Almost Retired wrote:tedwilliams1999 wrote:DuckIII wrote:
Jesus **** Christ.
That was one of the most alarming articles I've had the displeasure of reading in a long time. This is the epitome of an author who is on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger curve. The pathophysiology of COVID-19 and the science behind a few other topics is mostly on point, and yet the conclusions reached are just mind boggling.
1. The author concludes that the late stages of COVID-19 are an autoimmune process, which is likely true --> yet the author is more concerned about potential autoimmune complications from an mRNA vaccine. Which one of these has actually killed millions of people again? The disconnect here is baffling.
2. The author researches endogenous reverse transcriptases, and begins to conclude that the mRNA vaccine can suddenly incorporate itself into the DNA structure of all somatic cells. This is intentionally misleading. In actuality, many
viruses that can cause infection can also incorporate itself into the DNA of infected cells. Yes, this includes SARS-COV-2. So the virus itself can incorporate itself into our DNA, and yet the author is more concerned about this happening with mRNA vaccines? Another massive disconnect. Here are just a couple of quick resources I found, if anyone needs information:
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/21/e2105968118https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33498787/3. The argument against mechanical ventilation, in favor of experimental treatments, is also inconceivably stupid. This essay reeks of some one who has never actually taken care of patients with COVID-19, in the wards or in the ICU. I'm a physician here in Illinois, and we
are treating patients with non invasive ventilation for as long as humanly possible. By the time I make the decision to place some one on a ventilator, this is the last resort; the alternative is death. And I promise you the lungs are not compliant whatsoever by the time I'm intubating some one.
I couldn't stomach reading the remainder of that article, but @Almost Retired, I urge you to reconsider what you don't know. The authors of these articles you are posting know just enough to sound intelligent, but there's no actual substance to any of these arguments. The Dunning-Kruger effect is very real and if
you truly are a physician, then I urge you to be cognizant of that.
In the meantime, there is a reason why the scientific community goes through a rigid scientific method when it comes to analyzing data. Extrapolating conclusions and nit-picking data is a recipe for disaster, as shown in the article above from Zero Hedge. These are just a few of the many legitimate resources I'd recommend for anyone who is vaccine hesitant:
https://www.nejm.org/coronavirushttps://www.thelancet.com/coronavirushttps://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/pages/coronavirus-alert
Never claimed to be a medical Doctor. Just a clinical hospital pharmacist. I appreciate your response. At least you tried to read the piece. There are just too many unanswered questions. The correlation between low Vitamin D levels and the severity of infection seems pretty well documented statistically. I think Saint Fauci himself admitted to taking Vitamin D. Why has the Federal government not put out recommendations for people to have their Vit D levels checked and to take Vit D supplements if needed? What would be the harm? Maybe no money to be made by Big Pharma?
There are always going to be unanswered questions - but the scientific method still needs to be applied when searching for your answers. There are countless examples of medications and treatments making physiologic sense, but yet failing when it comes to hard clinical outcomes. Giving treatments because 'there is no harm' is not an appropriate response to these situations. If a treatment indeed is clinically relevant in any way, there should be at least hints of data supporting it in the form of a double blinded RCT or at least with cohort analysis.
Your vitamin D example is a good example of this. Yes, low vitamin D levels might correlate to severity of infection, just as low cortisol levels do correlate with severe infection as well. Yet the reason we use steroids in septic shock, and not vitamin D, is because the data only supports one and not the other. I'm sure you must have seen this study in the NEJM last year, but it bears repeating:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7306117/I do acknowledge the big pharma bias when it comes to manufacturing newer drugs, as does Fauci, but the data doesn't lie. If vitamin D was a miracle cure, or if anti-oxidants like zinc, vitamin C, thiamine, etc actually were effective, then the data should bear this out in some meaningful way. Yet all we have are negative trials, including recently the Vitamins trial (
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2759414 ).
Now there is a counter point to the above trials - preventative medicine might be different than critical illness. The problem here is designing longitudinal studies like the ones used in statin research for CV prevention are ludicrously expensive and time consuming, and the motivation of designing these studies in favor of cheaper anti-oxidant based treatments doesn't necessarily exist for big pharma. With this said, all of us physicians always recommend healthy diets high in natural antioxidants, in order to optimize health and prevent disease.
With that said, the best preventative medicine data we have on COVID-19 so far comes from these incredible vaccines, that are saving countless lives, with a novel technology. Without big pharma and the baggage that comes with them, we don't get technological development as rapidly as we did with the whole mRNA platform. The scientists involved here will win a Nobel prize, and deservedly so - the data is astonishing. To promote any other preventative therapies like Ivermectin and various anti-oxidants
over a vaccine this effective and safe is malpractice and needs to stop immediately.
I again urge you to analyze the data you're coming across in proper context, and certainly don't trust random websites you come across where information is misrepresented. Your hesitancies and questions are valid and important, but if some of the above conclusions are guiding your belief systems then the methodology in how you're searching for your answers is clearly flawed.
This topic is important, and I'd be happy to share more if you have questions.
Actually I've got about 60 pages written of what will likely be about a 300 page book, along with about 150 pages of documentation. It's a family genealogy based on research by my brother and me, and verified by 3 reports from a professional genealogist. The book is only intended for members of my extended family, with copies going to a few organizations like the Mayflower Society, Alden Kindred, American Ancestors and The New England Historical Society. Don't fret, I won't post it. 
