COVID Kerfuffle!

Photo from Pixabay.

Readers may have seen the kerfuffle between Dr. Robert Malone and journalist Alex Berenson. They were both guests on Fox News to talk about big tech censorship when Berenson, apropos of nothing, accused Dr. Malone of inflating his credentials and misleading people about ivermectin. After the interview, Malone immediately listed several of his patents and papers on his substack; Berenson so far hasn't produced any evidence to back up his accusations. And the accusations have blown up in his face: readers are unsubscribing to his substack, Unreported Truths, en masse and supporters are closing their wallets. Many of them have gone over to the substack of Robert Malone.

I haven't seen anything like this since Denise Minger debunked The China Study. Even the documentary Fathead, which debunked Supersize Me, didn't seem to cause such an uproar. But both Minger and Tom Naughton (who made Fathead) brought the receipts and neither The China Study nor Supersize Me stood up to their mathematical and scientific scrutiny.

So why did Alex Berenson make accusations without backing them up? My best guess, based on his book Pandemia, is that his physician wife and their New York City friends are very unhappy with his stance on the COVID vaccines and his appearances on Fox News. Perhaps he also wanted to shake off the wing nuts in his audience. Many of the comments on his substack are batshit crazy theories about depopulation and election fraud that would never be approved here on Pain, Pain, Go Away. Maybe he figured trying to discredit Dr. Malone would run off the nutters and placate his wife at the same time. If so, he's likely succeeded--more than he intended.

Dr. Malone followed up with a post about ivermectin in Uttar Pradesh. This site shows they've had a very low death rate compared to other Indian states, and other states mentioned in various news sources as using ivermectin likewise have had low death rates. So this is some observational evidence that ivermectin is helpful against COVID. (Others have dived far more deeply into this subject than I'm willing or able to.) He adds that a colleague on vacation in India sent him a picture of one of the COVID care packages distributed throughout the region:

Source: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/socrates-thought-police-ivermectin

Assuming the contents of this pack are saving people from dying of COVID, could the other ingredients be having an effect? Paracetamol is Tylenol, so likely nothing more than a pain reliever. Zinc--possibly. D3? Two doses, even two big ones, may or may not have much effect since it takes time for your body to build up its vitamin D level. Doxycycline is an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory; this study didn't show any benefit for COVID patients. So maybe ivermectin is helping people.

It may not matter much at this point. It's almost all Omicron now. Even here in Indiana, where we've lagged most other places, cases are starting to go down in Indianapolis and the outskirts of Chicago. My coworkers in the suburbs of Indy are catching COVID left and right, yet I haven't heard about a serious case among them. I feel left out! One person thought I had immunity from the colds I've caught; another thought my blood type (O) helped. Thanks to immunity and repurposed drugs being treated as stepchildren, we'll probably never get a good answer to any of these questions.

Alex Berenson has written recently that COVID is over and boosters are over. Be that as it may, COVID vaccine injuries, health agency malfeasance, and the effects of the government response, all of which he writes about, are all still important. He's done some terrific reporting (aside from his latest appearance on Fox News) and for that reason I'm keeping him on the blog roll. I still recommend his book Pandemia. If the quality of his reporting diminishes, though, I will revisit the decision to support his work.

Comments

Thanksgiving recipes for Pumpkin Pie & Cranberries--printable!

If you'd rather read a printed recipe than watch a video, here are my recent recipes for Better than Grandma's Pumpkin Pie and Probiotic Cranberry-Apple Relish. Hat tip to Dana Carpender, whose pumpkin pie recipe inspired this one. The cranberry-apple ferment is entirely my own creation. Pumpkin Pie--no grains, sugar or emulsifiers Crust 2 cups shelled raw pecans 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon monk fruit powder* (or 3 tablespoons sugar substitute) 4 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons water Pumpkin Pie Filling 1 pie pumpkin 1-1/2 cups half and half (with no thickeners) 3 eggs 3-4 teaspoons monk fruit powder* (or 3/4 cup sugar substitute) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice Preheat the oven to 350F. Stab the top of the pumpkin all the way through the flesh in a few places at the top. Place the pumpkin on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour. Let cool. While the pumpkin is baking, put the pecans in a food processor with the S blade and run until they are finely...

Fly with Reuteri

If you're planning to travel by plane and you want to keep enjoying the benefits of l. reuteri yogurt, you might have gotten sticker shock from the price of l. reuteri probiotics. MyReuteri * costs $46 to $83 for 30 capsules, depending on the CFUs (colony-forming units, or the number of viable microorganisms). If you're thinking about economizing by putting some yogurt in a sturdy container and taking it with you, you can do that. I'll break down the pros and cons and look at some alternatives. Photo from Unsplash . Cost Yogurt might be less expensive than probiotics, but it isn't free. A half-cup serving costs about 70¢ to make if you start with a previous batch. It contains about 90 billion CFUs if fermented for 36 hours. This is a lot less than $5.56 for two capsules of 50 billion CFU MyReuteri, but for a one-week vacation, you'd only save $34 by eating yogurt instead. (You can freeze any unused capsules for later.) Furthermore, the yogurt would have to go in ...

Cigna is Making Progress

Yesterday as I put my lunch in the refrigerator at work, I noticed a bunch of unfamiliar people in the break room. One of them, Pepe, started in: they were there for the health fair, they would check your cholesterol, the sugar in your blood, your height, your weight, and it would just take six minutes. A coworker asked him if he'd ever considered a career in sales. Just for blog fodder, I participated. They really were fast, and one even found me at my desk (in an office nearly half the size of a city block) after the tests were finished. My HDL cholesterol was 65--up from 42 from a year and a half ago, and up from 57, where it was last year when I'd been three months a low-carb diet . A level over 60 is considered good. I haven't taken any medication to make this happen. I went on a low-carb diet and eliminated wheat. I also take vitamin and mineral supplements in addition to a high-nutrient diet. What impressed me more, though, was that the nurse (and Cigna) said that bl...

30-second Fix for a Cracked Stick Blender

Use Mighty Fixit (if you still have some from 2012) or Rescue Tape (which looks like a similar product) to fix a cracked stick blender. After I fixed the attachment, I washed it in the sink and the tape held up. I also wrapped a knife handle several years ago, and it's been through thousands of washings.

Holiday Dinner Tip from Restaurant Pros: Limit the Menu

After watching some people online getting freaked out about trying to put on holiday dinners and getting overwhelmed to the point that they're thinking about canceling the whole thing, I thought I'd put out a restaurant tip that will help people put on a dinner with less aggravation. A big complaint among the frustrated home cooks I've seen is that family members are not contributing to the dinner. But a bigger problem I see is that their menu is just too big. One lady's family is having her make 12 dishes all by herself, and some of these dishes look pretty complicated. Watch the video here or read on. The reason this is aggravating is that more dishes mean more shopping, more prep, and more cleanup. It's hard to make several dishes that will all be ready at the same time. Even though I used to be a prep cook at a restaurant, I've put on Thanksgiving dinners myself, and I cook from scratch almost every day, there's no way I'd try to make a 12-course di...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog