The Costs of Long COVID

More than 6 million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide, including nearly 1 million in the US.1 But mortality is not the only adverse consequence of COVID-19. Many survivors suffer long-term impairment, officially termed postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection and commonly called long COVID.

Long COVID—typically defined as symptoms lasting more than 30 days after acute COVID infection—has received some public attention, but it is not nearly as intense as it is for acute COVID-19 infection. Support groups are devoted to the condition, and Congress has allocated more than $1 billion to the National Institutes of Health to study it. But the relatively meager attention that has been paid to long COVID is unfortunate because its health and economic consequences are likely to be every bit as substantial as those due to acute illness.

People who have more severe COVID-19 are more likely to experience long COVID, but severe acute disease is not a prerequisite. Long COVID has been found in people with only mild initial illness. The most common symptom of long COVID is fatigue.2 More severe cases involve damage to a variety of organ systems (the lungs, heart, nervous system, kidneys, and liver have all been implicated), along with mental health impairment. Researchers have hypothesized that physiological pathways may involve direct consequences of the viral infection along with inflammatory or autoimmune responses.

Because many prevalence estimates are based on convenience samples of members of COVID-19 support groups or people who had severe acute disease, the population prevalence of long COVID is not entirely known.3 British population data suggest that 22% to 38% of people with the infection will have at least 1 COVID-19 symptom 12 weeks after initial symptom onset, and 12% to 17% will have 3 or more symptoms.2

Rates this high translate to an enormous number of people with long COVID. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as of May 5, 2022, the US has had roughly 81 million cases of COVID-19 and 994 187 COVID deaths. Even the lower-end estimate of 12% of people with 3 or more symptoms of long COVID implies that 9.6 million people in the US may have developed long COVID—roughly 10 times the number of COVID-19 deaths. It is not known how long people with long COVID will be symptomatic, but recovery in the first year of long COVID for affected individuals may be very slow.4

Reduced health is not the only consequence of long COVID. People with the condition work and earn less than they would have otherwise. One survey found that 44% of people with long COVID were out of the labor force and 51% worked fewer hours.5 In the economy as a whole, more than 1 million people may be out of the workforce at any given time because of long COVID.6

This reduction in labor supply is a direct earning loss. If 1 million people are out of the labor force because of long COVID, the lost income would be more than $50 billion annually. People out of the workforce because of long COVID disproportionately worked in service jobs, including health care, social care, and retail.7 The widely noted shortage of workers in these sectors is driving up both wages and prices. Part of the recent surge in inflation in the US may thus be related to long COVID.

People who are no longer able to work may also apply for Social Security Disability Insurance. To date, there has been no sustained increase in disability insurance applications since the onset of COVID-19. This is good news, though it bears watching as disability centers continue reopening from their COVID-19 shutdowns.

Increased medical spending is another consequence of long COVID. The medical costs for treating long COVID have not been estimated, but costs have been estimated for similar conditions. If treatment of long COVID is similar to treatment of myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome), these estimated costs could be about $9000 per person annually.8

In an October 2020 analysis, we estimated9 the then-nascent COVID-19 pandemic might result in $2.6 trillion of cost as a result of long COVID. Unfortunately, our estimate seems very much on target.

The massive cost of long COVID has several policy implications. Investing in treatments for long COVID is obviously a high priority. According to a recent report from the Rockefeller Foundation, progress to date has been “achingly slow” and that needs to change.10 Experimenting with ways to make employment easier for people with long-term complications is also a high priority. People with chronic fatigue may be better able to work at home or with frequent breaks than they can with a time-delimited office day and a long commute. By speeding up the transition to telework, enhanced employment opportunities for those with long COVID may be possible.

In addition, the economic cost of long COVID reinforces the value of comprehensive actions to prevent and treat new infections. Mask mandates are unpopular in many areas and a substantial share of the public resists being vaccinated—though each action should still be encouraged. But additional progress might also be made through expanding rapid COVID-19 test capability, global surveillance to detect new SARS-CoV-2 variants, and immediate action should any such variants be detected. Such measures have associated costs, but no matter how large these costs are, they pale compared with the potential benefits.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2792505

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Newly Obtained Emails Shed More Light on CDC’s False Vaccine Safety Monitoring Statements

Newly obtained emails show the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a false statement on COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring in 2021, months before agency officials gave false statements on the matter to The Epoch Times.

The emails also show top officials in the agency discussing performing safety monitoring on a key database for myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that has been linked to the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

The CDC promised in 2021 in a set of operating procedures to perform a type of analysis called Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) on reports of adverse reactions following COVID-19 vaccination. The reports are submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which officials have described as “the nation’s early warning system” for post-vaccination adverse events. The CDC also said in an updated set of operating procedures in 2022 that it would perform the analysis.

But the CDC has made false statements three times this year on PRRs, initially saying such analysis was outside the agency’s purview, then saying the analysis was performed starting in 2021, then saying the analysis did not begin until 2022. The newly obtained emails show that an official falsely said the CDC does not perform PRR analysis to an editor in 2021.

John Gregory, a health editor at NewsGuard, wrote to the CDC on Oct. 19, 2021, asking for a comment regarding a claim that the CDC’s PRR analysis cannot accurately identify when a vaccine causes adverse events, one of the emails shows. Martha Sharan, a CDC spokeswoman, sent the query to Dr. John Su, who leads the CDC’s VAERS team, and Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, who also works on vaccine safety.

Their responses were redacted apart from a comment on NewsGuard. Sharan then wrote that she’d spoken to Gregory.

“I spoke to the reporter and explained that CDC does not do PPR analysis. The reporter is not going to pursue this any further!” she wrote, adding later that she meant PRR.

That contradicts the operating procedures, which state that the CDC “will perform Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) analysis” on VAERS reports.

“We let our published content speak for itself,” Gregory told The Epoch Times in an email when notified that the CDC does actually perform PRRs.

‘That’s a New One to Me’

In June 2022, the CDC falsely told Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit, that PRR analysis is “outside of th[e] agency’s purview.” An Associated Press reporter, Angelo Fichera, flagged a Children’s Health Defense article on the statement to the CDC, asking whether the CDC had ever performed the analysis, according to the newly obtained emails.

Kristen Nordlund, another CDC spokeswoman, forwarded the query to Sharan. “Martha—thoughts on this one?” she asked.

“That’s a new one on me—proportional reporting ratios’—I need to send this one to John,” Sharan responded.

Sharan later sent a statement about PRRs to The Associated Press and the Washington Examiner.

The Associated Press and NewsGuard never published stories on the topic. After The Epoch Times reported on contradictory statements from the CDC, the Examiner published an article about the developments.

Fichera, Sharan, and Su did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The emails were obtained by The Epoch Times and an independent researcher through FOIA requests.

“The CDC claims to be vigilantly and transparently monitoring the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, but when it comes to Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) analysis, the CDC’s broken promises, inconsistent statements, stonewalling, and double standards tell a different story,” Mary Holland, president and general counsel of Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times via email.

“When asked about PRR analysis in connection with COVID vaccines—through FOIA, media, and congressional requests—CDC has made conflicting statements, some of them false. When confronted about the statements, the CDC claimed, essentially, that PRR analysis is not worth doing. And for the few months of PRR the CDC now says it has completed, the CDC has failed to make the results public, despite requests from multiple sources.”

“Children’s Health Defense calls on the CDC to do the right thing: do the analysis, and make the results available,” she added.

Timeline of CDC emails and statements. Some are being reported for the first time in this story

“I spoke to the reporter and explained that CDC does not do PPR analysis. The reporter is not going to pursue this any further!” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, Oct. 19, 2021. (source: FOIA response to independent researcher)
“Correction – that should say PRR.” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, Oct. 19, 2021. (FOIA response to independent researcher)

“[P]rogram staff within the Immunization and Safety Office inform me that no PRRs were conducted by CDC. Furthermore, data mining is outside of th[e] agency’s purview.” – Roger Andoh, June 16, 2022. (letter to Children’s Health Defense)

“That’s a new one on me – proportional reporting ratios’ – I need to send this one to John.” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, June 22, 2022 (FOIA response to The Epoch Times)

“[P]rogram staff within the Immunization and Safety Office inform me that no PRRs were conducted by CDC. Furthermore, data mining is outside of the agency’s purview.” – Bruno Viana to Roger Andoh, June 30, 2022 (FOIA response to The Epoch Times)

“CDC has been performing PRRs since Feb 2021, and continues to do so to date.” – Dr. John Su, July 18, 2022 (statement to The Epoch Times)

“CDC has revisited several FOIA requests and as a result of its review CDC is issuing corrections. … In reference to Proportional Reporting Ratios (PRRs) – CDC performed PRRs from March 25, 2022 through July 31, 2022.” – Martha Sharan, Aug. 8, 2022. (statement to The Epoch Times)

“CDC performed PRR analysis between March 25, 2022, through July 31, 2022. CDC also recently addressed a previous statement made to the Epoch Times to clarify PRR were not run between February 26, 2021, to September 30, 2021.” – Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Sept. 12, 2022 (letter to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.))

A member of the U.S. military receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Camp Foster in Ginowan, Japan, on April 28, 2021. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-newly-obtained-emails-shed-more-light-on-cdcs-false-vaccine-safety-monitoring-statements_4768562.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Prominent Physicians’ Bombshell: Does it Make Sense to Vaccinate Healthy Young People Against COVID-19 Anymore?

A Chief Scientific Officer with a biotech, a prominent physician-scientist from Case Western Reserve University, and a top Pulmonary physician at University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, Toledo recently bucked the universal COVID-19 vaccination narrative based on the results of an extensive literature review investigation, evaluating the pros and cons of COVID-19 vaccination of young adults.

Their findings go counter to the major narrative and need to be heard more loudly. Given the risk-benefit analyses, does mass vaccination of such young person’s make sense? Published in the journal European Society of Medicine, the authors acknowledge that while targeted vaccination of at-risk populations saved lives as the pandemic unfolded, they argue the ongoing mutation of the RNA-based virus continues to generate variants more capable of vaccine-induced antibody evasion. Given what amounts to a durability challenge with the vaccines in an ecosystem of mutation—which this media suggests started during the Delta surge during 2021—the research suggests the following

1) vaccination offers ever limiting protection even after booster from infection and spreading of SARS-CoV-2;

2) the vast majority of young healthy adults develop only mild to no symptoms associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection—especially with the latest mutation Omicron--

3) sequential vaccination and booster dose associates with incidence of autoimmune complications (they note complications not associated with natural infections) and

4) the trend toward immunity imprinted via natural infection as well as durable protection against COVID-19 arise from what the authors deem numerous assessments leading to the choice to natural infection for at least some cohorts.

The authors conclude that at least for the cohort including “young healthy adults, some of the risks and disadvantages afforded by vaccination prevail over the medical benefit” in what can only be labeled bombshell study output when reviewing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example.

Importantly, the authors represented by Dr. John Nemunaitis and colleagues are by no means anti- vaxxers. In fact, they are very adamant about vaccination of at-risk cohorts from the immunocompromised to the elderly to individuals with comorbidities.

Nemunaitis brings an impressive physician-scientists’ background to the literature search-based study--a Chief Scientific Officer with the biotech Gradalis, he has specialized in oncology and hematology and is board certified in internal medicine. With over three decades of experience, Dr. Nemunaitis who previously worked at University of Toledo Eleanor N. Dana Cancer Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the University of Washington School of Medicine, reports along with his colleagues that with the advent of the Omicron variant, the vast majority of COVID-19 cases observed include mild upper respiratory tract infection, appearing in the healthy young “as an ideal ‘natural vaccine’ to induce herd immunity.” Dr. Nemunaitis and colleagues suggest these infections are diminishing new variant development and may serve to “reduce duration of future pandemics in combination with vaccination of elderly and immunocompromised.”

In this study, the team first reviews the justifications for administering the supplemental booster vaccine during the pandemic. Thereafter, the authors drill into cardiac toxicity reports associated with the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines linking both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to spikes in adverse events such as myocarditis and pericarditis, often urgent problems with long term health implications. The authors go even more granular, investigating the literature associated with spike-protein-related cardio toxicity while then turning their intellectual attention to the long-term risks associated with the spike protein booster vaccination. They then delve into the limiting factors associated with the COVID-19 vaccines involving both durability challenges and the ongoing mutations from the RNA-based SARS-CoV-2. They review natural immunity as well as inconsistent antibody response, while also reviewing literature measuring T cell memory response.

Conclusion

The authors share a conclusion that this media has suggested may get underreported, declaring:

Numerous toxic activities occasionally leading to hospitalization and prolonged debilitation or even death from multiple COVID-19 vaccination and boost-induced causes increased risk of breakthrough infection and shedding of virus to other vaccinated or unvaccinated subjects, but also raise doubts of what they deem the risk-benefit calculus at least for the young healthy cohort “where health risk from natural SARS-CoV-2 infection is minimal.”

Of course, this finding deviates markedly from CDC and other medical society guidelines which recommend a one-size-fits-all mass vaccination to eradicate the pathogen point of view. That mindset may have made sense assuming the pathogen’s risk to more in society was higher coupled with its ability to better control transmission, but this hasn’t been the case since the onset of Delta, accelerating with Omicron.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/prominent-physicians-bombshell-does-it-make-sense-to-vaccinate-healthy-young-people-against-covid-19-anymore-a9dbc420

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COVID Vaccine Does Mess With Women’s Health

Women of all ages, but particularly of childbearing years, are now being told that the COVID-19 vaccines have side effects that range from menstrual abnormalities to fetal health and development complications including miscarriage. Study after study is confirming these adverse side effects.

Yet people who had been reporting these adverse events were censored on social media and their stories were deemed “misinformation.” People lost their jobs for following their gut or their religious convictions and refusing to take the vaccines. Predictably, the truth is slowly trickling out about the COVID vaccines, and it isn’t all good.

In women, the most commonly reported side effect was the disruption of the menstrual cycle. Women were told that there was no link between the vaccine and their reproduction system. So-called “experts” laughed at them and told them that this was a rumor, a conspiracy theory. This past Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health confirmed that this symptom was not all in women’s heads, and no lesser a source than The Washington Post published a story on this. No apology, no acknowledgement that it had dismissed women’s experiences; the best the Post could offer was the changes in periods were “temporary” for “most people.”

This is the least of the revelations that have been disclosed about the effect of the COVID vaccines on women’s health.

Another study by researchers at New York University has found that trace amounts of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccinations were detected in 45% of nursing mothers. This is disturbing considering the number of study participants was 11. Five participants received Moderna and the other six received Pfizer.

This study did not make any assertions about what the consequences would be for those mothers who followed the “best guidance” and gave their babies tainted milk. It also notes that “caution is warranted about breastfeeding children younger than 6 months in the first 48 hours after maternal vaccination until more safety studies are conducted.” Why six months? Why does it suggest a breastfeeding mother not nurse her child for 48 hours? These are the types of questions concerned mothers are asking.

One study that isn’t peer-reviewed but had tens of thousands of participants worldwide compiled several other concerning trends associated with the COVID vaccine. The study’s conclusion is as follows: “Governments and public health agencies worldwide are stepping back from COVID-19 vaccine mandates and are beginning to recommend against or even prohibiting COVID-19 mandates and vaccinations for vulnerable groups such as children, pregnant women, and lactating women. Yet, the US continues promoting COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters in all groups, including pregnant women. This study supports the recommendations of the UK’s Medicines & Healthcare and The World Council of Health against COVID-19 vaccination and boosters for pregnant and lactating women.”

As a mother who was both pregnant and then nursing during the vaccine push, I can testify that the pressure to get a vaccine for the health of the baby was immense. It was peddled on the pregnancy apps. It was voiced by doctors and nurses at the hospital. Though it was never said out loud, the subtext was clear: If you don’t get the vaccine, you’re already a bad mother. For those mothers who did get the vaccine to make sure that they were doing the best for their young children, this is not on them. We can only hope and pray that this manipulation by all the institutions around us didn’t set up our very young children for health problems down the road such as myocarditis.

Though guidances by the CDC are being loosened, President Joe Biden and his team are still pushing the mRNA COVID vaccines. Perhaps doubling down isn’t in the best interest of the American people. It’s certainly proving to have side effects for women.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/91691-covid-vaccine-does-mess-with-womens-health-2022-09-30

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Hundreds of thousands of Americans sought medical care after getting a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data released on Oct. 3.

Some 782,900 people reported seeking medical attention, emergency room care, and/or hospitalization following COVID-19 vaccination. Another 2.5 million people reported needing to miss school, work, or other normal activities as a result of a health event after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

The reports were made to the CDC’s V-safe program, a new vaccine safety monitoring system to which users can report issues through smartphones.

The CDC released the data to the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) after being sued over not producing the data when asked by the nonprofit. ICAN posted a dashboard summarizing the data.

“It took numerous legal demands, appeals, and two lawsuits, and over a year, but the CDC finally capitulated and agreed to a court order requiring them to do what they should have done from day one, release the V-safe data to the public,” Aaron Siri, a lawyer representing ICAN in the case, told The Epoch Times in an email.

About 10 million people utilized V-safe during the period of time the data covers: Dec. 14, 2020, to July 31, 2022. About 231 million Americans received at least one vaccine doses during that time.

The V-safe users reported about 71 million symptoms.

The most commonly reported symptoms were chills (3.5 million), swelling (3.6 million), joint pain (4 million), muscle or body aches (7.8 million), headache (9.7 million), fatigue (12.7 million), and general pain (19.5 million).

About 4.2 million of the symptoms were of severe severity.

Users of V-safe filled in data for about 13,000 infants younger than two, reporting over 33,000 symptoms, including pain, loss of appetite, and irritability.

The data produced so far by the CDC does not include free-text responses, according to ICAN. The data covered fields where users checked boxes.

ICAN, founded by film producer Del Bigtree, said that the newly revealed data “reveals shocking information that should have caused the CDC to immediately shut down its COVID-19 vaccine program,” citing the percentage of people who reported needing to get care or missing school, work, or other normal activities, as well as the reported adverse events.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/hundreds-of-thousands-of-americans-sought-medical-care-after-covid-19-vaccination-cdc-data_4772435.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Reserve Banks Have Destroyed the ‘Culture of Thrift’: Nigel Farage

British political leader Nigel Farage has warned that years of low interest rate lending has discouraged the younger generation from saving.

He told The Epoch Times it was “astonishing” central banks have failed to recognise that years of cheap lending—particularly during the COVID-19 era—would eventually lead to the current wave of inflation that has gripped developed countries around the world. In response, Reserve Bank chiefs have, in lockstep, raised interest rates to try and curb rising living costs.

The former Brexit Party leader, and a key architect behind Brexit, made the comments on Oct. 1 from Sydney, where conservatives had gathered for CPAC Australia—the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“It was just astonishing. Rates should have been raised a very long time ago,” Farage said. “I actually think having reasonable interest rates will be a healthier thing because we’ve just destroyed the culture of thrift, destroyed it, and made it very difficult for people.”

“We’ve had roaring house prices, and low income-to-savings. A lot of the younger generation are saying, ‘What’s the point of saving? I’ll just go and spend what I’ve got in my pocket,” he added.

“The misjudgments, frankly, have been absolutely enormous, and they blame it on [Vladimir] Putin’s actions. Well, there’s this thing called monetary inflation, and if you print billions and trillions of dollars and pounds, that’s what happens.”

Between 2020 to 2021, many governments adopted hard lockdowns to deal with the pandemic. However, such moves also required government subsidies to keep businesses and families afloat when the economy was largely forced to shut down.

This led to Reserve Banks the world over printing large volumes of cash to inject into the economy. Economists now attribute these actions to the high inflation families are experiencing today, which have been exacerbated by global events like supply chain shortages and the war in Ukraine.

Don’t Try to Out-Left the Left

Meanwhile, Farage also warned conservative-leaning political parties against copying progressive policy platforms, saying they may miss out capitalising on global trends sweeping the world.

“If you decide to tack towards either a Labour-lite or you try to ‘out-Green’ the Greens—you ain’t gonna win,” he said. “Because you’re not recognising the big shift happening in the [conservative movement] across the Western world in America and Britain.”

“The middle classes that used to be conservative voters now vote much more ‘social democrat.’ And the working-class voters—traditionally Labour or Democrat voters—are now more inclined to vote Republican or conservative,” he added. “That is a big social demographic trend that has been going on now for some years, and if you tap back towards the ‘teals,’ then I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.”

Farage was referring to the teal movement in Australia that contributed to a change in federal government, after several inner-city seats, traditionally held by the centre-right Liberal Party, fell to independent MPs professing stronger action on climate change.

The Liberal Party is now in the process of soul-searching and identifying its policy platform going forward. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has hinted at targeting small business owners and working-class Australians.

A Message to Conservatives

During his address to the CPAC Australia conference, Farage said there was a yearning for strong conservative leadership in Australia.

“The single most important, interesting thing in this trip is that everywhere I’ve been … ordinary Australians are coming up to me and saying, ‘We’re worried about the future of our country, we’re worried about what Australia is becoming, and we cannot believe the lack of conservative courage and leadership.'”

He called on attendees to “use your power” and elect “better” conservative politicians who won’t be influenced by big business, mainstream media, social media, or being criticised.

Farage said it was important to take a “moral stand” and promote values such as freedom, tradition, and what was established by earlier generations.

“In Australia, America, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, right across the English-speaking world, we face exactly the same challenges.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/reserve-banks-have-destroyed-the-culture-of-thrift-nigel-farage_4768902.html

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The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization

Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life.

To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home—only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.

Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture.

So, the great achievement of Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature.

But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright.

As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.

We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis.

We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish New Green Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age—as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia.

But meanwhile Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.

Take fuel. Europeans arrogantly lectured the world that they no longer need traditional fuels. So, they shut down nuclear power plants. They stopped drilling for oil and gas. And they banned coal.

What followed was a dystopian nightmare. Europeans will burn dirty wood this winter as their civilization reverts from postmodern abundance to premodern survival.

The Biden administration ossified oil fields. It canceled new federal oil and gas leases. It stopped pipeline construction and hectored investors to shun fossil fuels.

When scarcity naturally followed, fuel prices soared.

The middle class has now mortgaged its upward mobility to ensure that they might afford gasoline, heating oil, and skyrocketing electricity.

The duty of the Pentagon is to keep America safe by deterring enemies, reassuring allies, and winning over neutrals. It is not to hector soldiers based on their race. It is not to indoctrinate recruits in the woke agenda. It is not to become a partisan political force.

The result of those suicidal Pentagon detours is the fiasco in Afghanistan, the aggression of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the new bellicosity of China, and the loud threats of rogue regimes like Iran.

At home, the Biden administration inexplicably destroyed the southern border, as if civilized nations of the past never needed such boundaries.

Utter chaos followed. Three million migrants have poured into the United States. While some cross over clandestinely, others clear border stations without an adequate audit, and largely without skills, high-school diplomas, or capital.

The streets of our cities are anarchical—and by intent.

Defunding the police, emptying the jails, and destroying the criminal justice system unleashed a wave of criminals. It is now open season on the weak and innocent.

America is racing backwards into the 19th-century Wild West. Predators maim, kill, and rob with impunity. Felons correctly conclude that bankrupt postmodern “critical legal theory” will ensure them exemption from punishment.

Few Americans know anything about agriculture, except to expect limitless supplies of inexpensive, safe, and nutritious food at their beck and call.

But that entitlement for 330 million hungry mouths requires massive water projects, and new dams and reservoirs. Farmers rely on steady supplies of fertilizer, fuels, and chemicals. Take away that support—as green nihilists are attempting—and millions will soon go hungry, as they have since the dawn of civilization.

Perhaps nearly a million homeless now live on the streets of America. Our major cities have turned medieval with their open sewers, garbage-strewn sidewalks, and violent vagrants.

So, we are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions, and the methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed, and sheltered America.

Instead, we arrogantly are reverting to a new feudalism as the wealthy elite—terrified of what they have wrought—selfishly retreat to their private keeps.

But the rest who suffer the consequences of elite flirtations with nihilism cannot even afford food, shelter, and fuel. And they now feel unsafe, both as individuals and as Americans.

As we suffer self-inflicted mass looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border, unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate just how thin is the veneer of their civilization.

When stripped away, we are relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-thinnest-veneer-of-civilization_4769276.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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FDA Withholding Autopsy Results on People Who Died After Getting COVID-19 Vaccines

Does Vitamin D help with Covid?

YOU CAN’T LIVE without vitamins; that’s an absolute no. These macronutrients are the grease to our gears, making sure all our bodily systems are running and operating in mint condition. A deficiency in any one of the essential 13 vitamins can lead to a whole host of health problems, sickness, and possibly death.

During the pandemic, there was one vitamin in particular — vitamin D — that received quite a hullabaloo as a potential therapeutic agent against Covid-19. This was in due part to vitamin D’s influence on the immune system and being potentially protective against respiratory infections based on past research. Notably, when then-President Donald Trump got the coronavirus, his physician revealed that along with a course of the antiviral drug remdesivir and antibody cocktail Regeneron, Trump’s treatment regimen included a vitamin D supplement.

But there’s been a lot of back and forth over whether supplementing with vitamin D actually helps make Covid-19 less severe or even prevents the disease to begin with. And according to two studies published this month in the British Medical Journal, it might not. The two papers, one conducted in the U.K. and the other in Norway, found that vitamin D supplements did not appear to protect against catching Covid-19 or other respiratory tract infections. These findings aren’t a definitive answer to the vitamin D-coronavirus question — both studies have limitations which we’ll get into. But they do raise the importance of continuing research into finding easy-to-implement solutions to keep the spiky virus at bay.

HERE’S THE BACKGROUND — Vitamin D belongs to a group of fat-soluble vitamins, meaning these nutrients are better absorbed when you eat high-fat foods and are stored in adipose tissue, the liver, and skeletal muscles. Because fat-soluble vitamins stay in the body much longer than water-soluble vitamins that need regular replacement, for the most part, you can have too much of a good thing (aka toxicity) when these vitamins are consumed in excessive amounts.

The human body naturally produces vitamin D (which comes in many forms) after we’re hit with some feel-good sunbeams. The exact mechanism involves ultraviolet B (UVB) energy converting cholesterol, which is abundant in the skin, into an active form of the vitamin called vitamin D2. Dietary supplements come in vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. The latter is slightly more active, therefore more effective, and what most clinicians recommend.

Vitamin D is best known for its role in keeping bones healthy by helping us absorb calcium and phosphate during digestion (thereby preventing osteoporosis). As for its role in immune health, which is where its influence on Covid-19 infection comes in, some studies have shown taking a supplement regularly may prevent autoimmune diseases and metastatic or fatal cancers. Other studies have found that vitamin D may quell inflammation, which may be the link between the vitamin and Covid-19. Additionally, this association appeared to carry some weight as scientists observed high rates of vitamin D deficiency running in tandem with severe Covid-19, especially in Black and Hispanic communities where such a deficiency is highest.

WHAT THEY DID — In the U.K. and Norwegian study, the aim was straightforward: To see if vitamin D, whether as a vitamin D3 supplement or fortified in a teaspoon of cod liver, could prevent Covid-19 infection.

Researchers led by the University of London conducted a phase three randomized, controlled trial enrolling 6,200 volunteers ages 16 years and older from a much larger research cohort called COVIDENCE UK and tested their vitamin D levels. Anyone who had insufficient concentrations of the vitamin in their blood, determined through a finger prick test and defined as less than 75 nanograms per deciliter, was given either a high (3,200 international units per day) or low (800 international units per day) dose of vitamin D3. These individuals, who were mostly women in their 60s, were followed for six months from December 2020 to June 2021.

Up north in Scandinavia, researchers led by a team at Oslo University gave over 34,000 Norwegians aged 18 to 75 years five milliliters of cod liver oil daily (containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D) or a placebo in the form of corn oil. The participants, also mostly women but trending younger (around 45 years old) were followed up for six months as well from November 2020 to June 2021.

WHAT THEY FOUND — Neither study found vitamin D made a dramatic difference in the number of Covid-19 infections, serious illness (including hospitalizations and any deaths), or other respiratory tract infections between the controls and those taking the vitamin in whichever form.

"Among people aged 16 years and older with a high baseline prevalence of suboptimal vitamin D status, implementation of a population level test-and-treat approach to vitamin D supplementation was not associated with a reduction in risk of all cause acute respiratory tract infection or Covid-19," authors of the UK study wrote.

“Daily supplementation with cod liver oil, a low dose vitamin D, eicosapentaenoic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid supplement, for six months during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic among Norwegian adults, did not reduce the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, serious Covid-19, or other acute respiratory infections,” the Norwegian researchers wrote in their study.

DIGGING INTO THE DETAILS — Before you go off and chuck your bottle of Nature Made’s D3 in the nearest trash, these two studies do have a number of limitations, the most glaring being vaccination.

In an accompanying editorial, Peter Bergman, a physician and clinical researcher in Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, who was not involved in either study, said having a sizable number of people already vaccinated (over 35 percent in the Norway study) or undergoing vaccination (from one percent to 89 percent in the U.K. study) may have masked any protective effects of vitamin D.

There’s also the issue of representation in either study. In the UK study, “men, people from ethnic minorities, and those with lower educational attainment were relatively under-represented compared with the general population,” the study authors wrote, thereby affecting the generalizability of their findings.

While the Norwegian study was quite large with over 34,000 participants, most were women, “relatively young and healthy, and 86.3 percent had adequate vitamin D levels… at baseline,” said Bergman. And the fact that cod liver was used, which contains large amounts of vitamin A, also means vitamin D’s ability to regulate the immune system could have been interfered with.

WHAT’S NEXT — While these two studies don’t suggest you forgo vitamin D outright (because you definitely need it for your health and well-being), it’s no substitute for Covid-19 vaccination, at least in individuals with normal levels of the vitamin.

“Importantly, these new trials remain compatible with the two large meta-analyses suggesting that vitamin D supplementation may be beneficial for vitamin D deficient individuals,” wrote Bergman, who also recommended certain groups at risk for low vitamin D, such as those with darker skin, pregnant women, and the elderly with chronic disease consult their physician before supplementing.

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/covid-19-vitamin-d-prevention-myth-science

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Pfizer Covid vaccine caused 'debilitating' lesions om her tongue that left 60-year-old woman unable to eat for months

A 60-year-old woman suffered 'debilitating' lesions on her tongue after receiving Pfizer's Covid vaccine – with each shot making her symptoms worse.

Her side effects, which also included a dry mouth and inflammation, were so painful she was left unable to eat.

Doctors struggled to find the culprit for nine months, during which she lost 17 pounds (8kg).

By the time she was finally diagnosed, her swollen tongue had began to split open leaving deep, agonizing sores.

She was diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome, a condition that sees the immune system go haywire and damage healthy parts of the body. Her symptoms were finally cured with a six-week course of topical steroids.

Doctors chronicled the rare side effect in a report published last month in the American Journal of Case Reports.

The unidentified patient, from Australia, received three vaccine doses in total – two of which formed the initial course, as well as a single booster.

Similar symptoms were also documented in patients infected with coronavirus, which led to the condition being dubbed 'Covid tongue'.

Oral sores are not a new phenomenon after a vaccine and have been spotted in people following flu, hepatitis B and papillomavirus jabs.

But only a handful of cases have been reported after Covid vaccines, despite billions of doses being administered worldwide.

The unnamed patient developed sores in her mouth about three days after receiving the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Her symptoms had partially abated before she received the second dose, after which the symptoms returned still more severely.

She underwent a cadre of blood tests to rule out other diagnoses such as HPV and other infections.

She was referred to an outpatient rheumatology clinic with suspected Sjogren syndrome, an autoimmune disease which causes the immune system to attack glands that produce moisture in the eyes, mouth, and other parts of the body.

Doctors first prescribed a topical version of clonazepam, a benzodiazepine that when ingested orally, can treat burning mouth syndrome.

When that did little to alleviate her symptoms, doctors prescribed an oral steroid which caused symptoms to improve 60 per cent, but treatment stopped because it was causing the woman abdominal pain.

Doctors finally settled on a lower dose topical iteration of the steroids dissolved in water and taken consistently for about six weeks until symptoms abated.

The condition was not easily diagnosed and doctors were puzzled at first. While oral symptoms can be associated with the Pfizer vaccine, they are uncommon and likely under recognized by providers who do not specialize in oral healthcare.

Writing in the journal, the doctors said: 'A subsequent review of the timeline of history and medications, including vaccinations, identified a clear relationship between the exacerbation of oral symptoms after each [Pfizer-BioNTech] vaccination.'

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) database for Covid vaccine side effects does not include oral symptoms.

A major caveat is that reporting the adverse effects is voluntary and therefore cases may be underreported.

'This case demonstrates that oral symptoms can be associated with BNT162b2 vaccination, which is likely under-recognized by practitioners outside the field of oral health,' the doctors said in the case study.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11235577/Woman-60-suffers-agonizing-TONGUE-ulcers-getting-Pfizer-COVID-vaccine.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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We need to talk about "excess deaths"

Have both the vaccines and the lockdowns done long-term harm?

The Scottish Covid Recovery Committee is undertaking an inquiry into the cause of excess deaths. Data shows that the number of deaths in Scotland have been well above the 5-year average for most of the time since the pandemic began. Curiously, excess death figures far exceed those accounted for by Covid.

This long spate of unexpected deaths is highlighted by the recent passing of a notable Scottish athlete, 37-year-old Rab Wardell. He died from an apparent cardiac arrest while lying in bed next to his partner, Olympic champion Katie Archibald, two days after winning a Scottish mountain bike title.

Excess deaths are not only limited to Scotland – they have been noted around the globe.

While the death toll from Covid reached 5.94 million at the end of 2021, the WHO estimate excess deaths within the same time frame at around 15 million. A systematic analysis in The Lancet of deaths from around the world during 2020-21 put the figure of excess deaths at 18.2 million. This matches the model built by The Economist, which also suggests that the total excess deaths are over three times that accounted for by Covid. But most countries are (inconceivably) not actively investigating the causes of this mysterious mass death event.

What’s alarming is that excess deaths are increasing, even as Covid wanes.

If normal patterns were followed, the large number of excess deaths among the elderly, who are by far the most vulnerable to Covid, would have peaked in the first two years of the pandemic and then fallen to below-average levels in 2022 to compensate (as happens in bad flu seasons). However, excess deaths remain statistically higher than average for the elderly.

Excess deaths are also increasing in the young, again strongly suggesting that this is occurring for reasons other than Covid given the extremely low mortality rate for those under 40. The Telegraph reported on August 18 that, for the past 14 out of 15 weeks in England and Wales, there have been an average of 1,000 excess deaths each week, none of which were due to Covid.

There are various hypotheses to explain excess deaths.

From the early days of lockdowns, many warned of the negative consequences of such a blunt, draconian, and myopic strategy including the scientists from Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford universities who drafted the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration and the tens of thousands of medical scientists and practitioners who have signed it.

Their concerns have sadly materialised. In America, deaths from drug overdose broke records in 2020 and 2021. They will likely do so again in 2022. In the UK and America, deaths from alcohol abuse increased by almost 19 per cent and 25.5 per cent, respectively. Youth suicide noticeably increased during the pandemic in the America, while a survey in Victoria found that nearly 10 per cent of Victorians, or some 600,000 people, seriously considered suicide during the height of the extended 2020 lockdown.

Furthermore, as I have written previously, the pandemic response has resulted in dramatic reductions in people seeking medical care for other deadly illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease, leading to predictably protracted and elevated deaths from chronic illnesses that went undiagnosed and untreated, the debt of which will continue to manifest for years. Ironically, multiple studies have found no evidence that lockdowns reduced Covid deaths.

Another factor that has been little spoken about is mass vaccinations. This, dare we say it, unprecedented event needs to be considered in order to explain excess youth deaths.

A JAMA study that examined the data of over 192 million people in America who took the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer or Moderna) found that the risk of myocarditis after receiving these vaccines was increased, especially in adolescent males.

An earlier JAMA study found that among the more than 2 million people in America who took mRNA vaccines, cases of pericarditis were even more numerous after vaccination than myocarditis.

A JAMA Cardiology study, examining more than 23 million people in four Nordic countries, also found increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA vaccines, particularly in young males and especially after the second dose.

A recent paper in Circulation that examined more than 42 million people in England found that for men under the age of 40, the second dose of Moderna vaccine was associated with much higher incidents of myocarditis than SARS-CoV-2 infection itself.

Although the mechanism of how vaccines may be causing myocarditis remains unclear, a similar phenomenon had been described following smallpox vaccination in young people.

While the absolute numbers are fairly small, this phenomenon might well contribute to the sharp rise in the number of unexplained deaths among young athletes, which is a pattern seen globally across multiple sporting industries.

The negative effects of vaccines are not limited to inflammation of the heart. A thorough 2021 analysis of the Phase III trial data from Pfizer, Moderna, and Jansen vaccines concluded that they may have caused more negative side effects than having done good. The German Ministry of Health recently released a statement that the reporting rate of severe adverse reactions after a Covid vaccination in Germany was one in every 5,000 doses. Given most people have had at least two doses, the risk of severe adverse reaction is conceivably higher than one in every 2,000 vaccinated people.

Even for Covid itself, the vaccines may have negative effects. A September New England Journal of Medicine study found that in children between 5-11 years of age, the vaccines gave only temporary protection which then became negative within months (meaning that the vaccinated become more likely to be infected than the unvaccinated), whereas natural immunity from previous infection still offered around 50 per cent protection after a year. This begs the question, is the haphazard vaccination of children increasing their vulnerability to Covid?

The cultural tide regarding transparent analysis and public debate about vaccine adverse effects seems to be turning, while adult-like discussion has only recently become possible.

The former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson, who questioned the glowing vaccine PR in the early days of mass vaccine rollout, was banned from Twitter. He sued and won, as many of his criticisms and doubts have been shown to be accurate. What is most concerning is that the lawsuit revealed that the White House had pressured Twitter into banning Berenson, effectively curtailing journalistic inquiry into an issue affecting the entire human species. And Bereson is by no means the only one that had faced censorship.

If leaders around the world were willing to unscrupulously and severely disrupt the lives and livelihoods of billions of people for a virus that has killed 6.5 million people over two and a half years (for context, over 60 million people die each year), they are morally and ethically bound to at least investigate the causes of excess deaths that are three times as numerous, especially if some of the causes are likely the results of Covid policies. By the same token, those in leadership positions who had censored free inquiry, discussion, and debate during the pandemic should face serious scrutiny and consequences.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/we-need-to-talk-about-excess-censored/

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California surgeon slams state's 'destructive' bill that would punish doctors for COVID 'misinformation'

A California surgeon spoke out Tuesday against a state bill that would punish doctors for spreading COVID-19 "misinformation" on key issues, including vaccinations and medications.

Dr. Peter Mazolewski, a board-certified general surgeon, ripped the proposal that now sits on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk after legislative approval, telling host Dana Perino that the policy could be "destructive" and "dangerous."

"It'll be dangerous to patient care, it'll be destructive in the sense that there will be no scientific progression," he said on "America's Newsroom" Tuesday.

Mazolewski warned that the bill could also establish a "dangerous" precedent for similar bills to come, particularly for those concerning other medical conditions.

He added that the repercussions of restrictive medical information laws could be disastrous, creating a mass exodus from the industry across the state.

"We all know that there's been contemporary scientific consensus regarding COVID that has been wrong. It has actually been refuted partially and fully," he said.

"We can go back to many issues: One percent mortality, closing schools is healthy for our children, wearing masks helps prevent the dissemination, [if you get] vaccines you won't get ill at all, vaccines won't allow for transmission of disease. We know all of these have been refuted," he added.

Mazolewski said California medical boards would be empowered to determine appropriate punishments for doctors who commit relevant offenses.

In a joint Fox News op-ed, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Dr. Pierre Kory urged Newsom to "kill this terrible bill and prevent a hostile takeover of medicine by oppressive government censors."

https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-surgeon-slams-states-destructive-bill-punish-doctors-covid-misinformation

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Record Deaths in Australia from COVID-19 Despite 96.4% of 16+ Fully Vaxxed

Despite the fact that the population of Australia is nearly universally vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, TrialSite has reported that record numbers of deaths accumulated at the beginning of 2022. This is despite the universal protection of the vaccine. Yet breakthrough infections led to growing numbers of deaths in the most at-risk cohorts such as the elderly.

Now, mainstream media starts to acknowledge the trend. Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald reports in “COVID complications Push Australian deaths to highest number in 40 years,” that based on an analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics population data that total deaths nationwide are 18% higher in the quarter when compared to the prior year, rising from 36,100 to 46,200 deaths.

Labeled as “COVID-19’s hidden impact,” more people have died in Australia in the March quarter than any time in the last 41 years. Half the deaths in this period were from COVID despite an overwhelming vaccination rate.

Australia is one of the most vaccinated populations in the world against COVID-19 yet as TrialSite reported earlier this year has experienced unprecedented pandemic related deaths. Does this trend evidence a failure of the COVID-19 vaccines?

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/record-deaths-in-australia-from-covid-19-despite-96.4-of-16-fully-vaxxed-9cff928d

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Personality Typology in the Health Field

The article excerpted below is "deja vu all over again" for me. It starts out with a respectful mention of the old "type A" hypothesis about what personality type is most associated with heart disease. That shows how slow people are to learn from the evidence. The association between Type A personality and heart disease is simply not usually found. The hypothesis is a failed one. The measure used to detect a Type A was the JAS, which is psychometrically ludicrous, so its repeated failure to give the expected prediction is no surprise.

I did rather a lot of original research on the topic in the '80s, which you can find here

Bsically, all the "types" associated with cancer and heart disease suffered from over-inclusiveness. They combined into one several different personality traits. And if you de-confounded the set of traits you got better results.

I found, for instance, in my research that if you took just one of the components of Type A, which I called "freneticsm" you got both a more unidimensional trait and one which DID predict heart disease to some degree. The items of the new Freneticism scale are here

I am not aware of any follow-up on that by other authors but that is typical of the field. Nobody ever seems to learn anything from the overall body of research. Exciting bits are all that get attention

The most persuasive paper on personality and heart disease is probably the one by Eysenck, wherein he summarises the results of his collaboration with Grossarth-Maticek. At least some of Grossarth-Maticek's measures were however also rather poor psychometrically so some reservations about the results have to be held.


Temoshok and her colleagues expanded on Friedman and Rosenman’s idea of a “Type C” behavior pattern. Whereas Type B is the absence of Type A characteristics, they proposed that the Type C behavior pattern was constructed to be the polar opposite of Type A. These were hypothesized to exist on a spectrum, with Type A on one end, and Type C on the other.

According to Temsok and her colleagues, people conforming to a Type C behavior pattern are characterized as cooperative, patient, and unassertive. They suppress negative emotions, including anger, and comply with authorities. They may also feel helpless, hopeless, and with tendencies toward depression.

People with Type C personalities have a number of strengths. They are typically calm with a consistent and controlled demeanor. They tend to be creative and cooperate easily with others. They can be dedicated to their projects, helpful, and thoughtful about planning for the future.

However, they can also be resistant to conflict, which can sometimes turn into emotional repression. They can also be prone to perfectionism, anxiety, pessimism, or even depression. They have a tendency to defer their own needs to the needs of others.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a Type C personality, it may come with an increased risk of some health issues.

And one of them could be cancer.

Repressed Emotions and Cancer

In a study in the European Journal of Personality, Hans Eysenck and colleagues sought to determine whether personality types might predict deaths from heart disease and cancer. They gave 3,235 European subjects interviews and personality assessments to determine various personality traits. Then they tracked these subjects over the course of 10 years.

At the end of the 10-year period, the subjects were contacted again. If they had died, the researchers reviewed the cause of their death from their death certificates. In that way, the research team was able to connect personality traits with the ultimate cause of death.

At the 10-year follow-up, they found that 1,341 individuals from their original sample had died. These they categorized into different personality types based on their earlier personality assessments.

They found that 45 percent of those with what these researchers called “Type I” personality traits (similar to Temshok’s Type C behavior pattern in that they inhibit emotions) died of cancer. This group was much less likely to die of other causes, like heart disease.

Similarly, people that Eysenck categorized as “Type II” (which is similar to Temshok’s Type A behavior pattern of people with high stress) were much more likely to die of cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes. They also found that people with other patterns of personality were less likely to die from either cancer or cardiovascular diseases.

Eysenck’s study suggests that the only relevant personality characteristics for cancer risk are repressing feelings or inhibiting closeness with loved ones.

Other research suggests it’s a tendency towards depressive symptoms that matter most.

For example, one systematic review and meta-analysis of 25 studies that together included over 1.4 million participants found a significant association between depression and overall cancer risk. Tendencies toward depression make up an important part of what we call the Type C personality.

Similarly, another review of 70 longitudinal prospective studies on personality research found that helplessness and repression of emotions are perhaps the most promising in explaining a potential contribution of personality on cancer prognosis.

People with Type C personalities also tend to be cooperative. Social support—having a strong network of family and close friends—was found to be a protective factor against this type of Cancer. Some aspects of Type C personality may actually foster health.

So rather than it being a Type C behavior pattern that’s associated with cancer, it may actually be a few traits within that pattern that matter most.

Does Personality Influence Cancer Risk?

If there really is an influence of personality on cancer risk, how would that work? What’s the physical mechanism?

One explanation is that people who often feel depressed have decreased lymphocyte proliferation and an overall decreased function in the body’s anti-cancer and anti-viral immunity. This may create greater susceptibility to cancer.

Indeed, in one prospective case-control study out of Finland, researchers found that patients with breast cancer were significantly more likely to have a high commitment—a feature of Type C personalities.

They suggest that it could be that the Type C pattern “could contribute to cancer risk through immune and hormonal pathways.” In other words, it may not be the personality traits themselves that affect cancer risk, but that patterns of thinking and behavior could impact the body’s immune system and hormones, and those changes may influence cancer risk.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/an-utterly-unexpected-risk-factor-for-malignant-melanoma_4746342.html

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Doctor Turns Against Messenger RNA COVID-19 Vaccines, Calls for Global Pause

A doctor who promoted COVID-19 vaccines is now calling for health authorities around the world to pause the administration of two of the most-widely utilized COVID-19 vaccines, saying that the benefits from the vaccines may not outweigh the risks.

“There is more than enough evidence—I would say the evidence is overwhelming—to pause the rollout of the vaccine,” Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist and evidence-based medicine expert, told The Epoch Times.

A paper from Malhotra detailing the evidence was published on Sept. 26.

Among the citations is a recent reanalysis of the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials that concluded that vaccinated trial participants were at higher risk of serious adverse events. He called the study a “smoking gun.”

Malhotra also pointed to the lack of reduction in mortality or severe disease in the trials, which were completed in 2020.

Taking into account death rates and other figures since then, the number of people who need to be vaccinated to prevent a single COVID-19 death ranges from 93,000 for people aged 18–29 to 230 for people aged 80 and older, according to an analysis of UK safety and effectiveness data by the Health Advisory & Recovery Team.

The author also noted that serious side effects have been detected after the trials, such as myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation.

Overall, looking at the absolute benefits and drawbacks of the vaccines, it’s time to halt their usage and allow authorities and other experts to closely examine the data to see if the vaccines should be used again down the road, according to Malhotra.

The paper was published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance in two parts following peer review.

Pfizer and Moderna didn’t return requests for comment.

Reversal of Opinion

Malhotra received the Pfizer primary series in January 2021. He became a promoter of the vaccine, even appearing on “Good Morning Britain” to advise Indian film director Gurinder Chadha to get the vaccine. Chadha did so shortly after.

Malhotra said he began digging into vaccine data after his father, Dr. Kailash Chand, suffered a cardiac arrest at home approximately six months after receiving Pfizer’s vaccine.

The post-mortem showed two of Chand’s major arteries were severely blocked, even though Malhotra described his father as a fit person who didn’t have any significant heart problems.

Malhotra began reading about post-vaccination issues, including a study abstract in the journal Circulation that identified a higher risk of a heart attack following vaccination with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and a study from Nordic countries that identified a higher risk of myocarditis.

While authorities have claimed that myocarditis is more common after COVID-19 than vaccination, many studies have found otherwise, at least for certain age groups. Some papers have found no increased incidence of heart inflammation for COVID-19 patients.

Malhotra has come to believe that his father’s death was linked to the vaccine.

“I’ve always approached medicine and science with uncertainties because things constantly evolve. And the information I had at the time is completely different to the information I have now,” Malhotra told The Epoch Times. “And in fact, it is my duty and responsibility as the information has changed to act on that information. And that’s what I’m doing.”

Response to Criticism

After the new paper was published, critics noted that Malhotra is a board member of the Journal of Insulin Resistance.

He acknowledged the position but said the article went through an independent peer review process and that he has no financial links to the journal.

The doctor encouraged people to view his publication history, which includes articles in the British Medical Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

He said he chose to submit the paper to the insulin journal for several reasons, including it being “one of the few journals that doesn’t take money from the pharmaceutical industry.”

“I don’t think that there’s any validity to question the integrity of the piece,” he said. “People can argue I’ve got an intellectual bias. We all have intellectual biases, but there’s certainly no financial bias for me.”

Paper Gains Support

Leading scientists say the new paper is important. “We fully believe that vaccines are one of the great discoveries in medicine that has improved life expectancy dramatically, however, mRNA genetic vaccines are different, as long-term safety evaluation is lacking but mandatory to ensure public safety,” Sherif Sultan, president of the International Society of Vascular Surgery, said in a statement.

Sultan also noted that the findings “raise concerns regarding vaccine-induced undetected severe cardiovascular side effects and underscore the established causal relationship between vaccines and myocarditis, a frequent cause of unexpected cardiac arrest in young individuals.”

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Stanford, said that Malhotra “makes a good case that there is considerable heterogeneity across age groups and other comorbid conditions in the expected benefits and expected side effect profiles of the vaccine” and “finds that while there may be a case for older people to take the vaccine because the benefits may outweigh expected harm that may not be the case for younger people.”

Dr. Campbell Murdoch, who advises the Royal College of General Practitioners, said the study “describes multiple systemic failures in the provision of safe and effective evidence-based medicine” and the situation has made it “impossible for patients and the public to make an informed choice about what is best for their health and life.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/top-pro-vaccine-doctor-calls-for-global-pause-of-messenger-rna-covid-19-vaccines_4754871.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Did the COVID Unvaccinated Fare Better or Worse Than the Vaccinated? The Results suggest no advantage from vaccination

After the fast spread of the pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from China to the Western world, several large pharmaceutical companies quickly invented and manufactured COVID-19 vaccines, which were then made available to the public through emergency use authorization (EUA). And in late 2020, people around the world started to receive these vaccines.

According to Our World in Data, to date, 67.9 percent of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. While only 22.5 percent of people in low-income countries have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccination rates of developed countries are generally high—typically around 80 percent. For instance, the COVID-19 vaccination rates of the G7 countries are: 79.19 percent in the United States, 86.96 percent in Canada, 80.92 percent in France, 77.66 percent in Germany, 85.82 percent in Italy, 83.60 percent in Japan, and 79.97 percent in the UK.

However, in all countries and regions around the world, there are people who elect not to receive the COVID-19 vaccines for various reasons. They are a naturally occurring control group, as opposed to the vaccinated population (i.e. the experimental group). Indeed, the whole COVID-19 vaccine campaigns can be regarded as the unprecedented largest human clinical trials on vaccine safety, by design or not, as the vaccines’ long term safety data was not available when they were provided to people under EUA. Then, the unvaccinated population in different parts of the world are very unique large control groups in such a global clinical trial.

Due to the highly valuable health data of this unvaccinated population, between October 2021 and February 2022, a UK-based organization called Control Group Cooperative (CGC) independently collected their self-reported data on their health status, reasons for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccines, whether they have been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the severity of their symptoms for the ones that did get infected, and whether they’ve been subject to discrimination or victimization.

These data have then been analyzed by a team of researchers, who are entirely independent of the CGC and have received no funding for interpreting the findings of the CGC survey. Their recent report on their findings has been published on the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, which is a peer-reviewed scholarly open access journal.

What Is the Control Group Cooperative?

The Control Group Cooperative was founded in July 2021 to defend people’s inalienable rights to freedom of choice and bodily integrity. Actually, one of the core principles in public health is the respect of autonomy. The group is particularly concerned with the marginalization and stigmatization of COVID-19 unvaccinated communities around the world. The stakeholders of the cooperative believe that they are making a positive contribution to society by collecting health data from both the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated and the unvaccinated to facilitate a truly comparative analysis.

Their rationale is that there is no existing official control group designated by the governments or health authorities. However, since all the existing COVID-19 vaccines are experimental, and a true scientific experiment (i.e. a controlled experiment) requires at least one group (i.e. the control group) that doesn’t receive the experimental treatment, then the COVID-19 vaccine treatments must have a control group as well in order to properly evaluate their long-term efficacy and safety.

As of now, over 305,000 participants who have voluntarily elected to not be inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines, from over 175 countries have signed up to become part of the control group.

By joining the control group, the participants receive an ID card, which indicates that they “must not be vaccinated” due to their participation. The CGC stated on its website that this ID card is “not an official or legal exemption in any country.” Although these ID cards aren’t recognized by any authorities, many participants have reported that they had helped them avoid vaccination without informed consent, supported their position, and facilitated discussion with others.

Some governments and media personnel have tried to discredit the CGC by calling it a “potential scam.” For instance, upon discovering several ID cards issued by the CGC, the provincial government of Manitoba in Canada posted on its Twitter account that “data collected through the platform could not be used in an official trial to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated people,” as per a UK health body. However, the UK’s Medicines and Health Care products Regulatory Agency stated that the collection of health data from the public does not need its approval.

To be fair, it is very hard to evaluate the accuracy of the survey results from such a large scale global survey. It is also very challenging to evaluate whether the volunteers in this study are heavily biased or not. But, there is no clinical trial that could be designed at such a global scale, and the world needs the health data regarding this population. Therefore, even though the results from this study cannot be as well-designed as a regular clinical trial, the merit of this study cannot be simply denied for providing such valuable data from unique angles.

Findings of an Independent Analysis of the CGC Survey
When joining the CGC’s control group, the participants agree to fill out a monthly survey about their health status.

The aforementioned analysis was performed by a multinational team of independent researchers on the data collected from a cohort over a five month period from October 2021 to February 2022.

This cohort of 18,497 people is a sub-group of all participants (297,618 people as of late February 2022), and they had been carefully selected to be representative of the full dataset.

In the cohort, the largest unvaccinated populations are from Europe (40 percent), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand; 27 percent), and North America (United States and Canada; 25 percent). The respondents are from a total of 68 countries and six continents.

Among the 96.3 percent of the survey participants who disclosed their gender, 57 percent were female, and 43 percent were male. The largest numbers of respondents were found in the 50 to 69 age group, who are considered by the health authorities as at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection and severe illness/death after infection than the general public. The number of participants between the ages of 40 and 49 was also relatively large.

According to the survey, the five leading reasons behind the cohort’s decision to not receive COVID-19 vaccines include preference for natural medicine interventions, distrust of pharmaceutical interventions, distrust of government information on the vaccines, poor or limited trial study data, and fear of long-term side effects. They were of nearly equal importance. Each respondent could select more than one reason that he/she considered equally important.

From the results, we can see that the participants were not refusing medical treatment, nor were they not caring of their own health, as sometimes portrayed by the media and/or authorities. To these unvaccinated people, they just did not think that there is only one way (the vaccine way) to help them medically, and they have been reasonably conservative in taking new vaccine products. No scientist in the world can claim that we understand every aspect of the new vaccine products.

Furthermore, since vaccine development in the past took 10 to 15 years on average to complete, many people are skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccines, which were invented so quickly by several major pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson) after receiving hefty funding from the U.S., German, and other governments. Moreover, the messenger RNA (mRNA) platform, based on which the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were invented, is a new technology, which hadn’t been used to produce vaccines previously.

Even before the vaccines were implemented, people knew that RNA molecules were unstable in the human body. However, the mRNA generated in the new vaccines have been modified to keep them more stable. Therefore, we don’t know whether any side effects from these modified mRNA molecules would be immediate, delayed, transient, or long term. Therefore, it’s reasonable for some people to want to wait and see the long-term effects of these new mRNA vaccines and to not trust their limited trial data.

Physical and Mental Health Status of the Unvaccinated Cohort

1) COVID-19 infection before survey

Prior to taking the survey, less than 20 percent of the participants had been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with the majority of the people aging from 20 to 69 years old.

2) COVID-19 infection during five month period

During the five month period from October 2021 through February 2022, in most parts of the world, the highly transmissible Omicron variant became the most prevalent strain, replacing the previously dominant Delta variant. As a result, many people became infected.

Most respondents reporting suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection on the survey questionnaire were between 20 to 69 years old, which is consistent with the infection situation prior to the survey. Specifically, the age group from 20 to 49 years old accounted for 10.7 percent of the respondents; and the age group from 50 to 69 years old accounted for 12.3 percent.

3) Severe illness situation of the infected respondents

Given that society had found no way to stop the spread of the Omicron variant, many were infected during this time period—this included many asymptomatic infections. Therefore, our main concern is with the respondents of the cohort who were seriously ill and/or hospitalized.

Fortunately, in the vast majority of the cases, the patients’ symptoms were mild and moderate. The rate of severe illness appeared to be very low (around 2 percent of all respondents). Only 74 individuals among the 5,196 (1.4 percent) confirmed or suspected infected respondents reported that they were hospitalized. This percentage might not be very accurate, as people who are very sick or hospitalized might not be healthy enough or willing to participate in this kind of survey. So, objectively, this kind of survey will have data skewing towards more healthy targets.

Nevertheless, the data here still indicates that this group of unvaccinated people were not more prone to the infection by Omicron, even though they were not protected by the vaccines. Otherwise, the percentage of infection and hospitalization rates among this group of people would be much higher. Therefore, this is a very important piece of data, as well as the core observation in this study.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-covid-unvaccinated-are-the-control-group-heres-how-they-fared_4745779.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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