Sep 072021
 


Laura Knight The Green Sea, Lamorna 1918

 

 

The Automatic Earth’s resident doctor, John Day MD, who’s about to lose his job for refusing to be vaccinated, has compiled a list of OTC prophylactics and treatments for Covid, and specified dosages.

 

 

John Day MD: I have gotten a lot of questions from people during the Delta-COVID peak this summer about OTC supplements and repurposed medicines to self-treat COVID, other than staying home alone and awaiting the inevitable, as is routinely advised. All of this advice applies to pregnant women. That is a group with a lot of questions. I am deeply disturbed at how expectant-mothers are being treated by the medical machine these days.

Firstly, don’t use ibuprofen or Aleve. Do not use NSAIDs when sick with COVID-19. I saw information from China in February 2020, and again from France in April 2020 that NSAIDs like these worsened hospital patient outcomes. I don’t know how confirmed that is, nor do I want to await further word. It is easy to avoid them, and they interfere with the anticoagulant effects of aspirin, anyway, which matters, as will be explained.

Support the normal functioning of your immune system with Vitamin-D. Every B-cell and T-cell in your immune system has vitamin-D receptors on it and won’t work properly and intelligently if a lot of them are empty. For most people, in the long term, 5000 units per day of vitamin D-3 (the kind you can buy) is a good dose, and will get people into the normal range. Exceptions to that are people who absorb it poorly and metabolize it poorly. Those people are the ones who still have a low level after months of taking 5000 units per day. You have to do the test to know you need more. People with a lot of body fat distribute their dose into a larger fat volume, and often need more.

A person who has a body weight over 100 kg (220 lb.) might do better to take 10,000 units per day. Checking a blood test after at least 3 months would help confirm what is best. Taking 10,000 units per day for the first month or 2, in order to normalize blood level is good. What is the ideal one time dose of vitamin-D to normalize one’s blood level, assuming a low starting point? A lot of effort has gone into answering that question, and it can be found here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4128480/#R34

Vitamin D3 doses >300,000 IU were similarly effective in patients with 25(OH)D concentrations >20 ng/mL; all 3 studies (29,34,39) observed mean concentrations >30 ng/mL at 4 weeks, though the results peaked at day 3 (reaching 67.1 ± 17.1 ng/mL from 21.7 ± 5.6 at baseline) in the study of Rossini et al (34). Sanders et al (29) showed long-term efficacy of a 500,000 IU dose; the 25(OH)D concentration remained >30 ng/mL at 12 weeks and was significantly increased at 1 year in a cohort of women with osteoporosis.

That dose, 300,000 International Units of vitamin D3, by mouth, corresponds to #60 pills of 5000 units, a month’s worth of taking 2 pills per day. The level peaked at mid-normal in 3 days, and stayed in the normal range at 30 days. An even higher dose, a whole #100 pill bottle of 5000 unit vitamin-D pills produced a 12 week blood level that was still normal. People are very, very reluctant to take that many vitamin-D pills at once, even when they are sick with COVID. I’m sure of that. People give me feedback. “Trust the science”, or something. All I can do is give my best advice, with references.

Here is a flashback to “Vitamin-D Christmas”: https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/12/vitamin-d-christmas.html

 

Jumping to Z-for-zinc, this paper is the Gospel of Zinc, which has been shown effective against coronavirus “common colds” since 1996, reducing severity and shortening duration of illness. Zinc is clearly good, but it needs to get inside of the cells in order to directly interfere with viral replication. It is nice to have zinc adequacy when you get inoculated with COVID, but you can sure increase your dose when you get a positive test result. In most cases, prophylactic zinc supplementation was more effective than therapeutic proceedings (106–108, 111). Up to 30% of the everyday respiratory infections, briefly named “common cold,” are due to infections with coronaviruses (112).

Studies showed reduced symptom severity, reduced frequency, and duration of the common cold after zinc administration (99, 100, 113, 114) depending on dosage, zinc compound and the start time after initial symptoms (115)…..Zinc supplementation improves the mucociliary clearance, strengthens the integrity of the epithelium, decreases viral replication, preserves antiviral immunity, attenuates the risk of hyper-inflammation, supports anti-oxidative effects and thus reduces lung damage and minimized secondary infections…
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.01712/full

What is the optimum preventive-dosing of zinc? The prophylactic dose needs to assure zinc adequacy, without crowding out the absorption of copper. 12 – 25 mg per day seems to be an agreed recommendation. Not exceeding 50 mg/day prophylactically is also broadly agreed. (We get about 12 mg/d in a supplement and eat lots of fresh vegetables.)

What about taking zinc when you are sick with coronavirus? What should be done differently? This gets fancier, and includes quercetin, a plant polyphenol found in foods from onions to green tea. Quercetin acts as a zinc-ionophore and helps zinc get into human cells, including human cells infected with coronavirus, where it inhibits viral production. Taking quercetin together with zinc during active infection has been advised in treatment protocols since at least June 2020, when I first saw it. I was having difficulty prescribing hydroxychloroquine, because of the medical politics which had arisen after President the-Donald had advocated for it.

It was already in fairly wide use by that time. One good thing about HCQ is that it is a zinc ionophore, so I was looking for alternate zinc ionophores, and had heard that quercetin was the main one, especially the available one. I did not get a good idea of how long quercetin persists in the bloodstream after ingestion. That would be expensive to study…

What has been studied is quercetin absorption from the gut, which is poor, but helped by taking it with a meal. It turns out that taking a little lecithin with your quercetin can increase absorption by up to 20 X. They call the mix of 250 mg quercetin + 250 mg sunflower lecithin, in a gel-cap, “Quercetin Phytosome”. We ordered some after seeing this article: Other benefits of quecetin against SARS-CoV-2 are also postulated. They didn’t give zinc, just “quercetin phytosome”.

Results: The results revealed a reduction in frequency and length of hospitalization, in need of non-invasive oxygen therapy, in progression to intensive care units and in number of deaths. The results also confirmed the very high safety profile of quercetin and suggested possible anti-fatigue and pro appetite properties.
https://www.dovepress.com/possible-therapeutic-effects-of-adjuvant-quercetin-supplementation-aga-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-IJGM

Ground-laying research about the highly-bioavailable formulation, “quercetin phytosome”, mixed with lecithin, and readily available in the retail market.
Quercetin (3,3′ ,4′ ,5,7-pentahydroxyflavone) is a natural flavonoid compound widely found in vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Major dietary sources of quercetin are apple, onions, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, and black and green tea… increasing the water solubility of quercetin would enhance its oral bioavailability…

A more soluble formulation of quercetin based on lecithin, Quercetin Phytosome, has recently been developed, and was found to facilitate the attainment of very high plasma levels of quercetin -up to 20 times more than usually obtained following a dose of quercetin- when the novel formulation was administered orally in human volunteers, and it did not have any notable side effects .
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6418071/

 

COVID has 2 phases , which the Chinese already explained in early 2020. The first week of symptoms (which begins about 5 days after exposure/inoculation) and the second week, where the person either improves with the antibody response the body makes, or gets deathly ill from it. In the second week the battlefield against the virus, and virus-producing cells, lays waste to organs like the lungs, kidneys, blood vessels and heart.

People with inflammatory conditions, like diabetes and obesity, are prone to get hit much harder in the second week. This is the time that people crash fast and get put on high dose steroids and blood thinners in the hospital, to reduce the collateral damage, the “Cytokine Storm”. Those treatments are not over-the-counter. There are some accommodations you can make in anticipation of that. You might decide to take a 325 mg aspirin or two per day, and 1000 mg of vitamin-C three times per day before you get to the second week. The potential benefits outweigh the risks for those with hypertension, diabetes, and obesity..

The more inflammation-prone should take 2 X 325 mg Aspirin per day, to get full benefit of the anticoagulant effect. All the inflammation makes micro clots through the circulation of lungs and kidneys, even brain and heart, and sometimes big clots, too causing overt occlusion of blood supply to heart, lungs and brain.

Vitamin-C has a benefit to cleaning up the oxidative damage and debris where the immune system is fighting the virus, and blasting infected cells with little oxidative-bombs. 1000 mg of vitamin-C 3 times per day is a modest dose in this context. It has been used up to 10X that dose IV in hospital studies last year.

 

(Astepro).   I admit that I am stretching a bit to include this as OTC, but it is approved as such. I would spray it up both nostrils twice per day ASAP.
  The 0.15% strength of azelastine nasal spray is now approved for nonprescription treatment of rhinitis – a common allergy to pollens, dust mites, mold and more — in adults and children 6 years of age or older, the agency said. The 0.1% strength remains a prescription product for younger children.
https://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20210622/fda-approves-first-otc-nasal-spray-for-allergies

Azelastin, hydroxyzine and diphenhydramine were found to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in cell cultures. They are available antihistamines.
Among the three medications, azelastine was found to inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 virus at a dose that was smaller than the amount prescribed as a nasal spray . The other two antihistamines required higher drug concentrations than currently recommended dosing levels to achieve antiviral activity in cells.
https://ufhealth.org/news/2020/existing-antihistamine-drugs-show-effectiveness-against-covid-19-virus-cell-testing

Famotidine (Pepcid) was found to reduce COVID-19 progression, severity and deaths last summer. It likely inhibits cytokine storm effects, but that is not certain. The dose I heard the best reports on was 60 mg 3 times per day, more than cited in the range here: 20-40 mg twice per day should work to full effect..

Impact of Famotidine Use on Clinical Outcomes of Hospitalized Patients With COVID-19
   Famotidine use in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 is associated with a lower risk of mortality, lower risk of combined outcome of mortality and intubation, and lower levels of serum markers for severe disease in hospitalized patients with COVID-19…

  Famotidine was administered orally in 83% of cases and intravenously in the remaining 17%. Dosing for oral administered famotidine was 20 mg/d in 95.2% of cases and 40 mg/d in the remaining 4.8% of cases. Intravenous famotidine was administered as a 20 mg/2 mL solution in all cases, For inpatient famotidine use, the median total dose was 80 mg (range 40–160 mg) and was received over a median of 4 days (range 2–8 days).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7473796/

  You might well take 10 mg Zyrtec (cetirizine) twice per day with your Pepcid.
A more recent cohort study used cetirizine and famotidine in hospitalized patients with severe to critical pulmonary symptoms. This study confirmed beneficial reductions in inpatient mortality and symptom progression , probably by minimizing the histamine-mediated cytokine storm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7833340/

  This article is sparse on details, but the Pepcid + Zyrtec combination might be what they used to treat long-COVID.

Antihistamines might be effective in long-COVID
  Regarding therapeutic intervention, almost 60% reduction in symptom burden was observed in long-COVID patients treated with histamine receptor antagonists. Specifically, of 25 patients in the treatment group, 5 reported complete resolution of all symptoms, 13 reported improvements, 6 reported no change, and 1 reported deterioration of symptoms.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210608/Antihistamines-might-be-effective-in-long-COVID.aspx

 

  The media, Tony Fauci and the AMA have been beating really hard on ivermectin, the stupid people who use it and the criminals who prescribe it. 

Ivermectin is not over the counter in the US.
WARNING
: If you take an ivermectin dose to deworm 50 horses, 500 times a typical human dose, you might get sick and die, maybe.

In a trial on human volunteers, doses of 60, 90, and 120 mg were included to establish a significant safety margin for administration of this drug. No central nervous system effects, using pupil size as the parameter, were detected at the maximum dose level. No adverse events were reported in subjects who received 120 mg of ivermectin, which is 10 times the proposed dose of 0.2 mg/kg for treatment of scabies . There was minimal accumulation following multiple dosing (three times per week) with ivermectin, which was consistent with the half-life in the body of about one day.

A safety margin of ten times the recommended dose sounds good, but it gets better. During a program for treating children with scabies in the Solomon Islands, an 8 mg/kg accidental overdose (40 times the recommended dose) in a child caused acute emesis, mydriasis and sedation which rapidly reversed . In a study of poisoning due to ivermectin and the related molecule avermectin, 

“Seven patients manifested severe symptoms, such as coma (7), aspiration with respiratory failure (4), and hypotension (3), after a mean ingestion of 100.7 mg/kg avermectin (15.4 mg/kg for ivermectin and 114.9 mg/kg for abamectin). One of the seven patients died, the other six recovered. This was from an average of 500 times the recommended dose rate.
https://wentworthreport.com/ivermectin-safety-profile/

Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/

Ivermectin: a multifaceted drug of Nobel prize-honoured distinction with indicated efficacy against a new global scourge, COVID-19 (We wanted to hike Machu Picchu last summer, so I was paying a lot of attention to Peru. The mountainous regions were handing out ivermectin and having very low case counts and deaths, compared to the cities. Last winter Peru got a new president, who outlawed ivermectin. Look what happened:)


 

 

 

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Jul 072021
 
 July 7, 2021  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  98 Responses »


Damien Hirst Spiritual Day Blossom 2018

 

CDC Insists Benefits Of mRNA Vaccines Still “Clearly Outweigh” Risks (ZH)
Ultra-Contagious Lambda Variant Detected In Australia (NZH)
A Thread On Vaccines! (Neary)
Military Members Say They’ll “Quit” If Army Mandates COVID-19 Vaccine (ZH)
Adjuvant Quercetin Supplementation For Early-Stage COVID-19 Infection (Dove)
Santa Clara County Revises Official COVID-19 Death Toll Down by 22% (CBS)
Brazil’s Lower House Allows Breaking Vaccine Patents In Case Of Emergency (RT)
Dershowitz Predicts Charges Against Trump Org’s CFO Will Be Tossed (ZH)
The Wealth Effect Creates Wealth Disparity (WS)

 

 

Someone tweeted this graph and said: early treatment can’t be far off.

 

 

Ioannidis

 

 

Just the fact that they feel they need to re-state it says enough.

CDC Insists Benefits Of mRNA Vaccines Still “Clearly Outweigh” Risks (ZH)

With a new round of data out of Israel seemingly confirming what we have been reporting for weeks now, fresh questions are emerging about the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines (those produced by Pfizer and Moderna) and whether they’re truly 90%+ effective, as advertised. As the number of confirmed COVID cases topped 184MM, the Israeli health ministry shared preliminary data appearing to confirm that these vaccines are less effective at preventing infection via the Delta variant. Although the data must still be peer reviewed, the Israelis went so far as to proclaim that the true efficacy number is closer to 64%. To be sure, the vaccines continue to mostly prevent severe infection and death (though they’re only 93% effective at this, less than the 100% number initially touted by their corporate parents).

Now, with President Joe Biden publicly addressing the administration’s ongoing effort to combat COVID as case numbers continue to creep higher in the US, the CDC has chimed in – right on cue – to remind the world that the benefits of everybody taking the vaccine still far outweigh the risks posed by the rare (but sometimes deadly) side effects that have now also been documented. As we reported, the FDA now recognizes that the rare heart inflammation seen in some patients, including members of the military, have been linked to mRNA vaccines. So, with criticism and skepticism directed at the US-made vaccines mounting, the CDC on Tuesday tried its hand at a little damage control.

Per Bloomberg: “The benefits of messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccines clearly outweigh the risks despite heart complications seen in a relatively small number of mostly young men, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 1,200 cases of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart wall, were reported in people who received mRNA vaccines, the CDC said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Tuesday. But with about 296 million doses of mRNA vaccines having been administered as of June 11, the benefit is clear in all populations, including adolescents and young adults, the researchers reported.”

For the Biden Administration, the stakes have never been higher. COVID cases are rising, and many are blaming Southern and western states with lower vaccination rates as a potential vulnerability that could ignite another wave of COVID.

Tucker life expectancy

Read more …

Reaction? More lockdowns. Which have failed for 18 months now. And what are they trying to achieve? How long can you separate the entire country from the world? Until you reach zero, and then you can open and start all over again?

Ultra-Contagious Lambda Variant Detected In Australia (NZH)

The world’s most transmissible Covid-19 strain has found its way into Australia – with worrying research revealing it may be even more infectious than the Delta variant. The Lambda strain has puzzled World Health Organisation scientists after it spread to nearly 30 countries in the last four weeks. The mutation was originally discovered in Peru and is related to 81 per cent of the country’s cases since April. Peru currently has the highest Covid mortality rate in the world. In Australia, the variant was detected in an overseas traveller who had been in hotel quarantine in New South Wales in April, according to national genomics database AusTrakka. Early research shows it has not spread among the community in Australia.

Lambda has just started to make its way into the community in the UK, with six cases reported on Monday. It is a worrying sign for the UK, which has recently relaxed Covid-19 restrictions after 37 million people received at least one dose of a vaccine. The country had returned to normality in recent weeks, with pubs flooded by revellers enjoying their country’s recent success at Euro 2020. However, these civil liberties could change if the highly transmissible Lambda strain spreads across the community. Professor Pablo Tsukayama of Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru, said the strain has exploded in Peru, suggesting “its rate of transmission is higher than any other variant”. His claims were backed up by a report by Jeff Barrett from London’s Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Welcome Sanger Institute.

“Lambda has a unique pattern of seven mutations in the spike protein that the virus uses to infect human cells. Researchers are particularly intrigued by one mutation called L452Q, which is similar to the L452R mutation to contribute to the high infectiousness of the Delta variant,” Barrett told the Financial Times. There is also concerning research that current vaccines are not as effective in neutralising the new strand, according to a report from scientists at the University of Chile in Santiago. “Our data show for the first time that mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant confer escape to neutralising antibodies and increased infectivity,” they wrote in a pre paper report published last week.

Read more …

official Product Information file from the European Medicines Agency

A Thread On Vaccines! (Neary)

Many people have already taken the AstraZeneca vaccine, or want to take it. So I thought I’d read its official Product Information file from the European Medicines Agency. Some might call this “the small print”. Here is what I learned: Firstly, is it safe for children? “The safety and efficacy of Vaxzevria in children and adolescents (less than 18 years of age) have not yet been established. No data are available.” How about people with weak immune symptoms – is it safe for them? “The efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine have not been assessed in immunocompromised individuals, including those receiving immunosuppressant therapy. How long does protection last? The EMA says that ongoing clinical trials will tell us: “The duration of protection afforded by the vaccine is unknown as it is still being determined by ongoing clinical trials.”

How about older people – will the vaccine work for them? Many of them have already taken it, of course. This is what the document says: “Currently available clinical trial data do not allow an estimate of vaccine efficacy in subjects over 55 years of age.” Sounds important! And for pregnant women: “There is limited experience with use of Vaxzevria in pregnant women. Animal reproductive toxicity studies have not been completed. Based upon results from the preliminary study, no effects are expected on development of the fetus.” Again, later in the document: “Animal studies of potential toxicity to reproduction and development have not yet been completed. A preliminary reproductive toxicity study in mice does not show toxicity in dams or foetuses.” Hopefully the animal trials will show it is safe!

How about studies relating to the risk of cancer and genetic mutations? “Neither genotoxicity nor carcinogenicity studies were performed. The components of the vaccine are not expected to have genotoxic potential.” Adverse reactions: – headache (52.7%) – fatigue (53.0%) – muscle pain (43.9%) – malaise (44.4%) – feverishness (33.5%), fever (7.6%), – chills (32.2%) – joint pain (26.6%) – nausea (22.2%). Most reactions were “mild to moderate in severity and usually resolved within a few days” And now the results: In the control group, 3% suffered “Covid” with at least one symptom. In the vaccinated group, 1.2% suffered “Covid” with at least one symptom. None of the vaccinated group were hospitalised by Covid, versus 0.2% of the control group (8 people out of 5,210) It has the medical equivalent of a provisional driving licence: “This medicinal product has been authorised under a so-called ‘conditional approval’ scheme. This means that further evidence on this medicinal product is awaited.”

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/product-information/vaxzevria-previously-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-epar-product-information_en.pdf

Read more …

“I’ve been contacted by members of our voluntary military who say they will quit if the COVID vaccine is mandated”

Military Members Say They’ll “Quit” If Army Mandates COVID-19 Vaccine (ZH)

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he was informed by some members of the U.S. military that they would quit if the armed forces mandated a COVID-19 vaccine, coming after a report claimed that Army headquarters told commanders to prepare for mandatory vaccinations in September. “I’ve been contacted by members of our voluntary military who say they will quit if the COVID vaccine is mandated. I introduced HR 3860 to prohibit any mandatory requirement that a member of the Armed Forces receive a vaccination against COVID-19. It now has 24 sponsors,” Massie wrote on Twitter. He didn’t provide more details.

It isn’t clear how the service members could quit or how many would try to do so. Once a member reports to their first duty station, they are obligated to stay within the service of the armed forces. If a service member leaves without approval, they can be declared AWOL, or absent without leave. The Republican lawmaker was referring to a report published by the Army Times over the weekend that detailed an executive order sent by the Department of the Army Headquarters that commands should be prepared to administer COVID-19 vaccines starting as early as Sept. 1. The date is contingent on when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues its full approval of the vaccines. The Army Times reported that it had obtained the directive, HQDA EXORD 225-21, COVID-19 Steady State.

“Commanders will continue COVID-19 vaccination operations and prepare for a directive to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for service members [on or around] 01 September 2021, pending full FDA licensure. Commands will be prepared to provide a backbrief on servicemember vaccination status and way ahead for completion once the vaccine is mandated,” the directive reads. An EXORD is a directive issued by the president to the defense secretary to execute a military operation.

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Didn’t see this about quercetin before. We use it to make sure zinc gets into the cell.

Adjuvant Quercetin Supplementation For Early-Stage COVID-19 Infection (Dove)

The current pandemic, known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) triggered by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), is provoking devastating health, psychological and financial consequences worldwide.1–3 Although several vaccines have been developed, due to limitation in their manufacturing and distribution capacities, the desired globally “herd immunity” still appears to be a distant mirage. In addition, the constant mutations in SARS-CoV-2 put the effectiveness of these vaccination campaigns at serious risk regardless of its speed.4 The current antivirus agents being used, including hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, lopinavir/ritonavir, have not shown any conclusive benefits.

New possible treatments that are safe, affordable, and worldwide available targeting the SARS-CoV-2 are therefore urgently required.6 SARS-CoV-2 proteases, like 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CLpro), papain-like protease (PLpro), RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, spike (S) protein and human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) are considered possible targets for developing effective anti-COVID-19 drugs.7 Recently, molecular docking studies have suggested the possible binding interaction of quercetin with the 3CLpro, PLpro, and S-hACE2 complex.8–12 Some recent results, obtained by biophysical techniques, appear to support the results of the molecular docking studies.

Quercetin, a flavonol not naturally present in the human body, is the most abundant polyphenol in fruits and vegetable and is widely used as a dietary supplement to boost the immune system and promote a healthy lifestyle. Quercetin is characterized by three crucial properties: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory. The combination of these actions allows quercetin to be a potential candidate to support all unhealthy conditions where oxidative stress, inflammation and immunity are involved.

Read more …

That’s not much.

Santa Clara County Revises Official COVID-19 Death Toll Down by 22% (CBS)

On Friday, Santa Clara County health leaders announced a drop in its COVID-19 death toll by nearly a quarter after it refined its approach in reporting the data. The county reported that it had reviewed each COVID-19 fatality and was only counting those whose cause of death was from the virus and not those who tested positive for COVID-19 at the time of death but did not necessarily die from the virus. The new approach meant that the death toll dropped by 22%, specifically from 2,201 to 1,696 deaths. “It is important to go back and do this accounting to see if COVID was actually the cause of death,” said University of California San Francisco Prof. of Medicine and Infectious Disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhi.


“I think that transparent communication is an upside, I mean, in the sense that it’s true that if we did this across the nation, it would bring our death rate lower. A downside of that, could be that people will say, ‘Well, it wasn’t as serious as you said.’” The refined approach in Santa Clara County comes as county officials try to figure out the true impact of the virus on the community. Last month, Alameda County health leaders refined their approach to reporting COVID-19 deaths as well and also registered a drop in that county’s death toll by about a quarter. “In the midst of everything COVID people were sort of putting down that cause of death as COVID,” Gandhi said. “It is important to go back and do this accounting to see if COVID was actually the cause of death.”

Read more …

Why break patents of experimental drugs?

Brazil’s Lower House Allows Breaking Vaccine Patents In Case Of Emergency (RT)

The lower house of the Brazilian Congress has voted for a bill that would legalize the violation of patents for vaccines and medications in the event of a national health emergency. It will now go back to the Senate for approval. On Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies voted 425 to 15 in favor of PL 12/2021. Sponsored by Aécio Neves da Cunha, a Social Democrat from Minas Gerais, the bill would authorize Congress to issue patent-breaking licenses “in case of a public health emergency,” without the approval of the head of state. President Jair Bolsonaro has opposed the proposal. The bill will now return to the Senate, which will decide whether to approve amendments adopted during Chamber debate. “There is an understanding that the changes… we introduced in the bill will also be incorporated in the Senate, which will maintain the text that we have negotiated here,” Neves said, according to Reuters.


One significant difference from the original is that patent holders will no longer be required to provide biological material to companies licensed to violate intellectual property under the emergency rules. The provision was declared “impractical,” “arbitrary” and in violation of Brazil’s constitutionally guaranteed principle of free enterprise. Another amendment would see IP holders compensated to the tune of 1.5% of the net sales involving the infringed medication or vaccine. The law was hailed by the Brazilian branch the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The measure “improves the current patent law, authorizing the application of compulsory licensing in a more complete and efficient manner, in this health emergency and others,” said MSF’s Brazilian coordinator Felipe Carvalho.

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“You can’t get a city district attorney indicting somebody for failing to pay federal income taxes when the IRS hasn’t even gone after him..”

Dershowitz Predicts Charges Against Trump Org’s CFO Will Be Tossed (ZH)

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says he believes federal tax fraud charges filed in New York City against The Trump Organization’s longtime finance chief will end up being dismissed. “You can’t get a city district attorney indicting somebody for failing to pay federal income taxes when the IRS hasn’t even gone after him,” Dershowitz said in a July 3 interview with Newsmax. “One of the charges, a major charge, is grand larceny against the United States government. “That shows the extent to which they are prepared to stretch existing law and the Constitution to give them authority over federal taxes. It’s absurd.”

On July 1, The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, were charged in what New York prosecutors called a “sweeping and audacious” tax fraud scheme in which Trump’s company and Weisselberg allegedly cheated the state and city out of taxes by conspiring to pay senior executives off the books by way of fringe benefits, such as apartment rent and car payments. Prosecutor Carey Dunne said in court that the alleged scheme was “orchestrated by the most senior executives” at the firm and got “secret pay raises at the expense of state and federal taxpayers.” Weisselberg and attorneys for The Trump Organization have pleaded not guilty.

Ahead of the unsealing of the criminal indictment on July 1, The Trump Organization criticized Manhattan prosecutors for what they claimed was a partisan criminal investigation designed to hurt Trump politically. In a July 1 statement, The Trump Organization said the probe “is not justice; this is politics.” Dunne pushed back on the claim, saying that “politics has no role in the jury chamber, and I can assure you it had no role here.” Alan Futerfas, a member of The Trump Organization’s defense team, disagreed. “I believe the political forces driving today’s events are just that. It’s political, politically driven, notwithstanding the statements by my colleague at the DA’s office in court today,” Futerfas said.

Read more …

The Fed will end the US if the US doesn’t end the Fed first.

The Wealth Effect Creates Wealth Disparity (WS)

“The ‘wealth effect’ is the notion that when households become richer as a result of a rise in asset values, such as corporate stock prices or home values, they spend more and stimulate the broader economy,” the NBER said. And yes, after making about 10% of the population a lot richer and producing immense concentration of wealth at the top 1%, there are some minor trickle-down effects on the rest of the economy. Meanwhile, the already immense wealth disparity in the US between the top 10% and the bottom 50% – or worse still, the top 1% and the bottom 50% – blows out. Turns out, the lower 50% of Americans holds practically no stocks, no bonds, and very little real estate, according to the wealth distribution data from the Federal Reserve.

And these folks cannot benefit at all from the wealth effect. For them, life (such as housing) just gets more expensive as a result of the wealth effect. From the Federal Reserve’s data, as of Q1 2021: – The average household in the richest 10% owns $2.6 million in stocks and $1.2 million in real estate. – The average household in the richest 1% holds $16 million in stocks and $4 million in real estate. – The average household in the bottom 50% holds essentially no stocks, no bonds, and only small amounts of real estate. The wealthiest 1% is where the real concentration of wealth takes place. – The wealthiest 15 US individuals have a combined wealth of $2 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (June 2021). They benefit more than anyone from the wealth effect.

The Wealth Effect purposefully increases asset prices. But only the top 10% of households have significant amounts in assets. The bottom 50% hold nearly no stocks because they don’t make enough money to put anything aside. Many of these people live from paycheck to paycheck. But the Wealth Effect also makes housing more expensive – both buying and renting – and thereby the bottom 50% disproportionately pay for the Wealth Effect. For the bottom 50%, the Wealth Effect is a negative. This chart is from my Wealth Effect Monitor.

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Feb 082021
 
 February 8, 2021  Posted by at 6:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  10 Responses »


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At the Automatic Earth, we have been talking about COVID prevention and treatment for a year now. Of course, things have been evolving, fine-tuned. One of our most vocal commenters on the issue is John Day, a physician from Texas. John wrote down the current state of affairs.

 

 

John Day MD:

Concerned Parties,

  The question that I, as a COVID-19 Early Treating Physician, blogger, and human being with friends and family, get asked about COVID is “What can I do myself, because my doctor says there’s no treatment outside the hospital”.

  There are multiple effective supplements and repurposed medicines to treat COVID outside the hospital, which people should take to avoid having to go inside the hospital and get IVs and breathing machines.

  As a Public Health Physician (MD), acting in the interest of the good of other human beings, with no anticipation of reward, I would like to give advice to all readers, to reduce their risk of mortality and morbidity during this pandemic.  This is the advice I give my patients. I won’t accept any payment for this advice.  Give your neighbor a bottle of vitamin-D. Don’t try to give me anything of value.

 

An Ounce of Prevention:

  Vitamin D deficiency is a major risk factor for catching COVID-19, being sick enough to need hospitalization, and dying from it. Don’t take that risk, please. Vitamin-D comes from sunshine entering superficially into the skin, and causing a photochemical reaction that creates vitamin-D. The great majority of people who do not work outdoors are deficient in vitamin-D, mildly, moderately or severely. Black people in New York and in Northern Europe, rich and poor alike, were some of the most deficient in vitamin-D last spring. Do you recall how that went?

Above and below the sub-tropics, the winter sun is too weak to produce vitamin-D, even if you can bare your skin at midday. Vitamin-D supplementation is cheap, safe and effective. Somebody may have already screamed, “Don’t take too much” at you. I agree. What’s a good dose and what’s “too much”. The dose I have taken for over a decade is 1/8 of 1 milligram per day. That is 125 micrograms, or 5000 units. 1 mg of vitamin-D3 is 40,000 units. Weird, right? 1 mg sounds like nothing, and 40,000units sounds like WAY TOO MUCH.

I have been checking pre-treatment and treatment vitamin-D levels on people since 2006 and I’ll say that if you weigh 100# or more, you can safely take 5000 units per day of vitamin-D for as long as you may live. I have seen a couple of people get slightly high levels after years of 10,000 units per day, not any sign of toxicity, and they backed off to 5000 units after a month off. Levels normalized. You can take 10.000 units (1/4 mg) per day for the first 2 months, to get your level up into the normal range.  I recommend it, especially if you have extra fat. Vitamin-D distributes into fat, slowing the rise in blood level. Upper mid normal blood level appears to be ideal.

 

  Zinc has been known since the 1990s to shorten the severity and duration of  “some common colds”, namely those caused by coronaviruses. The studies used treatment dosages of roughly 150 to 250 mg per day of zinc, usually as lozenges, spread out through the day in divided doses.  What zinc does inside a cell, infected by a coronavirus, is to reduce its ability to make more coronaviruses. That is ideal in the period of exposure and early infection, to reduce viral replication enough to let the innate immune system keep the virus from getting the better of you. Take 50 mg per day of oral zinc, as a tablet or lozenge, together with 250 mg of Quercetin, also readily available, a natural product of onions and other vegetables. Quercetin helps zinc get into cells, which is where zinc is effective. (It’s really hard to eat enough onions to get that much.)

 

  Prescription antiviral prophylaxis may also be appropriate for some people with weaker immune systems and higher risk of severe COVID-19, such as those with diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea, heart disease, kidney disease and cancer. Almost no western doctors will prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin for this purpose, after the politicization of hydroxychloroquine last spring when then President Trump advocated for it.  The science of its efficacy in prophylaxis has been borne out.  In medical workers, both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin weekly prophylaxis are about 75% effective, reducing infections by 75% in the group taking either, compared to the similar groups not taking weekly prophylaxis.

  You likely just heard the unfair bad press, not things like The Lancet admitting later that its anti-HCQ data from “Surgisphere”, compiled from all of those hospitals, was actually not compiled from hospitals, but fabricated. Big headline; small retraction much later.  Hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis would need to be prescribed, and is dangerous enough in overdose to have killed the poor guy who took the fish tank product last year. I’m not advising you to try to get any, nor to take it. (It is preferable as prophylaxis in pregnancy, an uncommon need.)

 

  Ivermectin has a remarkably broad safety profile, and has been served up about as many times as McDonald’s hamburgers, to man and beast alike, for various forms of worms and parasites. It does cause birth defects in rats, when given at high doses, so don’t use it in pregnancy, please. Like most medicines to treat coronavirus illness, ivermectin does different things against the virus, than it does on regular days. Ivermectin inhibits the transport of the viral RNA into the cell nucleus, where it would be transcribed, manufacturing new viruses. It does other things, like reduce inflammation during cytokine-storm, in the second and third weeks of illness, helping the people who get really badly sick. Ivermectin is effective in prophylaxis, in early illness and also in later, severe illness, and through multiple mechanisms. Ivermectin is what I prescribe since last August.

  Ivermectin is now available mail-order from India, and from a reliable source.  https://www.medicinesdropshipper.com/antiparasitic-drugs.html#iverlast-12mg-tablet

The preventive, “prophylactic” dose of ivermectin is based upon body weight, and it can be taken weekly, once an initial level inside of the cells is established. Ivermectin leaves the cells very slowly, so it can just be topped-off once per week. There are some slight variations on this, but I’ll describe the one I prescribe. It uses the same body-weight dosing that you will find wherever you look up ivermectin dosing for humans or animals. For every 5 kg, or 11 pounds of body weight, a person takes 1 mg of ivermectin at that dose. For most people I treat, that is 12 to 18 mg of ivermectin per dose. For COVID-19 prophylaxis, this dose is taken Day #1, Day #2 and then every seventh day after that.  If you forget, take it when you remember, and get back to the original schedule after that.

 

The Pound of Cure:

  I’m sorry if you have to do this, but it is mostly the same, with higher doses, and some more additions, to help avoid systemic damage. If you have not been taking vitamin-D3 for long, increase your dose to 5000 units 3 times per day for 10 days.  The best thing is if you can get calcifediol, an immediately bioavailable form of vitamin-D, which does not need slow activation in the liver, and which saved lives and reduced ICU admissions in a Spanish hospital study. We can’t get it in the US. Increase your dosing of 50 mg zinc and 250 mg quercetin to 3 times per day, also. Add 1000 mg of vitamin-C 3 times per day to the vitamin-D, zinc and quercetin.

  Aspirin is sometimes added in treatment of active disease, because SARS-CoV-2 inflames the lining of arteries and arterioles, causing clotting in small and large blood vessels. Aspirin is used as an anti-clotting agent. If you have mild illness, related to nasal symptoms, some fatigue, headaches and body aches, but no fever, no diarrhea, and no breathing problems, you probably don’t need aspirin. However, if you have systemic illness, including fever, breathing problems and/or gut problems like diarrhea and vomiting, you stand to benefit from 1 to 2 tablets of 325 mg aspirin per day. The sicker you are the more likely that 325 mg twice per day is for you. 

Clotting issues persist, so this should continue 30 days. If you have been taking 2 per day, and feel pretty well after 10 days, then it is good to back down to 1 per day. A lot of lung problems come from the blood-vessel side, not the air side. This is a weird infection.

  Ivermectin dose for treatment is the same for the first 2 days, the cellular loading dose of 1 mg per 5 kg or 11# on days #1 and 2 of treatment. This is followed with that same dose on days #4 and 6 of treatment, and that is the full course.  Many physicians dose for fewer than 4 days, and so have I, but this seems to reduce the number of days of feeling bad in my experience.

 

  I typically also treat with 10 days of 100 mg doxycycline twice per day, which is Dr Borody’s protocol, as widely used in India, to very good effect. Doxycycline is a broad spectrum antibiotic, which will treat any secondary bacterial infection on top of COVID Pneumonia, and which also has some antiviral benefits. It is also anti-inflammatory, which is of benefit.

  You would be well served to have an accurate thermometer and pulse oximetry devices at home. You need to know if you have a fever. You can presume that you have systemic illness at that point. You need a decision point and a fever over 100.5 degrees F is a good one. Temps between 99.5 and 100.5 might mean early/mild illness. Early experience in China was that people fared worse with things like ibuprofen and naproxen. I have not seen good follow up on that in the west. Still, I’d choose acetaminophen for symptoms. The pulse oximeter shows pulse and calculates blood oxygenation. It’s good for measuring heart rate.  Sicker people’s hearts beat faster. I see it all the time. A heart rate over 110 means you are getting much sicker.  Don’t ignore it!

It is good to buy an inexpensive pulse oximeter and get to know what your usual baseline is. For most people it is 97% to 99% saturation. It will be lower if you live at high altitude. Dropping 2 points from normal means your lungs are not working right. It likely means COVID Pneumonia, if you have a positive test, already. Some people will read a little higher than they really are, so if you read a little low (95%), and feel short of breath, you may actually need oxygen. You may need to go to a hospital. If your pulse oximeter reads 93% or below, you really should be promptly evaluated at a hospital.  You might need to check in.

  One dramatically important feature of COVID-19 is just how fast people can go from not-too-bad to choosing between ICU and the morgue. Really fast. An hour or two. Rising heart rate and falling oxygen mean that it is time to go to the nearest real hospital ER. Don’t drive yourself, please. You may become confused or pass out at the wheel.

 

 

Resources:

Swiss Policy Research has a very good list of medical articles about all the treatments I have listed, except doxycycline here. (Thanks Bill)

On the Treatment of Covid-19

Swiss Policy Research has information about how ivermectin works here, and it is also the group who arranged for the delivery of ivermectin from India to those abroad who place orders. Jeremy in Devon informed me of this link, and he also informed me that his shipment came in, “enough to treat his whole village”. I think that was a little under 2 weeks for him, but it might have been a little over that. (Brexit notwithstanding…)

Why Ivermectin works, and where to buy it

Yours In Service,

John Day MD

 

 

 

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