My overall understanding is that this particular virus' threat was very little different and no more virulent than dozens of other flu variants that we have dealt with since time began. Old people were at quite high risk, as were the infirm. Everybody else dealt with it just fine. I'm certainly open to better data.
Very much agree. The issue with mRNA viruses, and corona viruses in particular, is multifactorial (isn't everything). The fragility of mRNA limiting vaccine distribution due to storage issues was evident. Your point about lack of stimulation of secretory IgA is very important (witness Jill Biden's second bout in as many weeks). Corona viruses are particularly mutable, so vaccines have very short durations of efficacy. As I've told many people, the mortality of COVID-19 in over 65s is somewhat less than acute hip fracture mortality, and no one is outlawing throw rugs and small dogs.
yes and many people who read the original pfizer study documents knew that the vax was unlikley to stop infection , spread and transmission b/c it was not shown to be a sterliizing agent. It was specificaly developed to reduce the chance of severe illness and death and hosptitaization , which it did do for some for a short time but then the vax itself produced escape variants and people became tolerant of it. If there had been a simultaneous effort to roll the vax out to the most vulnerable as well as intensely focus on early outpatient treatment then far fewer people would have ended up in the hosp and dead. this is what happens when you mix politics and medicine
There was a theory awhile back that masks helped make the already infected even sicker as the mask concentrated and confined the virus to the nasal sinuses by greatly reducing air flow. Haven't heard much about it for while but it would seem to make sense (at least to a lay person).
Then there were the ventilators which where initially the go-to treatment for the hospitalized, from which many could never be taken off of without killing them. "The operation was a success, however the patient has died."
We've certainly learned a lot over the past 2 1/2 years, not least of which is whom to trust and whom to not.
if you have EVER trusted the CDC or NIH you are a fool. Governments in general should never be believed or trusted at all for any reason. Everything gov says in a lie or is perverted through a political and ideological lens. The US gov is no different. The founders of the US knew this . this same thing has been happening for thousands of years. The romans had a republic and it degnerated into an empire and the emperor WAS TRUTH! no jesus not science the EMPEROR.
if a group of politicians and bureaucracts tell you to think a certain way or believe something DONT!
if they tell you they are going to do somthing to help you : grab your children and hide your wallet and RUN!
If they tell you to take a drug you dont want and dont need: DONT DO IT.
Everything gov touches it destroys. everything gov does it ruins.
Every problem gov tries to solve it makes worse.
Here we had a new flu virus slightly worse than the usually seasonal influenza for most. And it turns out the the virus itself might hav ebeen a product of a gov lab and everything they did in the name of "solving" covid turned into a global hysteria and resulted in the deaths of millions of people for lack of early outpatient treatment and a dangerous vax.
We went from 2 weeks to slow the spread to MASS DEATH.
Never trust anything gov agencies or officers have to say. This was the whole point of the United states.
That’s exactly right. This mechanism of IGA mucosal immunity is the reason why vaccines given a shot for respiratory viruses have not been very successful. The natural infection is always in everywhere better than vaccine immunity.
The COVID-19 virus is simply not any more dangerous to most healthy adults than a regular flu
This whole episode was a giant fiasco. They were powerful forces in the permanent bureaucracy in the United States government didn’t want Donald Trump reelected and they used Covid and weaponized the entire public health bureacracy And used it against Trump to defeat him
Well said. The shot was available for anybody who wanted it. It was too bad that it wasn’t more effective and safer than it turned out to be. But it wasn’t entirely unexpected because it was a new experimental product. There hasn’t been a good track record with these types of products against respiratory viruses in the past. So whoever wanted to get the shot could get it. It did not protect other people just the person receiving it. The level of coercion and propaganda Floyd to coerce people was disgusting
Jim, you say: “…begs the question as to why the vast majority of doctors abdicated their responsibilities to evaluate and honestly report on treatments that appeared to show promise….” You seem to be unaware that the doctors were being responsible; unlike you, it’s time for you to offer a mea culpa!
“A phase 3 randomized, controlled trial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that three drugs repurposed for the treatment of COVID-19—metformin, ivermectin, and fluvoxamine—didn't prevent hypoxemia, an emergency department (ED) visit, hospitalization, or infection-related death, although a secondary analysis finds that metformin may hold some promise.”
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/08/trial-metformin-ivermectin-fluvoxamine-dont-prevent-severe-covid
Not unaware at all. I read that article the morning it came out. The flaws in it are legion and have been pointed out multiple times, probably one of the worst being the administration of these drugs late in the course of the disease, where they have always been known to be ineffective.
The Wuhan-virus syndrome typically follows a three-phase pattern: First three or so days, in which viral replication takes place. The second phase is several days thereafter, during which the body's own "cytokine storm" does the majority of damage. Not everybody gets that. The third stage is what I call the "clotting" phase, during which coagulation defects predominate. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are relatively ineffective after the first (viral replication) phase.
Do a little research vis à vis federal laboratory funding, and you will see that these physicians are very, very far from having no dog in the hunt. Not that that would possibly affect perfect independence, objectivity or cause skewed reporting ....
"Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are relatively ineffective after the first (viral replication) phase."
That first phase is also largely asymptomatic; the symptoms show up in the 2nd phase. So you're describing a treatment that only works if administered BEFORE the patient starts showing symptoms. That's not a very practical treatment, because by the time you know the drugs are needed it's too late for them to do much of anything.
miles, Jim makes such a copious reply, full of information backing up his argument, typical rebuttal of a pompous know-it-all!
Incorrect.
Jim, that dog won’t hunt; you can use all kinds of word salad, you can tell me, up is down, and down is up, it’s all bull patties in the pasture; you need to ante up some proof!
Out of curiosity, just me, what proof would be acceptable to you that did not come from the very "Science, Inc" people that have universally opposed such treatments.
It's a little like global warming. "If you think global warming isn't real, go do a study and prove it! Of course, we control the money for climatology and only give grants to studies that attempt to prove it is real. But why haven't you produced the proof yet!?" When one side is outspent by the other to a ratio of 1000:1, it makes it hard to determine the veracity of any claim in that field.
Brian, are you proposing that ivermectin is like Galileo's heretical belief that the earth was Heliocentric, not geocentric? Do you believe the new England journal of medicine is a: ecclesiastical tribunal?
When the entire institutional Science apparatus has been captured by a single point of view, getting at the truth becomes very hard, because science (as in actual experiments intended to find truth) are essentially impossible since the grant money requires experiments to be skewed to find only "acceptable" outcome.
I used the example of global warming above, but a similar dynamic can be seen in the debate over transgenderism, which has also fully captured institutional Science. And just like with COVID, dissenting voices must be crushed.
COVID captured institutional Science with a vengeance and speed I have never seen before. In 2020, you couldn't get a major journal article published critically examining ivermectin, lab vs bio origins, mask usage, lockdowns, or anything else re: COVID. (Interestingly, grants for these sorts of projects were Fauci's precise responsibility.) That makes me highly suspicious. I'm not saying that ivermectin et al are effective. I honestly have no idea. But I have enough familiarity with the process to be highly skeptical of "scientific" results published in fields that have been institutionally captured by single points of view.
Brian, how can you substantiate this comment: “…are essentially impossible since the grant money requires experiments to be skewed to find only “acceptable” outcome.”?
I know enough about how experiments are designed, and I have seen enough poorly designed ones to suspect it wasn't accidental. Replicability and reproducability are known to be serious problems in many fields, and not just in social sciences, but even in medicine. I have also seen a few grant application in my life, and they always made implicitly clear what the goal was. Education researchers taking money from the Gates Foundation know full well they aren't doing experiments to find out charter schools don't work. Every climate researcher knows what NOAA funds, and what happens to your future grant opportunities if a couple of your studies confirm the null hypothesis.
My academic background is in philosophy and economics though, so I know quite a bit about human nature and how humans respond to incentives. Monocultural environments generally produce poorer outcomes (that's why we spend so much time talking about diversity.) I find it very hard to believe that good science can be done in a highly mono-cultural environment. I've now given you 2 external examples of what I mean by that, and I hope you would agree that both represent cases where essentially only 1 side is presented in the grant-based science apparatus that I would call "Science, Inc."
I do notice you haven't answered my original question. I agree that "clinically proven" claims like Jim's are generally unreliable. But if the institutional science apparatus is completely homogenous on an issue and therefore can not explore alternatives (and you have not argued that to be false), what other options does one have but to fall back on the anecdotal cases of "clinically proven"? More importantly, when dealing with known safe drugs that are decades old and now available as cheap generics, what harm is there in doing so? What could possibly justify the wholesale substitution of bureaucratic for physician judgement about a novel virus?
Brian, I don’t accept your basic premise (“Science, Inc”), for example, climate change; it’s beyond doubt the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly, and there’s a scientific consensus that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The whole ivermectin debacle, which was driven out of ignorance and fear, and I’m certain humanity will replicate it in the future.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966
https://u4d2z7k9.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Co2-levels-800k.jpg
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01535-y
https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-022-07589-8
You retain a considerably higher degree of institutional trust than I do.
👏👏👏. Lawyers, too. When things go bad, you should be able to find a lawyer to at least plead your case. Not so with the Covid dogma.
Thank you.
I had to witness the struggle my naturally immune physician husband had to endure for being under the imposition of a vaccine mandate. He eventually relented (me: make them terminate you!) and got one JNJ but it was not without a fight.
This wasn't the first round. About two years before I retired, the Evil Empire for whom I worked decided that everybody in the hospital must have "flu shots." Having watched a local optometrist with flu-vaccine-induced Guillain-Barré struggle to recover, I said no. They said, "it's mandatory." I said no. They said, "You have to wear a mask, then." "No."
They said, "We'll fire you." My response? "I've always wanted to own a small hospital, ditto a small house to use for vacations. Your hospital and your house will do nicely, and I will guarantee you that my attorney, who is so mean he scares ME, will have the suit papers in your office and at your front door tomorrow morning."
We were at an impasse until the neurosurgeons, who brought in millions in revenue, refused as well, and the admin retired from the field of honor suitably chastised.
Great story. Awesome job standing up for yourself Jim!
never took that shot, made no sense from a risk /benefit standpoint. less than 0.15 percent change of severe illness or death to me. No reason to take experimental drug. got natural covid in aug 21. Noone would rec superior nat immunity. Was enraging. the medical communitu around me was and still is delusional cowardly ignorant.
I’m speaking tomorrow on “escaping corporate medicine” & I believe it will be live-streamed
GatewaytoFreedom.com
My husband has seen a lot of changes in his almost 30 years practicing medicine. It's only become "corporate" recently and he's been able to sidestep much of the corporate BS. He has about 20 more months until he goes part time.
Im a 54 yo doc . Im appalled at what i saw over the last 2 years. The medical comunity is in mass formation
Thank you for honoring your oath.
Alas, those men are of the past. When decisive people do things—like change scheduling for new CT scanners so they can erase 6 week backlogs—everyone hates them. For about three days. Most “leaders”of today can’t think 3 days ahead. They only think of the current news cycle.
Understood. And remembered. Well done.