Mr Prasad, this is weirdly reported, conflating vitamin C therapy for sepsis with Covid treatment. Would you please do a bit on HAT therapy for sepsis? Thank you.
Vinay, you model the highly prescient approach looking for alternate approaches and best practices. Sweden and Florida were "laboratories" for different public health approaches to the early challenges of COVID. Sadly, many of our leaders chose censorship, belittling and frank blindness when data began emerging from other locations. I remember noting how differently China reacted to COVID, facilitated by the imposed discipline of their communist system. They seemed to prevent spread of the virus to its other large cities. Ironically, they largely just postponed the pandemic. On the other hand, if they "bit the bullet" on the alpha and delta variants, they seem to be responding totally inappropriately to the Omicron variants currently spreading in their country. Their repressive response is doing real damage to their economy and likely making worldwide inflation worse. This is fascinating.
I agree with you that vaccinating children and young people makes no sense. It’s all risk and no benefit. But I would go further and say that it makes no sense for any age group. If you’re not attending to basic nutrition and lifestyle measures as part of creating health then you are not providing your biology with what it needs to thrive. Public health authorities should have done what some poorer countries did and send out medicine packs. With vitamin D, C, ivermectin etc, with repurposed drugs and natural supplements that support biological health. Then we have the crimes of the media whipping up fear which we know depresses the immune system. Public health has failed us in so called developed countries.
On a side note have you read Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth? I’m still waiting on my copy but I have listened to Mary Holland and Zoe O’Toole who edited the English version of the book. It’s backed by a lot of mainstream sources and it clearly demonstrates that the current childhood vaccine schedule has never undergone proper safety testing. They don’t even use saline placebos and have never done the vaxxed/unvaxxed studies that were required by law. At the least it should be investigated and debated openly. 🙏
Sick children should not get the jab. They are most at risk from harm! It reduces your ability to fight off disease and illnesses! Same for the elderly!
I’m curious how you and Zubin were such big fans of the vaccine, given your EBM expertise. Many of us non experts saw through the bad data from the outset. Still in the control group!!
It all goes back to politics. They both have a terminal case of TDS, leading to the rebound effect of “believe all leftists”. They would have been skeptical from the outset if Trump had stayed in office. I’m sure of it.
Our good Dr VP remains as frustrated as ever. But slowly and steadily I see his viewpoints gaining public traction. Gratifying to see the public rejecting the NIH efforts but tragic to imagine the waste of good money.
Nothing to see here ... don't ask questions ... ha ha. Yeah, that's the irony of it all. We're supposed to believe that something works based on evidence provided by that same company. That wouldn't fly for any other product. And the sad part is people believe these pharma companies but probably wouldn't, for example, take a car manufacturer's word on how safe their vehicle is. They'd refer to something like Consumer Reports or other reviewers.
Apparently, the lessons from Tamiflu were not actually learnt...
"The Tamiflu fiasco and lessons learnt"
...
"A cocktail of pandemic panic, publicity propaganda, and scientific misconduct turned a new medicine with only modest efficacy into a blockbuster. It appears that the multiple regulatory checks and balances gave way as science lost its primacy and pharmaceutical enterprise lost no time in making the most of it." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25821304
For a vaccine to be effective you need a functional and proper immune response. So a vaccine in a young healthy person should have a normal functional response, correct. But if a young heathy person is not at risk from a disease, what benefit do they get from a vaccination? Pros bs cons? Risks vs rewards?
Now how about an older or unhealthy person with a dysfunctional immune system due either to age, metabolic issue, known autoimmune issue or some other type of chronic inflammatory disorder. These people may be at greater risk from a pathogen/virus. But my question is the following. If these people already have a dysfunctional immune system, aren’t they at more risk of a dysfunctional response to the vaccination? The vaccination either won’t produce the desired immune response and/or the dysfunctional immune response is harmful.
In this case the people almost at risk for bad outcomes from the disease are also at higher risk of complications from the vaccine.
Why are we recommending a higher dose influenza vax for elderly? Is their immune system less functional and we are hoping a higher dose improves the chances of it being effective?
I’ve asked many people this but have not gotten any replies. Hoping you will think through this and give me your opinion.
It’s a good question and the answer is not at all straightforward. Supposedly, public health authorities were tracking the statistics for the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated, but you would really need a well designed clinical trial to figure it out. It is just as likely that the immunodeficient would have such a substandard immune response to the vaccine that protection against the symptomatic disease is too low for the benefits to outweigh the bad reactions.
As one at high risk (age 83) with multiple fragility and cancer free for now, I did get two doses because I believed and trusted. After all I was in the military and aside from the entrance battery of injections and later several obscure tropical diseases certainly these new injections had been fully qualified. Knowing more now, I reject any more challenges to my immune system. I revert to routine mouth/nose sanitation that I suspect will be more effective. Simple enough with no real hazards that it ought to be a standard yet is not, perhaps because it is too simple. No money to be made from salt, peroxide or iodine.
So odd that Trump in his muddled way talked about using a disinfectant on people (Apr23, 2020) and Dr Birx when asked later about it never mentioned traditional use of mouth/nose sanitation perhaps because she was concerned about other things or she was not aware of traditions of old. That got turned in a bleach hit piece.
I wish they would sign you up for the job. Although I fear that many sensible MD’s would not touch this administration with a ten foot pole. They would be concerned about the repercussions of being associated with this regime. Understandably so in the current political climate of extreme mistrust and divisiveness. It would take a person with a moral conscience of steel and a strong voice...one that would not be shut down or ignored and would take to the streets if their recommendations were being disregarded by the administration. No chance that this administration would take on someone like that. And there is only one person on the republican side that I am confident would do that.
"But this is the same gentleman who authorized the shot based on 8 and 10 mice. Seems a bit arrogant to say 18 and 21 people are too small when you're in the 8 to 10 mouse business."
Ya, but only three of the mice were blinded, which invalidates the study IMHO :)
Very much agree. This has been a consistent problem in the response to CoVid. When data was coming out of Israel that the vaccines didn’t stop transmission, many other countries continued to claim that it did and authorized mandates on the basis of things that actual data said wouldn’t work.
When people talked about how Sweden wasn’t seeing large deaths despite not locking down, people insisted that it wasn’t a good idea to follow them. Or that you can’t compare countries. That each country had to rely on its own data and that their data showed it was working.
Same thing with masks. People used individual circumstances to remain in support of requiring masks yet despite near universal masking, cases continued to rise. And they pushed the idea that just because other countries didn’t mandate them and weren’t doing any worse than places that did, doesn’t mean that masks didn’t work. Or that the reason was because whatever place didn’t mandate them had a “more compliant population” and that accounts for the similarities.
Exactly! As new data continued to emerge that directly challenged key elements of the narrative, I kept thinking surely THIS time vital information would be widely disseminated and robustly discussed---even if only to refute the findings with better data and arguments.
But new information was never even acknowledged, let alone refuted.
And what’s worse is even well established facts were ignored in favour of the narrative. Very early on I saw this article and yet it wasn’t acknowledged by mainstream politicians or media outlets. People just kept going with the narrative:
That too. Even I, with an interest in but no career in science or public health, knew before the Crud that public health policies had to be wholistic, balanced, and keenly aware of trade-offs. The "lockdown" scenario had been considered and studied prior to 2020, and the resounding conclusion was that 1) we simply cannot stop a wide-spread easily transmissible respiratory virus, and 2) any slowing down of the spread would be temporary at best, and absolutely unthinkable due to the severe consequences to all other areas of life, and 3) lock-downs would also have health consequences that would result in people dying.
For sure, there was even an updated plan by the World Health Organization in like September 2019 that said many of the things we implemented wouldn’t work. The advisory document said that once a virus entered a country, business closures and other measures were unlikely to have any beneficial effect and destructive consequences. The only actual remedy was to make sure that the virus never got in, and if it got out of the country of origin, the fight was basically lost.
My general view is that the only time a lockdown would’ve actually worked is by having a worldwide quarantine of China in like October 2019. Letting no one living in China at the time leave the country for however long it took to contain the virus within China. That’s the only viable way for a lockdown to have actually succeed. Once it was detected in other countries, it was over.
The Democratic Party has lost me forever. I believe I’m far from alone. They have shown their autocratic side, their alliance with globalist forces and their complete disregard for the health of the nation and a total loss of common sense. I don’t need to understand what is possessing them to know that they are a force for damage and harm, and that they must be kept as far from power as possible.
Unfortunately political power attracts psychopaths and individuals with strong psychopathic tendencies + other self- serving personality-disordered individuals.
I really enjoy your posts. Common sense and an open mind in science and medicine is essential. However, Im confused when you state that you have a "progressive" approach to medicine. What exactly does that mean?
Based on having read a lot of his stuff, when Vinay says progressive he means politically...not really related to medicine. Supports far left politicians (big Bernie guy), universal state-paid health care, etc. It is why he is so dismayed that the far-left party is the one doing the anti-health things. His progressive red-pilling on many issues (although he continues to underscore his left views) has been interesting. Starting out, he could not believe that those whom he supports could do these things. But he has had the intellectual honesty to recognize it which is far, far more than most with his political views.
Mr Prasad, this is weirdly reported, conflating vitamin C therapy for sepsis with Covid treatment. Would you please do a bit on HAT therapy for sepsis? Thank you.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/24/971000085/vitamin-c-fails-again-as-treatment-for-sepsis
Vinay, you model the highly prescient approach looking for alternate approaches and best practices. Sweden and Florida were "laboratories" for different public health approaches to the early challenges of COVID. Sadly, many of our leaders chose censorship, belittling and frank blindness when data began emerging from other locations. I remember noting how differently China reacted to COVID, facilitated by the imposed discipline of their communist system. They seemed to prevent spread of the virus to its other large cities. Ironically, they largely just postponed the pandemic. On the other hand, if they "bit the bullet" on the alpha and delta variants, they seem to be responding totally inappropriately to the Omicron variants currently spreading in their country. Their repressive response is doing real damage to their economy and likely making worldwide inflation worse. This is fascinating.
"Seems a bit arrogant to say 18 and 21 people are too small when you're in the 8 to 10 mouse business."
Vinay, you are killing it---I actually laughed out loud at this. There is truth in humor.
Ha! I came to say exactly the same thing.
I agree with you that vaccinating children and young people makes no sense. It’s all risk and no benefit. But I would go further and say that it makes no sense for any age group. If you’re not attending to basic nutrition and lifestyle measures as part of creating health then you are not providing your biology with what it needs to thrive. Public health authorities should have done what some poorer countries did and send out medicine packs. With vitamin D, C, ivermectin etc, with repurposed drugs and natural supplements that support biological health. Then we have the crimes of the media whipping up fear which we know depresses the immune system. Public health has failed us in so called developed countries.
On a side note have you read Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth? I’m still waiting on my copy but I have listened to Mary Holland and Zoe O’Toole who edited the English version of the book. It’s backed by a lot of mainstream sources and it clearly demonstrates that the current childhood vaccine schedule has never undergone proper safety testing. They don’t even use saline placebos and have never done the vaxxed/unvaxxed studies that were required by law. At the least it should be investigated and debated openly. 🙏
Hear hear!
Sick children should not get the jab. They are most at risk from harm! It reduces your ability to fight off disease and illnesses! Same for the elderly!
I’m curious how you and Zubin were such big fans of the vaccine, given your EBM expertise. Many of us non experts saw through the bad data from the outset. Still in the control group!!
It all goes back to politics. They both have a terminal case of TDS, leading to the rebound effect of “believe all leftists”. They would have been skeptical from the outset if Trump had stayed in office. I’m sure of it.
Yep....makes me crazy to listen to so called smart people who were duped. Turns out I’m a lot smarter....who knew?
Our good Dr VP remains as frustrated as ever. But slowly and steadily I see his viewpoints gaining public traction. Gratifying to see the public rejecting the NIH efforts but tragic to imagine the waste of good money.
And life.
Why are Pfizer and Moderna conducting their own trials in the first place? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?
Nothing to see here ... don't ask questions ... ha ha. Yeah, that's the irony of it all. We're supposed to believe that something works based on evidence provided by that same company. That wouldn't fly for any other product. And the sad part is people believe these pharma companies but probably wouldn't, for example, take a car manufacturer's word on how safe their vehicle is. They'd refer to something like Consumer Reports or other reviewers.
Apparently, the lessons from Tamiflu were not actually learnt...
"The Tamiflu fiasco and lessons learnt"
...
"A cocktail of pandemic panic, publicity propaganda, and scientific misconduct turned a new medicine with only modest efficacy into a blockbuster. It appears that the multiple regulatory checks and balances gave way as science lost its primacy and pharmaceutical enterprise lost no time in making the most of it." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25821304
Vinny- question for you.
For a vaccine to be effective you need a functional and proper immune response. So a vaccine in a young healthy person should have a normal functional response, correct. But if a young heathy person is not at risk from a disease, what benefit do they get from a vaccination? Pros bs cons? Risks vs rewards?
Now how about an older or unhealthy person with a dysfunctional immune system due either to age, metabolic issue, known autoimmune issue or some other type of chronic inflammatory disorder. These people may be at greater risk from a pathogen/virus. But my question is the following. If these people already have a dysfunctional immune system, aren’t they at more risk of a dysfunctional response to the vaccination? The vaccination either won’t produce the desired immune response and/or the dysfunctional immune response is harmful.
In this case the people almost at risk for bad outcomes from the disease are also at higher risk of complications from the vaccine.
Why are we recommending a higher dose influenza vax for elderly? Is their immune system less functional and we are hoping a higher dose improves the chances of it being effective?
I’ve asked many people this but have not gotten any replies. Hoping you will think through this and give me your opinion.
Take 1000% of the normal vacks dose and get 1000% of the benefits!
It’s a good question and the answer is not at all straightforward. Supposedly, public health authorities were tracking the statistics for the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated, but you would really need a well designed clinical trial to figure it out. It is just as likely that the immunodeficient would have such a substandard immune response to the vaccine that protection against the symptomatic disease is too low for the benefits to outweigh the bad reactions.
I agree the answer is not straightforward. But it should be openly discussed.
As one at high risk (age 83) with multiple fragility and cancer free for now, I did get two doses because I believed and trusted. After all I was in the military and aside from the entrance battery of injections and later several obscure tropical diseases certainly these new injections had been fully qualified. Knowing more now, I reject any more challenges to my immune system. I revert to routine mouth/nose sanitation that I suspect will be more effective. Simple enough with no real hazards that it ought to be a standard yet is not, perhaps because it is too simple. No money to be made from salt, peroxide or iodine.
So odd that Trump in his muddled way talked about using a disinfectant on people (Apr23, 2020) and Dr Birx when asked later about it never mentioned traditional use of mouth/nose sanitation perhaps because she was concerned about other things or she was not aware of traditions of old. That got turned in a bleach hit piece.
I wish they would sign you up for the job. Although I fear that many sensible MD’s would not touch this administration with a ten foot pole. They would be concerned about the repercussions of being associated with this regime. Understandably so in the current political climate of extreme mistrust and divisiveness. It would take a person with a moral conscience of steel and a strong voice...one that would not be shut down or ignored and would take to the streets if their recommendations were being disregarded by the administration. No chance that this administration would take on someone like that. And there is only one person on the republican side that I am confident would do that.
"But this is the same gentleman who authorized the shot based on 8 and 10 mice. Seems a bit arrogant to say 18 and 21 people are too small when you're in the 8 to 10 mouse business."
Ya, but only three of the mice were blinded, which invalidates the study IMHO :)
Very much agree. This has been a consistent problem in the response to CoVid. When data was coming out of Israel that the vaccines didn’t stop transmission, many other countries continued to claim that it did and authorized mandates on the basis of things that actual data said wouldn’t work.
When people talked about how Sweden wasn’t seeing large deaths despite not locking down, people insisted that it wasn’t a good idea to follow them. Or that you can’t compare countries. That each country had to rely on its own data and that their data showed it was working.
Same thing with masks. People used individual circumstances to remain in support of requiring masks yet despite near universal masking, cases continued to rise. And they pushed the idea that just because other countries didn’t mandate them and weren’t doing any worse than places that did, doesn’t mean that masks didn’t work. Or that the reason was because whatever place didn’t mandate them had a “more compliant population” and that accounts for the similarities.
Now we’re seeing the same thing with vaccines.
Exactly! As new data continued to emerge that directly challenged key elements of the narrative, I kept thinking surely THIS time vital information would be widely disseminated and robustly discussed---even if only to refute the findings with better data and arguments.
But new information was never even acknowledged, let alone refuted.
And what’s worse is even well established facts were ignored in favour of the narrative. Very early on I saw this article and yet it wasn’t acknowledged by mainstream politicians or media outlets. People just kept going with the narrative:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/health/coronavirus-plague-pandemic-history.html
Not to mention we basically threw out 100 years of knowledge about coronaviruses and other infectious diseases and started from scratch.
That too. Even I, with an interest in but no career in science or public health, knew before the Crud that public health policies had to be wholistic, balanced, and keenly aware of trade-offs. The "lockdown" scenario had been considered and studied prior to 2020, and the resounding conclusion was that 1) we simply cannot stop a wide-spread easily transmissible respiratory virus, and 2) any slowing down of the spread would be temporary at best, and absolutely unthinkable due to the severe consequences to all other areas of life, and 3) lock-downs would also have health consequences that would result in people dying.
For sure, there was even an updated plan by the World Health Organization in like September 2019 that said many of the things we implemented wouldn’t work. The advisory document said that once a virus entered a country, business closures and other measures were unlikely to have any beneficial effect and destructive consequences. The only actual remedy was to make sure that the virus never got in, and if it got out of the country of origin, the fight was basically lost.
My general view is that the only time a lockdown would’ve actually worked is by having a worldwide quarantine of China in like October 2019. Letting no one living in China at the time leave the country for however long it took to contain the virus within China. That’s the only viable way for a lockdown to have actually succeed. Once it was detected in other countries, it was over.
The Democratic Party has lost me forever. I believe I’m far from alone. They have shown their autocratic side, their alliance with globalist forces and their complete disregard for the health of the nation and a total loss of common sense. I don’t need to understand what is possessing them to know that they are a force for damage and harm, and that they must be kept as far from power as possible.
Unfortunately political power attracts psychopaths and individuals with strong psychopathic tendencies + other self- serving personality-disordered individuals.
You mean the Democrat party! Nothing democratic about them!!!
I really enjoy your posts. Common sense and an open mind in science and medicine is essential. However, Im confused when you state that you have a "progressive" approach to medicine. What exactly does that mean?
Based on having read a lot of his stuff, when Vinay says progressive he means politically...not really related to medicine. Supports far left politicians (big Bernie guy), universal state-paid health care, etc. It is why he is so dismayed that the far-left party is the one doing the anti-health things. His progressive red-pilling on many issues (although he continues to underscore his left views) has been interesting. Starting out, he could not believe that those whom he supports could do these things. But he has had the intellectual honesty to recognize it which is far, far more than most with his political views.