Volume 77, no. 5 May 2021
“Zero” is a politically correct preoccupation. Zero population growth—which will turn negative as we approach the demographic cliff. “Net zero” CO2 emissions—which will spell “negawatts” and serious energy poverty if we try to replace affordable, reliable fuels with wind and solar. Zero disparities—even at the cost of eliminating advanced placement physics and mathematics, and not achievable even with the bed of Procrustes. Zero tolerance (AAPS News, July 2001)—which enables totalitarian suppression of dissent, coupled with zero accountability for government. Zero new COVID cases—which enables endless suppression of liberty.
The logic supporting leftist causes, with the ultimate end of zeroing out capitalism, individuality, and loyalty to entities other than the state, defines truth as whatever the Party says. The Party can claim that 2+2=4 is just a white supremacist decree. Someone devised a mathematical “proof” that 2+2=5 (tinyurl.com/nv97wzx8), which works just as well for any other number. Finding the fallacy is left as an exercise for the audience. Hint: If it is possible to divide by 0, mathematics is null.
A world with zero viruses is possible only if there is zero life. Every living creature coexists with and is surrounded by a microbiome. But if we want to reduce the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 to nearly zero, we should consider the experience of physicians who treat it. In addition to American physicians previously cited by AAPS, Dr. Jackie Stone tells of her experience in Zimbabwe, where a devastating outbreak was brought under control (tinyurl.com/2zkuv6v4), primarily with ivermectin.
In case Twitter and YouTube zero out her full interview, a summary (tinyurl.com/6y4evs5x) states that: “In patients with oxygen saturations of 39-90% there was a 3.8% death rate amongst patients cared for by the Hospital at Home scheme compared to the State hospital that has a 35% death rate…. In Zimbabwe at the moment, covid is very much under control.” Dr. Stone is concerned that people might become complacent and discontinue regular prophylactic doses of ivermectin…. Zimbabwe tends to follow Kenya where a third wave is occurring.”
“Everyone in Zimbabwe now has ivermectin at home and [knows] the correct protocol for prophylaxis and treatment. Informal communication via WhatsApp usually ensures that important information is rapidly disseminated throughout the country.”
Dr. Stone credits decisive leadership by the Health Secretary. “People who [want to] follow the WHO guidelines can do so but if we follow them we are going to go back to 70 deaths a day.”
“I honestly believe that doctors…have become more scared of the regulators and the lawyers than they are of losing a patient.”
The American Medical Association is focused on “systemic racism” as a major public health priority and a cause of disparity in COVID mortality in black and white patients. What about the disparity in outcome between patients treated by a white, British-trained physician in poor, black Zimbabwe compared with both black and white Americans treated under the National Institutes of Health philosophy of therapeutic nihilism, which denies treatment not backed by adequate randomized controlled trials?
The disparity of official U.S. concern is that blacks and Hispanics are not getting their proportionate share of vaccines despite their disproportionate mortality (https://tinyurl.com/at6exzv6).
Right Answers
In the 1950s, early in the “progressive education” vogue, we started hearing that there were “no right or wrong answers”—for questions about opinions or attitudes. For everything else, you needed to get it right: U.S. Constitution, history, geography, and especially problems in math, physics, and chemistry. Wrong answers cause real-world consequences: plane crashes, explosions, structural collapses. But things are now reversed.
According to the “Equitable Math” instructional manual funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a focus on the correct answer manifests “white supremacy.” Rutgers University recently determined that speaking and writing English correctly is also racist, and is altering its grammar standards to “emphasize ‘social justice’ and ‘critical grammar’ over correct spelling and grammar” (https://tinyurl.com/m73mkxrb).
In the pass/fail system on proper anti-racism and other key political attitudes, however, a passing grade is 100%, and the real-world consequences of failure include expulsion from school, ruination of a career, exile from society—and potentially worse. All answers are on your permanent record, and the correct answer could change 20 years later.
As long as we are not at COVID-19 zero, the correct answers are determined by public health authorities: suppress early treatment, and get to zero unvaccinated. And we are being monitored.
An American got a prescription for ivermectin from a telehealth practitioner to keep “just in case” and had it filled at Walgreens after a CVS pharmacist told him it was “toxic” when used for COVID. It turned up in his medication record at Mayo Clinic and was noted by the nurse at his annual visit, although he had not informed the pharmacist that he was a patient there. He asked AAPS whether a HIPAA violation had occurred. Americans think that HIPAA protects privacy—it really facilitates disclosure.
Our goal should be getting to zero violations of the U.S. Constitution and of officials’ oath to uphold it—and restoring medical ethics with the protection of the patient-physician relationship, patient confidentiality, autonomy, and respect for objective truth.
Re-Primitivization
Jack London’s 1912 novella The Scarlet Plague isn’t about the plague itself but about the dystopian aftermath when most of the population—and civilization—had been wiped out. Mark Steyn calls it “re-primitivization” in introducing his reading of the tale (tinyurl.com/3xha53uf). This occurred in the implosion of once functioning states such as Somalia after the withdrawal of law and order enforced by colonialists. Steyn says we are no more immune than Somalia. With mob rule, class warfare, educational decline, and the loss of fully expressive speech, we are well on the way.
Control Groups Ditched from RCTs
As of April 16, 2021, VAERS had received 86,080 adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, including 6,282 hospitalizations and 3,186 deaths. There were 115 reports of miscarriages, 606 of Bell palsy, and 420 of thrombocytopenia (openvaers.com/covid-data). Nevertheless, the mainstream narrative is that these products are so safe and effective that it would be unethical to deny them to participants in the placebo group. Pfizer sent a letter to its trial participants one week after its vaccine was authorized on Dec 10, telling them that, on request, they could learn whether they were in the placebo arm so they could receive the vaccine as it became available. To get full approval the FDA requires two years of follow-up data. “The data are now likely to be scanty and less reliable given that the trials are effectively being unblinded” (tinyurl.com/j6yr8rrm).
FDA’s Philip Krause, M.D., stated, “Placebo-controlled trials in general do depend to some degree on the altruism of the people in the study.” Although RCTs are the gold standard, he said that as COVID-19 vaccines become more widely available, “conducting placebo-controlled trials to assess safety and efficacy will become progressively more difficult….. There’s no doubt that in the long run, we’re going to have to rely increasingly on observational data” (https://tinyurl.com/ynukv4hs).
Prior Infection Reduces COVID Risk by 93%
An UK observational study of 25,000 NHS hospital workers compared workers with a positive antibody or PCR test at the beginning of the study with those who tested negative, with frequent testing and checks for symptoms. The initially positive group had a relative risk reduction of 93% for developing symptomatic, test-positive COVID over a period of 113 days (https://tinyurl.com/596c9tp6)—comparable to that claimed for Pfizer and Moderna jabs. That’s not far from the difference in lung cancer rates between smokers and nonsmokers, writes Sebastian Rushworth, M.D. (https://tinyurl.com/m4zu35by).
Dr. Rushworth notes that antibodies are surrogate markers for infection but not necessarily measures of immunity.
“All that was lost must be discovered over again [such as the alphabet]. It is what enables me to know the meaning of fine markings, whereas you boys know only rude picture-writing. In that dry cave on Telegraph Hill, where you see me often go when the tribe is down by the sea, I have stored many books. In them is great wisdom. Also, with them, I have placed a key to the alphabet, so that one who knows picture-writing may also know print.”
Jack London, The Scarlet Plague, 1912
History Rhymes
On Sep 18, 96 A.D., a fairly obscure and elderly politician named Marcus Cocceius Nerva was proclaimed Emperor of Rome by the Senate, writes Simon Black (tinyurl.com/yrbvuzc6). Rome was in chaos at the time after years of turmoil, economic decline, and oppression. Most of the last several emperors had been extremely destructive… plundering the treasury, waging expensive wars, and dismantling individual liberty. Nerva was seen by many as the “safe choice”: he was old, frail, sick, and not expected to last very long. He was also completely unremarkable, having spent his entire life in government service without major achievement. They thought he would be a break from the chaos. But the long-term trends were unstoppable. Rome was slowly going bankrupt, destroying its currency, and rejecting the basic principles of its civilization that made it so powerful and prosperous to begin with. Core values of integrity, civic-mindedness, and hard work had given way to corruption and entitlement.
Today, there’s an entire school of economics called “Modern Monetary Theory,” which poses that governments can simply print as much money as they want without consequence: classic empire arrogance. The mob of enraged Marxists who are indoctrinating our children have even reinvented science, history, and mathematics to conform to the principles of critical race theory. And they have a list….
[Will the value of the dollar get to zero?]Israel’s Mass Vaccination Experiment
A summary of the April Report of Adverse Events from the Pfizer COVID jab, by the Israeli People’s Committee, with translations into many languages, is now posted (https://tinyurl.com/4taxwyye). The IPC, “an independent organization relying on publicly available information from official publications and social networks,” claims that the Israeli government “has systematically shut down all monitoring and tracking systems, which are designed to identify and alert of adverse events that occur in proximity of receiving the vaccine.” Israel is purported to serve as a global model for nationwide vaccination, chosen by Pfizer because of its universal healthcare system and the advanced technological records of its HMOs. IPC finds an “inconceivable gap between the existing reality and the information published by the Israeli Ministry of Health and by the Israeli media.” It reports “a high correlation between the number of people vaccinated per day and the number of deaths per day”; “a relatively high rate of cardiac-related injuries,” with 26% in persons below the age of 40; and a frequent relationship of adverse events and coagulopathy. “Never has a vaccine injured so many!” it concludes.
AAPS Calendar
Sep 30. Board meeting
Oct 1-Oct 2. 78th Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA
Liability Warning to CVS and Rite-Aid
Private corporations engaged in population-level blanket vaccination may face liability for indiscriminately injecting persons who are naturally immune or recently infected with COVID-19, writes Hooman Noorchashm, M.D., Ph.D., in a letter to the CEOs of CVS and Rite-Aid. First, “vaccination of the naturally immune is simply an unnecessary medical treatment in the vast majority of such persons…. Any complications resulting from a medical treatment that is unnecessary, no matter how ‘rare,’ fit under the category of ‘unreasonable harm.’” Second, “CDC guideline indicates that persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 should wait for 3 months before getting vaccinated—this is an implicit acknowledgement that such persons are at risk of harm.” Since many infections are asymptomatic, many persons will not know that they are infected at the time of their vaccination. Dr. Noorchashm recommends consulting attorneys about the need to screen vaccine candidates with a proper history and tests for anti-viral antibodies and viral antigens (tinyurl.com/anm2pcwb).
Ban Lifted on Fetal Tissue Research
The Trump Administration’s ban on use of tissue harvested from elective abortions has been lifted (tinyurl.com/n62d76ay). The International Society for Stem Cell Research applauded HHS’s move, calling the tissue “essential” for health research. It has been used to develop vaccines and study viral infections including HIV and COVID-19 (tinyurl.com/x582mk93). Scientists who had previously worked with fetal tissue before the ban will have their projects “reinstated without further review,” making taxpayer dollars immediately available for fetal tissue purchase and experimentation (tinyurl.com/xhhkkz94). There is no longer any ethical oversight of such research (tinyurl.com/wph9yrz5). Material allegedly may be obtained from illegal trafficking of fetal body parts. Former California attorneys general Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra filed criminal charges against journalist David Daleiden for making undercover videos of Planned Parenthood personnel (tinyurl.com/2y5u5ndj). U.S. District William Orrick has issued a permanent injunction blocking release of some 200 hours of footage obtained at a National Abortion Federation conference (tinyurl.com/2h385tfb).
FTC Acts against Marketing Vitamin D
In its first action under the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act passed in January, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged St. Louis-based chiropractor Eric Nepute, D.C., and his company Quickwork, doing business as Wellness Warriors, for marketing products containing vitamin D and zinc as proven to treat or prevent COVID-19. Its videos have been viewed millions of times. The agency is asking a federal court to impose civil monetary penalties, a remedy not previously available to FTC, asserting that consumers are suffering substantial injuries (https://tinyurl.com/5rj9j45e). This enforcement action is authorized on pp 5513-5515 of the longest bill ever passed by Congress (tinyurl.com/93pzwzk). A Department of Justice press release quotes Acting FTC Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter: “The defendants’ claims that their products can stand in for approved [sic] COVID-19 vaccines are particularly troubling: we need to be doing everything we can to stop bogus health claims that endanger consumers…. With this case, the Commission has quickly put to use its new authority to stop false marketing claims related to the pandemic” (https://tinyurl.com/2zpzvwwt).
Tip of the Month: HIPAA Compliance Scam. The nightmare of receiving a postcard notice from HHS about a HIPAA compliance assessment triggers fear of massive fines and permanent scars on a physician’s record. Full compliance with HIPAA is difficult, perhaps nearly impossible, for small practices. Large practices benefit from the too-big-to-fail favoritism. But fortunately many of these notices are not official, and HHS is even warning physicians not to be misled by unauthorized attempts to take money (https://tinyurl.com/sncwcw89).
Weimar Judge’s Home Ransacked by Police
After prohibiting the mandates for masks, distancing, and testing imposed in two schools in Weimar, Germany, District Court judge Christian Dettmar was raided by police. His office, private premises, and car were searched, and his cell phone was confiscated. This was the first time that evidence on the reasonableness and necessity of the anti-COVID measures had been presented before a German court. The complaint was brought by a mother, who said that “the children are harmed physically, psychologically and pedagogically and their rights are violated, without this being offset by any benefit for the children themselves or third parties.” The judge concluded that “100,000 elementary school students would have to put up with all the side effects of wearing masks for a week in order to prevent just one infection per week. To call this result merely disproportionate would be…wholly inadequate…. Rather, it shows…a factual disconnect that has reached historic proportions” (tinyurl.com/4f7x7tb7).
AAPS Files Brief in Case against ABMS
AAPS v. American Board of Medical Specialties, originally filed in April 2013, is finally ready for review by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, after being dismissed by the district court.
ABMS insists that its costly proprietary Maintenance of Certification (MOC®) product is “entirely voluntary,” and it is merely the fortunate beneficiary of requirements by others to purchase its product. AAPS alleges that ABMS plays an active role in having others require MOC®, without which physicians may be excluded from hospital medical staffs or insurance networks. Agreements that would unlawfully restrain trade are not posted on public websites and can only be revealed through discovery.
“By insisting on dismissal without discovery, ABMS implicitly seeks a special exemption from the Sherman [Antitrust] Act available only to the lucky few like Major League Baseball,” writes AAPS general counsel Andrew Schlafly (tinyurl.com/cyj2m7jt). “As a commercial entity having no accountability to government, customers, or the public, ABMS is not entitled to an exemption from judicial review of how it compels purchase of its unwanted product.” He notes that when conduct compelling purchase of MOC® restrains trade so perniciously that state legislatures prohibit it, judicial review is warranted. “Medical services are highly personal and not fungible as widgets…are, and antitrust injury occurs when patients are denied access.”
Correspondence
Skeptics’ Thought Processes. The New York Times describes a study done by Dr. Saad Omer et al. from the Yale Institute for Global Health to determine the thinking behind “vaccine skepticism” (https://tinyurl.com/4hcyffcd). Apparently, going into the study the prevailing concept was that those who do not defer to government claims of the safety of vaccines simply need to be “educated” because they are uninformed and ignorant. Though not specifically stated in the article, the same prevailing concept among liberals/progressives/socialists may apply to socialism. If only the socialists could provide more education (indoctrination), people would see that socialism is the most “equal” system to ensure prosperity for all. But the study found that the issue was gut beliefs or moral intuitions. “Skeptics were much more likely than nonskeptics to have a highly developed sensitivity for liberty —the rights of individuals—and to have less deference to those in positions of power.” This understanding potentially provides “new tools for public health officials scrambling to try to persuade people to get vaccinated.” Informed consent, like liberty and individual rights, is something that just has to go so that the liberal/progressive/socialist agenda can advance. However, a substantial percentage of people in this country do not want to be “cured” of what progressives view as a “disease.”
Lawrence R. Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D., Lake View, NY
Goalposts Changed. For monitoring “breakthrough” infections post-vaccine, CDC will be sequencing specimens that have a positive PCR at a cycle threshold (Ct) value of ≤ 28 (tinyurl.com/ne9ybehv). As Alex Berenson points out, that threshold would exclude more than 90% of COVID “cases” (tinyurl.com/dfde83n4). Anthony Fauci said in a July 2020 videotaped interview that tests of asymptomatic individuals run at a Ct of 37 to 40—which has been standard for CDC and others up until now—have an average false positive rate of 97%. Yet he and the CDC have continued to call them cases—until now. This seems to me to demonstrate a willful plan to dramatically reduce the percentage of positive test results, using a test whose Nobel-laureate discoverer warned could and should never be used to diagnose any infection. Think of all the things that are shut down by a test without disclosing the Ct. I think it is the greatest manipulation in history. Worse than useless tests are creating the very “pandemic” itself, along with the devastating consequences of the response, including more deaths than from the virus itself. This manipulation, perhaps the greatest in history, now threatens our way of life and our country’s very survival.
Bose Ravenel, M.D., Winston-Salem, NC
Full-on Psychotic over COVID. On Apr 16, Ontario premier Doug Ford announced stronger enforcement of COVID restrictions. Police and other provincial offences officers will have the authority to require all individuals to provide their home address and purpose for not being at their residence. Checkpoints at all the interprovincial borders are being set up to restrict travel. The labor minister said: “For our employers and employees, take note—this is your last warning” (youtu.be/KjLZ5pTdRsM). There are currently only 86,763 cases of COVID in all of Canada, of which only 1,089 are serious or critical. This is so crazy that there must be a reason other than health.
Joseph Scherzer, M.D., Paradise Valley, AZ
What Happened to Romania. My people were taken over by Bolsheviks after World War II and convinced that they needed social justice, which would be delivered by the newly formed Communist Party. Many fell for the lies, but large numbers did not. To convince them, the new regime confiscated their guns and took their land, their homes, their freedom of speech, press, and assembly, until there was nothing else to take except their personal freedom. To escape prison, the rest had to comply. Once they were all securely controlled, the tyranny lasted five decades until the army had had enough and decided to rebel alongside the oppressed masses and to provide guns to them (https://tinyurl.com/6z4xfw2w). Now, in America, youth are indoctrinated by academics who professed acceptance of divergent opinions but espouse zero tolerance for anyone who disagrees with their talking points. Typically, “liberals” have zero ability to engage unless one bows to them (https://tinyurl.com/8nz3t8wc).
Ileana Johnson, Ed.D.
Fauci Admits to Lies. When called out by Ross Douthat of the NY Times for shifting the goalposts for herd immunity, Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged that he had deliberately done so based partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks (https://tinyurl.com/hpdycx8).
John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D., Brownwood, TX
A National Public Health Problem. The Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” (tinyurl.com/7pzwy44c) is sobering and scary. It shows how artificial intelligence and sophisticated algorithms are employed by social media to shape and prompt information specifically designed to be attractive and addicting to individual users. It’s analogous to heroin dealers giving out free samples. It contributes to radicalization and segmentation of people, isolation, and misery, and is especially dangerous to children.
Lee Beecher, M.D., Maple Grove, MN