Health & Fitness

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been ruled a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).¹ "Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom, in his opening remarks at a media briefing about coronavirus.

"It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear," he said. Though a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus has never been seen before, he added, the world has also "never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled," implying that this may be possible with COVID-19.

As I write this, much of the U.S. has been shut down with people asked to remain in their homes except for performing essential errands — a provision that no one can recall in recent memory. However, a look at pandemics throughout history verifies Adhanom's optimism, as never before did we have the communications systems and medical abilities available now.

Many Have Heard Scary Plague Stories

Many of you reading this may have grown up exchanging scary stories you had heard about the plague and the "Black Death," perhaps around a campfire. You may also know of Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 frightening short story, "The Masque of the Red Death,"² in which nobles try to escape a plague by locking themselves in an abbey and holding a masquerade ball.

A ghoulish stranger finds his way into the abbey, according to the story, and even though the stranger proves to be an empty costume with no person inside, all the nobles die of the Red Death.

While the Red and Black Deaths scared schoolchildren for ages, scholars think the Red Death that Poe fabricated for his story was actually tuberculosis (TB), which his wife was suffering from at the time.³ The disease, also called consumption, took other close members of Poe's family including his mother, foster mother and brother.⁴ The empty visitor is now seen as a symbolic narrative device.

The sudden death that the plague and tuberculosis posed in Poe's day and their spread were indeed frightening and interpreted, like other pandemics, as divine punishment. But we now know that both diseases, as well as leprosy, which was also pandemic in the Middle Ages,⁵ are caused by bacteria and therefore treatable with antibiotics.

Plague,⁶ TB and leprosy, now called Hansen's disease,⁷ still exist today but no longer terrify people because we understand microbial pathogens and transmission. We know the plague is caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium,⁸ TB by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium⁹ and Hansen's disease by Mycobacterium leprae.¹⁰

Certainly, the age of jet travel has heightened the spread of pandemic-capable diseases, and excessive antibiotic use has created resistant versions of many bacteria. But unlike in Poe's day and the epochs before him, our understanding of microbial pathogens and ways to address them has removed much of the fear of pandemics.

There Were Several Plagues, Not Just One

"The plague" occurred centuries ago and decimated entire populations. The bubonic strain of the plague, the most common, was characterized by swollen lymph nodes called "buboes" and killed from 30% to 60% of its victims.¹¹ However, not everyone realizes there were actually several plagues over the centuries.¹²

The Plague of Justinian started in Constantinople in 541 AD and rapidly spread across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa taking the lives of 30 million to 50 million people. At the time, that would have equaled half the world's population.¹³

In 1347, 800 years later, the plague reared its ugly head as the Black Death in Europe, claiming 200 million lives in four years, one-third of the world's population.¹⁴ The Black Death was so devastating that it changed politics forever: England and France declared a truce to their ongoing war and the British feudal system collapsed.

During the Black Death and subsequent pandemics there was no scientific understanding of disease transmission, but there was a growing awareness that proximity somehow heightened the problem — a first nod to the concept of social distancing.¹⁵

That is why it was decided in Venice during the Black Death that arriving sailors had to stay on their ships for 30 days until it was clear they were disease-free in an early demonstration of the concept of quarantine, called "quarantino" at the time.¹⁶ Still, outbreaks of the plague continued unabated despite early quarantine efforts, according to History.com:¹⁷

"London never really caught a break after the Black Death. The plague resurfaced roughly every 20 years from 1348 to 1665—40 outbreaks in 300 years. And with each new plague epidemic, 20 percent of the men, women and children living in the British capital were killed.

By the early 1500s, England imposed the first laws to separate and isolate the sick. Homes stricken by plague were marked with a bale of hay strung to a pole outside. If you had infected family members, you had to carry a white pole when you went out in public."

Two hundred years after London's 1665 Great Plague, a third plague surfaced in 1855, which was concentrated in China and India, and killed an additional 15 million people.¹⁸

Finding the Cause of the Plague Reduced the Terror

Panic and suspicion of others is the hallmark of pandemics like the plague because transmissibility isn't known and people are terrified. In England, dogs and cats were suspected of spreading the disease and slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands,¹⁹ which only intensified the pandemic since rats, which no one knew were spreading the disease, had no predators.²⁰

Finally, the cause of the plague was revealed. According to research published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection:²¹

"The causative bacterium of plague was described and cultured by Alexandre Yersin in Hong Kong in 1894, after which transmission of bacteria from rodents by flea bites was discovered by Jean-Paul Simond in 1898. Effective treatment with antiserum was initiated in 1896 … supplanted by sulphonamides in the 1930s and by streptomycin starting in 1947 …

Serological diagnosis with fraction 1 antigen to detect anti-plague antibodies was developed in the 1950s. Vaccine development started in 1897 with killed whole bacterial cells, and this was followed by a live attenuated bacterial vaccine, leading to millions of persons receiving injections."

The plague still exists today but no longer strikes panic in the public because its etiology from rat fleas is now known.²²

The Smallpox Pandemic Was Also Terrifying

Just like the plague, many have heard frightening stories about historical smallpox pandemics. After a high fever and pain, smallpox causes cratered pockmarks all over the body, disfigurement and occasional blindness, and kills as many as 30% of its victims.²³

As with the plague, millions died from smallpox over the centuries, and fear and mistrust were rampant until the virus that causes it, variola, was identified and treatments were developed. Historians now believe that what may have been termed the plague in early pandemics was actually smallpox. According to History.com:²⁴

"Many historians speculate that smallpox likewise brought about the devastating Plague of Athens in 430 B.C. and the Antonine Plague of A.D. 165 to 180, the later of which killed an estimated 3.5 million to 7 million people, including Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and hastened the decline of the Roman Empire …"

Smallpox was initially treated with "variolation," in which pus from stricken patients was introduced into healthy people, but the disease continued to spread. According to History.com:²⁵

"Variolation notwithstanding, smallpox continued wreaking havoc on princes and paupers alike. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it killed several reigning European monarchs, including Habsburg Emperor Joseph I, Queen Mary II of England, Czar Peter II of Russia and King Louis XV of France … in Europe alone, an estimated 400,000 commoners were succumbing to smallpox annually."

In 1796, Edward Jenner, an English doctor, developed a vaccine against smallpox. While it's often said that this is what defeated the disease, there is evidence that it wasn't vaccines but, rather, isolation and sanitation that overcame smallpox.

Influenza Pandemics Have Also Been Deadly

Compared with plague and smallpox, influenza or "flu" pandemics occurred much later in recorded history, but they have been just as devastating. According to Business Insider, in 1889:²⁶

"The first significant flu pandemic started in Siberia and Kazakhstan, traveled to Moscow, and made its way into Finland and then Poland, where it moved into the rest of Europe. By the following year, it had crossed the ocean into North America and Africa. By the end of 1890, 360,000 had died."

Unlike plague, TB or Hansen's Disease, influenza is caused by a virus, arguably harder to treat than the bacteria that cause diseases. According to the News Observer:²⁷

"A virus only works by invading a cell within an organism and taking over that cell's machinery to reproduce itself. By itself, it doesn't contain all ability to do everything it needs to survive and replicate. It essentially has to parasitize that other cell … for many viruses, in particular, we don't have very effective therapy."

The 1889 flu that originated in Russia was followed by the Asian flu of 1957-1958, which killed 1.1 million globally and 116,000 people in the U.S.²⁸ Just 10 years later in 1968, the Hong Kong flu, an adaptation of the Asian flu, surfaced killing 1 million globally and about 100,000 in the U.S.²⁹

The granddaddy of all flu epidemics and the one that is most on people's minds during the coronavirus pandemic is the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:³⁰

"The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history … Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918.

It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world's population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States …

… control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly."

Disease Pandemics Have Continued

The 1968 Hong Kong flu was not the last influenza pandemic. Many will remember the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic that surfaced a little over a decade ago. According to the CDC:³¹

"In the spring of 2009, a novel influenza A (H1N1) virus emerged. It was detected first in the United States and spread quickly … From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases, 274,304 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths in the United States."

Another recent pandemic was the HIV/AIDS outbreak, which exploded in the 1980s. According to the CDC:³²

"First identified in 1981, AIDS destroys a person's immune system, resulting in eventual death by diseases that the body would usually fight off …

AIDS … is believed to have developed from a chimpanzee virus from West Africa in the 1920s … Treatments have been developed to slow the progress of the disease, but 35 million people worldwide have died of AIDS."

Then in 2003, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) erupted in China. According to the CDC, SARS:³³

" … is believed to have possibly started with bats, spread to cats and then to humans in China, followed by 26 other countries, infecting 8,096 people, with 774 deaths. SARS is characterized by respiratory problems, dry cough, fever and head and body aches and is spread through respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes.

Quarantine efforts proved effective and … the virus was contained and hasn't reappeared since. China was criticized for trying to suppress information about the virus at the beginning of the outbreak."

According to research from the National Institutes of Health, the current coronavirus is a form of SARS but with greater communicability:³⁴

"The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects …

SARS-CoV-1 was eradicated by intensive contact tracing and case isolation measures and no cases have been detected since 2004 … In … [a] stability study the two viruses behaved similarly, which unfortunately fails to explain why COVID-19 has become a much larger outbreak."

From the original plague to the 1980s "plague" of AIDS, eventually the "codes" of the pathogens have been cracked and treatments and other measures, like increased sanitation and personal hygiene, found to end the pandemics — and history will likely continue to repeat itself.

from Articles https://ift.tt/39x7LW6
via IFTTT

The new Google app "Corona Waze" asks users to "tag" individuals who sneeze, cough, are sweating or have a runny nose. You can also tag people who do not use soap or wash their hands for at least 20 seconds, or for other social distancing violations. People can also be tagged for not wearing gloves or masks, or hoarding toilet paper and cleaning supplies.

Facial recognition systems deployed through nationwide security cameras will be used to identify offenders who are not carrying cell phones while Google's Fitbit will automatically report unfavorable biometrics to alert emergency services. Google's Android phone camera will utilize thermographic temperature fluctuations while taking selfies or pictures of others to alert medical marshals of potential fevers.

Surveillance companies like Google have become essential tools to properly enforce pandemic protocols. An accelerated nationwide 5G rollout has been mandated to support biometric feedback sensors to instantly alert the medical establishment of potential threats to others.

Medical Surveillance Is Key for Controlling Outbreaks

Google's parent company, Alphabet, has partnered with the federal government's health department and launched an online portal for COVID-19 testing that will be under the auspices of Verily, it's health care and life sciences arm.¹

To apply for a test, you have to fill out a symptoms checklist and provide your travel history, health status and information about contact with individuals known to be infected. You must also provide a valid Google account² — which requests a cellphone number as part of its account creation process — so your health data can be merged and you can be properly tracked through your cell phone.

For now, only those with high risk scores will be allowed to get tested.³ As reported by The Seattle Times:⁴

"The U.S. government is in active talks with Facebook, Google and a wide array of tech companies and health experts about how they can use location data gleaned from Americans' phones to combat the novel coronavirus, including tracking whether people are keeping one another at safe distances to stem the outbreak …

The early, unprecedented collaboration between Washington and Silicon Valley reflects the urgent, nationwide scramble to stop a deadly malady that has shuttered businesses, skewered the stock market, sent students home from school and now threatens to overwhelm the U.S. medical system with patients in need of critical care."

According to The Seattle Times,⁵ "dozens of engineers, executives and epidemiologists" are also urging Apple and Google to use their data-gathering expertise to "help doctors determine people who were in contact with a patient that later tested positive for coronavirus."

All of this will be rather easy with Verily's COVID-19 testing portal up and running, as having access to infection and health data, combined with the ability to track in great detail the exact whereabouts of a majority of Americans (anyone who uses the online portal).

As noted by Slate magazine, "Verily's portal may constitute the largest acquisition of U.S. health data by private companies to date." The Corona Waze will tie into and further add to all that data by relying on real-time reports from the real world. The future of infectious disease control will outweigh any potential privacy rights you may have thought existed.

Will Health Trump Privacy From Here On?

The tracking system about to be launched in the U.S. is eerily similar to that already being used in China, where residents are required to enroll in a health condition registry.

Once enrolled, they get a personal QR code, which they must then enter in order to gain access to grocery stores and other facilities. As reported by Berggruen Institute in its March 6, 2020 article, "Tracking the Coronavirus Shows Health Will Trump Privacy":⁶

"'China has an edge in the ability to combine strong, top-down government directive with vibrant grassroots-level innovation,' says Shanghai-based management guru Edward Tse. 'Beyond this, China has an abundance of data to train AI-learning algorithms because of its huge population of internet users — more than 700 million.

China's thriving mobile internet ecosystem also provides a test bed for AI researchers to collect and analyze valuable demographics and transactional and behavioral big data and to conduct large-scale experiments at a much higher level than foreign counterparts' …

China's extant social monitoring systems complete the picture of what is possible … Ant Financial has developed software that color codes^7,8 a person's infectious status in green (clean), yellow (caution, report to health authorities) and red (quarantine) based on responses to a questionnaire about your location, where you have been, who you have seen, if you have a cough, and so on."

On the face of it, the idea for Corona Waze appears to have been ripped straight from Ant Financial's pages. The article continues:⁹

"To anyone concerned with civil liberties, it is a bit scary that all this tracking information on people's location and movements is shared with the authorities and could well be used for other reasons of social control.

That is certainly an issue within the context of China's surveillance state. Yet those of us in the West should not be naïve that, when it comes to health issues, even open societies will invite these new surveillance technologies.

'The big battle in this regard in the 21st century will be between privacy and health. And health will win,' 'Homo Deus' author Yuval Harari told me in a conversation last year. 'Most people will be willing to give up their privacy in exchange for much better health care, based on 24-hour monitoring …"

In China, this monitoring includes the deployment of 5G-equipped, internet-of-things sensors that measure people's body temperature. "Anyone with a temperature above 37.3 degrees Celsius (99.14 F) could be ill," China Xinhua News says in a February 15, 2020 Twitter post, adding:¹⁰

"Check out this 5G robot that can now be found at many train stations and airports across China amid the coronavirus outbreak." Guess that means you can't run when you're late anymore, since physical exertion will raise your temperature, leading to quarantine.

Pandemic Measures Are Rapidly Eroding Privacy

The current coronavirus pandemic stands poised to dismantle personal privacy rights in a dramatic way. As reported by The New York Times, March 23, 2020:¹¹

"In South Korea, government agencies are harnessing surveillance-camera footage, smartphone location data and credit card purchase records to help trace the recent movements of coronavirus patients and establish virus transmission chains.

In Lombardy, Italy, the authorities are analyzing location data transmitted by citizens' mobile phones to determine how many people are obeying a government lockdown order and the typical distances they move every day. About 40 percent are moving around "too much," an official recently said.

In Israel, the country's internal security agency is poised to start using a cache of mobile phone location data — originally intended for counterterrorism operations — to try to pinpoint citizens who may have been exposed to the virus.

As countries around the world race to contain the pandemic, many are deploying digital surveillance tools as a means to exert social control, even turning security agency technologies on their own civilians …

Yet ratcheting up surveillance to combat the pandemic now could permanently open the doors to more invasive forms of snooping later. It is a lesson Americans learned after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, civil liberties experts say.

Nearly two decades later, law enforcement agencies have access to higher-powered surveillance systems, like fine-grained location tracking and facial recognition — technologies that may be repurposed to further political agendas …

'We could so easily end up in a situation where we empower local, state or federal government to take measures in response to this pandemic that fundamentally change the scope of American civil rights,' said Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a nonprofit organization in Manhattan."

Google Is Not Bound by Health Care Privacy Laws

Already, concerns about Google having access to people's health information through partnerships with hospitals have been raised.¹² The problem isn't just that the monopoly will be able to know who's suffering from what ailment. It's that it makes its profits from selling that data to unscrupulous third parties, and takes no responsibility for how those third parties use that data. As noted in Slate magazine:¹³

"Neither Google nor Verily is a health care provider. They owe users none of the duties that doctors owe to patients, and federal privacy laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, do not apply.

That's a serious problem because companies can exploit people's data in surreptitious ways that violate their expectations and jeopardize their rights. Data might be shared with advertisers, sold to insurance companies, or used to calculate consumer credit scores that control access to resources."

The least harmful of these may appear to be advertisers, but while personalized targeted advertising is typically regarded as harmless, perhaps even desirable, the fact is that advertisers will be able to take advantage of people when they're at their weakest — when they're ill. This data can also be used by insurance companies and employers to secretly discriminate against individuals for any number of reasons.

China's Draconian Tracking Measures Head West

That China's draconian tracking measures are headed west is also evidenced in a March 21, 2020, Politico article¹⁴ titled "DOJ Seeks New Emergency Powers Amid Coronavirus Epidemic." In a nutshell, the Justice Department is asking for the power to "detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies" — including health pandemics. Politico reports:¹⁵

"The request raised eyebrows because of its potential implications for habeas corpus — the constitutional right to appear before a judge after arrest and seek release. 'Not only would it be a violation of that, but it says 'affecting pre-arrest,'' said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

'So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.'

Reimer said the possibility of chief judges suspending all court rules during an emergency without a clear end in sight was deeply disturbing. 'That is something that should not happen in a democracy,' he said."

Pandemic Necessitates Proof of Vaccination, Bill Gates Says

Evidence that we're moving into a new paradigm where personal freedom is obliterated is also presented in a March 19, 2020, Newspunch article,¹⁶ which notes: "The world as we know it will change forever in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Bill Gates, who declared that we will soon have 'digital certificates' to display our health and vaccination status."

Gates also says we need a national tracking system, and that positive tests for infectious disease must be publicly identifiable so that people will know to maintain social distance to infectious individuals. The digital certificate Gates refers to could be a tattoo made with invisible ink^17,18 on a person's body, likely the forearm.

"The only catch is that you won't know exactly what is being put into your digital certificate. You also won't know who will have access to the data," Newspunch notes.¹⁹ "If history repeats, it will go from being technology adopted for its 'convenience and safety' and then overnight will become mandatory for you and your family — or else."

Economic Collapse Will Likely Lead to Suicide Spike

In the wake of the economic recession that began in 2008, researchers detected a "dramatic spike in suicides," Forbes²⁰ and Science Daily²¹ reported in 2014. The findings were published in the British Journal of Psychiatry June 12, 2014.²²

By comparing suicide data from years before 2007 with data from 2008 until 2010, they concluded the recession had caused more than 10,000 people across the U.S., Canada and Europe to commit suicide. As noted by the authors, "Job loss, debt and foreclosure increase risks of suicidal thinking."

In the first week starting March 16, 2020, 281,000 Americans filed initial unemployment claims at the highest increase since 1992, according to CNN Business.²³ For the week of March 23, Goldman Sachs economists predict another 2.25 million will file for unemployment.²⁴

March 23, U.S. News reported²⁵ that "James Bullard, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis … believes unemployment could hit 30% during the second quarter of the year." That's an unemployment rate exceeding even that during the Great Depression, which peaked at 24.9% in 1933.²⁶ It seems foolish to believe the U.S. (and indeed global) suicide rate is not going to skyrocket as a result.

Is Minimizing Death Toll the Real Reason for the Shutdown?

Unemployment is predicted to reach over 30%, higher than the unemployment rates during the Great Depression that might result in a far greater loss of life than the virus ever could.   Just 10 years ago, the World Health Organization came under great pressure for 'faking' a pandemic because of significant influence of the pharmaceutical companies.

While shelter-at-home recommendations and required closings of schools, businesses and social venues have differed a bit from state to state and have been implemented at varying rates, widespread shutdowns began around March 16, 2020,²⁷ at which point the total death toll attributed to COVID-19, for the entire U.S., stood at 85.²⁸

Overnight, the stock market plunged and over the following week, basic household necessities vanished from store shelves across the country, revealing a surprising shortage of toilet paper supply.  The swine flu deaths in 2010 were estimated at 12,000 and number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. will likely be very similar.

Naturally, every life has value and every death is tragic, but considering preventable medical errors kill more than 1,205 Americans PER DAY, or around 440,000 each year, it seems curious that we're shutting down the entire country over deaths numbering in the hundreds.

Opioid overdoses claim more than 130 people per day,³⁰ and the pain reliever Vioxx — a single dangerous drug — killed about 60,000 patients in the five years it was on the market (1999 to 2004), as many as died in the Vietnam War, according to David Graham, associate director for science and medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.³¹

Even if the coronavirus death toll mounts into the thousands by the time all is said and done, it still doesn't compare to the death toll occurring from avoidable medical errors and frequently prescribed dangerous drugs, year in and year out.

Surely, if minimizing the annual death toll were a driving factor for radical government intervention, government and health officials would have acted to put a stop to these catastrophically high yet entirely preventable death tolls by now. Yet they never did, which suggests that minimizing mortality isn't really a determinant factor.

Why would several thousand deaths from a contagious disease be more important than the hundreds of thousands killed by government and Big Pharma every year? Why are they more important than the thousands that will commit suicide due to economic recession? It's not a matter of not caring about those who die. It's a question of why are some deaths perfectly acceptable and others justify complete removal of your rights & privacy?

If curtailing the number of deaths is not the determining factor driving this manufactured recession, then what is? Is it a test to see whether we will voluntarily surrender all of our last remaining freedoms in exchange for government, Big Pharma and the Big Tech Surveillance Capitalists "saving" us from one of many infectious diseases?

A Not So Funny April Fool's

While this is our annual April Fool's edition, 99% of it is true. The only detail that is made up is the "Corona Waze" app by Google. The World Health Organization, however, is indeed developing an app that has been described as "Waze for COVID-19."³²

It appears that app would primarily be concerned with disseminating timely information and updates about COVID-19 though, although some user interactivity might be possible. Aside from that detail, everything else is actually happening.

I strongly recommend you read our April Fool's predictions from 2015, "US Government Rolls Out Mandatory Adult Vaccination and Tracking Program," and 2019, "Federal Government Mandates Vaccine Reeducation Camps — The Dystopian Future Has Arrived," to see how they've held up.

Is the current pandemic just an opportunity for consolidation and control? Every decade or so, economic collapse, taxpayer bailouts and mass consolidation occurs. It took place in 1987, 1999, 2008 and, now, 2020.

Like a good gambler, the global elitists build economic confidence by letting someone win a few rounds with a growing stock market — then take it all away, primarily through 401k and other investment accounts.

The thing is, you need a fearful populace in order to be able to take rights and freedoms away. War no longer has the desired effect, so in more recent years, the focus seems to have shifted to viral pandemics where people have at least a little bit of personal skin in the game.

MERS, SARS, bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, Zika and, now, COVID-19 — each outbreak has brought us deeper into the controlled chaos that only fear and panic can provide — the kind of chaos that will require a total surrendering of personal rights to protect society at large; to protect ourselves from ourselves.

For those unfamiliar with Event 201, you can research this coincidental coronavirus pandemic exercise led by Bill Gates Foundation in October, 2019.  The reality is the virus has been here with us for longer than we have been told, and this virus will move from northern to southern hemisphere and be a part of our regular 'cold and flu' season.  

Censorship and controlled talking points are suddenly the norm. It started with banning online discussions about vaccine harms, and the same obnoxious justification — protecting public health — is now being used to censor information about coronavirus.³³

Recently, Twitter has marked all Mercola.com links as 'Unsafe'. Increasingly, we're seeing more and more governments partnering to "fight misinformation." This, despite the fact that much of what's being censored is factual truth and published science. Government, Big Pharma and Big Tech are big enough to take everything you have to "give you everything you need." Or so they claim. Yet, none of them can actually help you, as an individual, from getting sick, or aid your recovery.

There are many questions worth asking at this time. If you can even temporarily suspend human rights, are there really any rights at all? If the common flu kills 40,000 people in the U.S. every year, as they claim, what will prevent every fall from requiring a pandemic emergency response? Is there ever an end?

The Theft and Sale of Human Experience

Every time you use Google search, they are really searching you — mining and extracting everything about you to turn your day-to-day, minute-by-minute experiences into profitable assets. Current day surveillance tools are stealing the Human Experience itself.

Your face, facial expression, location, your health, your family, your private conversations, your internet browsing — even walking down the street — you're tracked and monitored through your electronic devices and facial recognition systems connected through cameras throughout the global grid.

Surveillance Monopolies have taken power by filling the voids left by the fear and panic in the world. At one time, these deceptive intrusions of privacy never would have been accepted. They are partners with global powers and governments, with nearly complete access to everything in your life.

Now, all face to face events and meetings have been essentially cancelled. All meetings and correspondences are communicated through 'the web'. Kids are working from home on their Google Chromebooks, which requires a Google Gmail account - how did we let this happen?

We are about to see the largest loss of jobs and destruction of small and medium businesses since the Great Recession of the 1930s. But while crashing stock markets may spell disaster for regular folk, you can be sure that "someone" is frantically buying up assets, now available for pennies to the dollar.

The consolidation of resources into the hands of the already unimaginably rich and powerful is happening right before our eyes, all while we're giving up everything — our assets, our livelihoods, our rights, our businesses, all while every single human experience is turned into data points for profit.

Artificial intelligence is looking into the eyes of you and your children, analyzing your emotions, tracking your heartbeat, steps, sleep patterns and an unknowable number of other daily data points in order to predict every single move you're about to make.

Children nowadays have no privacy to form an identity, no space to explore without being scrutinized physically, mentally and emotionally in order for every detail of their inner and outer lives to be sold to companies that have the tools to prey on their weaknesses and manipulate their thoughts and actions for profit.

Could artificial intelligence have predicted the scenario we currently find ourselves in? You bet. Could it have created it? Without a doubt. Will we ever know the truth about it? Probably not.

If you don't think artificial intelligence has the capacity to shepherd a global population into a panic, triggering a worldwide shutdown and subsequent reallocation of wealth, you really need to review "Harvard Professor Exposes Google and Facebook."

My interview with Robert Epstein, Ph.D., senior research psychologist for the American Institute of Behavioral Research and Technology is also highly instructive. For the past decade he has also helped expose Google's manipulative and deceptive practices. As noted by Russ Greene in his July 20, 2019, Medium article:³⁴

"Three trends in health and fitness are converging, leading to an Orwellian future that few may anticipate: 1) The medicalization of daily life (food, movement, sleep, etc), 2) Wearable surveillance devices, 3) Government control of health care and its data.

In combination, these trends threaten values their proponents must hold dear and believe themselves to be protecting: an individual's dignity and right to a freely-chosen private life.

If "health care" include everyone's daily life activities, and health care monitors and controls those activities through wearable devices, and the federal government controls healthcare, then the federal government will monitor and control everyone's behavior at all times. No longer will we retain a sphere of private life separate from political control. The government will be in charge. In charge, that is, of everything."

Are You Ready to Give Up EVERYTHING Over a Virus?

We are beginning to see the clear partnership of surveillance and control, praying on fears to assume rights and property.  Government agencies are working for global corporations,  they know the biggest fear that sells is infectious disease.  The CDC has gone so far as making the comparison of infections disease to the Zombie apocalypse.  I'll end here with a pertinent excerpt from Slate magazine:³⁵

"Should we be willing to give up some privacy for the sake of public health? Of course. It is expected that some liberties may be curtailed during national emergencies … But we cannot allow companies to use our urgent need for testing, and the distraction provided by the pandemic, to extract more data than is necessary to promote public health.

Unless we act now, such systems will become normalized. It is urgent that we set clear limitations on how Google, Verily, and participating retailers can use COVID-19 screening data …

I offer the following recommendations. The companies facilitating COVID-19 testing must make their data use practices completely transparent. They should be developing safe and reliable public health infrastructure, not proprietary trade secrets. Verily should not require people to log in to a Google account or provide a phone number in order to be screened. This information is not essential for testing.

The screening portal should not collect device, location, or IP address data, and information collected must solely be used for screening and only be shared with public health officials. Under no circumstances should it be joined with data collected by Google's many other services or shared with business partners and sister companies.

Retailers offering drive-thru testing should suspend electronic surveillance including video, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other technologies. In response to these suggestions, some might say it's rude to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Google and Verily are volunteering time and resources to combat a pandemic. But it is not too much to ask for a government-run system. Canada's Alberta Health Services offers a screening portal that requires no login or personal information.

In general, private companies should not perform functions that are best reserved for scientists and public health agencies. Since we are in dire need of COVID-19 screening, perhaps Google and Verily can play a role in providing it, but the loss of our privacy should not be the cost."

NOTICE

This piece is our annual April Fool's article. Unfortunately, nearly everything in it is true. While Google is NOT releasing an app called "Corona Waze," the World Health Organization is indeed developing a COVID-19 app that has been described as "Waze for COVID-19."³⁶

All other details are true, and describe a rapidly-approaching reality in which personal freedoms are decimated to "protect" us all from an infectious disease. To avoid this dystopian future, it is imperative that we fight to protect and preserve our right to privacy — be it medically related or not — both online and offline.

from Articles https://ift.tt/2WWWXOg
via IFTTT

A new analysis highlights the power of regular, daily exercise on our immune system and the importance of people continuing to work-out even in lockdown.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2ygDX2P

Celebrity trainer Sam Wood's delicious lemon and chia protein cookies are therapeutic to make, and delicious to eat. 

from Nutrition | body+soul https://ift.tt/2R0GhSd

Recently, there's been a retail run on exercise equipment. The unlikely saviour in this is Bunnings Warehouse, with an affordable fitness range so you can set-up your home gym, stat. Here's our picks. 

from Fitness | body+soul https://ift.tt/3aDaCOs

While experts don't know the full extent of the long-term effects of coronavirus, so far they believe if you contract a mild case of COVID-19, you’re likely to make a full recovery.

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/3bG9U2X

Chris Hemsworth gets creative with his workouts, proving you can use everyday household items to make the most out of your at-home sweat sessions. 

from Fitness | body+soul https://ift.tt/3dDfJA2

While a new analysis published by The Lancet Infectious Diseases shows that coronavirus mortality rates aren't as high as experts estimated, COVID-19 is still a deadly infection and more so depending on your age. 

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/2QYDnNI

Kayla Itsines is offering free access to her fitness and health programme SWEAT for four weeks, so everyone can stay healthy and happy while in self-isolation.

from Fitness | body+soul https://ift.tt/33Z1AJ6

As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, community pharmacists will now be able to supply essential medicines to patients without a prescription in emergency situations. 

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/2wQ2NpS

UC Davis Health physicians and medical staff detail the diagnosis and treatment for first known case of community transmission of COVID-19 in the US. The case reveals how the patient's symptoms matched -- and sometimes varied from -- published studies of COVID-19 infection at the time.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3bGTA1U

Exercise can only improve strength in muscle-degenerating diseases when a specific type of muscle cell ages, report researchers.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2UNXorq

The conductivity of living organs, such as the heart, could be imaged non-invasively using quantum technology, which has the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of atrial fibrillation.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/340X0u3

Researchers describe their discovery of a new mechanism that could contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases. The scientists found that ZBP1, a protein best known for defending against incoming viruses, is activated by sensing an unusual form of cellular genetic material (Z-nucleic acids), leading to cell death and inflammation.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/33X6UwE

We’re tackling a few urgent questions from parents in this time of coronavirus and COVID-19. Are you wondering if babies and children should continue to have vaccines on schedule? Thinking about how to manage regular medical appointments, and which situations require in-person visits to a pediatric practice? Read on.

Should parents take babies for initial vaccines right now? What about toddlers and older children who are due for vaccines?

The answer to this question is going to depend on many factors, including what your doctor’s office is offering. As with all health care decisions, it comes down to weighing risks and benefits.

In general, we think that getting those early immunizations in for babies and toddlers — especially babies 6 months and younger — has important benefits. It helps to protect them from infections such as pneumococcus and pertussis that can be deadly, at a time when their immune system is vulnerable. At the same time, they could be vulnerable to complications of COVID-19 should their trip to the doctor expose them to the virus.

For children older than 2 years, waiting is probably fine — in most cases. For some children with special health conditions, or those who are behind on immunizations, waiting may not be a good idea.

The best thing to do is call your doctor’s office. Find out what precautions they are taking to keep children safe, and discuss your particular situation, including not only your child’s health situation, but also the prevalence of the virus in your community and whether you have or might have been exposed. Together, you can make the best decision for your child.

When you need to bring your child to the doctor, even during a COVID-19 pandemic

As we all hear from all sides every day, the best thing we can do to keep ourselves and our communities safe during the COVID-19 pandemic is to stay home. But what if your child has a doctor’s appointment?

Certainly, anything that isn’t urgent should be postponed until a safer time. This would include checkups for healthy children over 2 (many practices are postponing checkups even for younger children if they are generally healthy, so check with your doctor’s office). It also includes follow-up appointments for anything that can wait, like a follow-up of ADHD in a child that is doing well socially and academically. Your doctor’s office can give you guidance about what can wait — and when to reschedule.

Many practices are offering phone or telemedicine visits, and it’s remarkable how many things can be addressed that way. I have been doing telemedicine visits, and have been struck by how much care I can give by talking with families and patients, and seeing them over video.

What requires an in-person visit?

Some things, though, do require actual contact with the patient, including:

• Acute illness or injury that could be serious, such as a child with trouble breathing, significant pain, unusual sleepiness, a high fever that won’t come down, or a cut that may need stitches or a bone that may be broken. Call your doctor for guidance on whether to bring your child to the office or a local emergency room.
• Children who are receiving ongoing treatments for a serious medical condition such as cancer, kidney disease, or a rheumatologic disease. These might include chemotherapy, infusions of other medications, dialysis, or transfusions. Your doctor will advise you as to any changes in treatments or how they are to be given during the pandemic, but you should not skip any appointments unless your doctor tells you to do so.
• Checkups for very young children who need vaccines and to have their growth checked (check with your doctor as to their current policies and practices)
• Checkups and visits for children with certain health conditions. This might include children with breathing problems whose lungs need to be listened to, children who need vaccinations to protect their immune system, children whose blood pressure is too high, children who aren’t gaining weight, children who need stitches out or a cast off, or children with abnormal blood tests that need rechecking. If your child is being followed for a medical problem, call your doctor for advice. Together you can figure out when and how your child should be seen.

The bottom line

Talk to your doctor or their representative. So much is going to depend on not just your child’s condition, but also on how prevalent the virus is in your community, whether you have had any exposures (or possible exposures), what safeguards your doctor has put into place, and how you would get to the doctor. Every situation is a bit different, and all of us in health care are doing our best to take the best care of patients that we can during this extraordinary time.

Follow me on Twitter @drClaire

The post Is it safe to see the pediatrician for vaccines and medical visits? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

from Harvard Health Blog https://ift.tt/2UxJMBS

Scientists lay out guidelines and best practices for healthcare providers and family caregivers who are providing care for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3bDTubu

A new brain-imaging study has studied the brain activity of jazz guitarists during improvisation to show that creativity is, in fact, driven primarily by the right hemisphere in musicians who are comparatively inexperienced at improvisation. However, musicians who are highly experienced at improvisation rely primarily on their left hemisphere.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3bFe7Uz

It turns out that many more people than just boomers can benefit from testing for hepatitis C, a viral infection of the liver that often causes no symptoms. If you’re a member of the baby-boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964), your doctor may have already recommended the test. But those born before or after those years may not have known about the test unless they had a risk factor for hepatitis C, such as a history of intravenous drug use. A new guideline is changing this approach.

Why the different recommendations for baby boomers?

In 2012–2013, the CDC and the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) established guidelines that recommended all baby boomers be screened for hepatitis C. Boomers were singled out because this population had most of the undiagnosed infections.

Screening for hepatitis C is a big deal, because it’s a potentially serious and treatable infection affecting an estimated four million persons in the US and 100 million people worldwide. And, while it’s common to have it without knowing it, liver failure or liver cancer are known complications that could be prevented by screening and treatment.

Studies looking at the effectiveness of screening baby boomers have demonstrated success as well as limitations. In recent years it’s become clear that the fastest growing group of people newly infected with hepatitis C is young adults ages 20 to 39 who would be missed under previous guidelines.

Why not screen everyone?

That’s essentially what newly published guidelines recommend. They suggest that everyone ages 18 to 79 have a one-time screening blood test for the antibody to hepatitis C. This antibody indicates previous exposure to the virus and/or current infection.

All recommendations from the USPSTF are given grades based on how good the evidence is that it will be beneficial. These new guidelines were assigned a “B” grade, meaning that, based on the evidence, there was at least moderate certainty that the screening would provide significant benefit. This designation is important because it means health insurers are likely to cover its cost.

What happens after a screening test is done?

If your screening test for hepatitis C is positive, your doctor will perform a separate test to confirm the results, called polymerase chain reaction (or PCR). If that proves positive, the next steps will include:

• additional tests (such as blood tests and ultrasound) to find out if the liver has significant scarring
• eight to 12 weeks of treatment with an antiviral medication, such as ledipasvir/sofosbuvir (Harvoni), glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (Mavyret),‎‎ or sofosbuvir/velpatasvir (Epclusa), with regular monitoring of virus levels in the blood
• counseling about how to avoid infecting others, since hepatitis C can spread through blood and sexual contact
• regular follow-up to confirm a cure or to detect complications such as cirrhosis or liver cancer.

Liver health is not just about hepatitis C

A healthy liver is important because it performs so many essential functions: your liver removes toxins, produces bile that aids digestion, makes blood proteins that control clotting and fight infection, and stores sugar and iron.

Hepatitis C infection is only one cause of liver disease; there are many others. While keeping your liver healthy may not be something you think about every day, these measures are worth keeping in mind:

• Prevent other viral infections. While we have no vaccine yet for hepatitis C, hepatitis A and hepatitis B can be prevented by vaccination. Other ways to reduce the risk of these viral infections include avoiding contaminated food or water (a source of hepatitis A), and not using intravenous drugs or sharing needles (risk factors for hepatitis B).
• Moderate your alcohol intake.
• Maintain a healthy weight.
• Practice safe sex, and choose your tattoo or piercing parlor carefully.
• Because many medications can affect the liver, take medications only as prescribed and let your doctor know about everything you take, including over-the-counter drugs and supplements.

The bottom line

It’ll probably take a while before the new recommendations regarding screening for hepatitis C will be implemented by doctors, because they are just now hearing about them. In the meantime, if you’ve never been screened for this infection, ask your doctor about it. If you do have this virus, it’s better to know about it sooner rather than later, so you can avoid infecting others and keep your liver healthy.

Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling

The post OK, boomer: You’re not the only one who needs testing for hepatitis C appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

from Harvard Health Blog https://ift.tt/39w7Fhe

Exercising women who struggle to consume enough calories and have menstrual disorders can simply increase their food intake to recover their menstrual cycle, according to a new study.

from Women's Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2JtbCbX

A chemical used in hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, has the potential to interfere with reproductive hormones in men, according to new research.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/39t7zal

Exercising women who struggle to consume enough calories and have menstrual disorders can simply increase their food intake to recover their menstrual cycle, according to a new study.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2JtbCbX

Adults with type 2 diabetes requiring insulin therapy can safely achieve good blood sugar control using regular human insulin (RHI) in a wearable, patch-like insulin delivery device called V-Go®.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3ay5aMQ

Researchers are working on a new test to detect SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater of communities infected with the virus. The wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach could provide an effective and rapid way to predict the potential spread of novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) by picking up on biomarkers in feces and urine from disease carriers that enter the sewer system.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2R2Fi42

A new study suggests that, in the right context, some people may experience psychedelic-like effects from placebos alone. The researchers reported some of the strongest placebo effects on consciousness in the literature relating to psychedelic drugs. Indeed, 61% of the participants in the experiment reported some effect after consuming the placebo.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2UvqVai

Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are some of the most harmful and underappreciated threats to your health these days. Chronic exposure has been linked to a number of serious consequences, including a heightened risk for heart problems such as arrhythmias, neurological problems such as depression, autism and Alzheimer's, and reproductive problems such as infertility, especially in men.

Recent research¹ also reveals prenatal exposure to power-frequency fields can nearly triple a pregnant woman's risk of miscarriage.

Dr. De-Kun Li,² a lead author and senior research scientist at Kaiser Permanente's research division, told Microwave News,³ "This study provides fresh evidence, directly from a human population, that magnetic field exposure in daily life could have adverse health impacts," adding his findings "should bring attention to this potentially important environmental hazard to pregnant women." According to Li, there are at least six other studies, in addition to two of his own, showing this link.

While such evidence is unlikely to put an end to the ongoing controversy over EMF exposure, Li's research was praised by Dr. Anthony B. Miller,⁴ Professor Emeritus of epidemiology at the University of Toronto, who called the study "important" and "well-conducted" in an interview with Microwave News.

Even David Savitz, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology at Brown University School of Public Health,⁵ who remains critical of the study's findings, conceded to the publication that it's "a very nicely designed study."⁶

Magnetic Field Exposure May Triple Miscarriage Risk

During Li's 2017 study,⁷ the team sought to estimate pregnant women's exposure to EMFs as accurately as possible, based on exposures encountered during a typical day. Data from 913 pregnant women were included. Magnetic fields were measured with a meter registering fields from 40 hertz (Hz) up to 1,000 Hz. The health risks were then evaluated based on peak exposures, opposed to averages over a 24-hour period (which has so far been the norm).

In the end, the researchers determined that women exposed to magnetic fields greater than 2.5 milligauss (mG) or 0.25 microtesla (uT) on a typical day were 2.72 times more likely to suffer a miscarriage compared to those whose peak exposure was below 2.5 mG. Women with peak exposures above 2.5 mG had a miscarriage rate of 24.2%, while the control group (which had exposures below 2.5 mG) had a miscarriage rate of just 10.4%.

In 1998 — the most recent data available — an estimated 26% of the U.S. population was exposed to magnetic fields above 4 mG for more than one hour a day.⁸ Li did not find a dose-response in his study, however. He postulates the absence of a dose-response may be attributed to a threshold effect, meaning just about any exposure above 2.5 mG — be it just slightly over, double, or more — confers the same level or risk.

The team also found the risk of miscarriage was independent of the actual source of the magnetic fields. In other words, whether the exposure came from household appliances or nearby powerlines, the risk was the same. A 2002 study by Li showed that women with a max peak exposure of 16 mG or higher within a 24-hour period could have anywhere from two to six times the risk of miscarriage.⁹

At the time, he noted that "The association was stronger for early miscarriage (<10 weeks of gestation) and among 'susceptible' women with multiple prior fetal losses or subfertility." In an effort to obtain a more stable measurement this time around, Li did not use the absolute maximum reading for the day but rather the 99th percentile, defined as the highest level of exposure sustained in a 24-hour period.

Other Studies Linking Magnetic Field Exposure to Miscarriage

In addition to his own studies, Li also cites six other studies showing a link between magnetic field exposure and a heightened risk of miscarriage. These include:

• A 1992 study linking exposure to high levels of low-frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) from video display terminals to miscarriage. Women exposed to high levels of ELF-MF were 3.4 times more likely to miscarry than those with low exposure levels¹⁰
• A 1993 Finnish study, which showed exposure to 6.3 mG increased a woman's odds of early pregnancy loss fivefold. Limitations in the data prompted the authors to say that "the results should be interpreted cautiously"¹¹
• A PLOS One study from 2013, showing 50 Hz ELF-MF may increase a woman's risk of miscarriage by 1.72 times. However, the Chinese researchers in this study cautioned that they couldn't "confirm" that the 50 Hz exposure was the actual cause of the miscarriages, and that further studies "should be explored" to make sure¹²
• A 2015 study, which found a significant association between the effective specific absorption rate on cellphones used during pregnancy, with the risk of spontaneous abortion, prompting the authors to conclude that "the present result suggests that the use of cellphones may be related to early spontaneous abortions, thus further study is warranted"¹³
• A 2017 study published in the Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine, which found that living near a mobile communication base station in Beijing was an independent risk factor of spontaneous abortion¹⁴

California Health Department Issues Cellphone Warning

In related news,¹⁵ the California department of public health (CDPH) issued a warning¹⁶ about EMF exposure in mid-December of 2017, urging people to decrease use of wireless devices and keep them as far away from your body as possible to minimize exposure.

Former CDPH director Dr. Karen Smith is quoted saying, "Although the science is still evolving, there are concerns among some public health professionals and members of the public regarding long-term, high use exposure to the energy emitted by cellphones."

The public announcement appears to be the result of a 2016 lawsuit filed by Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, who sued the CDPH for suppressing the release of its 2010 guidance document on the health effects of cellphone radiation.

The CDPH argued that releasing the document might cause confusion and undue alarm. They even claimed that as "a portion of the public," the wireless industry and cellphone manufacturers would "likely have no interest in the dissemination of [a] cellphone guidance document."¹⁷

CDPH Guidance Document Recommendations

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang overruled most of the CDPH objections,¹⁸ ultimately directing the agency to release the document,¹⁹ which notes that studies have linked long-term, high use of cellphones to health problems such as:

• Brain cancer
• Acoustic nerve and salivary gland tumors
• Reproductive issues such as lower sperm count and inactive or less mobile sperm
• Headaches
• Memory, hearing, behavior and sleep problems

Moskowitz told KCRA News, "The cellphone manufacturers want you to keep a minimum distance away from your body and you should find out what that distance is. If you keep the device by your body you will exceed the safety limits provided by the FCC [Federal Communications Commission]."²⁰ To minimize exposure to cellphone radiation, the CDPH guidance document recommends:

• Not sleeping with your phone near your bed unless in airplane mode
• Not keeping your phone in your pocket unless in airplane mode
• Not placing it to your ear for prolonged periods
• Avoiding or limit use if you have two bars or less
• Being aware that in a fast-moving car, bus or train, radiofrequency exposure will be magnified as the phone will emit higher levels of energy to maintain connection

How EMFs Cause Harm

EMFs have been shown to cause harm through a number of different mechanisms. As explained by Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, one of my long-time mentors and founder of the Sophia Health Institute,²¹ the radiation affects your microbiome, turning what might otherwise be beneficial microbes pathogenic. Research by Martin Pall also shows that microwave radiation activates your voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) — channels in the outer membrane of your cells.

Once activated, the VGCCs open up, allowing an abnormal influx of calcium ions into the cell. This increased intracellular calcium and the accompanying increase in calcium signaling appears to be responsible for a majority of the damage that occurs. For more details on this, please see my previous interview with Pall.

For this reason, natural calcium channel blockers such as magnesium can be helpful against EMF exposure, and it's important to make sure you're not magnesium deficient. Magnesium threonate appears particularly beneficial, because in addition to acting as a natural calcium channel blocker it also acts as a potent anti-retroviral agent. Klinghardt combines it with 12X calcium phosphate (calcium phosphoric), a homeopathic that helps modulate the calcium channels.

EMFs Linked to Reproductive Problems

According to recent research, sperm concentration and quality has dramatically declined in the past few decades. One meta-analysis²² of 185 studies, the largest of its kind, showed sperm counts around the world declined by 50% to 60% between 1973 and 2011, with no signs of reversing or even slowing down. Lead author Dr. Hagai Levine, who called the results "profound" and "shocking,"²³ believes human extinction is a real possibility, should the trend continue unabated.²⁴

Testicular cancer is also on the rise. While endocrine disrupting chemicals are suspected as being the primary culprits, EMF exposure may also play a significant role in both testicular cancer and male infertility.

In May 2011, the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified radiofrequency EMF — such as the radiation from cellphones — a class 2B carcinogen, meaning it is possibly carcinogenic to humans.²⁵

When a man places a cellphone in his front pocket or a laptop in his lap, he's radiating his testes, which — along with your brain and the pacemaker in your heart — have the highest density of VGCCs. What this suggests is that excessive EMF exposure can be a direct contributor to conditions such as Alzheimer's, anxiety, depression, autism, cardiac arrhythmias and infertility.

Other studies have linked low-level electromagnetic radiation exposure from cellphones to an 8.1% reduction in sperm motility and a 9.1% reduction in sperm viability.^26,27

Wi-Fi equipped laptop computers have also been linked to decreased sperm motility and an increase in sperm DNA fragmentation after just four hours of use.²⁸ So, if you care about your reproductive health, avoid carrying your cellphone in your pockets or on your hip, and avoid using portable computers and tablets on your lap.

Prenatal EMF Exposure Linked to Increased Risk of Autism

Prenatal EMF exposure may also raise a woman's risk of having an autistic child. In 2012, Klinghardt conducted a pilot study in which he evaluated the EMF present in the bedroom where the mother slept during pregnancy. It turned out the average exposure of an autistic child to high frequency EMFs from household currents and microwaves from cellphones and other wireless technologies was twentyfold higher than that of the nonautistic children.

Unfortunately, the study never made it into publication, but it convinced him that EMFs were an unacknowledged factor that contributes to autism. Other research has also shown that microwave radiation from cellphones, Wi-Fi routers and similar devices concentrate twentyfold in the womb, meaning whatever the reading is outside the womb, the measurement will be 20 times higher inside the mother.

As noted by Klinghardt in my 2017 article, "Unfortunately, the membranes around the womb have that strange effect in significantly concentrating the ambient EMFs that the mother is in, reaching levels that are not sustainable for human development."

How to Lower Your EMF Exposure

There's no doubt in my mind that EMF exposure is a significant health hazard that needs to be addressed if you're concerned about your health. You can read about many ideas for shielding yourself in my article, "The No. 1 Thing to Do to Protect Yourself From EMFs," plus, here are several suggestions that will help reduce your EMF exposure:

Connect your desktop computer to the internet via a wired Ethernet connection and be sure to put your desktop in airplane mode. Also avoid wireless keyboards, trackballs, mice, game systems, printers and portable house phones. Opt for the wired versions.

If you must use Wi-Fi, shut it off when not in use, especially at night when you are sleeping. Ideally, work toward hardwiring your house so you can eliminate Wi-Fi altogether. If you have a notebook without any Ethernet ports, a USB Ethernet adapter will allow you to connect to the internet with a wired connection.

Shut off the electricity to your bedroom at night. This typically works to reduce electrical fields from the wires in your wall unless there is an adjoining room next to your bedroom. If that is the case you will need to use a meter to determine if you also need to turn off power in the adjacent room.

Use a battery-powered alarm clock, ideally one without any light. I use a talking clock for the visually impaired.29

If you still use a microwave oven, consider replacing it with a steam convection oven, which will heat your food as quickly and far more safely.

Avoid using "smart" appliances and thermostats that depend on wireless signaling. This would include all new "smart" TVs. They are called smart because they emit a Wi-Fi signal, and unlike your computer, you cannot shut the Wi-Fi signal off. Consider using a large computer monitor as your TV instead, as they don't emit Wi-Fi.

Refuse smart meters as long as you can, or add a radiation shield to an existing smart meter.

Consider moving your baby's bed into your room instead of using a wireless baby monitor. Alternatively, use a hard-wired monitor.

Replace CFL bulbs with incandescent bulbs. Ideally remove all fluorescent lights from your house. Not only do they emit unhealthy light, but more importantly, they will actually transfer current to your body just being close to the bulbs.

Avoid carrying your cellphone on your body unless in airplane mode and never sleep with it in your bedroom unless it is in airplane mode. Even in airplane mode it can emit signals, which is why I put my phone in a Faraday bag.30

When using your cellphone, use the speaker phone and hold the phone at least 3 feet away from you. Seek to radically decrease your time on the cellphone. I typically use my cellphone less than 30 minutes a month, and mostly when traveling. Instead, use VoIP software phones that you can use while connected to the internet via a wired connection.

Learn More With My New Book, 'EMF*D'

My new book, "EMF*D," is the result of years of research and interviews with experts on this topic. It not only tells you more about electromagnetic fields than what you've heard anywhere else, but gives you lots of good ideas on how to protect yourself before it's too late. In it you'll learn:

• What EMFs (electromagnetic fields) actually are, where you find them in your daily life, and how they affect you
• The toll that EMFs have been proven to take in conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and neuropsychiatric illnesses
• Why you've been largely kept in the dark about this threat to your health
• How you can actually repair the damage done by EMFs at a cellular level
• Practical strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones from EMFs at home, at work, and out in the world

I've written this book because I knew I had to help prepare as many people as I could for the oncoming, exponential unleashing of EMFs from not only 5G but also the countless new wireless devices coming onto the market.

You need strategies to protect your body from the threat of wireless technologies and dirty electricity from the inside out, as well as ways to reduce exposure and the damage it may cause, and my book, "EMF*D," can give you the tools you need to protect yourself.

from Articles https://ift.tt/3dGFIGT
via IFTTT

If you’ve been following the news about the novel coronavirus COVID-19 (sometimes also referred to as SARS-CoV-2, due to its similarities to SARS), you’ve probably seen articles offering conflicting information about the use of ibuprofen.¹

Some say taking ibuprofen may aggravate COVID-19 infection while others say there’s no such risk. For example, March 18, 2020, CNN reported² the health minister of France, Oliver Veran, is warning against using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen to treat fever and pain associated with COVID-19 infection, and to use acetaminophen (paracetamol) instead.

Conflicting Viewpoints on Ibuprofen Risk

According to CNN, Veran’s recommendation “was criticized by some health experts, who cited the lack of publicly available evidence.” Tarik Jašarević, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization, told CNN³ they are looking into the matter, but that a cursory review of the literature has failed to produce any clinical or population-based data to support Veran’s recommendation.

Similarly, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told NBC News⁴ that “more research is needed to evaluate reports that ibruprofen may affect the course of COVID-19,” and that there’s "no evidence that ibuprofen increases the risk of serious complications or of acquiring the virus that causes COVID-19."

The European Medicines Agency has issued a nearly identical statement.⁵ However, the agency also points out that it began its review of in 2019 after the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety reported⁶ that these medicines appear to worsen chickenpox (varicella) infection and some bacterial infections.

The French health ministry is sticking to its recommendation to avoid ibuprofen, however, saying "grave adverse effects" have been identified in patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection treated with NSAIDs.⁷

In its latest COVID-19 treatment guidelines,⁸ dated March 14, 2020, the ministry stressed that “the treatment of a fever or of pain linked to COVID-19 or to any other respiratory viral disease should be paracetamol,” not to exceed 60 milligrams (mg) per kilo per day, or 3 grams per day.

While some mainstream news outlets are dismissing the recommendation to avoid ibuprofen as an unsubstantiated “internet rumor” that has no scientific basis, it seems foolhardy to dismiss it out of hand.

First of all, if French health authorities say giving NSAIDs to infected patients is having adverse effects, perhaps we would be wise to listen? After all, clinical research takes time, so paying attention to anecdotal findings from the field may be worthwhile, at least until the research catches up.

Like me, the British National Health Service appears willing to err on the side of caution. In a March 18, 2020, tweet, the NHS stated:⁹ “There is no strong evidence that ibuprofen can make coronavirus worse. But until we have more info, take paracetamol to treat the symptoms of coronavirus, unless your doctor has told you paracetamol is not suitable for you.”

In the MedCram video above, Dr. Roger Seheult, reviews some of the benefits and drawbacks of NSAIDs. For example, while they’ve been shown to inhibit viral replication, which is good, they also halt antibody production, which is bad when you’re fighting a highly virulent virus. He also discusses compelling data suggesting the advertising for and widespread use of high doses of aspirin during the 1918 influenza pandemic coincided with the spike in deaths in October 1918.

What Might COVID-19 Comorbidities Tell Us?

Another source that has added fuel to the debate is the letter¹⁰ “Are Patients With Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus at Increased Risk for COVID-19 Infection?” published in The Lancet Respiratory Diseases March 11, 2020.

The letter points out that the most prevalent comorbidities among patients with severe COVID-19 infection, and patients who have died from the infection, are high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease.

A commonality among all of these conditions is that they’re all frequently treated with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors — drugs that relax and dilate your blood vessels. Unfortunately, none of the three studies that have looked at comorbidities in COVID-19 cases has included data on the drug treatments patients were on for those comorbidities.

Speaking of comorbidities, a March 17, 2020, report^11,12 by the Italian Instituto Superiore Di Sanita points out that more than 99% of those who have died from COVID-19 in Italy had previous medical conditions. This should not necessarily surprise us, considering a majority of deaths occurred in people over the age of 80.

The average infection age in Italy is 63. About half of those who died had three or more previous medical conditions, while the other half had either one or two. Of the 2,003 deaths reported, only three had no previous medical history.

Proposed Mechanism of Action

So, what does ACE inhibitors have to do with COVID-19? The problem, according to the authors of that Lancet letter,¹³ is that ACE inhibitors increase expression of ACE2, and COVID-19 infects host cells by binding to ACE2 receptors found on epithelial cells in your lungs, intestines, kidneys and blood vessels.¹⁴

As such, ACE inhibitors could potentially worsen your risk of COVID-19 infection and your risk of complications. Ibuprofen can also increase ACE2, the authors note, which is why the recommendation to avoid ibuprofen if you have symptoms of COVID-19 might not be such a bad idea.

On a relevant side note, ibuprofen is known to interact badly with ACE inhibiting drugs, so patients taking ACE inhibitors are typically advised to take acetaminophen instead anyway, to avoid acute kidney problems.¹⁵

According to the The Lancet letter’s authors, Lei Fang and Michael Roth (pulmonary cell research and pneumology, University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland) and George Karakiulakis (department of pharmacology, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece):¹⁶

“Human pathogenic coronaviruses (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus [SARS-CoV] and SARS-CoV-2) bind to their target cells through angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) …

The expression of ACE2 is substantially increased in patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, who are treated with ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II type-I receptor blockers (ARBs).

Hypertension is also treated with ACE inhibitors and ARBs, which results in an upregulation of ACE2. ACE2 can also be increased by thiazolidinediones and ibuprofen.

These data suggest that ACE2 expression is increased in diabetes and treatment with ACE inhibitors and ARBs increases ACE2 expression. Consequently, the increased expression of ACE2 would facilitate infection with COVID-19.

We therefore hypothesize that diabetes and hypertension treatment with ACE2-stimulating drugs increases the risk of developing severe and fatal COVID-19 …

A further aspect that should be investigated is the genetic predisposition for an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, which might be due to ACE2 polymorphisms that have been linked to diabetes mellitus, cerebral stroke, and hypertension …”

Fever Is an Important Part of Your Immune Defense

Now, there’s also an entirely different reason for avoiding NSAIDs — as well as other antipyretics (fever reducers) — when you have a fever, and that has to do with the fact that fever is part of your body’s immune response; it’s how your body kills pathogens.

This is one of the reasons why I strongly encourage the use of sauna, as regularly increasing your core body temperature will help prevent infections.

The rise in core body temperature allows your white blood cells to more efficiently identify and kill virus-infected cells. Taking an over-the-counter fever reducer will interfere with this crucial process, and could potentially allow the infection to run on longer, causing more damage in the process.

A number of studies have looked at this issue, coming to the conclusion that treating fever can prolong and exacerbate illness. A better alternative — provided your temperature does not get dangerously high — is to get plenty of bedrest, drink lots of fluids and simply “sweat it out.” As noted in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy paper “Fever and Antipyretic Use in Children”:¹⁷ 

“Many parents administer antipyretics even when there is minimal or no fever, because they are concerned that the child must maintain a ‘normal’ temperature. Fever, however, is not the primary illness but is a physiologic mechanism that has beneficial effects in fighting infection.

There is no evidence that fever itself worsens the course of an illness or that it causes long-term neurologic complications. Thus, the primary goal of treating the febrile child should be to improve the child's overall comfort rather than focus on the normalization of body temperature.”

Fever Tends to Lower Mortality When Left Alone

One randomized, controlled trial¹⁸ published in 2005 found critically ill patients given acetaminophen and cooling blankets when their fever went above 38.5 degrees C (101.3 degrees F) suffered far more infections and had a higher mortality rate than those who received no treatment until or unless their fever reached 40 degrees C (104 degrees F). As reported by the authors:

“Forty-four patients were randomized to the aggressive group and 38 patients were randomized to the permissive group … There were 131 infections in the aggressive group and 85 infections in the permissive group.

There were seven deaths in the aggressive group and only one death in the permissive group. The study was stopped after the first interim analysis due to the mortality difference, related to the issues of waiver of consent and the mandate for minimal risk. Conclusions: Aggressively treating fever in critically ill patients may lead to a higher mortality rate.”

Here’s another quote from a 2002 paper, “Fever: Beneficial and Detrimental Effects of Antipyretics,” published in Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases:¹⁹

“Considerable data suggest that fever has a beneficial effect on the outcome of many, although not all, infections.

For example, a survey of patients with community-acquired pneumonia showed that those with temperatures above 37.8 degrees C and a leukocyte count above 10 000 cells/mm had a 4% mortality rate, which compares with a mortality rate of 29% for patients with neither fever nor leukocytosis.

Improved survival has also been shown in febrile patients with Escherichia coli bacteremia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis relative to afebrile patients … Numerous animal studies have shown an inverse correlation between mortality and temperature during serious infection.

In one such experiment, the survival rate increased from 0% to 50% in mice with Klebsiella pneumoniae peritonitis when their temperatures were raised artificially from normal to febrile levels.”

Heat-Shock Proteins Protect Against Septic Shock Injury

Heat shock proteins are increased with sauna use. The study “Fever: Beneficial and Detrimental Effects of Antipyretics” also addresses the use of antipyretics in sepsis, saying:²⁰

“Many people believe that fever potentiates tissue injury during sepsis and should, therefore, be suppressed. In fact, encouraging results obtained in animal models have raised hopes that antipyretic therapy can be used to improve outcomes in patients with sepsis.

However, to date, only one randomized clinical trial has studied this question in humans. It found that ibuprofen did not improve survival in patients with sepsis, even though the drug did have a salutary effect on core temperature and metabolic rate.

Recent data demonstrating fever-induced expression of several heat-shock proteins protective against oxidative injury raise the concern that, by suppressing the expression of such proteins, antipyretic therapy might actually potentiate the adverse effects of sepsis in some situations.”

That last sentence is applicable to the current discussion about ibuprofen in COVID-19 treatment as well. As detailed in “High Heat May Kill the Coronavirus,” when your core body temperature is raised — be it due to a fever or from sitting in a sauna — heat shock proteins are activated, which actually suppresses viral replication.^21,22

As noted in the “Fever: Beneficial and Detrimental Effects of Antipyretics” quote above, heat-shock proteins also protect against the oxidative injury that occurs in sepsis.

Considering COVID-19 is a viral infection that in severe cases can trigger a cytokine storm — the same thing that happens in sepsis — it seems reasonable to be at least a little bit cautious about using ibuprofen to lower a COVID-19-related fever.

from Articles https://ift.tt/2ULzwVm
via IFTTT