Self-medicating for COVID with Cheap Drugs
With the recent spate of “breakthrough cases,” we’re seeing the fully vaccinated getting infected with SARS-2, the novel coronavirus the world has been battling the last two years. Since the vaccines don’t always prevent infection but do lessen the severity of symptoms when they do fail, one might think of the COVID vaccines as therapeutics. That simple observation occurred to this writer before hearing it made by Alex Berenson on the August 30 episode of Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program. If one watches the three-minute video, at the 53-second point one hears Berenson say this: “If you look at the efficacy and duration of the vaccines, it’s probably more accurate to call them therapeutics than vaccines.”
A very similar statement had just gotten Mr. Berenson knocked off of Twitter. Also on August 30, at Legal Insurrection, Leslie Eastman came to Berenson’s defense, concluding: “The data suggest that Berenson wasn’t spreading ‘misinformation’ and was merely providing context and insight that goes against the preferred narrative.” Eastman itemized how Berenson was correct.
Whether it’s correct to classify the COVID vaccines as therapeutics or not, in 2010 the FDA approved the first of what are called “therapeutic vaccines,” which are administered after one contracts a disease in order to enlist the patient’s own immune system to battle infection. The COVID vaccines, however, are supposed to be prophylactic vaccines, given to prevent contracting disease.
We should never have been led to believe that the vaccines would be panaceas. That’s because other vaccines, like those for the seasonal flu, don’t always prevent infection. Perhaps the vaunted vaccines will soon be obsolete, and effective only for dead variants. Also, the virus is constantly mutating, with new variants regularly emerging. On September 4, Salon reported on the mu variant:
[T]he WHO also announced that it will start naming variants after stars and constellations once it runs out of Greek letters. Mu is the 12th letter in the Greek alphabet, meaning scientists are already halfway through that system… because Andromeda is a constellation, “‘Andromeda Strain’ is now technically possible as a name,” referencing the 1969 Michael Crichton novel that was adapted into a 1971 film.
The World Health Organization should save “Andromeda Strain” to name some new variant that is far more lethal than any of the SARS-2 variants we’ve seen so far, as the “remedy” the scientists had for Andromeda was a nuclear bomb.
One can appreciate why folks might want to avoid a visit to the doctor. Modern medicine can save lives, but it often comes at quite a price. Medicine can involve radiation, harsh chemicals (that kill pathogens just before they start to kill the patient), and cutting off body parts, such as orchiectomy (castration) for prostate cancer. (Incidentally, there’s a therapeutic vaccine for prostate cancer: Provenge.)
The “miracles” of modern medicine are often treatments that normal folks want to avoid. Not only that, but medical “consensus” is often quite wrong, as the medical establishment is continually backtracking and revising itself. Of course, constant revision is the nature of science.
Medical diagnoses are often wrong, which is why folks seek second opinions. Also, modern medicine seems more about treating disease than optimizing health. So, many folks want to avoid doctors and take responsibility for their health themselves; they practice “self-medication.”
The Country Club Plaza is an upscale shopping district in Kansas City through which I’ve taken countless walks. Years ago I’d occasionally see a little old lady on the Plaza and she always wore dainty white gloves. Maybe her white gloves were a “fashion statement.” Or maybe she was a germaphobe trying to avoid the latest “designer disease” from the couturiers of Wuhan. If the gloves were for protection, then the little lady was taking responsibility for her health. Perhaps she was practicing self-medication and even took vitamins.
One self-medication is Vitamin C. An early champion of Vitamin C was one of history’s greatest scientists, Linus Pauling, who recommended mega-doses of the stuff. Vitamin C spurs the production of interferon, which is anti-viral. Interferon is even being investigated as a possible treatment for COVID. (Red wine is thought to boost interferon, but it comes with acetaldehyde.)
You probably already know this stuff if you’re a health nut. As a one-time health nut myself, I was interested to learn that Zinc in conjunction with certain therapeutics is prescribed for COVID. That’s because I chew Zinc and Vitamin C pills to coat my throat when I feel a sore throat coming on, and it helps. If I ever notice any COVID symptoms, I’ll immediately start chewing C and Zinc tablets; that is, I’ll self-medicate.
But in addition to vitamins, minerals, micro-nutrients, and such, what I’d also like to have in my COVID arsenal are therapeutics like hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin. But the medical establishment doesn’t want us to have cheap drugs that’ll keep us off of ventilators and save our lives, they want us all vaxxed up.
Perhaps the main reason certain public health bureaucrats should be fired and even indicted is how they’ve treated therapeutics, especially HCQ and ivermectin. These bureaucrats pooh-pooh the efficacy and use of therapeutics while holding up the vaccines as our only hope. We can only speculate about how many lives would have been saved had the medical establishment prescribed therapeutics at the first sign of infection.
Just because one has a medical degree doesn’t mean that one must therefore be ethical; let’s not forget “Dr.” Josef Mengele. The sainted Dr. Anthony Fauci seems to have lied to Congress about his part in developing the coronavirus that’s killed millions around the globe. In “Things Get Ripe” on July 30, James Kunstler wrote this about the “good doctor”:
Not only did he finance the development of the COVID-19 virus so he could heroically bring forth a super-vax to the awe of mankind, and gain a niche in the pantheon of Great Men in History (plus make a buck on his share of the vax patents), but he screwed up the public health messaging so badly that Science itself now looks like a mere evil racket instead of the great achievement it used to be. His reputation is shot and he could end his days in an orange jump suit doing Chinese fire drills up and down the exercise court at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.
Don’t expect any “justice” (whatever that is in Biden’s America) to be visited upon Tony. However, since you’ve made it all this way, it might be time to go hardcore and read Paul Craig Roberts’ September 10 article at LewRockwell, “The Powerful Case Against COVID mRNA Vaccine.” It’s a powerful article and I recommend it highly. However, Roberts makes some huge claims about rot and corruption in the medical industry and in Big Pharma. I’ll leave Roberts’ charges for the reader to sort out, but if they’re even halfway true, we’re in big trouble.
One issue Roberts reports on that I will weigh in on is the use of HCQ, and in Africa, ivermectin. We should demand that these safe cheap drugs be more easily obtainable here in America. Indeed, they need to be available over-the-counter, so we can self-medicate and bypass doctors when we don’t really need them.
Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.
Image: PxFuel
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