COVID rants /shares 2.0 thread

[Madelaine McMasters]

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Could it be, that some of the in-thread people complaining about "can't get HCQ" were fooled enough to beg for it, and their smart doctor said "no"? Gotta be someone smart in there, somewhere.

I had my routine eye exam yesterday, after skipping last year's. It was wonderful to see my doc again, trade book recommendations with him, and witness his pride in his son, a budding neurologist.

We briefly discussed the tidal wave of disinformation that's facing us these days. He and his son have noticed an uptick in patients requesting unnecessary, potentially expensive and/or counterproductive tests, therapies and procedures.

I cogitated on that for a moment and then asked if there's an opportunity for the health care system to profit handsomely by giving in to "patient self diagnosis and prescription".

"Always, we could make a killing off their misinformation."

His wording was not accidental.

I brought up one of the chief criticisms the scientifically ignorant have of scientists, "I don't trust them, they're always changing their minds." I asked if anyone has ever expressed distrust in him for changing their prescriptions, theorizing that he does so only to make money off selling new eyewear.

"No, you're the first one to bring that up."

"Aha, I'm onto you, doc!"

 

 

 

 

You'll love my new glasses.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters
Changed to "misinformation" from "ignorance", as that's actually the problem.

[Rowan Amore]

13 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Let me take this opportunity to thank you, @Klytyna and a few others for consistently adding to my reputation. If it was not for you, I would hardly have any!

Oh, you had one already.

[Krystina Ferraris]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Now now he’s just getting his highlights done 👌

[Arielle Popstar]

9 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Since the only answer given was crickets, I think she really does believe the ignorant bs she spouts. As long as people like this exist, there is no hope for them or humanity. They're going to kill us all.

Did you really think I would waste this much time and energy on something I don't believe is worthwhile? At least I took over as the most unpopular person on the Forum.

[Rowan Amore]

I'll just leave with this for you.  Despite the mountain of information, you still fail to see how dangerous your disinformation can be.  We can all show you facts but that's not what you want.  You want to be right at any cost.  The cost is too high.  I won't be commenting on your shenanigans anymore.  It's been pointless and more so, very sad.

[Solar Legion]

12 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Oh, you had one already.

It really does say a good deal about someone when they pay any attention at all to a thing as utterly useless as forum reputation points.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Solar Legion

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Solar Legion said:

It really does say a good deal about someone when they pay any attention at all to a thing as utterly useless as forum reputation points.

Begs the question doesn't it as to why you have gone so out of your way to rep me on so many posts?

[Luna Bliss]

@Arielle Popstar

I think you're wrong on so many issues, but this does not mean I think you are a bad person.

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

 

I like Thomas Sowell. He has a lot of wisdom which too many ignore, like this one:

 

[Selene Gregoire]

4 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Did you really think I would waste this much time and energy on something I don't believe is worthwhile? At least I took over as the most unpopular person on the Forum.

So you do believe it is worthwhile to wipe out all humans on the planet except those who believe as you do. Good to know. 

And if you were trying to stick a barb in with the most unpopular person jab, it won't work. I've never been the most unpopular person on the forum.

I do appreciate the confirmation of what I've been watching go down for over 50 years now. 

[Innula Zenovka]

2 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The American health agencies are considered leaders because of the amount of resources they have. I know that to some degree, the FDA's view on different drugs and treatments carry a lot of weight for Health Canada though they don't follow everything to the letter and there are some drugs that are ok here but not over there. Having said that, there have also been times where both the FDA and Big Pharma's have to some degree dictated to Canada what Health Canada's policies should be using our trade agreements as leverage. I think in the case of this pandemic, American policies regarding treatments, vaccines and lockdown procedures have been followed simply because Health Canada was caught without a good pandemic plan. Having the Liberal party in power rather than a Conservative one probably is part of the reason too that the Canadian response mimics that of the American Liberal states.

I don't know how things work in Canada, but one big difference between the US and the UK is that, in the UK, the NHS and the various regulatory bodies make their decisions on the basis of evidence-based medicine, which means that, throughout the last year, whenever there's been a fuss in the US about some new miracle cure then, rather than arguing about what people did or didn't say 10 or 15 years ago, the authorities here have set up large-scale double-blind clinical trials, and then made a decision some months later based on the scientific data they thus obtain.

 

 

[Snugs McMasters]

13 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

It really does say a good deal about someone when they pay any attention at all to a thing as utterly useless as forum reputation points.

That's the only reason Maddy's here, Solar.

[Arielle Popstar]

9 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

And if you were trying to stick a barb in with the most unpopular person jab, it won't work. I've never been the most unpopular person on the forum.

No barb intended. Just a little wry, self deprecating humour.

[Luna Bliss]

‘Turning the Corner’: U.S. Covid Outlook Reaches Most Hopeful Point Yet (msn.com)

After weeks of coronavirus patients flooding emergency rooms in Michigan, the worst Covid-19 hot spot in the nation, hospitalizations are finally falling.

%7B© Philip Cheung for The New York Times Signs of hope are appearing across America. Los Angeles County made headlines with the news that it had reported zero new deaths on two consecutive days this week.

On some recent days, entire states, including Wisconsin and West Virginia, have reported zero new coronavirus deaths — a brief but promising respite from the onslaught of the past year.

And in New York and Chicago, officials encouraged by the recent progress have confidently vowed to fully reopen in the coming weeks, conjuring images of a vibrant summer of concerts, sporting events and packed restaurants revving cities back to life.

Americans have entered a new, hopeful phase of the pandemic. Buoyed by a sense that the coronavirus is waning, in part because of vaccinations, more people are shrugging off masks, venturing into restaurants and returning to their prepandemic routines. Mayors, governors and other local officials — once the bearers of grim news about the virus’s toll and strict rules for businesses — have joined in the newfound optimism, rapidly loosening restrictions.

[Sassy Kenin]

 

[Selene Gregoire]

13 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

No barb intended. Just a little wry, self deprecating humour.

Dear Grandfather,

Please, I'm begging you, for the good of the people, nuke it from orbit.

Respectfully yours.

[FairreLilette]

35 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

@Arielle Popstar

I think you're wrong on so many issues, but this does not mean I think you are a bad person.

I agree, Arielle, I don't think you are a bad person...but what some believe (now here I did not say you) in regards to their view that it's a pointless effort to reach herd immunity will destroy the very core doctrine of "love does no harm to it's neighbor".  This could be a problem.  To make this party politics is bordering on nuts territory as well as contrary to a core belief.  But, I have put up sound rebuttals about the in vitro petri dish drugs and young cells versus aged or weakened cells from pre-existing conditions, however, you seem to not have heard a word I wrote about how it could takes years for a cocktail, etc...etc....that pretty soon you may be talking to yourself.

Edited May 6, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Krystina Ferraris]

The thing about medical sciences is that they don't always get things right or hold absolute truths.

There are some foundational science things we now (sometimes only sort of) understand like fundamental biochemistry, but the inner works of complex biological entities are still quite puzzling.

The placebo effect for example does not make any sense. It's a whole lot of nothing and yet, sometimes it works. Years ago a group of scientists studied the effects of placebo (saline solution) on Parkinson's patients. The brain scans showed that there was reduced activity in single neurons on the placebo patients and that meant a great improvement on their condition. I will find the paper on pubmed, I just can't access it here at the moment. To this day it is not understood how a saline solution can improve Parkinson's disease, probably the neurons are "trained" to respond to the placebo who knows.

When C19 hit the world hard doctors and scientists were trying to figure out what the hell was happening and how come there were so many different outcomes in patients that presented otherwise similar clinical profiles and parameters. When you are trying to save as many patients as you can (we do the same in veterinary medicine... it's tough to even lose one due to getting it wrong) and the world is looking at you expecting the miracle cure, well $hit happens and mistakes are made. They still tried to make sense of the data and tried whatever drugs were available that addressed that particular patient's profile and a lot of research stemmed from those initial trials (and errors).

Monoclonal antibodies therapies (the ones Eli-Lilly made and regeneron for example), anti-IL6 (the ones that prevent cytokine storms) work in certain cases, not all and sometimes combined. Research is still ongoing and papers are churned out on a daily basis. Ivermectin is also something that is being explored -potentially- as its inventor (Prof. Campbell) said after reviewing the Australian study results last year.

Why Ivermectin? Because this drug has proven anti-RNA viral properties for many viruses. So the reasoning was.. it might work for Covid. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011

The issue here is that the Aussie studies were done in vitro, so they added the virus to a culture of cells on a petri dish. They then treated the infected culture with high doses of Ivermectin. What does "high doses" mean though?

Normal dose to kill most parasites sensitive to Ivermectin is  for humans 0.2 mg/Kg of body weight. For horses same, 0.2mg/Kg. What you work with here is concentration per dose given. After a normal dose of 0.2 mg/Kg of body weight the max concentration observed in the blood is typically 40 ng/ml.

And that's where the problem is... did the Ivermectin kill the virus? Yes it did. What was the concentration to achieve a 50% reduction in viral replication? 2450 ng/ml. That's 60-times higher than the normal concentration at normal dosage. The highest dose ever given (other non-Covid related trails) is 0.8 mg/Kg

Trials are ongoing but the issues here are a small number of volunteers and the potentially fatal high doses needed of Ivermectin to get results.

I have a drawer full of EquiMax but I think I'll skip squirting some after my coffee for today!😅

Edited May 6, 2021 by Krystina Ferraris
Lousy spelling! Probably still loads of errors!

[Krystina Ferraris]

25 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Dear Grandfather,

Please, I'm begging you, for the good of the people, nuke it from orbit.

Respectfully yours.

Selene wait let me gather my cats, horses and dogs and hide them safely. Then Grandfather may nuke!

[Akane Nacht]

meanwhile...

[FairreLilette]

19 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

And that's where the problem is... did the Ivermectin kill the virus? Yes it did. What was the concentration to achieve a 50% reduction in viral replication? 2450 ng/ml. That's 60-times higher than the normal concentration at normal dosage. The highest dose ever given (other non-Covid related trails) is 0.8 mg/Kg

This IS the problem in a nutshell.  Every drug has a potential to be poison if given in the wrong dose.  This is why self-medicating with alcohol or illegal drugs leads to so many over-doses, poisonings and deaths as the dose was wrong.  Self-medicating is a dangerous game of Russian roulette of guessing what is an appropriate dose one can tolerate without poisoning themselves to death.  With all medicines, it must be carefully studied as to what is an appropriate dose and what is a poisonous dose.  

Edited May 6, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Selene Gregoire]

17 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

Selene wait let me gather my cats, horses and dogs and hide them safely. Then Grandfather may nuke!

His aim is usually pretty good. 

[Nalates Urriah]

22 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

 “Fauci and Six Others at NIAID Own Patents in the Moderna Vaccine”

This is not correct and it also isn’t a critique of vaccine safety. It is, instead, an appeal to emotion that invokes the specter of Fauci, a boogeyman to the anti-vaccine/COVID-19 denial movement, to sow paranoia about ulterior motives. 

The post asserts that “Tony Fauci owns over 1,000 patents … including patents being used on the Moderna vaccine.” Elliot lifts this false notion from an interview between Naomi Wolf and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Kennedy, whose Instagram page spreading unhinged claims about 5G wireless technology, Bill Gates, and microchips, was banned in February 2021, is one of the most prolific spreaders of disinformation surrounding vaccine safety, and Ellliot cites Kennedy’s Children’s Defense Fund organization several times in his post.

Fauci is listed as an inventor on at least 36 patents or patent applications, according to a Google Patents search. Being an inventor does not mean that an individual “owns” the patent. These patents are owned primarily by the United States government or, in some cases, the academic institutions where most of the research was conducted. More to the point, however, Fauci himself does not own any patent related to any COVID-19 vaccine. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) does claim joint-ownership of the Moderna vaccine, and Fauci is director of the institute within the NIH that deals with vaccines. Prior to COVID-19 being declared a pandemic disease, in December 2019, the NIH had already signed a contract with Moderna to research coronavirus vaccines. As reported by Axios:

NIH and Moderna have researched coronaviruses, like MERS, for several years, and signed a contract this past December that stated “mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidates [are] developed and jointly owned” by the two parties. The contract was not specific to the novel coronavirus, and it was signed before the new virus had been sequenced.

Moderna had been, for years, developing the vaccine technology that allows for the delivery of mRNA to cells to produce custom-designed antibodies. When the pandemic struck, researchers at NIH sequenced, designed, and applied for a patent on the mRNA sequence that codes for the spike protein found in SARS-CoV-2. This genetic code is what is delivered by Moderna’s technology.

As a result of that fact and the contract signed in December, NIH claims joint ownership of that vaccine. This is not done to enrich individual scientists in the U.S. government, but to allow for a “non-exclusive licensing approach for these patent rights in order to allow multiple vaccine developers” to produce COVID-19 vaccines. Both Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson use the NIH patented spike protein code as well.

The assertion that Fauci profits from the Moderna vaccine is false because Fauci doesn’t “own” any relevant patent related to COVID-19 vaccine technology.

You missed the nuance of patent ownership. The inventor or inventors are the owners. They can assign rights to the patent. All the patents I can find bearing the name Anthony S. Fauci have been assigned to HHS. But Fauci and his coinventors are the patent owners. It is a technical nuance, but an important fact.

So, you are correct in that Fauci has assigned the patents we have found to the HHS. He and his coinventors may have assigned all rights and financial reward to the HHS. But we don’t know that. I can’t find the assignment documents.

But “assignment” alone does not mean he does not profit from them. Read the HHS documentation for employees regarding inventions. (Ref see page 2 & 4) The HHS does pay royalties. Without knowledge of how the HHS and inventor agreed to handle the assignment for a particular patent no one can know what deal was made.

That the HHS requires inventor-employees to assign the patent is in itself interesting. Most companies have an employee agreement that clearly states any invention made on company time or with company resources is the company's. If the employee patents it, they file suit and take the patent. Every company is different and has various ways of handling employee inventions. HHS seems rather lenient in how they handle inventions, which is probably how they encourage employees to invent... or its just more government graft.

As to CoVid related… many of the CoVid vaccine production processes and ideas are from HIV and other research. Trying to say which are and are not connected to CoVid vaccine creation and production requires detailed knowledge of all the processes. So far, the vaccine makers have not released that information. I don’t see how a declarative statement can be made either way as to what is and is not CoVid related.

I think Dr. Slaoui’s involvement in GlaxoSmithKline and Operation Warp Speed as reported by the NYT shows that financial reward does not have to be tied to specific patents. Lots of investors realized there was big money to be made with vaccines. Arguing that Kennedy is wrong because of a single point on patents seems simplistic.

I’ll also point out that Kennedy is talking about money going into the NIAID, an agency Fauci controls. You seem to have taken it that money was going directly into Fauci's pocket. Again rather simplistic.

Reward, especially in DC, is not always in cash. Power is often the more seductive and driving reward.

I’ll also point out the controversy around Patent Waivers for patents related to the vaccines. If only HHS held patents were involved in the vaccines, what’s the problem? The US government can assign rights to use those patents. No waiver needed. But it appears to be a far more complex ownership of the patents with multiple parties being owners of various parts of the vaccine tech and processes. Since we can't know the arrangement for royalties and which patents are important it makes it hard to sort out. BUT... if money were not involved, an assignment or waiver would be a simple and easy altruistic gesture to make.

 

While you may think Fauci is a noble altruistic doctor with our best interest at heart, I don’t. I see him as another politically motivated government employee with ties to big pharma that has already admitted he lied to manipulate us to not buy masks. Your claims that he can’t profit from the vaccines seem more emotional than factual.

[Selene Gregoire]

Quote

As Fauci told the Washington Post  here , at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, masks were not recommended for the general public, as authorities were trying to prevent a mask shortage for health workers and the extent of asymptomatic spread was unknown.  

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-fauci-outdated-video-masks/fact-checkoutdated-video-of-fauci-saying-theres-no-reason-to-be-walking-around-with-a-mask-idUSKBN26T2TR

[Nalates Urriah]

8 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I wonder, Nalates, whether you have any views on the way that various medical regulators and regulatory organisations worldwide -- The European Medicines Agency, for example, or Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in the UK (the two most in the news over here), or their equivalents elsewhere -- have all tended to reach similar conclusions about the efficacy and safety of various "off label" treatments for Covid-19 as have the US authorities in your country?

One explanation, of course,  would be that is that they've all been nobbled by Big Pharma, Bill Gates, the Chinese Communist Party or George Soros   

Another would simply be that they're all looking at the same body of research and coming to broadly similar conclusions about it, which is how science is supposed to work, I thought.      

 

It does seem odd to me that most government agencies take the same stance that a CHEAP decades old medicine well tolerated by billions of people is consistently considered ineffective for CoVid. But their recommended barely tested very expensive experimental vaccines are claimed the solution and all else should be banned or strongly contraindicated at the least.

On the other hand, literally thousands of front-line doctors acting as individuals and without financial incentive claim HCI is working well. As do a number of studies.

Also, the governments that oppose HCI treatment all seem to be big and Left leaning. The smaller counties and Right leaning governments seem to be following the science and allowing, if not promoting, treatment with HCI and other treatments which have shown success.

If these government agencies were honestly looking at the body of evidence, I think we would be hearing a very different story.