The pandemic response by medicine really complicated my life as a Pastor. I share my extensive background in emergency medicine elsewhere, but in my 8th decade I am blessed to continue serving as a Lutheran Pastor (my true vocation). Knowing full well that the practices of the health care system, which affected my pastoral care, were medical BS, my practice meant that I could not accompany my parishioners to the hospital admission and care while in there; the patient’s families had to drop them off outside and not see them again unless they had a smartphone and the skill to accommodate the use of FaceTime or Zoom, they could not see their loved ones until discharged, at the curb with the car running….a real low point to my care for my people.
“The chain of trust” in medicine has been broken. A common surrogate for “expertise” has been the amount of money the NIH gives in your name to the institution you represent. This has resulted in carpet baggers rather than mission driven physicians becoming institutional leaders.
The chain is broken because the profession has lost sense of its values, its honor and immense responsibility.
This happens every few decades, and a scourge is needed.
There is a huge need in Medicine for integrity and accountability.
What mystified me during the COVID stomp down was how very few doctors did understand the harm that could be done by the COVID jabs. I'm not a medical person but the dangers seemed so clearly in view: inject lipid coated mRNA into arms with no control over where the stuff would go once in the body, no guarantee it would remain in the muscle, no knowledge of how many cells, in which organs, would be transfected and programmed to crank out the same protein that injures and kills, and for how long. If I could see that even before the jabs were widely available, why couldn't more medical personnel? I'll never understand it. Yes, this made me lose respect for "experts" in medicine and it won't be coming back.
All I can say is that critical thinking is not a skill required for admission to medical school. I had accepted what I was taught in medical school in the late sixties and early seventies about viruses and never gave it much thought. I was embarrassed by my ignorance when the "pandemic" was declared and it caused me to do a deep dive into the whole concept of viruses and immunology and I learned that much of what I has accepted as true was nonsensical. Viruses had frequently become a sort of default diagnosis for things we didn't understand. Seasonal respiratory infections (colds and flu) were common and there was nothing we could do other than let them run their course. Antibiotics were useless and the standard joke was that penicillin would cure a cold in seven days and otherwise it would take a week. Since there was no treatment for supposed viral illness, most doctors probably didn't think too deeply about it and the whole subject of virology developed along rather unscientific lines without too much critical inquiry. The subsequent popularity of "flu shots" also prepared many in the medical profession to blindly accept the concept of a "vaccine" without giving it much thought. This is no excuse but may explain why so many in the medical profession fell into line. Fear of losing their license to practice also had a significant inhibitory effect. Again, no excuse for failing to do your due diligence in looking out for the safety of your patients, but may explain why so many took the easier path of silence and conformity.
Thanks, Ernest, you have a long view of things in medicine that I don't have. And I don't mean to minimize the threat to doctors of losing their licences and livelihoods. This was brutal bullying like I've never seen in my 70 years. For me the benefit is to be able to see the monetary connection betweeen government agencies and pharma, and stinking corruption.
You mention flu shots. That was another thing that baffled me. We all know most years the wisdom is: don't count too heavily on a jab for a virus that will already have mutated out of its reach by the time you're infected. So the announcement of a jab for what is essentially a cold virus that will mutate at least as rapidly, also seemed crazy. I asked my primary doc about that when she was excitedly telling me about the marvelous COVID jabs coming soon, and, not for the last time, there was a 3 second silence on her part. Really? This is the first time anyone challenged you on that? We're all in trouble.
One question: is there any treatment for any "viral" illness that you know of? I think Peter Duesberg is correct in deducing that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. The balance of evidence weights in his favor. Are there any cases where some treatment cures a "viral" illness?
No treatment that I know of. Some claim that there are monoclonal antibodies that work for some supposedly viral illness. I haven't really looked into it and so can't speak to the question with any degree of certainty. The fly in the ointment of virology is that no virus had ever been physically isolated or cultured. Peter Duesberg has been shown to have been correct and had what was a brilliant career ruined because he opposed the narrative. The whole AIDS business was a scam to win a "turf" war within the National Institute of Health. Improved living conditions and antibiotics had essentially taken care of previously common infectious diseases and threatened to reduce the specialty of infectious disease to a condition of irrelevance. The cluster of disorders that suggested an immunodeficient cause were initially the province of the division of the NIH that dealt with cancer. The reason was that one of the common components was an unusual type of skin cancer. But the bureaucrats in the division of infectious disease recognized this as an opportunity to avoid being defunded or even eliminated completely. Fortunately they had a bureaucrat that was skilled in manipulating the system to their advantage---Anthony Fauci. This whole episode was beautifully described in Peter Duesberg's book titled Inventing the AIDS Virus. Robert Kennedy also did a reasonable job in his recent book The Real Anthony Fauci.
Remember the Milgram Experiment? So telling. Doctors are not God. Also, patients need to take personal responsibility, get second opinions and realize medicine is an evolving field so do your homework! sabrinalabow.substack.com
E. Fama finds some comfort in the expertise of specialists to whom she refers patients. One of the most troubling aspects of the changes in medicine over the 40+ years since I trained is that rarely do I as the referring doc have a free choice of specialists to whom I can send a patient. It used to be I could choose the best one I knew and I would be confident of their expertise. Now it’s ‘who’s on the insurance plan’. It’s not infrequent that the unspoken thought in my cynical head is, “who was the low bidder on this patient’s panel of providers? “.
Two excellent statements. I would have changed the initial statement slightly to read "Regard for power PROMOTES the disregard for those without power." The loss of individual power comes incrementally and, before you know it, can become total. Always fight against any violation of your personal liberty to engage in any act that does not violate the liberties of another. The rationale for ceding your rights to person and property is always some variation of some "expert's" opinion of the mythical common good. Hold their feet to the fire.
These were both excellent commentaries. People need to at least attempt to ask questions and try to look beyond the propaganda and not become brainwashed. The simplest comment I frequent to say is: follow the money.
Power is an illusion. The control freaks are so afraid of the world that they feel the only way to survive is to control everything and that includes humanity. None of these power hungry clowns ever dies with speck of power. They must maintain full control and power in order to hide their hideous corruptions, vanities and perceptions. You, as a human, always have the choice to grant no power to anyone.
Over the years some have chosen to speak with authority by starting a conversation with 'AS A...' and that title may be anything; AS A Maytag Repairman or AS A weekend carpenter, we often believe them because we have never tried to repair a washing machine or build a bird feeder.
We see this every day with city councils, who hire expensive consultants to tell us where to put the next bridge or what flowers look good downtown. How many school boards hire new superintendents without engaging at all in the hiring process?
WHY do this? It lets us off the hook! If the bridge didn't lessen traffic, "We didn't decide to put it there", if the flowers do not survive next to the water feature, "It wasn't our choice" and if a 200 dollar an hour shrink can't make Johnnie or Susie behave, there is always another who will medicate rather than talk.
We became a nation of followers - unable or unwilling to learn and take responsibility for our actions. We view eroding rights and loss of personal freedoms as being OK because 'At least we still have X-Y or Z'
My generation stopped an unjust war, saw a president resign rather than be prosecuted and marched with Dr. King in Washington DC almost 63 years ago.
We gave away our power because we are told not to disagree with experts. We accept the wrong advice because we do not want to appear stupid even if that advice will harm us or our family or the community.
We take this life to have some life or other because we are conditioned not to think or question what we are told and in the end, we all suffer for our decisions.
How can we protect ourselves and family?
My advice: "Have the drive to develop skills and the venom to use them!"
Remarkable 50,000-foot view of how so many in medicine have ceded power to bureaucratic dogma in medicine. Nowhere has this been more evident than surrendering self-selected CME to the hospital and insurance industry goons who foist MOC down our throats, then attend Aspen idea conferences on “building trust” as a means of perpetuating payments to their organizations. Orwell would applaud these authors but also laugh at how easy it has been to circumvent their logic thanks to our own laziness to stand up to the machine.
Both of these essays succinctly address some of the problems in medicine and society today. Thank you for sharing. Both authors have amazing talent and insight of the human minds and actions.
The pandemic response by medicine really complicated my life as a Pastor. I share my extensive background in emergency medicine elsewhere, but in my 8th decade I am blessed to continue serving as a Lutheran Pastor (my true vocation). Knowing full well that the practices of the health care system, which affected my pastoral care, were medical BS, my practice meant that I could not accompany my parishioners to the hospital admission and care while in there; the patient’s families had to drop them off outside and not see them again unless they had a smartphone and the skill to accommodate the use of FaceTime or Zoom, they could not see their loved ones until discharged, at the curb with the car running….a real low point to my care for my people.
“The chain of trust” in medicine has been broken. A common surrogate for “expertise” has been the amount of money the NIH gives in your name to the institution you represent. This has resulted in carpet baggers rather than mission driven physicians becoming institutional leaders.
The chain is broken because the profession has lost sense of its values, its honor and immense responsibility.
This happens every few decades, and a scourge is needed.
There is a huge need in Medicine for integrity and accountability.
What mystified me during the COVID stomp down was how very few doctors did understand the harm that could be done by the COVID jabs. I'm not a medical person but the dangers seemed so clearly in view: inject lipid coated mRNA into arms with no control over where the stuff would go once in the body, no guarantee it would remain in the muscle, no knowledge of how many cells, in which organs, would be transfected and programmed to crank out the same protein that injures and kills, and for how long. If I could see that even before the jabs were widely available, why couldn't more medical personnel? I'll never understand it. Yes, this made me lose respect for "experts" in medicine and it won't be coming back.
All I can say is that critical thinking is not a skill required for admission to medical school. I had accepted what I was taught in medical school in the late sixties and early seventies about viruses and never gave it much thought. I was embarrassed by my ignorance when the "pandemic" was declared and it caused me to do a deep dive into the whole concept of viruses and immunology and I learned that much of what I has accepted as true was nonsensical. Viruses had frequently become a sort of default diagnosis for things we didn't understand. Seasonal respiratory infections (colds and flu) were common and there was nothing we could do other than let them run their course. Antibiotics were useless and the standard joke was that penicillin would cure a cold in seven days and otherwise it would take a week. Since there was no treatment for supposed viral illness, most doctors probably didn't think too deeply about it and the whole subject of virology developed along rather unscientific lines without too much critical inquiry. The subsequent popularity of "flu shots" also prepared many in the medical profession to blindly accept the concept of a "vaccine" without giving it much thought. This is no excuse but may explain why so many in the medical profession fell into line. Fear of losing their license to practice also had a significant inhibitory effect. Again, no excuse for failing to do your due diligence in looking out for the safety of your patients, but may explain why so many took the easier path of silence and conformity.
Thanks, Ernest, you have a long view of things in medicine that I don't have. And I don't mean to minimize the threat to doctors of losing their licences and livelihoods. This was brutal bullying like I've never seen in my 70 years. For me the benefit is to be able to see the monetary connection betweeen government agencies and pharma, and stinking corruption.
You mention flu shots. That was another thing that baffled me. We all know most years the wisdom is: don't count too heavily on a jab for a virus that will already have mutated out of its reach by the time you're infected. So the announcement of a jab for what is essentially a cold virus that will mutate at least as rapidly, also seemed crazy. I asked my primary doc about that when she was excitedly telling me about the marvelous COVID jabs coming soon, and, not for the last time, there was a 3 second silence on her part. Really? This is the first time anyone challenged you on that? We're all in trouble.
One question: is there any treatment for any "viral" illness that you know of? I think Peter Duesberg is correct in deducing that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. The balance of evidence weights in his favor. Are there any cases where some treatment cures a "viral" illness?
No treatment that I know of. Some claim that there are monoclonal antibodies that work for some supposedly viral illness. I haven't really looked into it and so can't speak to the question with any degree of certainty. The fly in the ointment of virology is that no virus had ever been physically isolated or cultured. Peter Duesberg has been shown to have been correct and had what was a brilliant career ruined because he opposed the narrative. The whole AIDS business was a scam to win a "turf" war within the National Institute of Health. Improved living conditions and antibiotics had essentially taken care of previously common infectious diseases and threatened to reduce the specialty of infectious disease to a condition of irrelevance. The cluster of disorders that suggested an immunodeficient cause were initially the province of the division of the NIH that dealt with cancer. The reason was that one of the common components was an unusual type of skin cancer. But the bureaucrats in the division of infectious disease recognized this as an opportunity to avoid being defunded or even eliminated completely. Fortunately they had a bureaucrat that was skilled in manipulating the system to their advantage---Anthony Fauci. This whole episode was beautifully described in Peter Duesberg's book titled Inventing the AIDS Virus. Robert Kennedy also did a reasonable job in his recent book The Real Anthony Fauci.
Remember the Milgram Experiment? So telling. Doctors are not God. Also, patients need to take personal responsibility, get second opinions and realize medicine is an evolving field so do your homework! sabrinalabow.substack.com
E. Fama finds some comfort in the expertise of specialists to whom she refers patients. One of the most troubling aspects of the changes in medicine over the 40+ years since I trained is that rarely do I as the referring doc have a free choice of specialists to whom I can send a patient. It used to be I could choose the best one I knew and I would be confident of their expertise. Now it’s ‘who’s on the insurance plan’. It’s not infrequent that the unspoken thought in my cynical head is, “who was the low bidder on this patient’s panel of providers? “.
Two excellent statements. I would have changed the initial statement slightly to read "Regard for power PROMOTES the disregard for those without power." The loss of individual power comes incrementally and, before you know it, can become total. Always fight against any violation of your personal liberty to engage in any act that does not violate the liberties of another. The rationale for ceding your rights to person and property is always some variation of some "expert's" opinion of the mythical common good. Hold their feet to the fire.
These were both excellent commentaries. People need to at least attempt to ask questions and try to look beyond the propaganda and not become brainwashed. The simplest comment I frequent to say is: follow the money.
Power is an illusion. The control freaks are so afraid of the world that they feel the only way to survive is to control everything and that includes humanity. None of these power hungry clowns ever dies with speck of power. They must maintain full control and power in order to hide their hideous corruptions, vanities and perceptions. You, as a human, always have the choice to grant no power to anyone.
Elizabeth Fama,
On Ceding power to authority:
Over the years some have chosen to speak with authority by starting a conversation with 'AS A...' and that title may be anything; AS A Maytag Repairman or AS A weekend carpenter, we often believe them because we have never tried to repair a washing machine or build a bird feeder.
We see this every day with city councils, who hire expensive consultants to tell us where to put the next bridge or what flowers look good downtown. How many school boards hire new superintendents without engaging at all in the hiring process?
WHY do this? It lets us off the hook! If the bridge didn't lessen traffic, "We didn't decide to put it there", if the flowers do not survive next to the water feature, "It wasn't our choice" and if a 200 dollar an hour shrink can't make Johnnie or Susie behave, there is always another who will medicate rather than talk.
We became a nation of followers - unable or unwilling to learn and take responsibility for our actions. We view eroding rights and loss of personal freedoms as being OK because 'At least we still have X-Y or Z'
My generation stopped an unjust war, saw a president resign rather than be prosecuted and marched with Dr. King in Washington DC almost 63 years ago.
We gave away our power because we are told not to disagree with experts. We accept the wrong advice because we do not want to appear stupid even if that advice will harm us or our family or the community.
We take this life to have some life or other because we are conditioned not to think or question what we are told and in the end, we all suffer for our decisions.
How can we protect ourselves and family?
My advice: "Have the drive to develop skills and the venom to use them!"
Remarkable 50,000-foot view of how so many in medicine have ceded power to bureaucratic dogma in medicine. Nowhere has this been more evident than surrendering self-selected CME to the hospital and insurance industry goons who foist MOC down our throats, then attend Aspen idea conferences on “building trust” as a means of perpetuating payments to their organizations. Orwell would applaud these authors but also laugh at how easy it has been to circumvent their logic thanks to our own laziness to stand up to the machine.
I really liked these essays
Both of these essays succinctly address some of the problems in medicine and society today. Thank you for sharing. Both authors have amazing talent and insight of the human minds and actions.