Oct. 13, 2022 — Generations of Americans grew up being told that breakfast cereals like Corn Flakes and Raisin Bran were healthy ways to start their days.
But now, under new federal guidelines, those cereals and other mainstays of the breakfast table can no longer make that claim.
The guidance was proposed after the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, “as well as the release of the related national strategy, which aims to end hunger, improve nutrition and physical activity, reduce diet-related diseases and close disparity gaps by 2030,” the FDA wrote in a press release.
To be considered “healthy,” foods must meet certain criteria. The FDA used cereal as an example to illustrate how the guidelines affect how food will be presented to consumers.
For that “healthy” label, cereals need three-fourth ounces of whole grains and no more than 1 gram of saturated fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, and 2.5 grams of added sugars, CNBC reported.
Here are seven common American brands that don’t meet the “healthy” label standards:
Raisin Bran (9 grams of added sugars)
Honey Nut Cheerios (12 grams of added sugars)
Corn Flakes (300 milligrams of sodium; 4 grams of added sugars)
Honey Bunches of Oats, Honey Roasted (8 grams of added sugars)
Frosted Mini Wheats (12 grams of added sugars)
Life (8 grams of added sugars)
Special K (270 milligrams of sodium; 4 grams of added sugars)
“Nutrition is key to improving our nation’s health,” said Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services secretary. “Healthy food can lower our risk for chronic disease. But too many people may not know what constitutes healthy food. FDA’s move will help educate more Americans to improve health outcomes, tackle health disparities and save lives.”
Oct. 12, 2022 – Another stoner stereotype bites the dust: Despite its appetite-boosting effects – better known as the “munchies” – cannabis may actually help keep your weight in check.
Cannabis users may be less likely to become obese than people who abstain, according to a recent study in the journal Health Economics. The study tracked health data from the state of Washington before and after 2014, the year cannabis became widely available there for recreational use.
According to the study: “Marijuana legalization, which allowed for recreational marijuana dispensaries to open, resulted [in] decreases in obesity rates for Washington State.”
During the 4 years after legalization, the state’s obesity rate was 5.4% lower, on average, than it would have been had cannabis not been legalized.
How Did They Figure That Out?
The researchers set up something called a synthetic counterfactual.
“It’s the best approximation of what Washington would have looked like had it not legalized marijuana,” says lead author Raymond March, PhD, an assistant professor of applied economics at North Dakota State University. March and his colleagues came up with a population that’s like Washington state’s by combining data from states that did not legalize during those same 4 years, including Arizona, Minnesota, Kansas, and New Hampshire.
Hence the “synthetic counterfactual” – what Washington might have looked like had it not legalized. The authors conclude that the state would have had 5.4% more obese people over the “post-treatment period” – the 4 years after legalization – with the medical expenses and human misery that go along with such obesity-related conditions as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and increased risk of early death.
The researchers also compared Washington state’s obesity numbers with the national trend. Both trend upward, but after 2014, Washington’s rate of increase declined significantly.
Why Might This Be Happening?
Thomas Clark, PhD, a physiologist with the Department of Biological Sciences at Indiana University in South Bend, addressed one possible reason in a 2018 study in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. According to the study, “Cannabis use appears to reverse the impact of the modern American diet on health by reducing the effects of an elevated ratio of omega-6/omega-3 fatty acids on endocannabinoid (eCB) tone.”
Clark explains: “The 1970s saw increasing obesity in the United States, and it’s still rising today. It began with the government subsidies of corn- and soybean oil, which alter the body’s physiological regulation of metabolism. When you alter the balance of omega-6 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids – which you do by increasing vegetable oils such as soybean oil in the diet – the body’s endocannabinoid system becomes overactive, resulting in weight gain.”
The endocannabinoid system – which promotes homeostasis, or balance, in the body – is regulated by signaling molecules that are mimicked by chemicals in cannabis. Yes, cannabis stimulates appetite, hence its therapeutic use by people with diseases like AIDS, or who are getting appetite-killing treatments like chemotherapy. But according to Clark, it also down-regulates the endocannabinoid system, bringing it into balance, preventing weight gain, and, theoretically at least, helping the people of Washington slow the tide of weight gain in their state.
“My research indicates that we should look at these metabolic diseases and their correlation with cannabis use,” he says. “There may be a significant health benefit to cannabis use.”
If those benefits can be confirmed, cannabis might be one answer to the swelling waistlines and health risks of the American public.
Your doctor may prescribe certain treatments, like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and physical therapy, to help your ankylosing spondylitis. But everyone is different: What works for someone else might not work for you. If this happens, your doctor will most likely recommend that you try a new class of drugs known as biologics.
“These are amazing drugs that have really revolutionized how we treat this disease,” says Yale Medicine rheumatologist Deborah Desir, MD.
Though they won’t magically cure your ankylosing spondylitis, they can help slow the disease’s progression and make symptoms more manageable.
How Do Biologics Work?
Biologics stop the damaging inflammation that happens with ankylosing spondylitis.
“They’re genetically engineered proteins that target cytokines, specific molecules in your immune system,” says Lianne Gensler, MD, director of the University of California San Francisco’s Ankylosing Spondylitis Clinic.
Cytokines activate inflammation throughout your body, which keeps your immune system on its toes to fight off invaders. But if they go into overdrive, they can trigger inflammatory diseases such as ankylosing spondylitis.
There are two main classes of biologics used to treat ankylosing spondylitis:
Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) inhibitors. These were the first approved in 2003. They work not only to ease joint inflammation, but related inflammation in the gut and eyes as well. There are five approved for ankylosing spondylitis:
Adalimumab (Humira)
Certolizumab (Cimzia)
Entanercept (Enbrel)
Golimumab (Simponi)
Infliximab (Remicade)
IL-17 inhibitors. Two are FDA-approved for ankylosing spondylitis: ixekizumab (Taltz) and secukinumab (Cosentyx). They target different cytokines than the TNF inhibitors. They’re often used in people whose ankylosing spondylitis didn’t respond to several of the TNF medications.
Who Should Take Biologics?
While biologics are very effective, they’re not for everyone.
“These drugs are very powerful, but they also suppress the immune system, which means you’re more vulnerable to infection,” Gensler says. Because of this, most doctors hold off using them right away.
When you’re newly diagnosed with ankylosis spondylitis, your doctor will most likely start you on a course of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). These include over-the-counter versions such as ibuprofen, as well as prescription-strength drugs like celecoxib (Celebrex).
“These drugs are the most common ones we use, and for good reason: a huge percentage of patients are able to get control of their symptoms on them,” Desir says.
They’ll also prescribe physical therapy to help ward off the “frozen” spine and general stiffness that can occur with ankylosis spondylitis.
The downside of NSAIDs is that to stay symptom-free, most people need very high doses. Over time, this can lead to side effects such as stomach bleeding and higher risk of heart attack or stroke.
“We’re most worried about these side effects in older adults, since they are the ones who are already at risk for these diseases. But for a younger patient in their 20s or 30s newly diagnosed with the condition, that’s much less of a concern,” Gensler says. “We don’t have long-term safety data on biologics yet beyond about 2 decades, so it’s still unknown what the effects of these drugs would be on patients who are on them for most of their lives. That’s why we’d prefer to start with an NSAID, and then escalate if need be.”
In general, Gensler says you should consider a biologic if:
You’ve tried a course of NSAIDs and physical therapy for a few weeks and are still bothered by symptoms.
Your X-rays already show that you have a lot of damage to your sacroiliac joints, the joints that connect your spine to your pelvic bone.
You’ve already lived with ankylosis spondylitis for a long time.
It can sometimes take up to 10 years for people to be diagnosed with this condition.
“Sometimes patients come in for the very first visit in extreme pain and very disabled, and they say that their quality of life is terrible and they’d do anything to get it back to where they can function again,” Gensler says.
What Should I Expect When I Take a Biologic?
If you and your doctor agree biologics are the next step, they’ll test you for tuberculous first.
“Some people have what’s known as latent TB, where the bacteria live silently in their lungs,” Desir says. “Since these drugs suppress your immune system, the TB can ‘wake up’ and cause an actual infection.”
All biologic treatments leave you more prone to infection, especially upper respiratory infections such as colds, flu, or COVID-19. To stay healthy, you should:
Wash your hands often
Avoid or wear a mask in crowded areas, enclosed spaces, public transportation, and childcare facilities
Keep up to date on all your vaccines, including the flu and COVID-19 vaccines.
Some biologics are given at home via self-injection, and others are given through an IV in your doctor’s office. You may notice some pain, redness, and swelling. You can use antihistamines and an over-the-counter pain reliver such as acetaminophen to treat discomfort.
If you’re on the fence about trying a biologic, Gensler suggests giving it a 3-month trial.
“I stress to (people) that this does not have to be a lifetime commitment. They can always go off of the biologic and return to their original medications,” she says. “But oftentimes, after a few months, people are shocked at how much better they feel. They’ve suffered for so long they’ve just accepted their symptoms as normal. But thanks to biologics, it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.”
When you think of ankylosing spondylitis (AS), back pain is probably the first thing that comes to mind. But heart disease — an umbrella term for several types of heart conditions — should be on your radar, too.
Research suggests AS raises your risk for heart disease and stroke by as much as 60%. The possibility is highest among adults 20-39. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help lower your odds. Here’s how to care for your heart when you have AS.
Can Ankylosing Spondylitis Cause Heart Disease?
It depends. The inflammation that damages your joints can do the same to your heart, particularly the aorta. That’s the large artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
“Over time, this can lead to high blood pressure, and also to aortic valve disease, which is when the valve between the left ventricle — your heart’s main pumping chamber — and the aorta doesn’t work properly,” says Elliott Antman, MD, a cardiologist at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston.
The valve begins to leak, which can lead to shortness of breath, chest pain, and dizziness.
“If you already have high blood pressure, the valve will leak even more,” Antman says.
People with ankylosing spondylitis are also at risk for other heart conditions. These include:
Heart arrhythmias. This is when your heart beats too fast or too slow. Problems with your heart’s electrical conduction system or other heart issues can trigger them.
Cardiomyopathy. This enlarges and weakens your heart muscle. That makes it harder to pump blood to the rest of the body. Without treatment, it could lead to heart failure.
Ischemic heart disease. Also called atherosclerosis, this type of heart disease cuts blood supply to your heart muscle.
Many people with AS are also placed on high doses of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to treat symptoms.
“These cause your body to hold on to salt and water, which in turn increases blood pressure,” Antman says.
Research suggests people who take NSAIDs for a long time are at higher risk for a heart attack or stroke than those who don’t.
“We don’t rule these drugs out, as they can help a lot of patients, but we definitely try to keep people on the lowest dose possible for the shortest period of time,” Antman says.
Warning Signs to Watch for
If you have ankylosis spondylitis, you should be on the alert for signs of heart disease. These include:
Shortness of breath
Chest pain
Dizziness
Heart palpitations (you may feel like your heart is beating too fast or notice that it skips beats)
Swelling of the legs, ankles, and feet
Not able to exercise as much
Talk to your doctor if you notice any of these symptoms.
How to Help Your Heart
It’s important to make sure your heart is in good shape when you have ankylosing spondylitis. These tips can help:
Exercise often. It may be hard to stay active. But if you don’t, you’ll likely gain weight, which in turn will raise your blood pressure, Antman says. Aim for 30 minutes of low impact, moderate-intensity exercise, like walking or swimming, 5 days a week. Try to add 2 days of strength training. Yoga is also a good option. One small study found that people with AS who practiced yoga every day for 2 weeks reported less pain and lower blood pressure.
Know your numbers. This includes your blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, blood glucose levels, and body weight.
“The more that these are under control, the better it is for your heart health,” Antman says.
If you’re prescribed medications to manage high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or type 2 diabetes, make sure you take them the way you’re supposed to. If you do have heart disease, ask your doctor if you should take a certain class of ankylosis spondylitis drugs known as TNF-inhibitors. A 2018 study found that patients with inflammatory arthritic conditions like AS who took these drugs had fewer cardiac events like heart attack or stroke.
Follow a heart-healthy diet. The two most well-studied eating patterns are the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, Antman says. Both are rich in fruits, veggies, whole grains, and healthy fats found in foods like fatty fish and olive oil. You also need to limit your salt intake. Aim for less than 1,500 milligrams daily, as it can worsen blood pressure.
Don’t smoke. It not only raises your risk of heart disease, but it also causes more joint damage in patients with ankylosis spondylitis.
When Should I See a Cardiologist?
Most of the time, your primary care doctor or rheumatologist can keep an eye on your heart, Antman says. But you should ask for a referral to a cardiologist if:
You’re diagnosed with high blood pressure, cholesterol, or type 2 diabetes.
Your doctor hears an abnormal sound (murmur) when listening to your heart with a stethoscope.
You have symptoms that could be signs of heart disease, like breathlessness or chest pain.
Oct. 13, 2022 – It’s a devastating series of setbacks for long COVID patients. First, they get the debilitating symptoms of their condition. Then they are forced to give up their jobs, or severely curtail their work hours, as their symptoms linger. And next, for many, they lose their employer-sponsored health insurance.
While not all long COVID patients are debilitated, the CDC’s ongoing survey on long COVID found a quarter of adults with long COVID report it significantly affects their day-to-day living activities.
Estimates have shown that long COVID has impacted the lives of anywhere from 16 million to 34 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 65.
While hard data is still limited, a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found that more than half of adults with long COVID who worked before getting the virus are now either out of work or working fewer hours.
According to data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, out of the estimated 16 million working-age adults who currently have long COVID, 2 million to 4 million of them are out of work due to their symptoms. The cost of those lost wages ranges from $170 billion a year to as much as $230 billion, the Census Bureau says. And given that approximately 155 million Americans have employer-sponsored health insurance, the welfare of working-age adults may be under serious threat.
“Millions of people are now impacted by long COVID, and oftentimes along with that comes the inability to work,” says Megan Cole Brahim, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management at Boston University and co-director of the school’s Medicaid Policy Lab. “And because a lot of people get their health insurance coverage through employer-sponsored coverage, no longer being able to work means you may not have access to the health insurance that you once had.”
The CDC defines long COVID as a wide array of health conditions, including malaise, fatigue, shortness of breath, mental health issues, problems with the part of the nervous system that controls body functions, and more.
Gwen Bishop was working remotely for the Human Resources Department at the University of Washington Medical Centers when she got COVID-19. When the infection passed, Bishop, 39, thought she’d start feeling well enough to get back to work – but that didn’t happen.
“When I would log in to work and just try to read emails,” she says, “it was like they were written in Greek. It made no sense and was incredibly stressful.” .
This falls in line with what researchers have found out about the nervous system issues reported by people with long COVID. People who have survived acute COVID infections have reported lasting sensory and motor function problems, brain fog, and memory problems.
Bishop, who was diagnosed with ADHD when she was in grade school, says another complication she got from her long COVID was a new intolerance to stimulants like coffee and her ADHD medication, Vyvanse, which were normal parts of her everyday life.
“Every time I would take my ADHD medicine or have a cup of coffee, I would have a panic attack until it wore off,” says Bishop. “Vyvanse is a very long-acting stimulant, so that would be an entire day of an endless panic attack.”
In order for her to get a medical leave approved, Bishop needed to get documents by a certain date from her doctor’s office that confirmed her long COVID diagnosis. She was able to get a couple of extensions, but Bishop says that with the burden that has been placed on our medical systems, getting in to see a doctor through her employer insurance was taking much longer than expected. By the time she got an appointment, she says, she had already been fired for missing too much work. Emails she provided showing exchanges between her and her employer verify her story. And without her health insurance, her appointment through that provider would no longer have been covered.
In July 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance recognizing long COVID as a disability “if the person’s condition or any of its symptoms is a ‘physical or mental’ impairment that ‘substantially limits’ one or more major life activities.”
But getting access to disability benefits hasn’t been easy for people with long COVID. On top of having to be out of work for 12 months before being able to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance, some of those who have applied say they have had to put up a fight to actually gain access to disability insurance. The Social Security Administration has yet to reveal just how many applications that cited long COVID have been denied so far.
David Barnett, a former bartender in the Seattle area in his early 40s, got COVID-19 in March 2020. Before his infection, he spent much of his time working on his feet, bodybuilding, and hiking with his partner. But for the last nearly 3 years, even just going for a walk has been a major challenge. He says he has spent much of his post-COVID life either chair-bound or bed-bound due to his symptoms.
He is currently on his partner’s health insurance plan but is still responsible for copays and out-of-network appointments and treatments. After being unable to bartend any more, he started a GoFundMe account and dug into his personal savings. He says he applied for food stamps and is getting ready to sell his truck. Barnett applied for disability in March of this year but says he was denied benefits by the Social Security Administration and has hired a lawyer to appeal.
He runs a 24-hour online support group on Zoom for people with long COVID and says that no one in his close circle has successfully gotten access to disability payments.
Alba Azola, MD, co-director of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Post-Acute COVID-19 Team, says at least half of her patients need some level of accommodations to get back to work; most can, if given the proper accommodations, such as switching to a job that can be done sitting down, or with limited time standing. But there are still patients who have been more severely disabled by their long COVID symptoms.
“Work is such a part of people’s identity. The people who are very impaired, all they want to do is to get back to work and their normal lives,” she says.
Many of Azola’s long COVID patients aren’t able to return to their original jobs. She says they often have to find new positions more tailored to their new realities. One patient, a nurse and mother of five who previously worked in a facility where she got COVID-19, was out of work for 9 months after her infection. She ultimately lost her job, and Azola says the patient’s employer was hesitant to provide her with any accommodations. The patient was finally able to find a different job as a nurse coordinator where she doesn’t have to be standing for more than 10 minutes at a time.
Ge Bai, PhD, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says the novelty of long COVID and the continued uncertainty around it raise questions for health insurance providers.
“There’s no well-defined pathway to treat or cure this condition,” Bai says. “Right now, employers have discretion to determine when a condition is being covered or not being covered. So people with long COVID do have a risk that their treatments won’t be covered.”
Philip Robinson, MBChB, PhD, associate professor, The University of Queensland, Australia.
Eric M. Ruderman, MD, professor of medicine (rheumatology), associate chief, clinical affairs for the division of rheumatology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Ali Ajam, MBBS, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Rheumatology and Therapy: “Non-Radiographic Axial Spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA): Advances in Classification, Imaging and Therapy.
Expert Review of Clinical Immunology: “Radiographic progression in non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis.”
American College of Rheumatology: “Predicting Progression of Non-Radiographic Axial Spondyloarthritis.”
PLOS One: “Spinal radiographic progression in axial spondyloarthritis and the impact of classification as nonradiographic versus radiographic disease: Data from the Swiss Clinical Quality Management cohort.”
RMD Open: “Non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis and ankylosing spondylitis: what are the similarities and differences?”
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases: “Axial spondyloarthritis: a new disease entity, not necessarily early ankylosing spondylitis.”
UpToDate: “Patient education: Axial spondyloarthritis, including ankylosing spondylitis (Beyond the Basics)”
Spondylitis Association of America: “How Disease Severity, Ethnicity, and HLA-B27 Prevalence Intersect,” “Overview of Ankylosing Spondylitis.”
A simple breathing exercise that strengthens respiratory muscles could be beneficial for the 47% of U.S. adults who have high blood pressure.1 The exercise, known as high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST), worked so well that it rivaled medication and lifestyle changes for lowering blood pressure.2
High blood pressure is a significant burden to public health, as it’s a major risk factor for coronary, cerebrovascular and peripheral vascular diseases, along with heart attack and stroke.3 More than 1.28 billion people worldwide4 suffer from the condition, with most offered medications as the first line of treatment.
High blood pressure drugs carry “burdensome” side effects that often cause people to stop taking them, researchers noted in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.5 Further, about 46% of adults with high blood pressure don’t know that they have it, putting them at increased risk of related heart, brain and kidney diseases.6
Breathing exercises could again provide an answer, as it takes just minutes a day to glean the benefits. Even for those without high blood pressure — or who don’t know they’re at risk — spending five minutes on focused breath training offers myriad benefits with virtually no downside.
For the study, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Arizona split 128 adults aged 18 to 82 years into two groups. One group did high-resistance IMST training consisting of 30 breaths a day for six weeks.
The other group did a low-resistance sham breathing exercise for the same period.7 Conventionally, IMST is used for recovery in people who have been on a ventilator, as well as to support breathing in those with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other breathing disorders.8
While no changes in systolic blood pressure (SBP) or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) occurred in the placebo group, those doing the high-resistance breathing exercise had an average reduction of 9 mmHg in systolic blood pressure.9
According to study author Daniel Craighead, the reduction is similar to what may be achieved with medication and potentially more effective than weight loss or reducing sodium in your diet. He told Insider, “People can expect fairly rapid results. We would expect that if you went longer, blood pressure would go down even more.” He recommended the technique for those with high blood pressure and those hoping to prevent it:10
“What’s really exciting about this is that it’s helpful for a wide range of adults. People with blood pressure at an unhealthy level could stand to benefit from adding this to their routine now. But someone could start in their thirties and stick to it for years to help delay or prevent hypertension.”
The breathing exercise takes just five to 10 minutes a day, with benefits noticeable within two weeks. It involves the use of an inhaler-like device, which provides resistance as you take a breath, causing your respiratory muscles to get a workout. While the trial used a $500 device, less expensive models are commercially available right now.11
According to the study, “These compiled findings from multiple independent trials provide the strongest evidence to date that high-resistance IMST evokes clinically significant reductions in SBP and DBP.”12
Also noteworthy, the participants did the breathing exercises for six weeks, then took a six-week break. When their blood pressure was tested after the break, it was nearly as low as it was immediately after the exercise session ended. The researchers are now looking into whether a “maintenance dose” of the breathing exercise could help extend the blood pressure reductions even longer.13
Controlled Breathing Calms Your Brain, Relieves Stress
One way that IMST appears to be beneficial is by toning and strengthening the muscles used in breathing. Past research also found that high-resistance IMST lowered blood pressure and improved endothelial function in middle-age and older adults with above-normal blood pressure. The breathing technique increased the bioavailability of nitric oxide, helping widen arteries, and reduced oxidative stress.14
Stress is another factor in high blood pressure and relieving it may offer some relief. This is another mechanism by which controlled breathing may help blood pressure. The way you breathe — whether fast or slow, shallow or deep — is intricately tied to your body as a whole, sending messages that affect your mood, your stress levels and even your immune system.
In early 2017, researchers discovered breathing may directly affect your brain activity, including your state of arousal and higher-order brain function.15 As such, controlled breathing exercises may modify stress coping behaviors and initiate appropriate balance in cardiac autonomic tone, which is a term that describes your heart’s ability to respond to and recover from stressors.16
Also intriguing is a 2016 study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which found yogic breathing reduces levels of proinflammatory biomarkers in saliva.17 Controlled breathing triggers your relaxation response, activating your parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn may slow down your heart rate and digestion while helping you feel calm.
By evoking your body’s built-in relaxation response you can change the expression of your genes for the better, including in areas related to energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, insulin secretion, the inflammatory response and stress-related pathways.18
Slow breathing also reduces blood pressure and enhances baroreflex sensitivity, a mechanism to control blood pressure via heart rate, in people with high blood pressure.19 The finding was so strong that researchers suggested slow breathing “appear[s] potentially beneficial in the management of hypertension.”20
Which Breathing Techniques Are Best?
It’s possible to incorporate a variety of beneficial breathing techniques into your day to propel yourself toward optimal health — healthy blood pressure levels included. One of the most basic breathing techniques is to make sure you’re always breathing through your nose. Mouth breathing tends to promote hyperventilation, which decreases tissue oxygenation.
Mouth breathing also results in diminished levels of CO2 in your body and a decreased ability to filter toxic pollutants from the air. Mouth breathing can also elevate your heart rate and blood pressure, sometimes resulting in fatigue and dizziness.21
The Buteyko Breathing Method is one way to reverse health problems associated with improper breathing, the most common of which include over-breathing and mouth breathing. When you stop mouth breathing and learn to bring your breathing volume toward normal, you have better oxygenation of your tissues and organs. The Buteyko Breathing Method allows you to retain and gently accumulate CO2, which calms breathing and reduces anxiety:
Take a small breath into your nose, followed by a small breath out
Hold your nose for five seconds in order to hold your breath, and then release your nose to resume breathing
Breathe normally for 10 seconds
Repeat the sequence
Box breathing is another form of breath control that triggers the parasympathetic nervous system to help manage stress. This technique, also called square breathing or four-square breathing, is used by Navy SEALS to help reduce stress in high-pressure situations.
It involves nose breathing to slow over-breathing and raise CO2 levels to balance oxygenation. To begin practicing box breathing, get in a quiet place where you can concentrate and maintain good posture. Work up to using the technique for five-minute increments:22
Step 1 — Begin by exhaling the air out of your lungs to a slow count of four. Some recommend exhaling through your mouth, others through your nose.
Step 2 — Hold your breath for a slow count of four.
Step 3 — Inhale slowly to a slow count of four through your nose, keeping your back straight and breathing through your abdomen so your shoulders do not rise.
Step 4 — Hold your breath for a slow count of four and return to step 1.
You can also experiment with other forms of controlled breathing to see if it makes a difference for you. Here are several examples of yogic breathing compiled by the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine:23
Nadishodhana/Nadishuddhi (Alternate nostril breathing) — With your right thumb, close the right nostril and inhale through left nostril. Closing the left nostril, exhale through right, following which inhalation should be done through right nostril. Closing the right nostril, breath out through left nostril. This is one round. The procedure is repeated for desired number of rounds.
Suryanuloma Viloma (Right uninostril breathing) — Closing the left nostril, both inhalation and exhalation should be done through right nostril, without altering the normal pace of breathing.
Chandranuloma Viloma (Left uninostril breathing) — Procedure similar to Suryanuloma Viloma, breathing is done through left nostril alone, by closing the right nostril.
Suryabhedana (Right nostril initiated breathing) — Closing the left nostril, inhalation should be done through right nostril. At the end of inhalation, close the right nostril and exhale through the left nostril. This is one round. The procedure is repeated for desired number of rounds.
Ujjayi (Psychic breath) — Inhalation and exhalation are done through the nose at normal pace, with partial contraction of glottis, which produce light snoring sound. One should be aware of the passage of breath through the throat during the practice.
Bhramari (Female honeybee humming breath) — After a full inhalation, closing the ears using the index fingers, one should exhale making a soft humming sound similar to that of a female honeybee.
Lowering Blood Pressure With Herbs and Magnesium
Breathing techniques are important but they shouldn’t be considered a panacea. Optimizing your blood pressure requires a comprehensive approach for best results. For instance, imbalanced gut microbes, known as gut dysbiosis, play a role in high blood pressure.24 A strong link between sleep quality and a type of high blood pressure known as resistant hypertension, which does not respond to typical drug-based treatments, has also been found.25
Getting a good night’s sleep, eating right, exercising, addressing stress and avoiding environmental toxins like air pollution are all important for healthy blood pressure. Eating a diet rich in magnesium could also reduce the risk of high blood pressure,26 as can herbs and spices.
In a controlled feeding study of people with known risk factors for heart disease, eating 6.5 grams of 24 herbs and spices — such as basil, thyme, cinnamon and turmeric27 — each day lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressure.28 Study author Penny Kris-Etherton said in a news release:29
“I think it’s really significant that participants consumed an average American diet throughout the study and we still found these results. We didn’t decrease sodium, we didn’t increase fruits and vegetables, we just added herbs and spices. It begs the next question that if we did alter the diet … how much better would the results be?”
As we’ve seen time and again, whether you’re interested in lowering your blood pressure or simply keeping it in a healthy range, small daily habits — like engaging in breathing exercises and eating herbs and spices — add up to big changes for your health.
Even as more damning data are coming to light, Pfizer and Moderna are both seeking emergency use authorization (EUA) for their bivalent COVID boosters for children. Moderna is seeking authorization for children ages 6 through 17, while Pfizer’s shot is for children aged 5 through 11.1
According to Reuters,2 “the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention … expects COVID-19 vaccine boosters targeting circulating variants of the virus to be available for children aged 5-11 years by mid-October.”
Moderna’s new bivalent COVID booster, mRNA-1273.222, sold under the brand name “Spikevax bivalent Original/Omicron,” was authorized for adults over the age of 18 at the end of August 2022.3
In the U.S., the adult dose contains 25 micrograms of mRNA against the original Wuhan strain and 25 mcg of mRNA targeting Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5.4 In the U.K., Moderna’s bivalent booster (mRNA-1273.2145) contains mRNA against the original Wuhan strain and BA.1,6 an earlier Omicron strain that is no longer in circulation.7,8
Pfizer’s bivalent booster also contain mRNA against the Wuhan strain, BA.4 and BA.5. The two bivalent boosters are only be available to those who have already received the primary two-dose series and/or a monovalent booster at least two months ago.9
It’s probably safe to assume the same rule will apply to children. As of late September 2022,10 38% of American children aged 5 to 11 had received one initial dose and 31% have received two doses. In the 12- to 17-year-old age group, 67% have had one dose and 57% two doses.11 Those with two doses are likely the only ones who will be eligible for the bivalent booster, if authorized.
For decades, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has had additional safeguards in place for children who participate in medical research.12 With the advent of COVID shots, all of that has been tossed out the window, as children are now being used as medical guinea pigs without any safeguards whatsoever.
It’s really important to realize that these bivalent boosters have been reformulated with new, untested mRNA, yet they’ve only been tested on mice. Despite that, the FDA is now considering giving them to young children.
The effectiveness of Pfizer’s booster is based on antibody levels in eight mice,13 which cannot tell you anything about the level of protection you might receive. Moderna’s booster is also based on antibody levels in mice, although the exact number is unknown.
When it comes to safety, there’s not even mouse data. The safety is assumed based on the original shots, even though the safety data on those is shocking beyond belief. In the short-term, the original COVID shots have between them resulted in 1,417,671 adverse event reports (logged with the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System or VAERS as of September 16, 202214).
That includes 177,973 hospitalizations, 58,024 permanent disabilities, 34,107 life threatening events and 31,071 deaths. For children under the age of 18 alone, there are 55,733 reports of injuries and deaths.
If that’s not cause for alarm, I don’t know what is. It’s certainly not “strong evidence” for safety! What’s more, due to widespread underreporting, you have to multiply those already staggering numbers by underreporting factor of 41 (or more) to get an idea of the true impact.
And, if you still believe the pediatric trials were exhaustive, understand that the monovalent Pfizer booster authorized for children aged 5 to 11, back in May 2022, was based on the antibody levels of just 67 children.15 This is so far outside the norm of what’s historically been required for a drug trial, it’s just ridiculous.
1 in 800 Absolute Risk of Serious Side Effects
While VAERS data paint a clear picture of what’s at stake for parents who opt to inject their children with this genetically engineered bioweapon, we now also have other data showing just how bad of an idea that is.
A recent study16,17 in the journal Vaccine — coauthored by some of the most trusted medical scientists in the world, including Peter Doshi, an associate professor of pharmaceutical services research and a senior editor at The BMJ — looked at data from the FDA, Health Canada and the Pfizer and Moderna trials to assess the risks of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID shots.
They concluded the absolute risk of a serious adverse event from the mRNA shots was 1 in 800, which massively exceeds the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization found in randomized controlled trials.
The risk COVID infection poses to children is even more infinitesimal — especially Omicron infection, which presents as a mild cold in most people — making a 1 in 800 risk of a serious side effect unacceptable beyond description.
Statistics show the rate of COVID-19 associated hospitalization among children aged 5 to 11 is 0.0008%.18 In real-world terms, that’s so close to zero you cannot lower it any further. Additionally, as reported by Clark County Today,19 “Pfizer trial data20 [show] the chance of death in children from the shot is 107 times higher than death from COVID-19.”
Other data are also reviewed in a recent paper21,22 by cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who initially recommended the shots but has since changed his mind about their safety. For example, Israeli data show post-jab myocarditis is occurring at a rate of 1 in 6,000. Data from male children and teens in Hong Kong found myocarditis at a rate of 1 in 2,700.
As noted by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation in the video above, myocarditis — one of the recognized effects of the COVID jab — “has a mortality rate of 25% to 56% within three to 10 years, owing to progressive heart failure and sudden cardiac death.”
Norwegian data show the rate of serious adverse events post-jab is 1 in 1,000 after two doses of Pfizer, and the British Yellow Card system shows 1 in 120 people who have received at least one mRNA injection suffer an adverse event “that is beyond mild.” These are simply extraordinary risk ratios, and there’s no telling what the long-term effects might be, say 10 or 20 years from now.
Trial Showed COVID Jab Increases Infection Risk in Babies
According to CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, “rigorous scientific review” has proven the COVID shots to be safe and effective in infants and young children.23 However, as detailed by diagnostic pathologist Dr. Clare Craig24 (video above), Pfizer twisted its clinical data for young children to achieve a desired result.
Craig points out that of the 4,526 children, aged 6 months to 4 years, who participated in Pfizer’s trial, 3,000 didn’t make it to the end of the trial. Why did two-thirds of the children drop out? Oftentimes, this happens when side effects are too severe for the participant to continue. Here, we don’t know why two-thirds of the participants were eliminated, and “on that basis alone, this trial should be deemed null and void,” Craig says. Moreover:
• Six of the children, aged 2 to 4 years, in the vaccinated group were diagnosed with “severe COVID,” compared to just one in the placebo group. So, what this actually shows is that the likelihood the shot is causing severe COVID is higher than the likelihood that it’s preventing it.
• The only child who required hospitalization for COVID was also in the “vaccinated” group.
• In the three weeks following the first dose, 34 of the children in the vaccinated group and 13 of the unvaccinated children were diagnosed with COVID. That means the children’s risk of developing symptoms of COVID within the first three weeks of the first dose actually increased by 30%! These data were ignored.
Between doses two and three, there was an eight-week gap, and the vaccinated arm again experienced higher rates of COVID. This too was ignored. After the third dose, incidence of COVID was again raised in the vaccine group, and this was ignored as well.
In the end, they only counted three cases of COVID in the vaccine arm and seven cases in the placebo group. They literally ignored 97% of all the COVID cases that occurred during the trial to conclude that the shots were “effective” in preventing COVID.
• While they claim the triple-dose regimen reduced COVID, 12 of the children actually caught COVID twice in the two-month follow-up, and 11 of them were vaccinated.
• The confidence interval for Pfizer’s jab is -370% at the lower end of the 95%, which suggests children who get the jab are nearly four times more likely of getting sick with COVID than their unvaccinated peers.25
Why Are They Targeting Children Who Don’t Need These Shots?
Ever since the COVID shots were first authorized for young children,26 the question of why has been raised. Certainly, it’s not because children are in grave danger of dying from COVID.
The most likely explanation for the FDA’s and CDC’s irrational behavior is that they’re helping the drug makers to get the mRNA shots onto the childhood vaccination schedule, as that is the fastest and easiest route to get permanent liability shielding.
Once the vaccine is on the childhood vaccination schedule, the vaccine makers are permanently shielded from liability for injuries and deaths that occur in any age group, including adults. You can learn more about this indemnification process in “The Real Reason They Want to Give COVID Jabs to Kids.”
So, the end goal is likely to get permanent immunity against liability for injury and death from the COVID shots in all age groups, and to get there, they first need the EUA to cover all children. And, since the FDA is now authorizing reformulated mRNA shots without additional testing, using the flu vaccine model, it seems they want to make sure they have annually updated boosters included in the EUA for children as well.
UK Bans COVID Jab for Under-12
Meanwhile, the U.K. recently rescinded the COVID jab for children under the age of 12, unless they’re in a high-risk medical category. As reported by The Guardian September 6, 2022:27
“The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said children who had not turned 5 by the end of last month would not be offered a vaccination, in line with advice published by the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in February 2022. UKHSA said the offer of COVID jabs to healthy 5- to 11-year-olds was always meant to be temporary.”
Similarly, as of September 1, 2022, Denmark no longer offers the COVID jab to children between the ages of 5 and 17, citing the low risk posed by COVID infection.28 Children with only one dose will not be required to get a second, and no boosters will be offered to this age group.
Sweden opted not to recommend the shot for children between 5 and 11 from the start, as the Swedish Health Agency felt the benefits did not outweigh the risks,29 so boosters for kids are unlikely to be an issue there either.
In the U.S., Florida has gone on record rejecting all COVID shots for children under 5.30 Parents who want to get their toddlers jabbed have the freedom to do so, but it’s not recommended by the state.
Protect Your Children From Medical Experimentation
If you’re still unsure whether the COVID shot is the “right” choice for your child, please read through Dr. Byram Bridle’s “COVID-19 Vaccines and Children: A Scientist’s Guide for Parents,”31 published by the Canadian COVID Care Alliance. It goes through how the shots work, what the known side effects are, results from the clinical trial, the effects of the spike protein and much more.
Side effects from the new bivalent boosters are assumed to be about the same as for the original shots,32 but there’s no guarantee of that. They could be milder, or they could be worse.
In my view, the chances of them being worse is higher, for the simple reason that they’re delivering more than one type of mRNA. Will the BA.4/BA.5 mRNA have different effects? Will they cause cross-reactions? Who knows? There’s no data. At bare minimum, if the adverse effects of the original shots are an indication, there’s every reason to suspect the bivalent boosters will be just as dangerous.
Oct. 12, 2022 — Three-quarters of the largest grocery chains in the U.S. are failing to limit the use of antibiotics in their house-brand fresh meat, thus contributing to the spread of antibiotic resistance.
That’s according to a new report, “Superbugs in Stock,” produced by members of a coalition of public health, animal protection, and consumer groups known as Antibiotics Off the Menu. Of the nation’s top food retailers, Target fared the best — but even it only received a C grade.
About half of the fresh meat sold in this country is purchased in stores.
“That means the grocery industry has a potentially major impact on how antibiotics are used in meat production,” says Matthew Wellington, public health campaigns director at U.S. PIRG, a member of the coalition. “This report shows a dire need for more progress in the grocery sector.”
A Report Card for Supermarkets
For the past 6 years, the coalition focused on restaurants, with an annual report about the practices of major fast-food and fast-casual chains. In the wake of these reports, several chains announced changes to their policies, though not all have followed through.
“We saw there was progress with the restaurant chains, so we wanted to look at the other place people get most of their food,” says Steven Roach of the Food Animal Concerns Trust, lead author of the report. “And coming through the pandemic, where there had been a shift from people eating out to eating at home, we thought it was good time to look at grocery chains.”
Roach and his co-authors gathered information about the supermarket chains’ policies on antibiotic use in private-label chicken, turkey, pork, and beef through a survey as well as company websites and published materials. They assigned points for various scoring criteria — things like having a meaningful and transparent public policy that links to animal welfare, enforcement of that policy, and using third-party verification.
Their findings don’t exactly inspire confidence. Of the dozen major grocery retailers in the U.S., eight received an F grade, with 10 points or fewer out of a possible 100. That group includes Kroger, Walmart, and Albertsons, three of the five top-earning grocers in the U.S. While many of the failing companies do carry some house-brand meat labeled “raised without antibiotics,” none have strong policies to cover the entire range of their private-label fresh meat.
If you’ve become disillusioned with the medical profession over the past three years, you’re not alone. Many have come to distrust doctors, largely thanks to widespread mistreatment of COVID in hospitals, and doctors’ failure to provide sufficient information about the COVID jabs to make informed consent. Doctors’ enforcing the use of masks, even though they ought to know they don’t work against respiratory viruses, hasn’t helped either.
In a recent interview with Steve Kirsch, Dr. Paul Marik, a pulmonary and critical care specialist and founding member of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), discussed why doctors have been so reluctant to speak out against the clearly dangerous COVID shots. As noted by Kirsch:1
“My blue pilled friends who believe the vaccines are safe have told me they would reconsider their position if just a single one of their own doctors came out against the vaccine. One of them said even if a ‘TV doctor’ (such as Sanjay Gupta) said it was unsafe, they would reconsider their position.
I told them that doctors are afraid to speak out because they will lose their ability to practice medicine if they challenge the mainstream narrative.
My friends find that too hard to believe. They asked me incredulously, ‘Why would the medical community silence doctors who are trying to save lives?’ They didn’t believe my answer. So, I wanted to interview a doctor who is very highly respected and who is not an ‘anti-vaxxer’ to explain it to them.”
Doctors Who Share Their Concerns Are Punished
Like many other doctors, Marik took the COVID shots when they first came out, as was expected of him. It wasn’t until he started reviewing the data for himself, well after the fact, that he realized just how bad they are.
When asked whether he might have misjudged the data, Marik replies, “No, the evidence is very clear.” Yet despite crystal-clear data, when Marik started speaking out against the shots, the medical community retaliated. Marik also suffered retaliation when trying to treat patients with FDA-approved, off-patent, off-label drugs shown to be very effective against COVID.
The hospital pharmacy refused to fill his prescriptions and he was ordered to not prescribe them to anyone. In short, he was ordered to simply watch his patients die, even though he knew he could help them.
The only drug he was allowed to prescribe was remdesivir, which is known to be toxic and often lethal. Remdesivir was developed as an antiviral drug and tested during the Ebola breakout in 2014. The drug was found to have a very high death rate and was not pursued further.
In the early months of 2020, the drug was entered into COVID trials.2 Those trials were also beyond disappointing.3,4,5 Not only was the drug ineffective against the infection but it also had significant and life-threatening side effects, including kidney failure and liver damage.6
But despite its clear dangers and lack of effectiveness, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still authorized remdesivir for emergency use against COVID in May 2020,7 and then gave it full approval in October 2020.8
How Hospitals Get Rid of ‘Troublesome’ Doctors
When Marik refused to follow the remdesivir protocol, he was subjected to “sham review,” an unofficial but well-known process in which a “troublesome” doctor is accused of wrongdoing and basically railroaded out of practice.
In the end, he was fired, even though he’s never had a single patient complaint in his 30-year career as a critical care specialist. But they didn’t stop there. The hospital administration also reported him to the National Practitioner Databank, and once you’ve been reported as a bad actor to the NPD, it’s virtually impossible to clear your name. Your career is over.
They also reported him to the Board of Medicine, which concocted another set of bogus charges against him. They accused him of prescribing ivermectin to fictional patients whom they falsely claimed were injured by the drug.
“The truth is I was never actually able to prescribe ivermectin,” Marik says. “The patients they claimed I treated were nonexistent patients, so that tells you how far the Virginia Board of Medicine will go … This is the problem if you try to speak out. The [hospital administration] went out of their way to destroy my career because I wanted to treat my patients.”
According to Marik, some of his colleagues who have gone against the narrative have even been physically threatened, and had the lives of their families threatened unless they stop talking. “So, this is serious,” Marik says. The fact of the matter is that doctors who argue against the Big Pharma narrative are a threat to trillion-dollar revenues. Compared to such sums, the value of a doctor’s life is nil.
Enormous Financial Incentives to Kill COVID Patients
Marik points out there were, and still are, enormous financial incentives for hospitals to not provide proper care to COVID patients. Those financial incentives also helped drive up the COVID death count early on in the pandemic. As explained by Marik, every COVID patient has what amounts to a $400,000 to $500,000 bounty on their head, as hospitals receive bonus payments for:9,10
Admission of a “COVID patient,” COVID testing and COVID diagnoses.
Use of remdesivir — According to Marik, the U.S. government pays hospitals a 20% upcharge on the entire hospital bill when remdesivir is used.11,12,13
Use of mechanical ventilation, which Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services whistleblowers claim kill 84.9% of COVID patients within as few as 96 hours,14 typically due to barotrauma15 (trauma to the lungs from the elevated pressure).
COVID deaths — In August 2020, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, agreed hospitals had a financial incentive to overcount COVID deaths.16
According to Marik, whether the patient lives or dies is irrelevant. In fact, if they die, there’s additional monies to be had. The hospitals basically see COVID patients as a cash cow, which is why they don’t tolerate doctors who use early treatment. As shocking as this is to some, it’s not the first time this has happened. Doctors were also paid to prescribe opioids, which contributed to the lethal opioid epidemic.
COVID Jab Injured Patients Desperate for Help
Just as Marik balked at health authorities’ recommendation to not offer early treatment — something completely unheard of until the advent of COVID — he also balked at the idea that patients were faking COVID jab injuries.
After the rollout of the shots, the FLCCC started getting calls from people who were desperate for help, as they suffered serious health problems shortly after their shots. Almost universally, their doctors had told them the shot couldn’t possibly be at fault.
Marik was not so sure, and once he began to really investigate the matter, he realized the data overwhelmingly showed there were serious problems. Marik is now so certain the shots are dangerous, he says he wouldn’t recommend it to a single living soul on the planet, and the FLCCC is now one of the few groups treating COVID jab injuries as well as COVID infection and long-COVID.
‘Unlearning Everything I Learned’
Marik’s professional experiences over the past three years have clearly resulted in a massive awakening to the fact that things have not been as they appeared. He says that in the past six months, he’s come to realize that he was essentially brainwashed by Big Pharma throughout medical school, and that much of what he learned was simply wrong.
He also realized you cannot trust medical journals. They too have been corrupted by Big Pharma. So, now, he’s in the process of unlearning the lies he was taught, and he’s starting anew, looking at health and disease with fresh eyes.
California Bill Seeks to Muzzle Doctors
The harassment and intimidation doctors have suffered under COVID is now cemented into law in California.17 California Assembly Bill 209818 designates “the dissemination or promotion of misinformation or disinformation related to … COVID-19 as unprofessional conduct” warranting “disciplinary action” that could result in the loss of their medical license.19
The bill was approved by the California Legislature September 26, 2022,20 and Gov. Gavin Newsome signed it October 1, 2022.21,22
“Misinformation” is defined as anything that is “contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.” Misinformation or disinformation related to SARS-CoV-2 includes “false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”
Basically, what all this means is that the state will dictate what misinformation is and isn’t, because rarely ever is there scientific consensus on anything. Even after decades of investigation, questions frequently linger, and new discoveries that upend old dogmas can come about at any time.
As noted by The Daily Signal,23 “Who decides what is ‘scientific consensus?’ Presumably … it’s precisely those agencies and government actors who, ironically, have been wrong time and again throughout the pandemic.” For examples, see their video below.
Science only moves forward when there is free exchange of ideas. By preventing doctors from sharing information and knowledge as they see fit with their patients, California bureaucrats are not only violating the U.S. Constitution and destroying the medical profession as we know it, they’re also pushing medical science back into the Dark Ages.
The Hunt for Truth-Tellers
I’ve written several articles over the past couple of years detailing the brutal and unethical treatment of medical professionals who have dared speak out against any part of the irrational COVID narrative.
Dr. Meryl Nass, for example, was stripped of her medical license and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation — all for the “crime” of successfully saving the lives of COVID patients using hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
The three authors included Harvard professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., Oxford professor Sunetra Gupta, Ph.D., and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School.
One of the tactics Fauci used against them was to claim scientific consensus — that most all scientists agreed with lockdowns, masking, social distancing and so on — even though there were just as many, if not more, who disagreed. At the time, more than 46,400 medical practitioners and 15,700 scientists had signed the Declaration.
As noted by Bhattacharya in an interview with Jimmy Dore (see hyperlink above), Fauci and Collins had nothing in terms of actual science. They could not defend lockdowns or anything else based on science alone. So, they turned to propaganda, PR and smear tactics.
Dr. Peter McCullough is another FLCCC member with top-notch medical credentials who is being persecuted by the medical establishment for his outspokenness about early treatment and the dangers of the COVID shots. He’s now written a book, “The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex,” detailing his experiences and the crimes perpetrated against patients, doctors and others in the COVID era.
Dr. Ryan Cole, a clinical pathologist, is yet another example. While he’s been able to be more outspoken than most, thanks to running a private lab, several credentialing organizations have taken action against him in a clear effort to shut him up.
He’s also lost about half of his business, as two insurance companies canceled him for “unprofessional behavior,” i.e., for sharing and discussing the health effects of the COVID jabs, and one of his best friends, with whom he’s worked for 12 years, canceled their business relationship as he didn’t want Cole’s outspokenness to affect his business.
“All because of the defamation by the media, so to tell the truth in this day and age is a dangerous thing,” he told me during an interview earlier this year.
Medicine Has Gone Off the Rails
For the past 25 years, and likely far longer, allopathic medicine has been a leading cause of death in the United States. As detailed in “Are Medical Errors Still the Third Leading Cause of Death?” in 1998, researchers concluded that properly prescribed and correctly taken pharmaceutical drugs were the fourth leading cause of death.24,25
Two years later, in 2000, an article in JAMA written by the late Dr. Barbara Starfield detailed how physicians were the third leading cause of death in the U.S. One of Starfield’s points of contention with the medical system was the lack of systematic recording and studying of adverse events — a shortcoming that has been taken to absurd levels during the COVID era.
A 2003 article titled “Death by Medicine,”26 written by Dr. Carolyn Dean, Gary Null, Ph.D., Dr. Martin Feldman, Dr. Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, Ph.D., described how the modern conventional American medical system had by then bumbled its way into becoming the No. 1 leading cause of death and injury in the United States, claiming the lives of nearly 784,000 people annually.
These iatrogenic deaths (meaning deaths resulting from the activity of physicians) include everything from adverse drug reactions and avoidable medical errors, to hospital-acquired infections, surgeries gone bad and deaths from unnecessary medical procedures.
During COVID, all of the shortcomings of medicine have been amplified to the point that many now refer to hospitals as “killing fields” — places where greed rules and patients are mistreated, tortured and killed for profit.
So far, the COVID death toll in the U.S. is well over 1 million,27 and it’s not inconceivable that a vast majority of those were killed by the “standard of care” treatment given (i.e., remdesivir and ventilation, and the withholding of food and fluids).
In December that year, we also showed how the AMA encouraged lawlessness by telling private companies to ignore a court’s permanent injunction against vaccine mandates and implement mandates anyway.
Facing a Painful Reality
If there’s a silver lining to any of this, it’s that people are starting to realize just how far off the rails the medical system has gone, and that we need to make radical changes.
Even doctors like Marik are waking up to realize everything they thought they knew about medicine was actually Big Pharma propaganda, and that profits, not care, is the guiding light of most hospitals.
Many, like Marik, are shocked to realize they are being penalized for trying to improve care and save lives at low cost. I recently interviewed critical care physician Dr. Pierre Kory, another member of the FLCCC, who admitted he was woefully naïve when he first started speaking out about ivermectin back in 2020.
He thought the FLCCC would be hailed as heroes. Instead, they were vilified, maligned, persecuted and fired, and continue to be persecuted to this day, as they’re now also treating COVID jab injuries, which aren’t supposed to exist.
Kory has now written a book, “War on Ivermectin: The Medicine That Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the COVID Pandemic,” which will be available after November 15, 2022,28 detailing the playbook used to suppress ivermectin and other effective COVID treatments. My interview with him, in which we discuss these tactics, will air sometime in mid-November.
In closing, if you or someone you know still cannot believe that a doctor would ever withhold information or straight out lie to you, listen to Kirsch’s interview with Marik. Listen to Nass’s story. Read Kory’s book. Look at the legislation being pushed through in California.
Imagine being a doctor with hundreds of thousands of dollars in educational loans, and being told that if you share information that steers a patient away from “standard of care” — whatever that might be — you could lose your medical license. You could lose your career.
It takes a brave heart to stand up to that kind of pressure, which is why there are so few of them out there talking about early treatment and the dangers of remdesivir, ventilation and the COVID jabs. Those who cherish their health will do well to listen to those who are actually putting everything on the line to share the truth.
