COVID-19, Current Events, Guest Column, Media & Press, What's New

Vaccine Deaths Pile Up Without Media Coverage

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Guest column by Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn

Switch mental gears and stop thinking about the pandemic. Think about the endless news stories you have seen and heard on all mainstream media that headline stories with a large number of deaths. The deaths may result from large scale criminal acts like mass shootings or all kinds of natural disasters. Big media makes big news when a dozen or more people get killed, or when hundreds die in floods or hurricanes. Rarely are thousands dead, but when that happens, usually in other countries, that is really big news. And it happened for the 9/11 attack when about 3,000 people died in the US.

The point of this article is that the media now is largely ignoring the thousands dying from the experimental COVID vaccines. My exhaustive analysis of medical studies and data reveal that Americans are dying in two different ways because they got jabbed.

Two types of vaccine deaths

A few thousand people have died from breakthrough infections because the vaccines are not effective in preventing a new infection.

What is now crystal clear is that the experimental vaccines lose their effectiveness over some months. The number of breakthrough infections are accelerating for two reasons. As more people get the shot a larger pool of vaccinated people drive more breakthrough infections. And now with declining vaccine effectiveness, possibly related to new variants, the odds of getting a breakthrough infection go up. While many breakthrough infections do not cause major medical problems, in a fraction of cases victims need hospitalization and some die.

The other cause of vaccine deaths are complex blood problems, namely different kinds of blood clots, the loss of blood platelets and resulting bleed events that are lethal. Think in terms of brain bleeds, strokes and heart attacks. Vaccine induced blood problems have been discussed here.

Number of vaccine deaths

My data analysis indicates that now we have probably lost close to 5,000 American lives from the two vaccine related deaths and most likely this will increase to perhaps 10,000 deaths by the end of this year.

The vaccine related deaths of many hundreds and certainly thousands of people should be a big news story. It is not. Why not? Because all of the corrupt and dishonest powers mismanaging the pandemic want to keep pushing and coercing everyone to get the shot. So, they stifle the truth about vaccine dangers.

They keep justifying this by saying that only a small statistical fraction of the vaccinated die and compare this to the over 600,000 COVID deaths that the experimental vaccines supposedly could have prevented. Here is the truth. Vaccine induced deaths cannot be prevented. They result from the deficiencies of the vaccines.

On the other hand, COVID deaths have always been highly preventable, say 85 percent or more, because since March 2020 we have known that several cheap, safe and FDA approved generics cure COVID and also can be used to prevent the infection. Plus, many of those official COVID deaths were probably for people dying from other causes; they died with COVID, not from it.

Here is what people need to keep in mind. Can you imagine anything worse than getting a shot of an experimental COVID vaccine and then sometime later dying from the infection or a blood problem? I can’t. How could the government let such vaccines be widely used? Follow the money. All the way to big drug companies making vaccines.

Breakthrough infection data

It is hard to get good, reliable data on the post-vaccination breakthrough infection death rate. The likely answer is that the government wants to keep that data as hidden as possible. Why? Because the more that Americans know about breakthrough deaths, the more they will question the medical wisdom of getting either the first shot or a booster jab.

So, what does the breakthrough death data look like? That depends where you look for the data. Can you expect to see the same numbers everywhere? No. Can you expect to see such data in your daily newspaper or on you evening network news? No.

One seemingly good source is an August New York Times compilation of breakthrough deaths from 40 states and the District of Columbia. That list yields 1,527 deaths. But when extrapolated to the whole nation, that adds up to possibly 1,899 deaths. Expectedly, all the pro-vaccine people in government, public health and the medical establishment think that kind of number is just fine.

Their argument is simple. With so many millions of people vaccinated a few thousand breakthrough deaths is acceptable. Except for those who die and their family and friends. Something akin to putting a bandage on a cut after putting some antiseptic on it and then sometime later losing a limb or your life from a terrible infection. Just one of those statistical ugly and unlikely realities. I checked out some other places for similar data. Here is what I found.

A Los Angeles Times article from May said: “In all, 160 fully vaccinated people with a breakthrough infection died during the study period. That’s 2% of those with breakthrough infections, and 0.0001% of U.S. residents who were fully vaccinated by April 30. All 160 people were between the ages of 71 and 89.” Just 160, sounds pretty good, especially compared to close to 2,000. And the statistics make it seem oh so unlikely that you will die from COVID after vaccination. That figure of 160 came from a CDC report. And there now are breakthrough deaths in much younger people.

An article from Heritage in August cited a figure of 1,507 fatal cases of breakthrough infection in line with the New York Times data. This too was cited; “164 million Americans were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with 191 million people having acquired partial immunity through at least one dose.” Seems like you just have to bet on being statistically safe.

An August story on CNBC reported: “NBC News has found that at least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive for Covid and 1,400 of those have died. Still, the 125,682 “breakthrough” cases in 38 states found by NBC News represented less than 0.08% of the 164.2 million-plus people (and counting) who have been fully vaccinated since the start of the year, or about one in every 1,300.”

Here is the headline of story in New York Magazine from this month: “Don’t Panic, But Breakthrough Cases May Be a Bigger Problem Than You’ve Been Told – Current public-health messaging may understate the scale and risk.”

This was a wise observation: “a closer look at the data reveals that some of the public-health communication may be overstating the vaccine effect on transmission and understating the scale and risk of breakthrough infections, which, while far from predominant, do appear prevalent enough to be helping shape the course of the disease.”

“The message that breakthrough cases are exceedingly rare and that you don’t have to worry about them if you’re vaccinated — that this is only an epidemic of the unvaccinated — that message is falling flat,” Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina said.

Also noted was a large pre-print study published by the Mayo clinic that suggested the efficacy against infection had fallen as far to 42 percent, far below numbers in the 90s you have been hearing about since the experimental vaccines received emergency authorization. This helps explain escalating breakthrough cases.

The article also pointed these facts out: “In Utah, 8 percent of new cases were breakthroughs in early June, but by late July, as Delta grew, the share grew, too, to 20 percent (even while the total number of cases almost doubled). According to leaked CDC documents, there were, as of late last month, 35,000 symptomatic breakthrough cases being recorded each week — about 10 percent of the country’s total.

Presumably many more breakthrough cases were asymptomatic, which would drive the share up further.” But as of late May, CDC started to only count breakthrough cases resulting in hospitalization or death. Their objective was to not count more minor breakthrough cases that would reveal reduced vaccine effectiveness.

“The breakthrough problem is much more concerning than what our public officials have transmitted,” Dr. Eric Topol said. “We have no good tracking. But every indicator I have suggests that there’s a lot more under the radar than is being told to the public so far, which I unfortunate.” The result, he said, was a widening gap between the messaging from public-health authorities and the meaning of the data emerging in real time.

“I think the problem we have is people — whether it’s the CDC or the people that are doing the briefings — their big concern is, they just want to get vaccinations up. And they don’t want to punch any holes in the story about vaccines. But we can handle the truth. And that’s what we should be getting.”

Blood problem deaths

The US government is not providing good data on vaccine induced blood problem deaths. There are some websites that provide large numbers of videos about those who have died from brain bleeds, strokes and other conditions related to blood clots, loss of blood platelets and lethal bleeding. Health Impact News and 1000 Covid Stories are terrific.

Here is some data from a recent UK research study that addressed blood clots in “veins of the legs and in lung arteries.” The researchers offered rather high rates of the main blood clot/low

platelet condition from the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine: 1,000 per 100 million for people 50 and over and 2,000 per 100 million for younger people. These suggest a potential for thousands of vaccine induced blood deaths in the US. Keep in mind that many people may be dying from blood problems but no test done to verify it is caused by a vaccine.

Additionally, a Canadian doctor found evidence of microscopic blood clots in 62 percent of his patients that had received the Moderna vaccine. He predicted dire long term health impacts from these clots in capillaries. He said this: 
“The blood clots we hear about which the media claim are very rare are the big blood clots which are the ones that cause strokes and show up on CT scans, MRI, etc. The clots I’m talking about are microscopic and too small to find on any scan. They can thus only be detected using the D-dimer test…The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot re-generate. When those tissues are damaged by blood clots they are permanently damaged.”

Future medical problems and deaths from the microscopic blood clots at this point are speculative.

Conclusions

Here is my logical bottom line. Getting a shot these days is gambling that you will not be that statistical fluke, dying from a lack of protection against COVID from any of the experimental vaccines. Keep in mind that with so many millions of people being vaccinated breakthrough infections are likely to keep rolling up.

And think of your gamble as related to the possibility that you might die from vaccine induced blood clots or bleeding, especially in the brain. And then add these two pieces of true science facts.

If you have natural immunity from being infected at some point your have better immunity than that conferred by the experimental vaccines. Getting a shot might cause serious medical problems if you have natural immunity.

And finally, never forget that since March 2020 we have absolute scientific truth that several cheap, safe and fully FDA approved generic medicines not only can cure COVID but also can be used as a prophylactic to prevent infection. Detailed data on these are in Pandemic Blunder. They are alternatives to the experimental vaccines, and some doctors are prescribing these generics despite actions by NIH, FDA and CDC to block wide use of them.

The main thing to fear now are increasing vaccine mandates that so many people will comply with out of sheer survival needs. Vaccine related deaths will keep being ignored by government and big media in order to safeguard the revenues of big drug companies making the vaccines.

Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles on the pandemic, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.

COVID-19, Current Events, Guest Column, Medicine, What's New

Vaccinated or Not, Acute COVID-19 in High-Risk Patients Demands Early Treatment

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Vaccinated or Not, Acute COVID-19 in High-Risk Patients Demands Early Treatment

It is important to understand that COVID-19 always starts out with mild symptoms, so don’t make the mistake of assuming a “mild” case and ignoring early treatment. Take the approach that COVID-19 will be a short mild upper respiratory infection with prompt early therapy.  

There is a list of over-the-counter nutraceuticals and aspirin that all households should have in stock to be ready. For the prescription drugs, a doctor will need to call these orders into a pharmacy, and this can be done by your doctor if they are willing and capable, and if not, by national or regional telemedicine services.   

The links below give the key websites for you to access to get treatment guides and access telemedicine services. Do this early since outbreaks tend to jam up these services. Many have learned that early at-home treatment gives more effective medications than the hospital offers. The goal is to get as many days of multidrug home treatment before throwing in the towel for the hospital. If things worsen usually driven by extreme difficulty in breathing, a trip to the emergency room should be considered. 

Patients are encouraged to take their home medications into the hospital and continue them since in-hospital care is commonly minimal and has a major focus on giving oxygen and mechanical ventilation. The National Institutes of Health Guidelines, which are strictly followed by most hospitals, do not advise treatment until a patient requires oxygen, this means that some patients go days in the hospital with no therapy. 

That is the reason why it is so important to pack up home medications and take them to the hospital in the rare case treatment at home fails. Once in the emergency room, seniors should demand a monoclonal antibody infusion before release to home or admission. These lifesaving treatments are available to outpatients only, and sadly, once admitted to the hospital they are not offered in the current nihilistic approach to COVID-19 hospitalized care. 

The most important drugs in the hospital are blood thinners and patients should demand full dose blood thinners (enoxaparin injections or heparin infusions) and adult aspirin. These are not offered to many patients and when COVID-19 deaths occur in the hospital the most common finding is blood clots in the lungs and elsewhere in the body due to inadequate anticoagulation. Hopefully with these tips, for those who have COVID-19 or will get it soon, whether vaccinated or not, will be useful in keeping the syndrome to a mild 4-day cold and a deliverance to natural immunity which reigns superior over the failed attempts at vaccine protection. 

The monologue of this McCullough Report kicks off with a segment from an interview with Sebastian Gorka, Ph.D., who himself received successful early treatment and then moves into a detailed step by step approach of what should be done for children with serious background medical problems or presenting with severe symptoms and all adults over age 50 particularly the elderly and those with background medical problems.

This week’s show features Dr. Chris Montoya, Ph.D., who is a research professor of psychology and “brain science” at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops British Columbia, Canada. I’ve asked him to help us understand the mass psychosis that is occurring where doctors are in a trance, brainwashed into not treating COVID-19, losing empathy, and then without concern over safety or efficacy, are blindly promoting the failed mass vaccination program. His insights are terrific.

So, let’s get real, let’s get loud, on America Out Loud Talk Radio, this is The McCullough Report!

The McCullough Report: Sat/Sun 2 PM ET Encore 7 PM – Internationally recognized Dr. Peter A. McCullough, known for his iconic views on the state of medical truth in America and around the globe, pierces through the thin veil of mainstream media stories that skirt the major issues and provide no tractable basis for durable insight. Listen on iHeart Radio, our world-class media player, or our free apps on Apple, Android, or Alexa.

COVID-19, Current Events, Featured, Media & Press, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

The Graveyard of COVID-19 Missed Information

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The British social hierarchy of the Middle Ages and beyond was divided into “three estates of the realm”: the king, the clergy, and the commoners. More modern times brought the fourth estate, the non-establishment, independent journalists. Our founders knew that for a successful democratic republic, the press had to be a watchdog. Journalists now have become morticians who embalm and bury stories at the bidding of their puppet masters. 

In many cases, the government with its media accomplices quietly plucked from the public square information that is not to their liking, irrespective of its factual accuracy. COVID-19 has brought the practice out of the shadows. With our health at stake, it is imperative that all sides of the science are available. Let the people decide. 

Welcome to the cemetery. The PCR test used to diagnose an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was found to have as high as 97 percent of false positives for infectiousness because the test was so sensitive that it measured dead viruses that could not cause disease. Even the inscrutable Dr. Fauci agreed with that assessment.  After the distribution of the vaccines that were going to bring us back to the old normal, the CDC set strict rules for testing of vaccine “breakthrough” cases. It wanted “only specimens” that were collected with a PCR test that was much less sensitive. Was this done to make the vaccines look more effective?

It’s unlikely anyone saw that the CDC will soon abandon the PCR test. What a coincidence that a consortium backed by Bill Gates bought out Mologic, a company with a yet-to-be-approved COVID test. 

Then there’s a CDC analysis of infections and mask-wearing. “In the 14 days before illness onset, 71 percent of case-patients and 74 percent of control participants reported always using cloth face coverings or other mask types when in public.” Only 4 percent of the case-patients “never” wore a mask. The explanation was that the masked case-patients frequented restaurants and got infected when they removed their masks to eat.

The mainstream reporting of COVID-19 deaths is sensationalism at its worst. The newscasts implied any infected person would surely be on death’s door at some point. Again, the CDC’s own analysis of COVID hospitalizations showed that the risk of death while hospitalized was 0.3% for patients with no comorbidities. The analysis showed that the strongest risk factors were obesity, diabetes with a complication, and anxiety disorders. Yet we did not hear that we should lose weight and exercise. (How unfortunate that the gyms were closed.) Our mental health was tested by lockdowns and lack of socialization. 

Even French virologist and Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier was ghosted when he posited that mass vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the pandemic was creating variants. His science appears to have been borne out. The CDC reported an outbreak in Massachusetts where 90 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections were identified as the Delta variant. Moreover, 74 percent of the infected were fully vaccinated. There are similar findings in the United Kingdom and Israel. In another instance, 75 to 80 percent of recently infected staff members at two University of California San Francisco hospitals were fully vaccinated. 

The most devastating missed information is the effectiveness of early treatment of COVID-19. Since February 2020, clinicians had successfully treated patients early in the disease process with hydroxychloroquine. A campaign to discredit these successes followed. When Dr. Fauci’s pet drug, Remdesivir was found to be ineffective, the media buried the study. Despite studies showing its benefit, ivermectin was given the hydroxychloroquine smear treatment. Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are fully FDA-approved, have a long record of safety, and remain on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines. What’s the problem? They are very inexpensive and generic.

With early treatment sidelined, the experimental vaccines became the panacea. But why are we expected to ignore the RNA vaccines’ role in encouraging variants and serious side effects such as heart inflammation, paralysis, and death? Could money be a motivator? Pfizer reports that will have $33.5 billion in Covid-19 vaccine sales in 2021, with even more revenue anticipated from the booster shots. Was the drug and health product manufacturers’ $171 million to lobbyists in the last 6 months intended to ensure the government’s cooperation? Are the pharmaceutical companies the Fifth Estate?

The politicians’ hypocrisy says it all. In their personal lives, Nancy Pelosi and her nephew, California’s Governor Newsom flout their own directives, with mask-less haircuts, fancy dinners, and children’s summer camps, to name a few. More galling is the “let them eat cake” attitude in their political lives. Newsom demands that all state workers—except the powerful prison guard union—get vaccinated or submit to continuous COVID tests. Pelosi commands her subjects, aka congresspersons to don masks subject to fines and arrest for noncompliance. But her majesty removes her mask for a photo op. How can anyone trust anything these soulless grifters have to say?

Do some digging. The truth is out there. 

COVID-19, Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Health Policy, Medical Ethics, Medicare, Op-eds, What's New

There’s More to Death Than Covid-19

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Breathless headlines featuring ‘the Virus” are beginning to fade into a chronic undercurrent of fear thy neighbor for he might be bearing the gift of Covid. What you won’t see in the headlines are stories about a more pervasive and ultimately more lethal virus: a growing disregard for others and devaluation of life. Rampant homicides are disheartening enough, but more shocking is the shifting morality in medicine. 

News headlines gave the impression that the newly instituted Covid rules were designed to save lives, yet we soon learned the lockdowns, masking, school closures did more harm than good. Meanwhile—in plain sight—government-sanctioned sacrifice of the elderly was taking place. In 5 “progressive” states, Covid-positive patients were discharged from hospital isolation units and returned to their nursing homes where they comingled with uninfected residents. Of course, many more residents became ill. It didn’t make the headlines that half of Covid deaths were in nursing homes and 80 percent of deaths were in those over 65. This might have encouraged more policies that protected our elders and allowed the younger folks to carry on with their lives. To date, the news has not reported any apologies to the families of the victims of government and medical incompetence.

In 2020, many hospitals in the United States considered guidelines that would allow doctors to withhold CPR from Covid patients, ignoring the patient’s wishes. Our neighbor to the north, Quebec had actually issued such an order lasting from April to September 2020. Bless the paramedics on the front lines who complained and had the order lifted.

Age-related rationing is alive and well. The ethics advisor to 78-year-old President Biden, Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, author of the utilitarian “Complete Lives System” of  medical care, chose age 75 as his personal benchmark for ending life. This is so wrong. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Whether mentally sharp or in declining health, older people give texture and context to our lives. Reflecting on older folks reminds us that in their lifetime innovations have gone from puttering around in a car to rocketing to the moon. And Dick Tracy’s comic book two-way wrist radio is now a commonly worn Apple watch. 

The behavior of bureaucrats and the medical establishment during the Covid “crisis” laid bare the dismissive treatment of elders. And an uncomfortable question hangs in the air: was the nursing home debacle a conscious attempt to cull the herd? After all, Medicare chews up 15 percent of the federal budget and 25 percent of Medicare dollars are spent in the last year of the patient’s life. According to the 2019 Medicare Trustees report, the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will be depleted in 2026—a short 5 years away. 

If this form of population control sounds un-American, remember that our country seriously engaged in eugenics, marked by 75 years of Supreme Court-approved forced sterilization. The abortion industry has devolved from a time when a woman was mortified to have an abortion to where clinics are advertised on highway billboards. The quest for clean air has gone from encouraging recycling and renewable energy to suggesting that human depopulation is the only way to save the planet. 

Human concern in medicine has taken a back seat to marginal scientific ethics and perhaps, secret agendas. We have become numb to the experiments using fresh aborted fetal tissue to create “humanized mice” that sprout various human organs. This slow walk to the edge of medical ethics has allowed science to go in grotesquely anti-human directions. Jointly with Chinese government funding, United States researchers created viable embryos that are a mix of human and monkey cells (a “chimera”). With funding from the Chan Zuckerberg [Mr. Facebook] Initiative, researchers tinkered with male rats so they could deliver live babies via Cesarian section. 

Sadly, physicians have become willing participants in the government’s borderline coercion by not informing themselves about early treatments for Covid or the side effects of the experimental vaccine. Federal and state governments are bribing, cajoling, and subjecting us to door-to-door pressure to take an injection of a product that could be killing us in numbers not seen before. Serious reactions include miscarriages, Bell’s palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, blood clotting disorders (including brain clots), and anaphylaxis. Bizarrely, the White House is challenging colleges to vaccinate its entire campus, despite sometimes fatal heart inflammation after vaccinations in young adults (who have infinitesimal risk of significant Covid illness). 

It appears we are guinea pigs in a grand experiment. The elderly were the casualties of Phase I. As the post-vaccine bodies pile up, the Nuremberg Code’s principle is being ignored: The experiment must be stopped if continuation would result in injury and death.

It’s not too late. Physicians must remember their Oath of Hippocrates and speak up and act for the benefit of their patients even in the face of conflicting government dictates. 

Current Events, Guest Column, Media & Press, Politics, What's New

Anatomy of Subtle Propaganda

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Guest column by Aharon Hertzberg

The purpose of this essay is to show how someone can write an article that appears to be, and feels like, an even and balanced depiction of an issue while in reality being full-on gaslighting propaganda. Therefore, I am not trying to prove my factual assertions here, as it would double or triple the length and distract from what I’m trying to illustrate; and even if I am dead wrong factually, it is still aptly illustrated, for the reader can see the tactics and methods by which one can subtly distort facts and arguments. The following article was published by MSN:

“Can ivermectin be used to treat COVID-19? What you should know” 

Early on in the pandemic, doctors desperate for an answer for COVID-19 began reviewing whether any drugs already available could be used as an effective treatment. Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic, was administered to some patients across the globe with seemingly positive effects. However, some health officials have challenged the effectiveness of the drug to treat COVID-19, creating controversy in both the medical and political spheres. 

On one side, there are doctors who say ivermectin can help end the pandemic if used globally. On the other are public health officials who have reviewed the data and say the drug’s effectiveness against COVID-19 isn’t conclusive. 

This is an accurate and fair depiction of the basic contours of the Ivermectin debate. 

Here’s everything you need to know about ivermectin and its use for COVID-19. 

This implants I the mind of the reader that what follows is sufficiently comprehensive to understand all of the salient points and arguments relevant to Ivermectin. This sense of ‘broad comprehensiveness’ is further driven home by the length of this article, which implies comprehensiveness. 

What is ivermectin? 

Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic medicine “that works by altering cellular channels,” said Dr. Soumi Eachempati, CEO of Cleared4 and former professor of surgery and public health at Weill Cornell Medical College. The drug inhibits some viruses from infecting cells, thus preventing the virus from spreading. Ivermectin is usually given to treat parasitic infections like lice and Strongyloides, according to Eachempati. 

Scientists at pharmaceuticals giant Merck discovered ivermectin in 1975 and began to use it to treat scabies, river blindness and other parasitic diseases carried by worms and lice starting in 1981. It’s on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines for a basic health care system. More than 250 million people take the drug across the globe each year, and it’s effective for animals as well. 

Although they could have done a better job explaining the background, it is immaterial to understanding Ivermectin vis a vis covid, and doesn’t give any misleading impressions. 

The drug is considered safe when taken in appropriate dosages. 

This is a bit misleading, because there is a subtle implication that there is very little room between the normal dosing range and an unsafe dose, which is not true, as Ivermectin is safe even at very high doses. 

Side effects for the ivermectin vary depending on whether it’s taken orally to treat intestinal infections or topically for skin infections. Oral tablets can cause drowsiness, nausea, vomiting and, in very rare cases, an increase in heart rate and seizures. Side effects for the topical ivermectin can include skin rash and irritation, while dry skin and stinging pain are severe and rare. 

Ivermectin is safer than Tylenol, so ask yourself: If you saw this about Tylenol, would you think that this is a fair assessment of potential side effects? Does it convey an exaggerated sense of risk? Ivermectin is one of the safest drugs ever made, dispensed >4 billion times over the past 50 years or so. Also, the vast majority of Ivermectin side effects are specific to its interactions with either river blindness or parasitic worms, neither of which is relevant to covid. 

Can ivermectin be used to treat COVID-19? 

This is where things get complicated. Public health agencies, including the Federal Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization, don’t suggest ivermectin’s use to treat COVID-19. They cite the lack of data from large, randomized trials confirming the drug’s effectiveness to treat the disease. 

True in the sense that they said it. This, however, gaslights the reader into believing that these agencies are acting on the basis of their unbiased, expert judgement, which is emphatically delusional – these agencies are as political as any govt agency. Also, there are many RCT’s, that collectively cover well over 10,000 subjects, which is definitely enough to qualify as “large”. Furthermore, the author neglects to inform the reader that these same agencies approved other interventions, such as facemasks or Remdesivir, on the basis of far less data/studies, which proves that their excuse of “lack of large RCT’s” is baloney. 

Doctors who cited multiple smaller studies and firsthand experience say otherwise. 

Credit for acknowledging clinical (firsthand) experience. But this is still very misleading. Doctors are not citing only ‘smaller studies’, they are also citing large studies, some of which are RCT’s. This gives a distinct impression that there exist no robust studies in favor of Ivermectin at all, which is emphatically untrue. 

They claim ivermectin does work to prevent people from developing symptoms from COVID-19 and can shorten recovery time for those already infected. 

This is straight up lying by omission, because the author leaves out the most important claim – the massive reduction in mortality – which is the primary benefit and the one that is most strongly demonstrative of Ivermectin’s efficacy!! The fact that mortality reduction is mentioned later almost in passing does not excuse its absence here, where the reader’s first impression of the pro-Ivermectin arguments is formed. 

What do the public health agencies say about ivermectin use for COVID-19 treatment? 

The FDA said in March it hasn’t approved the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. It warned that large doses of the drug are “dangerous and can cause serious harm.” The agency also advised against human use of ivermectin produced for animals, such as cows and horses, as the doses aren’t the same and could contain ingredients intended only for animals. 

All true – the FDA indeed made these claims (although the decision to not approve is preposterous). 

There has been a growing number of people taking ivermectin for animals as word spread on social media about its possible use to cure COVID-19. This has resulted in some people calling state poison centers after taking the incorrect dosage since the medication is intended for animals. 

This is a slanted depiction of the people who take horse Ivermectin. The reason people have done so is simply out of desperation when faced with doctor’s refusal to use it, and their pharmacy’s refusal to fill Ivermectin prescriptions, and government bans on it. This is not some wild conspiracy theory trafficked by crackpots. 

In April, the FDA reaffirmed in a post on its website that ivermectin isn’t approved to treat COVID-19 nor has it been given emergency use authorization. 

Factually true statement. However, constantly quoting the FDA and other health agencies as institutions possessing unimpeachable expertise is itself highly misleading, because it conveys to people that there is a legitimate expert opinion out there that legitimately holds that Ivermectin doesn’t work, which is profoundly wrong – there is no rational basis in fact or logic to doubt Ivermectin’s efficacy at this point, and there is considerable corruption within these highly political government health agencies.

The NIH said in February there was insufficient data to “recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.” 

They said it. It is still a misleading presentation, however - i.e., an objective description of the facts is “The NIH lied in February when they said there was insufficient data etc.”

It did say lab tests found the drug stopped the reproduction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that cause the disease. However, to be effective, the dosages would need to be “100-fold higher than those approved for use in humans.” 

They did say that. This is very dishonest though. The claim about the dosage requirement is sheer scientific illiteracy. Not only does the author present this as an unchallenged scientific finding, he doesn’t ever cite the counter arguments (refutation) of the pro-Ivermectin doctors. He also fails to point out the obvious, which is that real-world observation of efficacy would completely disprove this, something that the average reader won’t think of by themselves. All in all, this claim gives a false impression that it is highly unlikely that Ivermectin could be used effectively based on the prior background clinical knowledge we have for Ivermectin. 

While some clinical studies showed ivermectin to have no benefit, the NIH said others saw a lower mortality rate among patients. However, those studies were incomplete or had methodological limitations such as small sample sizes or patients receiving additional medicine along with ivermectin, according to the NIH. 

The claim that some studies showed no benefit is false, because no legitimate studies found no benefit – there were a few corrupt, fraudulent studies that purported to show no benefit, which don’t count (these will be addressed later). This is like saying, “while some studies showed that the Earth is round, NASA said that others showed that the Earth is actually kind of flat”. 

The claim that all the studies showing benefits suffered from “methodological limitations” that are implied to be disqualifying is likewise false. Furthermore, a sufficient number of low-power studies all finding the same results is itself powerful evidence of efficacy, because the odds of running 50 small studies that show the same thing are insignificant if it’s just a fluke. 

The WHO said in March the current evidence on the use of ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19 was “inconclusive.” 

The WHO said it. The WHO lied. 

Who says ivermectin is a treatment, and what information do they have? 

Ivermectin’s potential use as a COVID-19 therapeutic made headway last December during a Senate Homeland Security Committee meeting called Focus on Early Treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care specialist, testified about the drug’s usage for treatment of the disease. 

“Ivermectin is highly safe, widely available, and low cost,” Kory said in the Senate meeting. “We now have data from over 20 well-designed clinical studies, 10 of them randomized, controlled trials, with every study consistently reporting large magnitude and statistically significant benefits in decreasing transmission rates, shortening recovery times, decreasing hospitalizations, or large reductions in deaths. These data show that ivermectin is effectively a ‘miracle drug’ against COVID-19.” 

During his testimony, Kory referred to a paper he authored — Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19 — that was published in the May edition of the American Journal of Therapeutics. 

True! And I would add, ask yourself: does this sound remotely like how the author of this article presented the general case for Ivermectin earlier?? 

However, the author again left out the most compelling argument made, which in this case is that Dr. Kory himself had successfully treated thousands of Covid patients with Ivermectin. The clinical experience of a doctor using a treatment repeatedly on thousands of patients is far stronger evidence than any trial, for sure during a crisis. It is obvious to anyone with a brain that “Dr. Kory testified that he had used Ivermectin to successfully treat thousands of covid patients” resonates powerfully to the reader in a way that no ‘study’ ever can. 

The paper was also included in the Frontiers of Pharmacology journal in January but was then removed in March. 

They folded under immense political pressure, which is misleading by omission of the possibility that its retraction may have been the result of political influence. 

Dr. Frederick Fenter, chief executive editor of the journal, said the paper was removed due to “strong, unsupported claims based on studies with insufficient statistical significance, and at times, without the use of control groups.” 

Every element of Dr. Fenter’s statement is a bold, audacious lie. 

Fenter also said the authors promoted their own specific ivermectin-based treatment, which goes against editorial policies. 

Selective application of a standard which they didn’t actually run afoul of. 

A study listed in Kory’s paper gave ivermectin to 234 uninfected health care workers in Argentina and found those who received the drug were far less likely to be diagnosed with COVID. For mildly ill patients, an Iraq study saw a quicker recovery time. A trial for 400 hospitalized patients in Egypt showed a decrease in mortality in one group that received the drug along with standard care in comparison to a group with the same care that was given hydroxychloroquine. 

This is cherry picking that also avoids spelling out the clear results of the quoted studies. He could’ve cited, for example, this Argentina study, which gives a far more powerful impression of efficacy: 

Carvallo et al, RCT Prophylaxis, 1195 health care workers (HCW’s), 2 groups, 788 given 1x/week prophylaxis, control of 407 HCW’s. Results: 237/407 (58.2%) lab-confirmed covid infections in control vs 0/788 – ZERO!! - in Ivermectin arm. 

I wonder why he didn’t… 

There are also studies that show otherwise. A clinical trial of 476 patients found ivermectin didn’t improve the recovery time in patients who had COVID-19. A review of 10 random clinical trials, with more than 1,000 participants, also didn’t find improvements with ivermectin. 

Both of these studies are, literally, fraudulent junk science. The first one, Medina-Lopez, suffered from issues such as the control arm also taking Ivermectin(!!!), among other significant failings; the second, the Roman et al meta-analysis of Ivermectin RCT’s, suffered from issues such as falsely reporting results from some of the studies in a way that SWAPPED THEIR RESULTS from showing efficacy to doing worse than the control, as well as arbitrarily excluding all the RCT’s that had they included, they would have been forced to conclude that Ivermectin was, indeed, effective. 

Furthermore, there are 2 recently published meta-analyses of Ivermectin RCT’s using the highest statistical standard (Cochrane protocol), both by professional WHO expert consultants who specifically do these sorts of meta-analyses for all sorts of topics, that found that Ivermectin has a massive statistical impact by moderate quality evidence (which in layperson language means that it is a virtual lock that the effect is real, ‘moderate’ is a very technical term that refers to having specific types of evidence). 

Merck, the company that discovered ivermectin, released a statement in February saying there was “no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies” and “no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease.” It also cited a lack of safety data from major studies. 

Merck lied. Merck also just signed a gov’t contract for a new anti-viral covid treatment drug they’re developing for $1.3 billion, which is an obvious conflict of interest relevant to their credibility to denounce a competing drug which if effective would mean there is no market at all for their expensive new anti-viral covid drug. The failure to acknowledge this by the author is at best indefensibly negligent. This gives the misleading impression of an authoritative source that has unique credibility to speak on the issue (because it’s their drug) saying that there’s no evidence that Ivermectin works. 

Why is there controversy over ivermectin? 

This question is inherently misleading, because anyone reading until now would intuit that of course there is a ‘controversy’ about a drug where according to one side, the other side are murderers, corrupt, and engaging in flat-put censorship. Such a question, especially after explaining the dispute, implies that it is not so clear why there would be a controversy at all, which in light of how they have portrayed Ivermectin so far is unambiguously pushing – however subtly - that Ivermectin really doesn’t have legitimate evidence backing it up. 

The debate about ivermectin’s usage to treat COVID-19 has gone from the hospital to social media, exacerbating the discourse as well as the vitriol. 

True. 

While those in support of the drug appear to want an end to the pandemic, their arguments in favor of ivermectin have become fodder for anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists. 

“Appear to want an end to the pandemic”??? Notice how the author will question the motives of the pro-Ivermectin doctors, despite them having no documented conflicts of interest, yet will not question the motives of health agencies and political doctors, despite the numerous and powerful conflicts of interest. This is subtle, but powerful, propaganda that gets the reader to associate the pro-Ivermectin doctors, but not the anti-Ivermectin health agencies, with nefarious motives (and conspiracy theorists, to whom a connection is alleged even though the author then says that it’s not the conscious objective of the pro-Ivermectin docs) without really realizing the manipulation inducing the reader to make this association. 

Groups that have spread misinformation about COVID-19 throughout the pandemic latched onto ivermectin’s usage following Kory’s Senate testimony. 

Notice also how the author doesn’t ever mention how government policies and claims have led to groups spreading misinformation about covid, such as there being no effective covid treatments as an alternate to getting a vaccine (and also such as that everyone is at significant risk from covid, facemask efficacy (which led to such cultish insanity like people wearing facemasks alone while driving), the 6-foot fairy tale, distorted vaccine risk/benefit analysis, ‘9% of US died from covid’, 50% of covid cases result in hospitalization, etc, etc, etc). Even if this is merely reflecting the prior assumptions of the author, the propaganda effect is just as real, as the reader is induced to associate only the pro-Ivermectin doctors with enabling crackpots and malicious people spreading lies, but not the government, who has been infinitely worse in this regard, as they have been the most aggressive purveyor of scientific quackery throughout the pandemic. 

Anti-vax groups on Telegram share misinformation about the vaccine while asking where they can buy the drug. Rumble, an alternative video platform to YouTube, has pages of videos falsely saying vaccines are ineffective while advising people to also take ivermectin. 

Anti-vax posts and videos can also be found on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, although the companies are attempting to take these posts down or make them harder to find. 

This is, at minimum, a clever bait and switch – the author is conflating in the reader’s mind the claim of ZERO vaccine efficacy (“ineffective” implies that it simply doesn’t work) with the claim of Ivermectin efficacy, which leads the reader to project – to some degree - the sense of obvious falseness of the zero-vaccine efficacy claim onto the claim of Ivermectin efficacy. This also propagandizes the reader to subtly project this sense of outright falseness onto all negative claims about the vaccines. 

This is also shameless propaganda maligning alternative platforms to those controlled by “Big Tech” – in other words, those that aren’t engaging in rampant communist-style censorship – as the platforms of choice for the conspiracy quacks, while whitewashing the outrageous censorship of these platforms as an appropriate tactic to stop disinformation. 

Kory was a guest on the Dark Horse Podcast hosted by Bret Weinstein, a former professor at Evergreen State College, on June 1 to talk about ivermectin. That video was eventually demonetized on YouTube and Weinstein’s channel received a strike, which prevented him from posting content for one week and could lead to its removal if he receives two more strikes within 90 days. 

YouTube says its actions on Weinstein’s videos were part of its policies. 

“While we welcome open discussions of potential treatments and clinical trials related to COVID-19 on YouTube, based on guidance from the CDC, FDA and other local health authorities, we don’t currently allow content that recommends ivermectin as an effective treatment or prevention method for the virus,” said Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson. “We craft our policies to prevent the risk of egregious real-world harm, and update them as official guidance evolves. We do allow exceptions to our policy about ivermectin, including content that also gives viewers the full context of the FDA’s current position.” 

Despite being a factually accurate depiction of YouTube’s claims regarding their own policies, this presents YouTube’s propaganda in a favorable light, which implies to the reader a presumptive degree of legitimacy that is emphatically divorced from reality – this is like citing Pravda in a way that makes Pravda look like a legitimate news source. 

Because of YouTube’s decision, the controversy over ivermectin grew and became tied to what some claim to be “big tech censorship.” 

“What some claim to be “big tech censorship””??? This is selectively disparaging the pro-Ivermectin side, as well as the government skeptics. Notice how the author never remarked the same way about the anti-Ivermectin proponents, such as “YouTube’s policies, what some claim are an attempt to combat misinformation”, etc. 

In any event, the controversy over Ivermectin became tied to the controversy about censorship BECAUSE YOUTUBE, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, ET AL CENSORED INFORMATION ABOUT IVERMECTIN, INCLUDING WORLD-RENOWNED DOCTORS AND SCIENTISTS!!!! This sentence is blatant gaslighting to obscure a simple, obvious, self-evident, objective fact. 

What is required for ivermectin to get approved for COVID-19 treatment? 

For the public health agencies, it’s going to come down to the results of large clinical studies being conducted around the world. 

This refers to a few ongoing trials, all of which are designed corruptly in a manner almost guaranteed to undermine and sabotage the potential for Ivermectin to help (ie, comically low dosing, too few doses, using it on patients weeks after symptom presentation, etc). This also neglects to mention that this is an absurd standard to use. Facemasks, for example, had no evidence of efficacy when they were mandated by every health agency, despite the massive disruption and myriad harms they caused. 

The WHO’s lead investigator tasked with reviewing the Ivermectin studies concluded in a massive Meta-Analysis study that it is demonstrably effective, with massive statistically significant effects established by moderate certainty evidence. The public health agencies are trying to destroy Ivermectin, something that this author is flipping on its head trying to imply that the health agencies are just trying to do their due diligence. 

This author avoids every truly devastating argument the pro-Ivermectin doctors have against the anti-Ivermectin forces. 

“In the UK, it was announced that ivermectin will be added to the Principle Trial, a large clinical study designed to assess potential COVID therapies for non-hospitalized therapies for patients at higher risk for severe disease,” said Dr. David Shafran, head of pediatrics at telehealth app K Health. “This should demonstrate more definitively the efficacy of ivermectin in early-stage COVID infections. Fingers crossed because it’s a cheap medication with a good safety profile. It would be great to add this to the armament of medication to fight COVID.” 

The Oxford University Principle Trial has more than 5,000 participants and will give a three-day course of oral ivermectin treatment to individuals randomly and compare their results to individuals who will receive standard care. 

The corrupt Oxford trial. 

In the US, the NIH is evaluating therapeutics for COVID-19 with its Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) master protocol. ivermectin was added in phase three of ACTIV-6, which will test the effectiveness of repurposed drugs. 

“The ACTIV prioritization group, trial team and trial oversight groups continuously track new data on any agent we are studying in our trials and evaluate that data for how it might influence our testing of that agent and the safety/well being of the participants in the trial,” said Dr. Sarah Dunsmore, a program director at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences that is part of the NIH. 

What’s unclear is how long the whole process will take. The studies need time to be completed, and then the agencies will require additional time to come up with decisions based on the data. 

This whole section is propaganda suggesting that there simply isn’t any robust data supporting Ivermectin, which is about as credible as flat-Earth theories, as well as falsely implying to the reader that the medical community is making genuine, good-faith attempts to study Ivermectin. 

As you saw, it is remarkably easy to masquerade and disguise propaganda in the language and tone of “fair and balanced”. This is exactly how gaslighting and propaganda work and why they’re so effective. 

Guest columns represent the opinion of the column’s author. The author’s analysis of the quoted article are in red/italicized font.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Guest Column, Politics, What's New

America In A Nutshell

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David Lawrence Ramsey III (born September 3, 1960) is an American personal finance advisor, radio show host, author, and businessman. He is an evangelical Christian, and hosts the nationally syndicated radio program The Dave Ramsey Show.

Dave Ramsey wrote: 

- This morning, I realized that everything is about to change.  No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, 
lives are never going to be the same.

- I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends.   I look at people I have known all my life so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own.   I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone.

- You can’t justify this insanity.  We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind.  We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan to us.

- Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America .


- People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.


- Universities that advocate equality, discriminate against Asian-Americans in favor of African-Americans.

- Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.

- Criminals are caught-and-released to hurt more people,  but stopping them is bad because it’s a violation of THEIR rights.

- People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.

- After legislating gender, if a dude pretends to be a woman,  you are required to pretend with him.

- People who have never been to college should pay the debts  of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.

- Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.

- Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang-bangers who jump the southern fence are welcomed.

$5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.

- If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.

- And, pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us “racists”!

- Nothing makes sense anymore, no values, no morals, no civility and people are dying of a Chinese virus, but it is racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it began in China .

- We are clearly living in an upside-down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right.

- Wake up America . The great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, is taking on water and sinking fast.

Lord help us!

COVID-19, Current Events, Guest Column, Medical Ethics, Uncategorized, What's New

COVID-19: Are There Ethical Issues with Jabs or Mandates?

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By Jane M. Orient, MD

If your faith forbids sterilization, or your respect for human rights forbids involuntary sterilization, then you need to consider the risk of infertility from COVID jabs.

We do NOT know that the COVID jab will cause infertility. But we also do not and cannot know that it doesn’t. There simply has not been enough time to see.

Despite the uncertainty, thousands of our youth are being forced to choose between taking the jab or putting their educational plans or careers on hold. How much risk can we ethically take, or coerce others to accept—whether the risk is of infertility, miscarriage, disability, chronic disease, or death?

The ethical and legal issues of a mandate are outlined in a letter to colleges and universities from the William J. Olson law firm in Vienna, VA. The letter also requests a commitment to assume financial liability for death, disability, or illness of students being required to take the COVID-19 inoculation. While manufacturers are immune from product liability, those who coerce students or employees to receive it might not be.

Investigations that might inform us about the reproductive risks have not been done (or reported). More than 700 post-injection miscarriages have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Where are the pathological examinations of the placentas? Were there spike-proteins in the blood vessels, and inflammation that cut off oxygen or nutrients to the baby? We don’t know. An NEJM article that concluded there were no safety signals had no information on the placentas.

Was there damage to the reproductive organs of the nearly 7,000 persons who died post injection? The first (only?) autopsy report, of an 86-year-old man, published in June, did not address this. 

Nanoparticles are meant to be distributed widely, and do accumulate in ovaries, testes, and uterus. What happens to the lipid nanoparticles that enclose the genetic material in the mRNA vaccines? Pfizer did not perform standard biodistribution studies. 

College students are probably delaying marriage and family until educational or career goals are achieved. So, they might not discover infertility for years. But there are early warnings from fertility clinics about failed in-vitro fertilization with previously successful donors. 

Once injected, the genetically engineered materials cannot be removed. We do not know how long the mRNA or the spike proteins it codes for will remain in the tissues.

Risks and benefits need be considered for different age groups. Persons past reproductive years have a higher risk of disease; younger persons seldom get seriously ill with COVID. A one-size-fits-all mandate is without justification.

Those deciding whether to accept the shots, and their spiritual, parental, and career advisors, have a heavy responsibility with a potential impact on all future generations.

For further information:

·         64 days without answers from the CDC

·         57 experts call for immediate halt to COVID vaccine programs

·         2 vaccine deaths for 3 prevented (retracted because vaccines not proved to be cause of death)

·         AAPS open letter to universities on COVID mandate

Jane Orient, M.D., Exec. Dir., Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, [email protected]

COVID-19, Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

COVID-19: Speaking Up in Black and White

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These days more and more apparently intelligent people seem to upspeak. That’s the irritating “Valley Girl” inflection where every sentence sounds like a question. Don’t these people trust their own thoughts and words? 

Perhaps upspeakers’ brains are fried after being fed a steady diet of DEI, ESG, and BIPOC. For the uninitiated, these initials stand for “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, a corporate stock/investment rating based on Environmental awareness, Social justice and (right-minded) Governance to enhance the lives of “Black, Indigenous, People of Color.” “Privilege” gets the full word. White people must “check their privilege at the door” and shut up under the current era of Stalinesque cancel culture.

Black American slaves used to have some version of Simon Legree as their master. Now the woke white liberals have assumed that role. Even President Biden views BIPOCs as helpless morons whom only the government can rescue.

Of course, little BIPOCs are the perfect unsuspecting targets. Despite parental objections, new school curricula include Marxist inspired critical race theory that teaches children to hate others based on skin color. Instead of learning the 3 Rs, kindergarteners are encouraged to explore their gender identity and question the family structure. The latest data show that only 35 percent of 4th graders are proficient in reading and 41 percent are proficient in math. Instead of learning the necessary skills to race to the top of the ladder of success, they have the tools to win the victim triathlon. The prize: dependency on government resources.

COVID-19 added a new ingredient to the melting pot. Brown-skinned Americans fare more poorly with COVID than whites. Some reasons are sociological, such as crowded living conditions, working in service jobs that cannot be done from home, and inconsistent access to health care. Some reasons may be physiological. Studies have shown racial differences in the body’s ACE-2 receptors. These receptors help control inflammation, especially in cells lining the blood vessels. These are the sites where the “spike” protein of the SARS-Co-V-2 virus (that causes COVID-19) enter and infect healthy cells throughout the body. Notably, there may be more ACE-2 receptors in patients with hypertension, diabetes and coronary artery disease—conditions plaguing black Americans. Moreover, people with brown skin have lower levels of Vitamin D, a factor in the risk of contracting a SARS-Co-V-2 infection and the severity of COVID-19. 

Knowing the higher risk, the DEI folks should have launched an education campaign informing BIPOCs about non-prescription supplements like quercetin, zinc, and vitamin D, as well as prophylaxis or early treatment with inexpensive medications (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and fluvoxamine, among others) that can significantly reduce symptoms and prevent hospitalizations and deaths.

Instead, the public health gurus waited for vaccines. The guise of “vaccine equity” drew attention away from legitimate concerns about the shots. Despite the increased susceptibility to COVID-19, black Americans remain skeptical of the shot. Folks still remembered the instances where the underserved were “helped” by the government. The 1932 Tuskegee syphilis study denied a group of black men treatment for 40 years. Without informed consent, an experimental measles vaccine was administered to babies starting in 1987. After too many African and Haitian children deaths to ignore, the program was halted.

Able to read, BIPOCs learned about the serious side effects that include sometimes fatal blood clots, facial paralysis, possible menstrual problems, heart inflammation, among others. They wondered why the less effective Johnson & Johnson vaccine was sent to underserved neighborhoods. They wondered why the government had to offer $116 million in prizes, trucks, and customized firearms to encourage people to get the shot. They wondered why the government was going door to door to find BIPOCs to whom to give shots. 

In order to swoop in to the rescue, the government-pharmaceutical complex could not allow the 34 million Americans who have had documented COVID-19 or a SARS-CoV-2 infection to depend on their natural immunity. Like a virus escaping from a lab or jumping from a pangolin to infect humans, the government control expanded from BIPOCs to privileged white folks.

What are we to do about the tension between addressing real health disparities and recognizing that racial disparities are used as a cover for manipulating society? Together we rip off the mask of benevolence. As ethical physicians, we pledge to treat all individuals with dignity and respect. We will explain the risks and benefits of their options and let patients decide. As active citizens, we demand prophylaxis, treatments of our choice, and the freedom to choose to receive or decline the shot. We take advantage of the law. A number of courts have been on the patient’s side.

Save yourself. Be bold. Speak up. 

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