Volume 79, no. 12
According to the American Medical Association, nearly 63% of physicians reported symptoms of burnout at the end of 2021, up from the already high 38% in 2020, when the COVID pandemic raged (https://tinyurl.com/5skhvxzk). More than one in ten of the 13,000 physicians surveyed by MedScape considered or attempted suicide in 2021, and young, beloved residents who seemingly were doing well completed it (tinyurl.com/4mz2arke).
AMA proposes to add “improving the clinician experience” to the Institute for Health Improvement’s Triple Aim, making it a Quadruple Aim (https://tinyurl.com/bdhjbmra). Limiting work hours and improving “work-life balance” has obviously not cured burnout. Better access to mental health services (and removing the stigma), and reducing administrative burdens are proposed—without naming the burdens that AMA has advocated, such as electronic health records, “value-based” payments and the huge documentation burden, and constant recertification.
Nor does AMA recognize the moral injury inflicted by the medical regulatory-therapeutic complex (https://tinyurl.com/yks3ukt3), or the toxic medical workplace, which coerces or pressures physicians to act in a manner contrary to their beliefs about what is best for individual patients (tinyurl.com/mzt76rp9). This is constantly present in systems devoted to the bottom line, and crescendoed during COVID to collect government incentives (https://tinyurl.com/3zt3bu3f) or to enforce official mandates for lockdowns or vaccines. AMA hardly recognizes the threat of professional death from unjust prosecution, delicensure, or sham peer review chronicled in our Journal (https://jpands.org).
Once again, efforts to change AMA’s opposition to assisted suicide failed in the House of Delegates—but will probably return until it passes. In nations further down the vortex than the U.S., Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) may be authorized for patients with psychiatric illnesses (https://tinyurl.com/32spr5c9).
Missing from the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)
Formal SDOH assessment tools, which physicians may be required to complete on patients, are being developed, and Healthy People 2030 sets “data-driven national objectives” (tinyurl.com/4x6pu89p). Medical students and physicians should all score well on these, as their physical and economic circumstances are generally acceptable. So, why the burnout?
Are there determinants of health, applying to both patients and their doctors, in the nonmaterial realm? Are there areas that a Chief Wellness Officer or “safe spaces” or “cognitive restructuring” or “somatic therapy exercises” (tinyurl.com/ym338kmu) can’t address? Human features that can’t be digitized or coded?
Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) writes about the young American student who says: “I am a 22-year old with degree, car, security, and the availability of more sex and power than I need. Now I have only to explain to myself what it all means.” Dr. Frankl calls this condition an “existential vacuum.” In the 2000 edition of Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning (updated from the 1975 The Unconscious God, translated from the 1948 Der Unbewusste Gott), he says that 60% of his American students had had an “abyss experience.”
American students are indoctrinated with concepts such as: “man is a naked ape”; life is “nothing but a combustion process, an oxidation process”; man is “an adaptive control system”; values are “homeostatic restraints in a stimulus-response process, ” or “nothing but reaction formation and defense mechanisms.”
Frankl spent some time in Nazi concentration camps, and states that survival was much more likely in those who believed life had meaning—often, but not always, based on religious beliefs. There is meaning up until the last moment, and even in suffering, he writes. To today’s grievance culture, he says: “I do not forget any good deed done to me, and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one” (https://tinyurl.com/yhbh9p2f).
Dr. Frankl founded the “logotherapy” school of psychiatry, which focuses on helping patients find meaning.
In his 1983 book, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, Walker Percy writes: “…the self in the twentieth century is a voracious nought which expands like the feeding vacuole of an amoeba seeking to nourish and inform its own nothingness by ingesting new objects in the world but, like a vacuole, only succeeds in emptying them out.” He wonders: “Why do people often feel bad in good environments and good in bad environments? Why did Mother Teresa think that affluent Westerners often seemed poorer than the Calcutta poor, the poorest of the poor?”
Schoolchildren are being pushed to look inside themselves to figure out which “gender” they identify as. Yet, as Dr. Frankl writes, “the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system.” The goal of “self-actualization” is achievable only through “self-transcendence.”
The “data-driven objectives” have no place for the need to love, “the ultimate and highest goal” states Dr. Frankl; the meaning of life; faith; family; duties and responsibilities; appreciation of art, music, or the Crab Nebula; playfulness or humor.
Without these, one is burned out and lost in the cosmos.
Overturning Tyranny
Writing in 1978 from Communist Czechoslovakia, in his book The Power of the Powerless, dissident playwright Václav Havel, describes the predicament of a “post-totalitarian” society. By “living within a lie,” he wrote, “individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.” He asks us to consider what it would mean if a greengrocer one day refused to put up the customary sign “Workers of the World Unite!”
“This act of defiance would surely put at risk the greengrocer’s reputation, if not his job, his livelihood, his own and his family’s well-being, or worse,” writes Michael Robillard (Chronicles, October 2023, https://tinyurl.com/3a7w8mfs). “But this act would nonetheless constitute a reclaiming of personal dignity and a kind of spiritual protest.” Further, it would “start to dissolve the metaphysical ‘glue’…—the consent of the public through fear and intimidation. It would inspire others to disobey as well…. The system is brittle; courage is contagious.”
Rekindling Sparks of the Spirit
After 50 years, “The Gulag Archipelago can still rekindle the moral scruples essential to our humanity,” writes Daniel
J. Mahoney. “Solzhenitsyn took pointed aim at the ideological justification of tyranny and terror and the chimerical affirmation of a ‘New Man.’” He told the truth of full-blown totalitarianism.
“In Lenin’s hands, good and evil have been completely and utterly relativized. What is good is whatever serves the cause of revolution, no matter how intrinsically evil or ignoble.” Lenin was the first of the 20th century’s “ideological monsters, a theorist/practitioner who vehemently warred with both human nature and moral conscience.” Solzhenitsyn stated, sardonically: “Hitler was a mere disciple [of Lenin and Stalin], but…his murder camps have made him famous, whereas no one has any interest in ours at all.”
“A human being has a point of view!” Solzhenitsyn insisted. “This is what cynics, pseudo-sophisticates, materialists, and ideologists, cannot see,” writes Mahoney. “They are blind to the reality of the human soul…. Communism, and modern theory and practice, has increasingly turned human beings away from the things of the spirit, from the wellsprings of conscience, from the rich and enduring intimations of natural justice and God’s grace.”
Can the horror happen again? Solzhenitsyn feared that it could. As Jordan B. Peterson writes in his foreword to the 2018 abridged Gulag, today in the West “the doctrine of group identity” renews the ideological lie by placing whole swaths of individuals in suspect groups as the new “class enemy,” deemed “oppressors” for whom there can be no mercy. But we have been warned, and will have no excuse if we follow this path. Solzhenitsyn reflects on what saved him from becoming an NKVD officer. The thought filled him with “a sense of revulsion.” He was “ransomed by the small change in copper that was left from the golden coins our great-grandfathers had expended, at a time when morality was not considered relative and when the distinction between good and evil was very simply perceived by the heart” (https://tinyurl.com/4hj2wnxf).
“Silence is all we dread/ There’s Ransom in a Voice
“But Silence is Infinity/ Himself have not a face.”
Emily Dickinson
Transgenderism News
Russia’s Supreme Court banned the LGBTQ+ “movement” operating in Russia as an “extremist organization.” The decision apparently does not “outlaw gay people,” but appears to criminalize LGBTQ+ “activism,” especially where connected with international groups. Russia seems suspicious that the movement might not really be about advancing sexual minority rights, but has some darker purpose, like population reduction or social destabilization (https://tinyurl.com/4v874499).
Sharyl Attkisson reports on funding for the top-down “Transgender Leviathan”: Big Pharma (two injections of LupronDepot® cost as much as $73,000); billionaires; and the taxpayer (https://tinyurl.com/2bezezd9).
“Gender-affirming” mastectomies were done in 602 underage Canadian girls, billed to Ontario’s health plan. Figures from private clinics are not available (tinyurl.com/ypvcmzzt).
A trans pronoun mandate was announced by the Biden HHS Dept. for National Coming Out Day. Transgender clinics have support at the highest levels of the Biden regime (https://tinyurl.com/3wjdsah9)
The empire is in flux. Despite its sudden, pervasive rise, cracks are beginning to appear in the transgender empire, writes Christopher Rufo. Its desired outcome is to topple the natural structure of Creation, to transform society in a radical way, and to change the nature of humanity. But it could turn out like the final scene of Mary Shelley’s novel, when Dr. Frankenstein’s hulking monster, shunned by society and betrayed by his father, drifts off into the ice floes, filled with despair (tinyurl.com/459n6twa).
CDC Declines to Test Samples from Biolab
When a housing inspector discovered a clandestine laboratory in Reedley, Calif., because of an illegal garden hose at a supposedly abandoned warehouse, CDC was promptly notified of the thousands of humanized mice, vials labeled as containing numerous pathogens (many in Chinese), and a refrigerator labeled “Ebola.” The filthy, unlicensed facility was claimed to be manufacturing COVID test kits. For months, the CDC refused to investigate. Finally, after a 2.5-day inspection, it concluded that there was “no evidence of select agents,” according to CDC director Mandy Cohen responding to questions from Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.), a surgeon (https://tinyurl.com/33dwyr9s). She denied that there was a sign on the refrigerator. CDC declined to test for Ebola, tuberculosis, malaria, or other pathogens. The lab operator, international fugitive Jesse Zhu/David He, was receiving unexplained payments amounting to at least $90,000 via wire transfer from Chinese banks (tinyurl.com/2rabfuwu).
AAPS Calendar
Jan 20, 2024. Board of Directors meeting (virtual).
Sep 18-21, 2024. 81st Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX. – https://aapsonline.org/2024am
ACTION OF THE MONTH
Our 80th annual meeting sold out! Plan early to attend the 81st annual meeting of AAPS September 18th through 21st, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. https://aapsonline.org/2024am
N.Z. Whistleblower Arrested; Data Deleted
Barry Young (“Winston Smith”), who designed and built the COVID vaccine database for the New Zealand Ministry of Health, and designed its pay-per-dose program, became concerned about the mortality he was seeing, and called it to the attention of the Ministry. Instead of doing its own analysis, NZMH besmirched Young as a purveyer of misinformation. Steve Kirsch downloaded and analyzed the data and invited others to do so (tinyurl.com/tuu3v2cj); however, this is no longer possible.
Mortality rates, Young reported, varied greatly between vaccination sites and vaccine batch. As many as 30% of the persons vaccinated at some sites were dead about two years later. More than 21% of persons receiving one particular vaccine batch are dead, he stated (https://tinyurl.com/4pexykkv).
Prof. Norman Fenton pointed out many potential sources of bias, but stated that this “is potentially one of the most important publicly available datasets for examining covid vaccine safety.” He thought the claim about exceptionally deadly batches could be discounted (https://tinyurl.com/2a2pcw7t).
Statistician William Briggs examined the data—which were anonymized, he notes—and concluded that “perhaps the vaccine killed a few, probably younger, people, though we cannot tell for sure.” There was no data on cause of death. “An insurmountable problem…is lack of data on people who did not get any shots.” The only possible comparisons are between people who got various numbers of shots. He did not look at batch numbers. He thinks that the vaccine probably caused deaths because all vaccines do, and there is no evidence that these are any better. “I think the signal of Expert and ruler lying is stronger than any signals of vax-caused death” (https://tinyurl.com/4akksv2f).
The strongest signal might be Young’s arrest, after his home was surrounded by police and raided, for “accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes.” He had anonymized and time-shifted the data to prevent identification of individuals. He could be sentenced to seven years in prison (tinyurl.com/353eemsa).
Although it is too late to keep others from seeing the data, the misinformation authorities are destroying accounts that downloaded it—and not stopping with that file. Researcher Kevin
McKernan, who has reported on DNA contamination of mRNA vaccines (https://tinyurl.com/3af6xf3t) has had all of his lab’s research data (about 1 TB), representing man-years of work, deleted because he hosted a downloadable copy of that file. McKernan used MegaPrivacy as his storage provider for his end-to-end encrypted data.
Jeff Childers suggests that some entity might have access to search all cloud providers and the legal authority to destroy accounts. Dr. McKernan surely had no inkling that he was subject to the jurisdiction of New Zealand—or is there a global authority?
Childers advises: (1) Keep your critical data on your own server, or at least keep a current local backup. Data stored on someone else’s server is not your data anymore. You’re just allowed to access the data—for now. (2) Cloud data is not private, so don’t put anything on the Internet you wouldn’t want the world to see. Public panic brought us digital “privacy” laws (e.g., HIPPA), but instead of protecting us against government, the government is wielding such laws against us.
Childers concludes: “The silver linings are that, first, the globalists have exposed a significant search capacity that we didn’t know they had. Second, it’s obvious they are terrified of the Young data” (https://tinyurl.com/ynr4mby5).
Childers fact-checked the rumor that 11,500 New Zealand politicians got exemptions from the vaccine, while pushing mandates on everyone else. The actual number is 11,005 (ibid.).
Jacinda Ardern, the N.Z. prime minister responsible for the COVID tyranny, has stepped down. But the newly elected government, while easing tobacco bans, has not promised to end vaccine mandates (https://tinyurl.com/4u3mk5an).
Tip of the Month: Consider options to the oppressive Maintenance of Certification (MOC), or reduce your stress by realizing that options are available. The National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS) has a less onerous, inexpensive certification that is recognized by hospitals in most states now, as listed on its website here: https://nbpas.org/pages/accepting-hospitals. This has no affiliation with AAPS, but we have members who are pleasantly surprised to learn that a nearby hospital accepts NPBAS certification, without the hassles of MOC. Also, to “de-emphasize timed, high-stakes performance exams in the continuous certification process” imposed by ABIM, the American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine has broken away from ABIM and has the support of the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, Heart Failure Society of America, Heart Rhythm Society, and Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/998168).
AG Ken Paxton Sues Pfizer
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Pfizer for engaging in “false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims regarding the company’s COVID-19 vaccine in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.”
The claim of 95% efficacy was based on a misleading relative-risk reduction, with only a two-month follow-up. “And, despite the fact that its clinical trial failed to measure whether the vaccine protects against transmission, Pfizer embarked on a campaign to intimidate the public into getting the vaccine as a necessary measure to protect their loved ones.”
When it became apparent that its vaccine was failing and that the viability of its cash cow was threatened, Pfizer responded by “intimidating those spreading the truth, and by conspiring to censor its critics. Pfizer labeled as ‘criminals’ those who spread facts about the vaccine. It accused them of spreading ‘misinformation.’ And it coerced social media platforms to silence prominent truth-tellers” (https://tinyurl.com/mvhudjyf).
Unlike Florida’s, the Texas DTP Act does not exempt Pharma. Remedies could range from damages for each misrepresentation to disgorging all the profits (tinyurl.com/4v874499).
SCOTUS Asked to Hear Military Mandate Case
Two former military members are petitioning for writ of certiorari in Dan Robert and Hollie Mulvihill v. Lloyd Austin. Petitioners were driven out of the military by the unlawful implementation of a mandate by the Biden Administration to receive the experimental mRNA injection known as the COVID vaccine. The issue is exceptionally important because more biological experimentation is in the pipeline, the brief states (tinyurl.com/n7xrhdnn).
Correspondence
George Floyd and the Official False Narrative. The documentary film, TheFallofMinneapolis.com, is a must watch. The corruption of the legal system should frighten us all. Understandably, people’s opinions are formed by what they see in the media. The film shows information that will never appear in legacy media. The false narrative presented by leftist politicians and the media is very similar to the technique used during the pandemic. At the trial of Derek Chauvin, the suppression of evidence is shocking. Prominent people took the witness stand and lied under oath to achieve the desired result. Medical evidence from the autopsy simply did not match the official narrative.
Lawrence R. Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D., Lake View, NY
Abortion and the Culture of Death. As a graduate student, I was a pro-choice libertarian. When I was teaching an evening corporate finance class, a woman in her 40s, for unknown reason, stopped by my desk and showed me drawings of a “partial birth abortion.” I was horrified. Two years later, as Libertarian Party candidate for governor, I took a stand against partial-birth abortion, but was still not convinced that all abortions should be illegal. I called Rep. Ron Paul, M.D., and he sent me a copy of his book Challenge to Liberty, now out of print [his booklet Abortion and Liberty is available at tinyurl.com/2c5yhykw]. After reading it, I became pro-life, as is consistent with the libertarian nonaggression principle and the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill.”
Ohio voters amended the state constitution and effectively allowed abortion up to birth. The “culture of death” mindset explains the state of America and the world. It will take a philosophical revolution to replace the culture of death with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Murray Sabrin, https://tinyurl.com/ywdnm9ft
Arch-Enemy. How does one become the arch-enemy of the elite thought-shapers of 21st century Western civilization? By uttering heresy against their doctrinal precepts. As Vladimir Putin said in 2013: “People in many European countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations. Holidays are abolished or even called something different; their essence is hidden away, as is their moral foundation. And people are aggressively trying to export this model…. I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism, resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis. What else but the loss of the ability to self-reproduce could act as the greatest testimony of the moral crisis facing a human society?”
William Schryver, https://tinyurl.com/yc7w2jhs
The Heisenberg Effect. The Dept. of Justice posted a new job listing for eight attorneys to defend the federal government in vaccine injury cases. It is apparently trying to moot lawsuits that claim the PREP Act’s Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (the CICP) is a horrifying nightmare of bureaucratic incompetence, designed to fail. This is a tiny sign of progress. Werner Heisenberg observed that you can never know what a subatomic particle was doing before you looked at it because the method used to look at it changes it. People act differently—usually better—when they know they are being watched. A lawsuit or a phone call to an official may not work in the short term. Often, the Heisenberg Effect delivers results long-term, as slightly more careful, slightly better conduct adds up over time. It is one of the best, but least-well-known weapons for change. Never underestimate the value of just paying obvious attention to what government actors are doing.
Jeff Childers, https://tinyurl.com/yckyvmcw
Samizdat in America. [On receiving the first Samizdat Prize from RealClear Politics:] From the earliest days of the pandemic, scientists would pass papers to each other and secretly talk to each other in whispers in the corridors of Stanford…. We would tell each other, “Here’s what the data are showing,” “Why aren’t people seeing this?” And if you tried to share it, God forbid that happened…. I’ve lost count of the number of scientists and doctors who would write to me to say please keep speaking; I can’t, usually because of the threat of losing their job…. American government officials, in concert with big tech companies, attacked and suppressed me and my colleagues for criticizing the official pandemic policies—criticism that has been proven prescient…. The idea was if they could attack me as a “fringe epidemiologist,” what are other scientists going to do? Keep their heads down. It had the desired effect of creating self-censorship at scale…. Scientists are never right; we’re wrong most of the time. The only way we get…close to right is by having people correct us. Censorship is the death of science and the death of people.
Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., https://tinyurl.com/xh6hkrt6
Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness. I have taken more than 40 annual influenza shots in accord with medical staff regulations. Now I am asking, what is the benefit? Interim data from the REVELAC-i Network on influenza vaccination March–July, 2023, in the Southern Hemisphere show a paltry 38% effectiveness in older adults, with the lower bound of the confidence interval at 13%. I demand at least 50% efficacy and will not be recommending the vaccine in my practice this year.
Peter McCullough, M.D., https://tinyurl.com/4vjw89fu
