You both are very nuanced sensible people that never claim anything with arrogant certainty but instead explore the questions we all have and cannot articulate properly. You are much appreciated. Keep up the good fight. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to watch the ad hominem attacks, now even from those that should champion your inquiry in a world where you stand to lose everything by not mouthing off the group indoctrination.
Bravo! This needs to be read by everyone! Very clear and balanced... Well thought out! Now go outside bare foot and have a great weekend! You deserve an applause for this!
Whilst your arguments on Ivermectan and vaccines are well-reasoned, and definitely backed up by far more evidence than much else we have seen in this pandemic, could you in future elaborate on why there is a need to eradicate it?
The virus had a 0.5%-0.9% CFR in an immunonaïve population. Now that people have gained immunity either through natural infection or through vaccination, the CFR in a pre-exposed population could now be lower than flu. Early data from the UK looks like its heading this way.
It appears that ssRNA viruses effectively compete with each other by triggering the same parts of the immune system (CTL, IFN etc). This means the mortality from Covid won't be simply added to the mortality from flu.
In summary for these paragraphs:
1) What is the true cost for leaving Covid endemic?
Multiplying a small problem by infinite years does not constitute an infinite problem.
Then, it would need to be asked:
2) What cost are you willing to pay to avoid the presence of Covid?
This would include an assessment of NPIs such as lockdowns and social distancing. The collateral damage from these is enormous, especially to the poorer and already-comorbid. Would you want a global lockdown to give everyone Ivermectan? How severe would the scars be from such an intervention?
3) Do you think you can eradicate a highly transmissible virus?
Even if we become immune to the disease, the virus might be one that remains transmitted from person to person with few real consequences, like dozens of respiratory viruses currently are.
Finally:
4) If there is a potential program that could successfully eradicate Covid, and do less collateral damage to us than the benefits we earn, why use this program on Covid?
There are far more pathogens that do more extensive damage to us on a constant basis. Staph aureus, tuberculosis, pneumococcus, E Coli, meningococcus, pseudomonas etc. These are all less contageous, and have great tolls on human life. If we're in the business of making pathogens go extinct, aren't there quite a few more up the list?
None of the above detracts from your highlighting of Ivermectan as part of a global strategy moving forwards, but might at least drive at why extinction might be the correct goal.
In Australia Ivermectin has been championed by Dr. Tom Borody, the gastroenterologist who pioneered faecal transplants for intractable bowel disorders. However, he has been ridiculed and silenced, even though he has conducted successful trials using triple Covid therapy of Ivermectin, Doxycycline & Zinc. GPs here are too afraid to prescribe Ivermectin because of the campaign against it by medical bureaucrats. It is impossible to procure off label, except in veterinary products, which are themselves disappearing from Ag supplies.
bret & heather - another prong in the attack against getting covid, and driving it to extinction, is better health. No one, other than a few doctors on YT, ever mention getting healthy and fit as a way to better survive an infection. My preference is: stop eating sugar, lo carb/hi fat nutrition, aerobics and resistance training. aim for a BMI of 21-ish. Who is talking about this in msm?
I really appreciate what you're doing here. You are making some very careful and nuanced points, based on the available data we have. If you are right about even half of what you're saying, I believe that this piece will be an important part of human history.
"It is in our collective interest to extinguish the virus."
I am not willing to accept this baseline assumption without more deliberation on the nature of the threat by covid and the costs to extinguish covid. A mandate to extinguish a virus without an equal discussion of the costs of doing so, plays right into authoritarian hands. As you point out, "the elderly are at the most at risk from covid", and with regard to children that get covid (which is rare), only "0.2% of pediatric patients required mechanical ventilation". Mankind survived and even thrived for millions of years with much worse odds of survival from far more serious threats. From where I stand this virus looks more like a psychological and spiritual crisis than a medical one.
My favorite "Bad numbers and flawed analysis" are these statements that 99% of the COVID hospitalizations/deaths are in the unvaccinated. Most start their counting in early December when no one was vaccinated. But our dear Dr. Fauci takes the prize in an NPR interview on 30 July...
There's one striking number that people who choose to remain unvaccinated should remember: In the United States, if you look at ALL the COVID deaths, 99.5% of them occur among unvaccinated people and 0.5% occur among vaccinated people. So if ever there was a statistic that's striking, to tell you the difference between a vaccinated and an unvaccinated person, that's it.
How stupid does the good doctor think we are? In the first 9 months of 2020 everyone was unvaccinated, and corticosteroids and anticoagulants were not yet in widespread use saving the sickest of the sick. The fact that the mainstream news never refers to the breakdown between vaccinated and unvaccinated in the prior 2 weeks tells me those numbers are probably somewhere south of 99%.
One observation on your recommended multi-pronged approach: the FDA’s EUA rules (summarised by the FDA here https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explained) permit them to grant (and maintain?) an EUA for the COVID-19 vaccines only if “… there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.”) This seems to mean that the FDA cannot permit option 3 of your multi-pronged attack (i.e., by acknowledging the existence of effective re-purposed drugs) unless it: (1) first approves the vaccines (so EUAs don’t apply); or (2) revokes the EUAs (ending the vaccine campaign)? In other words, the FDA permits EITHER vaccines OR repurposed drugs?
I’m not a betting man, but my guess is that there is some good money to be made on betting that the FDA will recognise the existence of an adequate, approved and available drug (being sceptical, likely an expensive one currently under development, rather than a re-purposed one) very promptly after approving one or more of the vaccines currently available under EUA… The question in my mind is what harm will be done in the interim period?
You two are my proverbial sermon on the mount. I’ve now come to understand that everything the government, media, and science says is a lie. Thank you for opening my eyes to the rank corruption and profit-driven filth that populate this planet. I live to serve your every word.
Let’s clear up the “new variant” bullshit once and for all.
The first “variant” has still never been scientifically isolated. This has been publicly documented via Freedom of Information Requests to the U.K. government and in CDC documentation in the US, and I quote, “since no quantifiable sample of the virus exists”....
It still cannot be detected accurately via PCR / lateral flow testing.
PCR does not test for virus material, it is an amplification tool that detects RNA, which is similar to DNA. We all have it. If you amplify test material using PCR enough times, “you can find anything in anybody” to directly quote Kary Mullis, the creator of the test.
Also:
No one in Brazil had heard of the Brazilian variant.
The Indian variant only reared its head AFTER the jab was rolled out. You only have to look at official statistics to see this.
No scientific evidence has been offered to confirm the existence of this new variant.
If you are still believing this tripe, then you may need to question the following:
Your sight.
Your hearing.
Your misguided trust in media and government.
What it means to be intelligent and educated.
Your ability to use the internet.
Your ability to apply critical thought to these ever changing nonsensical rules.
You can visit a supermarket, with 300 people, but not a small shop that fits three, or get your nails done in the most sterile environment EVER. Sheesh. Really? 🙄
Go to a supermarket but can’t eat inside? 🤯
At this point, I cannot believe that ANYONE still buys into this, but this has been the finest display of propaganda seen in decades, and I guess brainwashing runs deep.
And to the people that KNOW, that this the biggest scam to have ever been foisted upon humanity, but are still wearing masks in shops and getting your children tested, ask yourself why? Fear? Apathy? Don’t want to rock the boat? Afraid of what your friends might think?
Afraid of upsetting someone?
I THINK WE ARE WAY PAST THAT, DON’T YOU?
Think about the life you are providing for your children. How will you be able to look them in the eye and say you couldn’t be bothered to fight for them?
How long do you think these controls will continue for if you keep allowing it?
And when I hear people say, “if only people followed the rules, it would all be over,” that has to be the most idiotic thing yet.
This is continuing BECAUSE you followed the rules. BECAUSE YOU COMPLIED. Because you showed the government how easily you can be controlled and manipulated, and how easily you rolled over and gave up your freedoms and happiness.
It’s very easy for people to shoot the messenger rather than look inwards. So shoot the messenger if you wish, but maybe try doing something that actually matters instead.
THIS ENDS WHEN WE ALL STAND UP AND SAY NO.
This ends when we all refuse to comply. This ends when we refuse to allow other people’s fear dictate how we live our lives.
This ends when we refuse to close our businesses for the umpteenth time, serving no purpose other than creating an enormous wealth divide and destroying livelihoods, families, forcing repossessions and suicides, creating a plethora of mental health issues, and this list can go on for ever...
Enough is enough. (Although I’m pretty sure I wrote this this time last year).
Are you really so arrogant to think that you can solve this global pandemic while hanging out at your house and podcast studio? Based on what publication or citation experience in almost any of the fields that overlap with this are you drawing? Do you think by attending graduate school for Evolutionary Biology at Michigan you are fully qualified to be commenting on all these issues? And commenting is fine, but you are making medical claims based on one-sided poorly run studies. You listen to doctors with degrees from the Caribbean and ignore the best doctors in the world. You seriously cannot be this deluded. I have been a fan of your whole project right up until this Ivermectin business. And that is what it is, one only need to look at a time series of your Patreon describers to see the intervention for your business model. Of course you may dismiss that effort since it based on a mathematical model, and we all know how useless those can be! It can frustrating to hear people talk when they are outside their lane. You both fancy yourselves as experts on many topics in which you have no training, for which you have no credible experience, and to which you may be influencing people. Fine, it is usually quote harmless and a little quaint. This is not that. This matters. You are either deliberately grifting, which I do not believe, or you are doubling down on an idea you thought sounded good with no ability to turn back. Please stop. You are not the smartest people in the room and you likely rarely have been. If you had been you would have been somewhere besides Evergreen and had career records not so easily forgotten. Learn some humility, be better, and just consider for a moment you could be making the biggest mistake of your lives. I doubt you will since you think almost the entire world is doing that themselves and only you have the right answers. Tune in, subscribe, donate! Be better.
Oh my God, I am in awe with the level of discipline to write such an article! May it get where it needs to get with the best outcome! I am rooting for you all!
Upon discovering Ivermectin is NOT used to treat TAPEWORMS despite it's broad range against multiple parasites, out of curiosity I wondered then what is used to treat Tapeworms and apparently its a a drug called Niclosamide. Then while looking into just what Niclosamide did I happened upon it's use in treating syncytia in covid; https://www.virology.ws/2021/04/08/a-tapeworm-drug-to-treat-covid-19/ ...... which led me to this paper; Drugs that inhibit TMEM16 protein block SARS COV2 Spike Induced Syncytia https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03491-6 ...... What drugs? You mean there are readily available drugs that can inhibit the syncytia formation involved in severe covid infections, well lets see what drugs they recommend, oh look antidepressants amongst several suggestions, I wonder if there is any connection between people on anti depressants being less susceptible to severe covid symptoms lets look it up...... and yes there apparently is; Association between antidepressant use and reduced risk of intubation or death in hospitalized patients with COVID-19: results from an observational studyhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01021-4
This is interesting because if a non scientific idiot like me with just an arts background can discover these disease attenuating measures while the CDC, The WHO the AMA "what have you", pretend to know of nothing but vaccines, staying home with covid , taking acetominaphen and fluids as the recommended treatment then its not covid that's the main problem, not downplaying covid but we are trusting the people that were supposed to prevent this from happening in the first place; it's like a restaurant that has massive deadly cases of food poisonings to the point that something must be done but the people in charge of the investigation are the chef and his kitchen staff while the servers are in charge of speaking to the public and censoring anything anyone says that is critical of the restaurant.
You both are very nuanced sensible people that never claim anything with arrogant certainty but instead explore the questions we all have and cannot articulate properly. You are much appreciated. Keep up the good fight. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to watch the ad hominem attacks, now even from those that should champion your inquiry in a world where you stand to lose everything by not mouthing off the group indoctrination.
Bravo! This needs to be read by everyone! Very clear and balanced... Well thought out! Now go outside bare foot and have a great weekend! You deserve an applause for this!
Whilst your arguments on Ivermectan and vaccines are well-reasoned, and definitely backed up by far more evidence than much else we have seen in this pandemic, could you in future elaborate on why there is a need to eradicate it?
The virus had a 0.5%-0.9% CFR in an immunonaïve population. Now that people have gained immunity either through natural infection or through vaccination, the CFR in a pre-exposed population could now be lower than flu. Early data from the UK looks like its heading this way.
It appears that ssRNA viruses effectively compete with each other by triggering the same parts of the immune system (CTL, IFN etc). This means the mortality from Covid won't be simply added to the mortality from flu.
In summary for these paragraphs:
1) What is the true cost for leaving Covid endemic?
Multiplying a small problem by infinite years does not constitute an infinite problem.
Then, it would need to be asked:
2) What cost are you willing to pay to avoid the presence of Covid?
This would include an assessment of NPIs such as lockdowns and social distancing. The collateral damage from these is enormous, especially to the poorer and already-comorbid. Would you want a global lockdown to give everyone Ivermectan? How severe would the scars be from such an intervention?
3) Do you think you can eradicate a highly transmissible virus?
Even if we become immune to the disease, the virus might be one that remains transmitted from person to person with few real consequences, like dozens of respiratory viruses currently are.
Finally:
4) If there is a potential program that could successfully eradicate Covid, and do less collateral damage to us than the benefits we earn, why use this program on Covid?
There are far more pathogens that do more extensive damage to us on a constant basis. Staph aureus, tuberculosis, pneumococcus, E Coli, meningococcus, pseudomonas etc. These are all less contageous, and have great tolls on human life. If we're in the business of making pathogens go extinct, aren't there quite a few more up the list?
None of the above detracts from your highlighting of Ivermectan as part of a global strategy moving forwards, but might at least drive at why extinction might be the correct goal.
In Australia Ivermectin has been championed by Dr. Tom Borody, the gastroenterologist who pioneered faecal transplants for intractable bowel disorders. However, he has been ridiculed and silenced, even though he has conducted successful trials using triple Covid therapy of Ivermectin, Doxycycline & Zinc. GPs here are too afraid to prescribe Ivermectin because of the campaign against it by medical bureaucrats. It is impossible to procure off label, except in veterinary products, which are themselves disappearing from Ag supplies.
bret & heather - another prong in the attack against getting covid, and driving it to extinction, is better health. No one, other than a few doctors on YT, ever mention getting healthy and fit as a way to better survive an infection. My preference is: stop eating sugar, lo carb/hi fat nutrition, aerobics and resistance training. aim for a BMI of 21-ish. Who is talking about this in msm?
I really appreciate what you're doing here. You are making some very careful and nuanced points, based on the available data we have. If you are right about even half of what you're saying, I believe that this piece will be an important part of human history.
"It is in our collective interest to extinguish the virus."
I am not willing to accept this baseline assumption without more deliberation on the nature of the threat by covid and the costs to extinguish covid. A mandate to extinguish a virus without an equal discussion of the costs of doing so, plays right into authoritarian hands. As you point out, "the elderly are at the most at risk from covid", and with regard to children that get covid (which is rare), only "0.2% of pediatric patients required mechanical ventilation". Mankind survived and even thrived for millions of years with much worse odds of survival from far more serious threats. From where I stand this virus looks more like a psychological and spiritual crisis than a medical one.
I’m glad you took this approach. It makes a nice placemat of the data points that merit examination.
My favorite "Bad numbers and flawed analysis" are these statements that 99% of the COVID hospitalizations/deaths are in the unvaccinated. Most start their counting in early December when no one was vaccinated. But our dear Dr. Fauci takes the prize in an NPR interview on 30 July...
There's one striking number that people who choose to remain unvaccinated should remember: In the United States, if you look at ALL the COVID deaths, 99.5% of them occur among unvaccinated people and 0.5% occur among vaccinated people. So if ever there was a statistic that's striking, to tell you the difference between a vaccinated and an unvaccinated person, that's it.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/30/1022909501/dr-anthony-fauci-talks-about-alarming-new-data-on-breakthrough-infections
How stupid does the good doctor think we are? In the first 9 months of 2020 everyone was unvaccinated, and corticosteroids and anticoagulants were not yet in widespread use saving the sickest of the sick. The fact that the mainstream news never refers to the breakdown between vaccinated and unvaccinated in the prior 2 weeks tells me those numbers are probably somewhere south of 99%.
Great article that deserves to be widely read.
One observation on your recommended multi-pronged approach: the FDA’s EUA rules (summarised by the FDA here https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explained) permit them to grant (and maintain?) an EUA for the COVID-19 vaccines only if “… there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.”) This seems to mean that the FDA cannot permit option 3 of your multi-pronged attack (i.e., by acknowledging the existence of effective re-purposed drugs) unless it: (1) first approves the vaccines (so EUAs don’t apply); or (2) revokes the EUAs (ending the vaccine campaign)? In other words, the FDA permits EITHER vaccines OR repurposed drugs?
I’m not a betting man, but my guess is that there is some good money to be made on betting that the FDA will recognise the existence of an adequate, approved and available drug (being sceptical, likely an expensive one currently under development, rather than a re-purposed one) very promptly after approving one or more of the vaccines currently available under EUA… The question in my mind is what harm will be done in the interim period?
You two are my proverbial sermon on the mount. I’ve now come to understand that everything the government, media, and science says is a lie. Thank you for opening my eyes to the rank corruption and profit-driven filth that populate this planet. I live to serve your every word.
Let’s clear up the “new variant” bullshit once and for all.
The first “variant” has still never been scientifically isolated. This has been publicly documented via Freedom of Information Requests to the U.K. government and in CDC documentation in the US, and I quote, “since no quantifiable sample of the virus exists”....
It still cannot be detected accurately via PCR / lateral flow testing.
PCR does not test for virus material, it is an amplification tool that detects RNA, which is similar to DNA. We all have it. If you amplify test material using PCR enough times, “you can find anything in anybody” to directly quote Kary Mullis, the creator of the test.
Also:
No one in Brazil had heard of the Brazilian variant.
The Indian variant only reared its head AFTER the jab was rolled out. You only have to look at official statistics to see this.
No scientific evidence has been offered to confirm the existence of this new variant.
If you are still believing this tripe, then you may need to question the following:
Your sight.
Your hearing.
Your misguided trust in media and government.
What it means to be intelligent and educated.
Your ability to use the internet.
Your ability to apply critical thought to these ever changing nonsensical rules.
You can visit a supermarket, with 300 people, but not a small shop that fits three, or get your nails done in the most sterile environment EVER. Sheesh. Really? 🙄
Go to a supermarket but can’t eat inside? 🤯
At this point, I cannot believe that ANYONE still buys into this, but this has been the finest display of propaganda seen in decades, and I guess brainwashing runs deep.
And to the people that KNOW, that this the biggest scam to have ever been foisted upon humanity, but are still wearing masks in shops and getting your children tested, ask yourself why? Fear? Apathy? Don’t want to rock the boat? Afraid of what your friends might think?
Afraid of upsetting someone?
I THINK WE ARE WAY PAST THAT, DON’T YOU?
Think about the life you are providing for your children. How will you be able to look them in the eye and say you couldn’t be bothered to fight for them?
How long do you think these controls will continue for if you keep allowing it?
And when I hear people say, “if only people followed the rules, it would all be over,” that has to be the most idiotic thing yet.
This is continuing BECAUSE you followed the rules. BECAUSE YOU COMPLIED. Because you showed the government how easily you can be controlled and manipulated, and how easily you rolled over and gave up your freedoms and happiness.
It’s very easy for people to shoot the messenger rather than look inwards. So shoot the messenger if you wish, but maybe try doing something that actually matters instead.
THIS ENDS WHEN WE ALL STAND UP AND SAY NO.
This ends when we all refuse to comply. This ends when we refuse to allow other people’s fear dictate how we live our lives.
This ends when we refuse to close our businesses for the umpteenth time, serving no purpose other than creating an enormous wealth divide and destroying livelihoods, families, forcing repossessions and suicides, creating a plethora of mental health issues, and this list can go on for ever...
Enough is enough. (Although I’m pretty sure I wrote this this time last year).
"The most recent meta-analysis of the efficacy of ivermectin" is certainly not the one you cite. Please see here for something more recent and rigorous: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD015017.pub2/full
Are you really so arrogant to think that you can solve this global pandemic while hanging out at your house and podcast studio? Based on what publication or citation experience in almost any of the fields that overlap with this are you drawing? Do you think by attending graduate school for Evolutionary Biology at Michigan you are fully qualified to be commenting on all these issues? And commenting is fine, but you are making medical claims based on one-sided poorly run studies. You listen to doctors with degrees from the Caribbean and ignore the best doctors in the world. You seriously cannot be this deluded. I have been a fan of your whole project right up until this Ivermectin business. And that is what it is, one only need to look at a time series of your Patreon describers to see the intervention for your business model. Of course you may dismiss that effort since it based on a mathematical model, and we all know how useless those can be! It can frustrating to hear people talk when they are outside their lane. You both fancy yourselves as experts on many topics in which you have no training, for which you have no credible experience, and to which you may be influencing people. Fine, it is usually quote harmless and a little quaint. This is not that. This matters. You are either deliberately grifting, which I do not believe, or you are doubling down on an idea you thought sounded good with no ability to turn back. Please stop. You are not the smartest people in the room and you likely rarely have been. If you had been you would have been somewhere besides Evergreen and had career records not so easily forgotten. Learn some humility, be better, and just consider for a moment you could be making the biggest mistake of your lives. I doubt you will since you think almost the entire world is doing that themselves and only you have the right answers. Tune in, subscribe, donate! Be better.
Oh my God, I am in awe with the level of discipline to write such an article! May it get where it needs to get with the best outcome! I am rooting for you all!
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
― George Washington
Upon discovering Ivermectin is NOT used to treat TAPEWORMS despite it's broad range against multiple parasites, out of curiosity I wondered then what is used to treat Tapeworms and apparently its a a drug called Niclosamide. Then while looking into just what Niclosamide did I happened upon it's use in treating syncytia in covid; https://www.virology.ws/2021/04/08/a-tapeworm-drug-to-treat-covid-19/ ...... which led me to this paper; Drugs that inhibit TMEM16 protein block SARS COV2 Spike Induced Syncytia https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03491-6 ...... What drugs? You mean there are readily available drugs that can inhibit the syncytia formation involved in severe covid infections, well lets see what drugs they recommend, oh look antidepressants amongst several suggestions, I wonder if there is any connection between people on anti depressants being less susceptible to severe covid symptoms lets look it up...... and yes there apparently is; Association between antidepressant use and reduced risk of intubation or death in hospitalized patients with COVID-19: results from an observational studyhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01021-4
This is interesting because if a non scientific idiot like me with just an arts background can discover these disease attenuating measures while the CDC, The WHO the AMA "what have you", pretend to know of nothing but vaccines, staying home with covid , taking acetominaphen and fluids as the recommended treatment then its not covid that's the main problem, not downplaying covid but we are trusting the people that were supposed to prevent this from happening in the first place; it's like a restaurant that has massive deadly cases of food poisonings to the point that something must be done but the people in charge of the investigation are the chef and his kitchen staff while the servers are in charge of speaking to the public and censoring anything anyone says that is critical of the restaurant.