Health & Fitness

Jacob Glanville, Ph.D., a self-described “entrepreneur, inventor and computational immuno-engineer”¹ featured in the Netflix docuseries “Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak,”² claims to have developed a viable cure for COVID-19 that will soon undergo testing by the U.S. military.

Glanville, founding partner and CEO of a biotech company called Distributed Bio, and a group of employees began working on a treatment January 25, 2020. According to the company’s website:³

“Our strategy was to engineer a panel of anti-SARS antibodies to make them recognize and block the novel coronavirus. The result of that work is a panel of ultra-high affinity therapeutic antibodies to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 (the virus behind COVID-19).

The work leveraged both the Distributed Bio SuperHuman 2.0 human antibody discovery technology and the Tumbler computational antibody optimization technology to discover thousands of antibodies against a novel virus in 9 weeks.”

How the Antibody Treatment Works

In a March 31, 2020, interview, Glanville explained how his company came up with the treatment:⁴

" … My team has successfully taken five antibodies that back in 2002 were determined to bind and neutralize, block and stop the SARS virus … The new virus is a cousin of the old SARS.

So, what we've done is we've created hundreds of millions of versions of those antibodies, we've mutated them a bit, and in that pool of mutated versions, we found versions that cross them over … They bind on the same spot as the new virus, Covid-19.

It binds [to] the spot that the virus uses to gain entry into your cells. It blocks that. At this point we know it binds the same spot extremely tightly with high affinity. The next step is we send the antibodies to the military, and they will directly put those on the virus and show that it blocks its ability to infect cells."

As reported by Fox News,⁵ the antibody therapy essentially circumvents the need for a vaccine. “Instead of giving you a vaccine and waiting for it to produce an immune response, we just give you those antibodies right away … so within about 20 minutes, that patient has the ability to neutralize the virus,” Glanville said.

According to Glanville, the completed drug will be tested for efficacy by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), while the Charles River Laboratories will conduct safety testing.⁶

According to the New York Post,⁷ human trials may begin at the end of the summer. At best, the drug might be released in September for compassionate use, Glanville says, which means patients can get the drug outside a clinical trial. When asked about Glanville’s claims, Dr. Anthony Fauci replied that the use of monoclonal antibodies is “an old concept” and that pursuing it was “the right thing to do.”⁸

Malaria Drugs Show Promise Against COVID-19

In an interview with KRON ON’s Ella Sogomonian, Glanville also discusses some of the other drugs that look promising against COVID-19. One of them is the malaria medication chloroquine, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is allowing to be used off-label against COVID-19.⁹ Laboratory testing on cell cultures have shown it to be effective against SARS-CoV-2.¹⁰

The other drug now being used is hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil). While it uses the same pathway as chloroquine, it has a safer side effect profile.¹¹ One recently released study¹² had encouraging results using this drug. Infection control specialist Dr. Didier Raoult from France enrolled 24 patients with confirmed COVID-19.

Patients received 600 mg of hydroxychloroquine each day and their viral load was monitored. Depending on the clinical presentation, they added azithromycin to the treatment protocol. Patients from another hospital who refused the treatment were used as controls.

While the study was small, the findings suggest “hydroxychloroquine treatment is significantly associated with viral load reduction/disappearance in COVID-19 patients and its effect is reinforced by azithromycin.”

Another physician shared his positive results using a similar protocol.¹³ Dr. Vladimir Zelenko treats a close-knit population of 35,000 in Kiryas Joel, New York. After testing showed there may be 20,000 infected in the community, he developed a treatment protocol before patients were admitted.

Over a five-day period, he treated any patient with shortness of breath or who was in a high-risk category with mild symptoms. The team used hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc sulfate for five days. In the five-day period there were no deaths, hospitalization or incubations. He reported "approximately 10% of patients” had “temporary nausea and diarrhea."

Malaria Drugs Are Not Without Risk

Please understand that I am merely reporting that this approach is being used and am in no way endorsing this approach as, like any drug, it can have unintended consequences called side effects, and many of them can be very serious.

While chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine show promise against COVID-19, they are not without risks. Both drugs have the side effect of elongating your electrocardiogram QT wave. This means the electrical activity in the heart is altered, which can lead to seizure, fainting and sudden death.¹⁴

Two days after China issued a treatment guideline to use chloroquine, it sent a warning to closely monitor adverse side effects and limit use to those without heart, liver or kidney disease, and those who are not taking antibiotics such as azithromycin or prescribed steroids.¹⁵

I believe there are more effective, less expensive and simple strategies available that I have previously discussed that should be considered before this radical approach.

Zinc May Play an Important Role

Interestingly, chloroquine appears to improve zinc absorption, and this might be part of what makes it so useful against COVID-19. Evidence shows zinc gluconate and zinc acetate effectively reduce the severity and duration of viral infections. Zinc is crucial to the effectiveness of your immune system, enzyme function, protein synthesis and cell division.

Studies demonstrate using zinc lozenges reduces the duration of a cold by 33% and lessens the severity of your symptoms.¹⁶ Zinc has also been shown to inhibit coronavirus in vitro and block coronavirus replication in cell culture.¹⁷ As explained by Seheult in the MedCram video above:¹⁸

“When the coronavirus infects your cell, it's going to dump into your cell a messenger RNA that's going to be translated using ribosomes. Those ribosomes, the first thing they are going to do is translate that RNA molecule into a protein called RNA dependent RNA polymerase, or replicase.

And, it is this enzyme that is … inhibited by high intracellular concentrations of zinc. Well, as it turns out, chloroquine is a zinc ionophore, as is hydroxychloroquine. Zinc ionophore is just basically a protein or a gate that allows zinc to come into the cells.

We don't know if that is the actual way it is working in this case, but it does seem to lend credence to the mechanism of action that zinc does inhibit replicase and that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine increase the intracellular concentration of zinc.”

Your Immune System Is Your No. 1 Defense

As this story unfolds, I am committed to bringing you viable prevention and treatment options you can use at home. A recently published article¹⁹ by Mark McCarty and James DiNicolantonio, PharmD, highlight several nutraceuticals that may help reduce symptoms and severity of influenza and coronaviruses.²⁰ According to the authors, these viruses:

"… cause an inflammatory storm in the lungs and it is this inflammatory storm that leads to acute respiratory distress, organ failure, and death. Certain nutraceuticals may help to reduce the inflammation in the lungs from RNA viruses and others may also help boost type 1 interferon response to these viruses, which is the body's primary way to help create antiviral antibodies to fight off viral infections."

From the conclusions of several randomized clinical studies, DiNicolantonio and McCarty believe the antiviral effects of some nutraceuticals are quite clear, and hope these benefits will encourage further research to test this strategy. I’ve summarized these nutraceuticals in “Essential Nutrition to Protect Yourself From Coronavirus.” Additional suggestions can be found in "Quercetin and Vitamin D — Allies Against Coronavirus?"

Also remember to care for your gut microbiome, reduce your sugar and carbohydrate intake, get quality sleep and practice good hand-washing to support your efforts to stay well.

Stay away from others when you are sick to avoid spreading any virus you may be carrying, and to seek medical attention as you would if you were sick with a bad flu. Difficulty breathing is a clear indicator that medical attention may be required. This is particularly true if you are pregnant, have a weakened immune system or a chronic medical condition that may place you in a higher risk category for severe COVID-19 infection.²¹

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The history of trans fats dates to 1903 when Wilhelm Normann applied for and was awarded a patent after he discovered how to make liquid oil thicker and firmer through hydrogenation.¹ These fats had a longer shelf life and were cheaper to produce.

In 1911 Procter & Gamble introduced Crisco, a vegetable shortening advertised as “an economical alternative to animal fats and butter.” During World War II, when the government rationed butter, that led to a gain in popularity for margarine, a trans fatty acid product.

The process of partial hydrogenation producing trans fats involves the addition of a single hydrogen molecule on the opposite side of the carbon bond in the fat molecule. This one small change is responsible for the difference in how the fat is metabolized and thus the increase in danger to your health.²

In the natural state, unsaturated fatty acids are usually in the "cis" configuration, indicating the hydrogen molecules are on the same side, as opposed to opposite sides.

Conditions Associated With Trans Fatty Acid

There is evidence this small difference links trans fats to inflammation in the body, which leads to a higher potential for insulin resistance, diabetes and heart disease.³ According to Harvard Health Publishing, "For every 2% of calories from trans fats consumed daily, the risk of heart disease rises by 23%."

In addition to these health conditions, researchers are investigating the relationship between trans fats and preeclampsia,⁴ breast cancer,⁵ nervous system disorders⁶ and memory impairment in offspring when trans fats were fed to animals during gestation or lactation.⁷

Trans fats may be found in processed food products with a long shelf life. To know whether they are present you have to read the ingredients and not just the top of the nutrition label.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, manufacturers are allowed to advertise or label a product with “zero trans fats” if there are less than 0.5 gm per serving. The FDA rules for compliance on nutrition labels states:⁸

"Trans fat content must be expressed as grams per serving to the nearest 0.5-gram increment below 5 grams and to the nearest gram above 5 grams. If a serving contains less than 0.5 gram, the content, when declared, must be expressed as ‘0 g.’"

There are some natural trans fats found in meat products, which you may have heard are as bad for you as trans fats.^9,10 However, while it’s not often identified by the researchers unless they are testing differences between conventional and pastured meat, it’s important to recognize the meat used is likely from grain fed livestock, which changes the nutrient panel.

Remember, not all processed food products will contain partially hydrogenated trans fats to extend the shelf life. Of course, this isn’t the only reason to avoid processed foods! Read the labels, including those for:^11,12

Refrigerated and frozen dough products	Store-bought baked goods like cakes, cookies and pies
Fried foods, including doughnuts	Peanut butter with more than just peanuts
Nondairy coffee creamer	Microwave popcorn
Ready-made frosting	Stick margarine
Shortening	Frozen pizza
Breakfast bars	Tortillas
Savory snacks	Crackers

Trans Fatty Acids Drive Cell Death

Researchers from Tohoku University in Japan recently published a study¹³ in which they tested the effect fatty acids have on programmed cell death, or apoptosis.

During apoptosis the body rids itself of unhealthy cells, which is one mechanism of preventing conditions like cancer. If DNA damage spreads across too many cells and triggers too much apoptosis it can lead to some of the same chronic diseases that researchers know are associated with eating trans fats.

To test the theory that fat influences a mitochondrial signaling pathway,¹⁴ they designed a study in which they triggered DNA damage using a common chemotherapeutics drug. They discovered that two trans fatty acids — elaidic and linoelaidic acids — increased apoptosis. Other unsaturated fats didn’t have the same effect.

The two trans fats increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by the cell, raising the rate of apoptosis. Atsushi Matsuzawa from the university's Laboratory of Health Chemistry commented on the results:¹⁵

"Accumulating evidence has associated the consumption of trans-fatty acids with various diseases, including some lifestyle diseases, atherosclerosis and dementia. But the underlying causes have remained largely unknown.

Our research revealed a novel toxic function and mechanism of action of trans-fatty acids, which can account for pathological mechanisms, including atherosclerosis. This significant finding will provide a molecular basis to understand how trans-fatty acids cause disease."

Trans Fat Linked to Cognitive Decline

As I've written before, the food you eat and other lifestyle factors have an influence on your risk for Alzheimer's disease and other types of cognitive decline. Dietary choices influence your risk of depression, high blood pressure and midlife obesity. Foods that promote neurological degeneration include sugar, grains and trans fats.¹⁶

More recently, scientists have found a strong link between eating a diet with trans fats and an increased incidence of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. This risk is not small. Dr. Neelum T. Aggarwal, who was not involved in the study, commented to CNN:¹⁷

"This study demonstrates that there are negative 'brain/cognitive' outcomes, in addition to the known cardiovascular outcomes, that are related to a diet that has (a) high content of trans fats. This message must be delivered in countries where the ban of trans fats has not been enacted or difficult to enforce."

CNN reported that people in the highest quartile of elaidic acid levels were up to 74% more likely to develop dementia. This is one of the same trans fats found to increase cell apoptosis.

Dr. Richard Isaacson, a neurologist and director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, who was not involved in the study, commented on the findings demonstrating a link between trans fats and Alzheimer’s disease:¹⁸

"The study used blood marker levels of trans fats, rather than more traditionally used dietary questionnaires, which increases the scientific validity of the results. This study is important as it builds upon prior evidence that dietary intake of trans fats can increase risk of Alzheimer's dementia."

Beliefs About Trans Fats Linked to Activists’ Promotions

By 2006, the FDA¹⁹ required manufacturers to declare the presence of trans fats on the nutrition facts label of all processed foods. In 2015, they determined partially hydrogenated oils were not “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS).

The compliance deadline was June 18, 2018, for the majority of foods, but an extension to January 1, 2020, was allowed for “an orderly transition in the marketplace.” Product manufacturers who petitioned for the use of trans fats before June 2019 received another extended compliance date of January 1, 2021. This means that foods with trans fats are still on grocery store shelves.

The self-proclaimed consumer watchdog group, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), was the initial force behind a highly successful campaign to remove healthy saturated fats and insert trans fats into your diet. It was largely because of this that fast food restaurants switched to partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

By 1988 CSPI had released an article praising trans fats, saying²⁰ "there is little good evidence that trans fats cause any more harm than other fats" and "much of the anxiety over trans fats stems from their reputation as 'unnatural.'"

Many still mistakenly believe margarine is a healthier choice than grass fed butter. The CSPI's campaign to replace saturated animal and tropical oils with trans fats played an integral role in promoting this error.

The group's successful influence on the food industry is discussed in David Schleifer's article, "The Perfect Solution: How Trans Fats Became the Healthy Replacement for Saturated Fats," in which he notes:²¹

“Scholars routinely argue that corporations control U.S. food production, with negative consequences for health, environmental quality, and working conditions. However, the transition from saturated to trans fats shows how activists can be part of spurring corporations to change …

But the trans fat case shows that activists’ effectiveness at changing industrial technologies was not just a question of how well-organized they were, how many resources they had, or how well they communicated; in part, activists succeeded by framing the replacement of saturated fats as a rational course of action based on a scientific fact — namely, the association between saturated fats and heart disease.”

Same Group Leading the Charge in Favor of GMO

Just as the CSPI sided with industry to promote low-fat diets and trans fats in your foods, they also are taking a stand in favor of genetically engineered organisms (GMOs). Most polls show the majority of Americans want to have their food labeled if it contains GMO ingredients. However, Greg Jaffe, director of CSPI’s biotechnology project, is not convinced.

He testified in a hearing on the Pompeo Bill HR 1599, colloquially known as Denying Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act. The act would have taken away the right of individual states to implement food labeling laws and it would have prevented regulations restricting or banning the growth of GMO crops.

During his testimony²² he told the committee that when given the option to have pesticides, antibiotics and GMO on food labels, 70% of those asked said yes. He then quoted a Rutgers poll which asked the open-ended question, what new information would you like on your food labels? According to Jaffe, only 7% listed GMO.

"I don't think we have a good idea of what consumer demands really are … The Rutgers poll … two-thirds of consumers haven't even had a discussion about this in the last three years and don't know about it. So, providing information without knowledge about what the information means can inherently be misleading."

In other words, his justification for not labeling food products GMO is that not all consumers understand what the label means. This is an inexcusable position for a group claiming to work on behalf of consumer protection. In the video below you'll hear his statements where he claims there are no studies that GMOs have triggered any negative health concerns.

This is the same position they held on trans fats and artificial sweeteners. In other words, it appears the organization is at least consistent in their defense of manufacturers and industry as opposed to consumer health.

Develop Healthy Eating Habits

Exercise, eating, movement and sleep are often based on the habits you develop. Once you’ve established a habit it’s easier to keep it than to break it. The same is true for creating healthy eating habits. Start with whole, organically grown food you cook and prepare at home, including pasture raised meat and dairy products.

After you’ve gradually switched processed food for whole food, consider incorporating a ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting to support the health and biogenesis of your mitochondria. Discover more about each and how to integrate them in the following articles:

• Top 22 Intermittent Fasting Benefits
• Boost Your Metabolism With a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet
• How Cyclical Ketosis Can Help Combat Chronic Fatigue
• KetoFast Explained

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During this COVID-19 pandemic, we are hearing stories about how some governments are abusing the privacy rights of their citizens in the interests of public health. The South Korean government is using smartphone location data, surveillance-camera footage and even credit card purchases to monitor those suspected of spreading COVID-19.¹

Italian authorities are using mobile phones’ data to track people's everyday movements and whether they are obeying the government lockdown orders. Israel has deployed Shin Bet, its internal security agency designed to target terrorism, to use mobile phone location data to determine the whereabouts of citizens who may have been exposed to COVID-19.²

Such spying will also likely soon be the norm in the U.S. In March, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy began assembling a task force of tech and artificial intelligence companies to "develop new text and data-mining techniques that could help the science community answer high-priority scientific questions related to COVID-19," according to CNBC.³

An ‘All Hands on Deck’ Call to Big Tech

The 60 companies,⁴ which include well-known names like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Uber, Apple, IBM, Microsoft and Amazon,⁵ will try to deduce, through cellphone data, where the next wave of COVID-19 will occur⁶ and the effectiveness of social distancing.⁷ What mechanisms will they use? According to the Wall Street Journal, the technologies under consideration:⁸

"… include everything from geolocation tracking that can monitor the locations of people through their phones to facial-recognition systems that can analyze photos to determine who might have come into contact with individuals who later tested positive for the virus, according to people familiar with the matter."

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is not the only government agency enlisting the help of Big Tech companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to The Wall Street Journal:⁹

"Technology giant Palantir Inc., which was credited with helping to find Osama bin Laden, is helping the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention model the virus outbreak. Other companies that scrape public social-media data have contracts in place with the agency and the National Institutes of Health, documents show."

Facebook Already Provides User-Generated Maps

Facebook currently creates and shares "disease-prevention maps" derived from aggregated user data with the government, researchers and nonprofits. When people use Facebook apps on their phones with location services enabled, maps are generated,¹⁰ though the information is not shared with the general public.¹¹ Facebook says the maps, generated by a project called Data for Good:¹²

"… are designed to help public health organizations close gaps in understanding where people live, how people are moving, and the state of their cellular connectivity, in order to improve the effectiveness of health campaigns and epidemic response.

These datasets, when combined with epidemiological information from health systems, assist nonprofits in reaching vulnerable communities more effectively and in better understanding the pathways of disease outbreaks that are spread by human-to-human contact."

Facebook-aggregated data allowed researchers to determine that weekday traffic into Seattle and its eastern suburbs dropped by half after the first Washington state COVID-19 outbreak and authorities' distancing requests, says Wired.¹³

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Harvard's School of Public Health, National Tsing Hua University, Direct Relief and other schools and organizations have also used the maps in their COVID-19 prevention efforts.¹⁴

Personal Privacy Takes Backseat During COVID-19 Pandemic

Despite assurances of anonymity and no plan to track individuals, enlisting Big Tech companies to work directly with the government has many legitimately concerned about their privacy. Who can forget the 2018 scandal in which Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, gained access to private information on more than 50 million Facebook users?¹⁵

Though Facebook says its data is anonymized, only shows general trends and is not used to track individuals,¹⁶ the task force plans would enlarge Facebook's role in providing data to the government.¹⁷ Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said privacy concerns around tracking fears are "overblown."¹⁸ Moreover, while some tech companies already share aggregated data generated by users, Wired notes that:¹⁹

"… it would be new for Google and Facebook to openly mine user movements on this scale for the government. The data collected would show patterns of user movements. It would need to be cross-referenced with data on testing and diagnoses to show how behavior is affecting the spread of the virus."

Caroline Buckee, associate professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told Wired that though aggregated, anonymized location data is already available from Google, Facebook, Uber and phone companies, people worry that the collected data will be reverse-engineered to track people.²⁰

Privacy suspicions do not just stem from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. During the Washington state COVID-19 outbreak, Facebook data were fed into models produced by the Institute for Disease Modeling in Bellevue, which collaborates with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other groups.²¹

Forbes reported that Gates called for a "national tracking system similar to South Korea … to understand where the disease is and whether we need to strengthen the social distancing," in response to the COVID-19 epidemic.²² Gates responded to a question during a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session by saying:²³

"Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it."

Needless to say, the mention of "digital certificates" increased the fears many have about surveillance and tracking.

The COVID-19 Operations Increase Government Reach

In normal times, such broad sharing of personal information would not be legal without a court order or user consent, but during an emergency the government has the authority to request such data. According to the Wall Street Journal:²⁴

"In the U.S., the government could legally request this type of data from telecommunication carriers or from Google, which has access to more- precise location data belonging to its Android and Google Maps users, said Al Gidari, director of privacy at Stanford Law School."

Many remember how the events of 9/11 ushered in the Patriot Act, which greatly enlarged government reach and chipped away at personal privacy. Though the law was aimed at terrorists, the government powers could easily be directed against those suspected of spreading a disease — fears that the White House task force of tech and artificial intelligence companies is fueling. According to the Department of Justice:²⁵

"The Patriot Act allows investigators to use the tools that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking … The Patriot Act facilitated information sharing and cooperation among government agencies so that they can better 'connect the dots' …

The Patriot Act updated the law to reflect new technologies and new threats … The Patriot Act increased the penalties for those who commit terrorist crimes …"

Whistleblower Edward Snowden Sees Privacy Risks

Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor known for leaking information about government surveillance of citizens, points out that the government could requisition fitness tracker information to look at measures like pulse and heart rate. According to Snowden:²⁶

"They already know what you're looking at on the internet … They already know where your phone is moving. Now they know what your heart rate is, what your pulse is. What happens when they start to intermix these and apply artificial intelligence to it?"

Snowden is right that the many disturbing possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) will be unleashed by the White House task force. AI companies are being asked by the government to "mine through the avalanche of research" and develop AI algorithms to explain the COVID-19 virus' behavior.²⁷ According to Wired, "the hope is that AI will accelerate insights into the novel coronavirus by finding more subtle connections across more data."

The government is in talks with Camber Systems, a location-tracking firm that says it uses "data, machine learning and artificial intelligence" to help cities manage transportation and infrastructure.²⁸

According to Kai-Fu Lee, an artificial intelligence expert and author of "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order," AI works with audio and video data streams, using facial and speech recognition and will lead to autonomous robots.

Privacy advocates worry what will happen to the data when the crisis is over and about new reasons that can be fabricated by the government to keep gathering and analyzing people's personal data.

Most Mobile Phones Put You at Risk

According to Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist for the American Institute of Behavioral Research and Technology, unless you use a virtual private network (VPN) on your phone, your identity is very easy for tech companies like Google to determine. Of course the phone numbers you’re dialing, the music files you’re playing and the places you’re visiting are all also information available to the tech companies.

A VPN, however, will mask your identity including when you are using apps like Google Maps on your phone. Epstein also suggests:

"Don't use Google as your search engine, or any extension of Google, such as Bing or Yahoo, both of which draw search results from Google. The same goes for the iPhone's personal assistant Siri, which draws all of its answers from Google …

When you use your mobile phone, laptop or desktop in the usual way, your identity is very easy for Google and other companies to see. They can see it via your IP address, but … there are much more sophisticated ways now that they know it's you. One is called browser fingerprinting.

Basically, the kind of browser you have and the way you use your browser is like a fingerprint. You use your browser in a unique way, and just by the way you type, these companies now can instantly identify you."

Worse, cautions Epstein, even when you are not connected to the internet, your phone can be used to track you. Android cellphones, which use a Google-owned operating system, track you even when you’re not connected to the internet, whether you have geo tracking enabled or not, warns Epstein.

"Let’s say you pull out your SIM card. Let’s say you disconnect from your mobile service provider, so you’re absolutely isolated. You’re not connected to the internet. Guess what? Your phone is still tracking everything you do on that phone and it’s still tracking your location."

Even though you may think you’ve spent the day "trackless" or incognito, if you had your phone with you, the information has been stored in it and will be sent to Google when you reconnect, warns Epstein.

The COVID-19 is undoubtedly accelerating the dangerous trend of government and Big Tech surveillance of everyday people. We must resist this dangerous trend and protect ourselves on a personal level from government invasion of our privacy.

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Just because you don't have access to the huge weight lifting machines at your usual gym, doesn't mean you can't strength train at home - all you need are some simple weights.

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A sleep specialist shares 5 top tips that'll help you get a good night's rest at any stage in your cycle.

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The former Australian politician has not let self-isolation life get in the way of her fitness.

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These nutritious turmeric pancakes are gluten and dairy-free, and packed with anti-inflammatory ingredients, making them  gut-friendly. Add them to your self-iso menu to reap the benefits.

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Many Twitter and Instagram users have been making light of their disastrous self-isolation baking attempts. Here are 15 of the funniest fails that'll leave you in stitches...

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Researchers quantified variation in life span in the fruit fly genome, providing valuable insights for understanding human disease and aging.

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Molecules in tarantula venom could be used as an alternative to opioid pain killers for people seeking chronic pain relief.

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A research team has successfully recorded the millisecond electrical signals in the neurons of an alert mouse with their super high-speed microscope - two-photon fluorescence microscope. The new technique is minimally invasive to the animal being tested and can pinpoint individual neurons and trace their firing paths, millisecond by millisecond.

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People with a gene variant that puts them at high risk for Alzheimer's disease are protected from its debilitating effects if they also carry a variant of a completely different gene, investigators report in a large new study.

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It turns out we should follow our parent' advice when we're thinking about becoming parents ourselves, with a study finding eating the traditional 'three-veggies' before pregnancy lowers the risk of a premature birth.

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It turns out we should follow our parent' advice when we're thinking about becoming parents ourselves, with a study finding eating the traditional 'three-veggies' before pregnancy lowers the risk of a premature birth.

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It turns out we should follow our parent' advice when we're thinking about becoming parents ourselves, with a study finding eating the traditional 'three-veggies' before pregnancy lowers the risk of a premature birth.

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Scientists have developed a technique that could significantly reduce the time of discovering potential new antibody-based drugs to treat disease.

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Researchers have found that disruption of protein domain networks that are driven by the RAC1 gene is associated with behavioral and neurological symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Their findings establish the value of using an integrated network approach to investigate the mechanisms and potential treatments for Alzheimer's disease.

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According to a new study, students struggle to critically assess information from the Internet and are often influenced by unreliable sources. In this study, students from various disciplines such as medicine and economics took part in an online test, the Critical Online Reasoning Assessment (CORA).

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Quantitative biologists have designed a new machine learning technique for predicting evolutionary pathways. It could prove a valuable tool for biologists studying rapidly evolving viruses or cancer.

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Researchers trying to turn off a gene that allows cancers to spread have made a surprising U-turn. By making the gene overactive and functional in the hearts of mice, they have triggered heart cell regeneration. Since adult hearts cannot usually repair themselves once damaged, harnessing the power of this gene represents major progress towards the first curative treatment for heart disease.

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The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1948 to further international cooperation for improved public health conditions. It was given a broad mandate under its constitution to promote the attainment of “the highest possible level of health” by all peoples.

You might recall that WHO released a statement in September 2019 that they had worked with Facebook to curb vaccine “misinformation” and usurp free speech and accountable democracy in America.¹

In this article, I will show you that the WHO is beyond conflicted, and because of its existing funding fails to complete its initial mandate. Worse, WHO serves its corporate masters and essentially is destroying, not improving, the health of world.

The 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic — A WHO Vaccine Fiasco

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that from April 12, 2009, to April 10, 2010, there were 60.8 million cases, 274,000 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths (0.02% infection fatality rate/mortality rate) in the United States due to the H1N1 (swine flu) virus.

June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic of novel influenza A (H1N1).² A vaccine was rapidly unveiled, and within months, cases of disability and death from the H1N1 vaccine were reported in various parts of the world.

In the aftermath, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) questioned the WHO’s handling of the pandemic. In June 2010, PACE concluded “the handling of the pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), EU health agencies and national governments led to a ‘waste of large sums of public money, and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks faced by the European public.’”³

WHO Acted Like a Pharma Front Group

Specifically, PACE concluded there was “overwhelming evidence that the seriousness of the pandemic was vastly overrated by WHO,” and that the drug industry had influenced the organization’s decision-making. As noted in a PACE press release:⁴

“The Assembly … set out a series of urgent recommendations for greater transparency and better governance in public health, as well as safeguards against what it called ‘undue influence by vested interests.’

It called for a public fund to support independent research, trials and expert advice, possibly financed by an obligatory contribution of the pharmaceutical industry. It also called the media to avoid ‘sensationalism and scaremongering in the public health domain.’”

Apparently, we learned nothing from that fiasco. Disturbingly, while the WHO was found to have had serious conflicts of interest with the drug industry, nothing has actually changed since then, which makes one wonder whether the WHO’s COVID-19 pandemic response can actually be trusted. As reported by the Natural Society in 2014:⁵

“… a joint investigation by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) has uncovered some serious conflicts of interest between the World Health Organization (WHO), who proposed … heavy vaccinations, and the pharmaceutical companies which created them.

The joint-investigation’s report explains that the WHO profited immensely⁶ from the scare tactics they utilized to promote the use of a swine flu vaccine. Creating mass hysteria was the WHO’s emergency advisory committee’s goal … The WHO told the world that up to 7 million people could die without the vaccines they were pushing …

The advisory panel was choked with individuals highly connected to the pharmaceutical companies with vested interests in both antiviral and influenza vaccines.

An over $4 billion stake was invested in developing these vaccines, and without a pandemic there would be no use for them. Utilizing propaganda and fear, the drugs were pushed on unsuspecting people, and the money was made.”

Why the Secrecy Around WHO’s Advisers?

The joint investigation, led by BMJ features editor Deborah Cohen and journalist Philip Carter, was published in January 2010 in the BMJ Clinical Research journal. In it, Cohen and Carter pointed out that:^7,8

“Key scientists advising the World Health Organization on planning for an influenza pandemic had done paid work for pharmaceutical firms that stood to gain from the guidance they were preparing. These conflicts of interest have never been publicly disclosed by WHO …

Evidence … raises troubling questions about how WHO managed conflicts of interest among the scientists who advised its pandemic planning, and about the transparency of the science underlying its advice to governments.

Was it appropriate for WHO to take advice from experts who had declarable financial and research ties with pharmaceutical companies producing antivirals and influenza vaccines?

Why was key WHO guidance authored by an influenza expert who had received payment for other work from Roche, manufacturers of oseltamivir, and GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturers of zanamivir?

And why does the composition of the emergency committee from which Chan sought guidance remain a secret known only to those within WHO? We are left wondering whether major public health organizations are able to effectively manage the conflicts of interest that are inherent in medical science.”

WHO’s Pandemic Plan Was the Product of the Drug Industry

As explained by Cohen and Carter,⁹ wrongdoing at WHO began 10 years before the swine flu pandemic, in 1999 — the year WHO drew up its influenza pandemic plan. The authors detail the conflicts of interest inherent in that document, so for a more complete picture, I suggest reading through their full analysis.¹⁰

In summary, the pandemic plan was prepared by WHO employees in collaboration with the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza (ESWI), a working group consisting of “key opinion leaders in influenza” that is “funded entirely by Roche and other influenza drug manufacturers.” One of ESWI’s stated roles is to lobby politicians, Cohen and Carter notes.

Two of the six WHO employees had also participated in Roche sponsored events the year before. Two of the ESWI scientists had also worked on Roche marketing materials, and both were “engaged in a randomized controlled trial on oseltamivir supported by Roche” at the time the pandemic plan was written. None of these conflicts of interest were disclosed in the pandemic plan document.

Even more suspicious, that oseltamivir trial “remains one of the main studies supporting oseltamivir’s effectiveness — and one that was subsequently shown to have employed undeclared industry funded ghostwriters,” Cohen and Carter write,¹¹ adding the ESWI’s policy plan for 2006 through 2010:

“… specifically stated that government representatives needed to ‘take measures to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to plan its vaccine/antivirals production capacity in advance’ and also to ‘encourage and support research and development of pandemic vaccine’ and to ‘develop a policy for antiviral stockpiling.’

It also added that government representatives needed to know that ‘influenza vaccination and use of antivirals is beneficial and safe’ … In the meantime, in Roche’s own marketing plan, one goal was to ‘align Roche with credible third party advocates.’ They ‘leveraged these relationships by enlisting our third-party partners to serve as spokespeople and increase awareness of Tamiflu and its benefits.’”

In December 2009, WikiLeaks also released a cache of documents^12,13,14,15 leaked from a pharma trade group that revealed how the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing had been very open to industry lobbying, thus allowing the drug industry to influence WHO’s policy decisions on drug research.

WHO Parrots Purdue Pharma’s False Opioid Marketing

There’s other evidence suggesting the WHO is acting as little more than a Big Pharma front group. For example, just last year, in 2019, the report,¹⁶ “Corrupting Influence: Purdue & the WHO,” produced by U.S. Reps. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), concluded Purdue Pharma had influenced WHO’s opioid guidelines.^17,18 The executive summary of “Corrupting Influence” reads, in part:¹⁹

“In 2017, several members of Congress sent a letter to the WHO warning that Purdue Pharma L.P. (Purdue) was attempting to expand their drug sales to international markets using the same fraudulent marketing tactics that instigated the opioid crisis in the United States.

We expressed our concern that Purdue’s expansion could trigger an opioid crisis on a global scale. When the WHO failed to respond to the letter, we began to question why they would remain silent about such a significant and devastating public health epidemic. The answers we found are deeply disturbing.”

The report details how WHO, both in its 2011 adult guidance and its 2012 pediatric guidance, parroted Purdue’s false claims that opioid dependence “occurs in less than 1% of patients,” and that “if prescribed in accordance with established dosage regimens, are known to be safe and there is no need to fear accidental death or dependence.”

Remarkably, in its 2012 opioid guidance for children with cancer pain, WHO claims “there is no maximum dosage of strong opioids like OxyContin for children,” Clark and Rogers note. “The WHO published this claim despite the fact that U.S. public health agencies have found that fatal overdoses skyrocket in adult patients who are prescribed above 90 morphine milligram equivalents (MME) per day,” Clark and Rogers write, adding:

“The web of influence we uncovered, combined with the WHO’s recommendations, paints a picture of a public health organization that has been manipulated by the opioid industry … If the recommendations in these WHO guidelines are followed, there is significant risk of sparking a worldwide public health crisis.”

Calls for Reformation of WHO After Ebola Crisis

The WHO was also heavily criticized for its lack of leadership during the 2013 through 2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It took five months before WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, which "undoubtedly contributed to the unprecedented scale of the outbreak," according to an academic assessment published in 2017.²⁰

Two separate reports published in 2015 highlighted the WHO’s failures, one issued by a panel of independent experts commissioned by WHO itself,²¹ and one by an independent group of 19 international experts convened by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Harvard Global Health Institute.²²

While the WHO is recognized as being uniquely suited to carry out key functions necessary in a global pandemic, the LSHTM and Harvard Global Health Institute experts point out that the WHO has by now lost so much trust that radical reforms will be required before it will be able to assume an authoritative role.

“WHO's failings on … core functions during the Ebola outbreak have now produced an existential crisis of confidence … Donors have earmarked voluntary contributions, effectively controlling nearly 80% of WHO's budget by 2015. The result is an organization that seems to have lost its way.

Although the budget has more than doubled from US$1.6 billion in 1998–99 to US$4 billion in 2012–13, the organization itself controlled an ever-shrinking share. One casualty of recent decisions was WHO's reduced ability to control cross-border disease outbreaks, a core task for which it was created in 1948 …

Confidence in the organization’s capacity to lead is at an all-time low. Calling for additional staff or a larger budget will not address this. WHO must find a way to prioritize what it does, and regain its credibility, independence, and legitimacy to perform its core functions.

Breaking out of this 20-year impasse will demand clear commitment and a different kind of leadership by WHO to implement fundamental reforms under a tight timeline …”

Who Funds the WHO?

As reported in the January 2016 issue of Pharmaceutical Technology,²³ only one-quarter of WHO’s funding comes from member states. The remaining 75% comes from voluntary contributions, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the biggest funder. Its donations even exceed those of any individual member state.

The Gates Foundations involvement with WHO is of particular interest at this time. In a Washington Times opinion piece,²⁴ published March 31, 2020, Gates calls for the complete shutdown of all U.S. states and quarantining of all Americans “until the case numbers start to go down … which could take 10 weeks or more.”

While Gates can undoubtedly afford it, few working-class Americans would be able to survive without income for months on end. And, considering the mortality rate of COVID-19 is now believed to be similar to the flu, which is around 0.1%,²⁵ shutting down society for several months really doesn’t seem warranted, unless there’s something else going on that we don’t know about.

Strange Investments and Conflicts of Interest

In March on Friday the 13th, 2020, Gates resigned from the Microsoft board to focus on philanthropic ventures, including global health.²⁶ Most likely, much of his attention will be funneled toward The Gates Foundation.

In 2017, a long list of public interest, health and citizens’ groups sent an open letter²⁷ to the executive board of the WHO, criticizing the organization’s proposal to admit The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as an external actor into “official relations” with the WHO and its governing body, the World Health Assembly.²⁸ According to the letter:

“According to the United States Government’s Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust endowment — the source of revenue for the Foundation — is heavily invested in many of the food, alcohol, and physical inactivity-related consumer products that cause or treat the current crisis of preventable heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. Gates Foundation Trust direct investments include:

In addition, approximately one-quarter of the Gates Foundation Trust assets are invested in Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a holding company that owns a US$17 billion share in the U.S.-based Coca-Cola company and US$29 billion interest in Kraft Heinz Inc., another of the world’s ten largest food companies.

These investments make the Gates Foundation a beneficiary of sales of several categories of products that are the subject of WHO standards and advice to governments related to nutrition and physical activity.”

The signatories also urge member states to fund WHO adequately so as to prevent the organization from having to rely on donations from actors that have a heavy stake in food, drug and alcohol companies.

While the Gates Foundation has been a “two-entity structure” since 2006,²⁹ where the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation distributes money and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust manages assets and investments, conflicts of interest are still clearly visible, making the claim that the two are completely separate a hard sell.

In 2017, India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) severed its ties with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. According to India Times,³⁰ “There were questions about the Gates Foundation’s ties with pharmaceutical companies and the possible influence this may have on the country’s vaccination strategy.” The Indian Health Ministry confirmed that the NTAGI would from there on be fully funded by the central government instead.

If nothing else, Gates himself is likely to have some clue as to where the money is being invested, and therefore can steer the Foundation’s activities in a direction that will ultimately benefit and make money for the Gates Foundation Trust.

WHO’s Relationship With China Under Scrutiny

WHO’s handling of the current COVID-19 pandemic has also come under increasing scrutiny. A February 16, 2020, CNN article³¹ highlights WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ “effusive” praise over China’s response to the outbreak in Wuhan City, despite evidence suggesting Chinese officials had “sought to downplay and control news about the virus, even threatening medical whistleblowers with arrest.”

“The WHO's praise of China's response have led critics to question the relationship between the two entities. The UN agency relied on funding and the cooperation of members to function, giving wealthy member states like China considerable influence. 

Perhaps one of the most overt examples of China's sway over the WHO is its success in blocking Taiwan's access to the body, a position that could have very real consequences for the Taiwanese people if the virus takes hold there. 

The WHO's position regarding China has also renewed a longstanding debate about whether the WHO, founded 72 years ago, is sufficiently independent to allow it to fulfill its purpose,” CNN reports.³²

In the final analysis, it seems doubtful that WHO is sufficiently independent to safeguard public health around the world. The drug industry has no lesser influence over WHO today than it did in 2009 when PACE outed the organization as being unduly influenced by vested interests.

Back then, WHO pushed countries around the world to invest in antivirals and swine flu vaccines with poor efficacy and safety. Today, we have Gates, a key funder of WHO, calling for a 10-week or longer shutdown of the U.S. and the rapid building of brand new vaccine manufacturing facilities to handle the manufacturing of billions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Who benefits and who loses by the implementation of those two recommendations? Think about it.

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British American Tobacco (BAT) has joined the race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, with plans to potentially manufacture 1 million to 3 million doses of vaccine per week. While vaccine development typically takes years, and even then has a poor track record when it comes to safety testing, BAT’s potential COVID-19 vaccine is already in preclinical testing.

Further, BAT, which is working in conjunction with its U.S. biotech subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), stated that if testing goes well, and “with the right partners and support from government agencies,” they could potentially begin manufacturing the experimental vaccine in June 2020.¹

Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine Using Tobacco Plant Technology

KBP made headlines in 2014 when it manufactured ZMapp, an experimental Ebola drug. BAT’s U.S. subsidiary Reynolds American Inc. acquired KBP that year “with the aim of using some of its unique tobacco extraction technology to aid further development of its new category noncombustible products.”²

The experimental COVID-19 vaccine in development uses fast-growing tobacco plant technology, which BAT says has the following advantages over conventional vaccine production:³

• Tobacco plants can’t host pathogens that cause human disease
• It’s faster because the elements of the vaccine accumulate in tobacco plants in six weeks versus several months for conventional methods
• While conventional vaccines often require refrigeration, KBP’s vaccine formulation is stable at room temperature
• It has the potential to deliver an immune response in a single dose

KBP’s proprietary technologies involve temporarily encoding tobacco plants with genetic instructions to produce specific target proteins.⁴ To create the experimental vaccine, KBP cloned a portion of COVID-19’s genetic sequence to develop an antigen, which is a substance that induces an immune response in the body, particularly the production of antibodies.

“This antigen was then inserted into tobacco plants for reproduction and, once the plants were harvested, the antigen was then purified, and is now undergoing preclinical testing,” BAT noted.⁵ As for the tobacco industry’s unlikely foray into public health, Hugh Haydon, KBP’s chief executive officer, told Politico, “People can be cynical. But the fact is that we might be able to help.”⁶

The fact is, the move to medicine comes out of necessity, not altruism. With U.S. cigarette smoking rates at an all-time low among adults, dropping to 13.7% in 2018 — a decline of about two-thirds in the 50 years since the Surgeon General first warned of smoking’s health effects⁷ — tobacco giants had no choice but to regroup.

As such, James Figlar, KBP’s executive vice president of research and development, told Politico they’ve been “pulling apart the tobacco plant” looking for new business prospects.⁸ While the COVID-19 vaccine is a novel use of tobacco plant technology, plant-based vaccines have been attempted in the past.

Are There Risks to Plant-Based Vaccines?

“Plant-made or “biofarmed” viral vaccines are some of the earliest products of the technology of plant molecular farming,” researchers wrote in Virology Journal in 2014, noting “the use of plants and plant cell cultures to produce high-value recombinant proteins, started with the production via transgenic tobacco and sunflower of chimaeric human growth hormone in 1986, then of monoclonal antibodies in transgenic tobacco in 1989.”⁹

In 2010, the Pentagon’s research and development branch Darpa (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) gave $40 million to Texas A&M University and G-Con, a pharmaceutical company, to speed up flu vaccine production using tobacco plants.¹⁰ While the use of tobacco plants may make vaccine production faster, the question remains of whether the resulting vaccines are effective and safe.

One potential risk is that while the manufacturers state that plants don’t carry pathogens that can infect humans, this is up for debate. A number of viruses do infect plants, and it’s possible they could infect humans.

In 2010, for instance, researchers identified pepper mild mottle virus, a plant virus, in the stool of healthy subjects.¹¹ Further, those who had the plant virus in their stool were significantly more likely to have fever, abdominal pain and itching, symptoms that may have been attributable to the virus.

In a review published in the Indian Journal of Virology, researchers from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, plant virology unit, division of plant pathology, further noted, “There is no rigid rule that plant virus cannot break the barrier of their host kingdom and invade human or animal. It is possible that some plant virus may have direct or indirect role as human pathogen …”¹²

Novel Vaccine Technology Being Tested in Humans

BAT is just one company banking on a novel type of COVID-19 vaccine. Biotech company Moderna began the first clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine in March 2020. This is particularly risky, not only because it skipped animal trials to go straight to human testing, but also becomes it’s using a novel form of vaccine production using a technology that has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

While conventional vaccines use modified or killed forms of virus, Moderna is using genetically engineered fragments of the COVID-19 virus’ genetic code.¹³ As noted in The Conversation:¹⁴

“The trial is … unprecedented in that it involves testing a completely new therapeutic substance in humans … Testing a substance on humans that has received a minimal assessment of its safety poses potential risks. It could cause unexpected effects in the study participants, including severe illness and even death.

It’s also possible that an untested vaccine could even accelerate or enhance the effects of the virus instead of blocking them. Speeding up the approval process and recruitment of participants also runs the risk of eroding ethical requirements relating to consent, privacy and the protection of vulnerable people, especially where payments may be involved. This could both increase the risks to volunteers and undermine public trust in clinical research.”

Moderna, which is partnering with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is using synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) to instruct DNA to produce the same kind of proteins COVID-19 uses to gain access into our cells. As reported by STAT News, the idea is that “Once those … dummy virus particles are there … our bodies will learn to recognize and clobber the real thing.”¹⁵

In all, 45 men and nonpregnant women between the ages of 18 and 55 will be paid $1,100 to receive two injections of the vaccine, 28 days apart. The side effects at three different dosages will be evaluated. Biotech company Inovio, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is the second company to start testing an experimental COVID-19 vaccine in humans in the U.S.¹⁶

Inovio’s trial will include 40 healthy volunteers, each of whom will receive two doses, four weeks apart. Inovio expects early safety results by late summer 2020; if all goes well the study will move into the efficacy phase.

Inovio indicated they are already ramping up for global demand of 1 million doses to start out, but these clinical trials are taking place before there’s any scientific evidence that the vaccines actually work as intended and don’t cause severe side effects.

Fast-Tracking Vaccines Carries Risks

Nearly two dozen potential COVID-19 vaccines are under development, each of them likely attempting to be fast-tracked to the market.¹⁷ Under normal circumstances, a vaccine may take five to 10 years to be developed, and pushing rapid progress comes with significant safety concerns.

In the case of coronavirus, this could even mean making infection worse, as vaccine-induced immune enhancement became evident during the development and testing of a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which is caused by a coronavirus.¹⁸

Dr. Peter Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, a vaccine developer, a former president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development.

And, he has gone so far as to say that the movement calling for increased scientific study into vaccine efficacy and risks, and calling for protection of informed consent, should be “snuffed out,” i.e., crushed or killed, acknowledged this. According to Reuters:¹⁹

“‘I understand the importance of accelerating timelines for vaccines in general, but from everything I know, this is not the vaccine to be doing it with,’ Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told Reuters.

Hotez worked on development of a vaccine for SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), the coronavirus behind a major 2003 outbreak, and found that some vaccinated animals developed more severe disease compared with unvaccinated animals when they were exposed to the virus. ‘There is a risk of immune enhancement,’ said Hotez …”

Narcolepsy and Increased Coronavirus Risk Revealed

Other unexpected risks can also occur, as happened with the H1N1 swine flu vaccine released in Europe during the swine flu pandemic of 2009-2010. Its approval process was accelerated, with most safety and efficacy tests bypassed.²⁰ Years later, the ASO3-adjuvanted swine flu vaccine Pandemrix (used in Europe but not in the U.S. during 2009-2010) was causally linked to childhood narcolepsy.²¹

Then, in 2019, researchers described a “novel association between Pandemrix-associated narcolepsy and the noncoding RNA gene GDNF-AS1”²² — a gene thought to regulate the production of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor or GDNF, a protein that plays an important role in neuronal survival.

According to the researchers, “Changes in regulation of GDNF have been associated with neurodegenerative diseases. This finding may increase the understanding of disease mechanisms underlying narcolepsy.”²³ Other notable unintended consequences may also occur following vaccination, including raising the risk of respiratory viruses.

A 2020 study published in the journal Vaccine stated, “Receiving influenza vaccination may increase the risk of other respiratory viruses, a phenomenon known as virus interference.”²⁴

While the study did not find that influenza vaccination increased the risk of all respiratory viruses, it did reveal that it raised coronavirus risk, noting, “Vaccine derived virus interference was significantly associated with coronavirus and human metapneumovirus” (hMPV).

Those who had received a seasonal flu shot were 36% more likely to contract coronavirus infection and 51% more likely to contract hMPV infection than unvaccinated individuals.²⁵

With so many unanswered questions surrounding the safety and efficacy of fast-tracked vaccinations, and the likelihood that it could be at least a year before a COVID-19 vaccine is found to be effective against the virus,²⁶ prevention — in the form of washing your hands, wearing a mask and eating right — remains the best option.

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Analysis by Pat Thomas for the Organic Consumers Association

The global spread of coronavirus/COVID-19 has sent researchers and scientists into overdrive to find both treatments and cures.

In the meantime, doctors and other practitioners are, to a large extent, improvising. They are employing best-care practices for the very sick in hospital and providing best-guess advice for those with mild symptoms who are self-isolating, and for those who have no symptoms and would like to keep it that way.

It's important to remember that there are no proven treatments for coronavirus. The picture changes daily. But right now, the main treatment for severe cases is not a drug at all, but supportive care and oxygen therapy, administered via ventilators in order to help people breathe.

Some doctors are giving standard antibiotics to prevent or treat secondary infections. A few are trying experimental drugs, like the novel antiviral Remdesivir,¹ not yet approved for widespread use.

Others are using "off label" treatments — drugs or drug combinations not originally intended for the treatment of coronavirus, such as chloroquine² and hydroxychloroquine³ (both are antimalaria drugs) with or without the antibiotic azithromycin.⁴

After heavy publicity from doctors reporting success with the drug, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized an emergency authorization⁵ for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus, and followed up with a fact sheet guideline on it April 3, 2020, specifying that it should only be used if "the benefit to the patient outweighs the potential risks."⁶

This move followed emerging⁷ reports of problems with both drugs, such as worryingly high heart rates with chloroquine⁸ (hydroxychloroquine is a less toxic compound⁹) and stories of chloroquine poisonings in the U.S.¹⁰ and Africa¹¹ by people who decided to self-medicate with chloroquine following a tweet by President Trump.

Results from short-term trials for other drugs are starting to come in, but so far none are very encouraging.

Back to Basics

Given these problems, some practitioners are taking a back-to-basics approach. They're looking at remedies we already know about that have a low toxicity and some efficacy in different strains of influenza, to see if they might work with coronavirus.

April 3, 2020 the FDA gave the go ahead¹² — on a case-by-case basis — for using the antibodies in plasma¹³ donated by coronavirus survivors to treat patients who are critically ill with the virus. This relatively simple treatment was most recently used to treat patients during outbreaks of Ebola and avian flu. But it also saved countless lives during the flu pandemic of 1918, when there were no vaccines or antiviral drugs.

In some hard-hit New York hospitals, doctors have begun to administer large intravenous doses of vitamin C, three to four times per day, alongside other treatments. At least one doctor using these treatments reports that those who get the vitamin C do "significantly better"¹⁴ than those who don't.

There is both historical and current data to show this is a reasonable choice. Vitamin C is short-lived in the body and prolonged infection depletes it faster. Studies show that supplementing is effective¹⁵ against some strains of coronavirus in humans and animals.

Based on their experience, Chinese officials are now recommending vitamin C for prevention and treatment of COVID-19. A new clinical trial¹⁶ is underway China, premised on the fact that the antioxidant activity of vitamin C may help prevent cytokine-induced lung damage. Cytokines are small proteins released by cells, which trigger inflammation in response to infections. Severe lung inflammation with COVID-19 can lead to respiratory distress and even death.

Internal Hygiene

In addressing coronavirus, professional complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners are doing exactly what conventional doctors are doing — basing their advice on what is already known to be effective with similar viruses.

Likewise, nutritionists are advising from a perspective of foods and nutraceuticals that are known to support health and immunity.

Data are accumulating on the kind of pre-existing conditions that leave us more vulnerable to coronavirus. Noted U.K. cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra has found that the majority of those who fall seriously ill with the disease are suffering from chronic metabolic diseases¹⁷ including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.

An early audit of hospitalized U.K. patients supports Malhotra's findings, showing that two-thirds of critically coronavirus patients were overweight.¹⁸ Combined with lowered immunity, excess weight against the chest means muscles have to work harder to draw in a full breath.

Environment, and particularly air pollution, is important, too. During the 2003 SARS outbreak infected people living in areas with high levels of air pollution were twice as likely to die¹⁹ (2.18 times) as those living in less polluted areas. With the MERS coronavirus outbreak, first seen in Saudi Arabia in 2012, tobacco smokers were more vulnerable²⁰ to the disease, and more likely to die.

On the plus side, researchers in Melbourne, Australia, have tracked the immune responses^21,22 of one of Australia's first COVID-19 patients. Their data show that a healthy body that has never been exposed to coronavirus before does have the ability to fight the virus and recover from the infection.

The picture that is emerging adds another dimension to the notion of hygiene. Washing hands and maintaining good hygiene practices at home is vital. Social hygiene — maintaining a safe distance from others — is also important.

But so is internal hygiene. What you eat, how you manage stress and your environment, and how you act to support your own overall health — all of this is relevant to how well your body responds to infection with the coronavirus.

Why Is Information on CAM so Hard to Find?

For a variety of reasons, many people feel they either have to, or want to, manage their health at home. According to a major U.S. government survey,²³ 36 percent of adults aged 18 years and older use some form of complementary and alternative medicine to do this. Although this survey dates back to 2004, this is a substantial proportion of the population, and the appears to still hold true, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.²⁴

Alternative treatments, for instance with supplements or herbs, nutrition or stress management, all have a role to play in maintaining good health. But, as with conventional treatments, good advice on the potential of these approaches in relation to the coronavirus outbreak is hard to find.

In fact, these days advice on natural health solutions is generally scarce since "information providers" like Google have decided to make websites providing this information harder to find, based on claims that these websites are pedaling fake news.

This information suppression is real and concerning. One Google whistle-blower has collected over 950 pages of Google documents that show how the search engine is manipulating the flow of information online according to its own political agenda.

The vitamin C story, however, suggests that whether Google approves or not, some doctors at least are returning to tried and tested, low-risk strategies for the treatment of hospitalized patients with coronavirus.

So what else could be effective? There are certainly plenty of tips and recommendations flying around at the moment, though not all of them have reasonable evidence to back them up. Here, then, is a summary of some of the better alternatives for maintaining health at home.

Food

It goes without saying that this is not a time to indulge a craving for junk food, prepackaged snacks or what has been dubbed "quarantinis." As experts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health note,²⁵ a glass of wine is fine, but regular home based happy hours — especially with hard liquor — can suppress immune responses and leave you more vulnerable to respiratory illness.

Food rich in polyphenols is good for health under any circumstances, but now serious research is looking into the role of polyphenols in fighting the coronavirus.

In the lab, natural compounds like hesperidin and diosmin (abundant in citrus fruits, their pith and peels), rutin (found in apples, buckwheat, figs, green and black tea and figs) and apiin (found in parsley and celery), have been shown²⁶ to target an important protein, M(pro), which is responsible for helping the coronavirus to reproduce.

Even the skin on peanuts,²⁷ so often blanched off in pre-prepared spreads and foods, has been shown to have a powerful antiviral effect, with researchers recently concluding that its polyphenol content "inhibits the early replication stages of the influenza virus."

Can dietary polyphenols do the same thing? According to researchers from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health,²⁸ polyphenol compounds — abundant in fresh, whole foods — are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory and have been shown to offer protection against certain cancers, cardiovascular diseases, type-2 diabetes, osteoporosis, pancreatitis, gastrointestinal problems, neurodegenerative diseases and lung damage.

In the gut, polyphenols could also help support beneficial gut bacteria (your "microbiome") while inhibiting invasive or pathogenic species. This is important because gut health, or lack of it, may also increase vulnerability to viruses like the coronavirus.

According to Tim Spector,²⁹ professor of genetic epidemiology, King's College, London, recent research has shown that a healthy microbiome — one with a diversity of "good' bacteria" — plays an essential role³⁰ in the body's immune response to infection, helping it mount a robust response to infectious pathogens like coronavirus. The natural diversity of the microbiome can decline with age, which is why it is particularly important to ensure our elders are eating well.

The best way to increase microbiome diversity is to eat a wide range of plant-based foods, which are high in fiber and which help to "feed" diverse bacteria in the gut.

You can, however, also use supplements. Those containing a mixture of strains of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria have been shown to reduce the risk of upper respiratory tract infection in children³¹ and acute respiratory infections in adults.³²

When choosing a probiotic, look for one with a high number of colony-forming units (CFU), which indicates the number of viable cells. At least 10-20 billion per dose is reasonable unless advised to take more (or fewer) by a healthcare practitioner.

Supplements

Apart from 1 to 3 grams of vitamin C daily and probiotics, you might want to ensure you are getting enough vitamin D. In the Northern Hemisphere spring is upon us. This would be the time that most of us would naturally be going outdoors and topping up low vitamin D stores through exposure to sunshine. That's harder to do if you are sick or under quarantine indoors.

Vitamin D enhances the body's natural immune response helping it fight infections,³³ including influenza and, according to an analysis in the British Medical Journal, acute respiratory tract infections.³⁴ Newer evidence suggests vitamin D could help reduce illness and death from coronavirus.³⁵

Former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Tom Frieden is among those supporting the idea that adequate vitamin D can be a preventative.³⁶ Even Anthony Fauci³⁷ has stated that strategies like vitamin D (and vitamin C) are unlikely to harm and might even help.

Get regular physical activity outdoors, or sit by a sunny window if you are stuck inside. If you are supplementing, a reasonable daily dose for adults and children is around 1000 IU of vitamin C and 400 IU of vitamin D3 (although most people actually need much more vitamin D than that).

Vitamin A is also crucial to our immune response, coordinating both our innate and adaptive immunity.³⁸ It supports the epithelium (which lines the outer surfaces of organs and blood vessels throughout the body, as well as the inner surfaces of cavities in many internal organs) and crucially, it protects the integrity of the mucus membranes of the body, such as in the gut and lungs, making it harder for infection to take hold.

It can be obtained through diet: organ meats, oily fish, cheese and butter are animal-based sources of vitamin A, while carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and green leafy vegetable like spinach and kale supply beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A. The recommended daily amount of vitamin A, according to the Mayo Clinic,³⁹ is 900 micrograms (mcg) for adult men and 700 mcg for adult women.

Zinc is another immune-enhancing supplement. In fact, one study from the Netherlands found that zinc can inhibit the replication of a relative of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV, the cause of the 2003 SARS outbreak.⁴⁰

The recommended daily amount of zinc is for 11 mg per day for adult males and 8 mg daily for adult females.⁴¹ Don't be tempted to megadose. With lozenges, use them at the first sign of a scratchy throat rather than as a daily preventative and stop using once symptoms resolve. Some people may experience a bad taste in their mouths or nausea from lozenges.

Whatever supplement you choose, buy the best quality you can afford and remember that nutrients often work together.

GrassrootsHealth, a nonprofit public health research organization studying a large cohort of 16,000 individuals, has found that those who take supplemental vitamin C alone are 32 percent less likely to get the flu. For those who take omega-3 (another good anti-inflammatory), the figure is 38 percent. But those supplementing with both were 59 percent less likely to get the flu.⁴²

Herbs

Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) often taken as a syrup and widely available over the counter, has a potent antiviral effect against the flu virus.⁴³ Scientists suggest it stops the virus from reproducing⁴⁴ by blocking key proteins that help the virus attach to and enter a host cell.

Elderberry is safe to take as a daily preventative and there is some evidence to suggest that, should you fall ill, it could significantly speed recovery.⁴⁵ Newer evidence shows effectiveness against human coronavirus HCoV-NL63 — one of the main circulating coronaviruses worldwide.⁴⁶

Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea) has both an antiviral and antibacterial activity. New research⁴⁷ out of Thailand suggests that preparations could serve as effective prophylactic treatment for all coronaviruses including the current one.

This is not (yet) peer-reviewed research but, as with vitamin C, there is historical evidence⁴⁸ of echinacea's effectiveness and again, like vitamin C, echinacea has been shown to interfere with cytokine activity⁴⁹ and therefore may help to reduce inflammation and help to ease symptoms. Always take herbs as directed on the package or as prescribed by a health care professional.

Essential Oils

Essential oils are known to be rich in antimicrobial compounds that can help kill bacteria and viruses. Laboratory studies on infected cell cultures are far more abundant than human studies, however.

A helpful review from 2017 published by the Tisserand Institute⁵⁰ details a list of studies showing antiviral effects from tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia), cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum), bergamot (Citrus bergamia), lemongrass (Cymbopogon flexuosus), blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris) oils, when applied to the cells in the lab.

But can that be translated into personal use at home, for instance, through diffusers? Influenza particles can be spread by airborne droplets, close contact with infected people or touching surfaces. Coronavirus particles can remain viable⁵¹ in the air for up to three hours and on surfaces for up to three days. Cleaning surfaces, therefore, is essential.

Cleaning the air may also be beneficial. There is some evidence that passive diffusion of certain essential oils via diffusers, combination diffuser/humidifiers and room sprays can help neutralize airborne viruses.

In one study,⁵² under controlled conditions, vapors of bergamot and blue gum completely inactivated the influenza virus within 10 minutes. Cinnamon, lemongrass and Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) worked after 30 minutes.

Another 2010 lab study⁵³ found that even a highly diluted commercial essential oil blend containing cinnamon, blue gum, clove bud (Syzygium aromaticum), sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) and rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) oils, reduced the infectivity of the influenza virus, lending support to the idea that low concentrations via room diffusion could help sanitize the air.

Essential oils can also help reduce stress and anxiety — and this can have a knock-on effect of bolstering immunity (see below). Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) has proven benefits for anxiety⁵⁴ as do citrus essential oils such as sweet orange⁵⁵ (Citrus sinensis) or lemon (Citrus limon).

When diluting essential oils for room diffusion follow the instructions for your specific machine. If there are none, try somewhere between a 2 percent (12 drops of oil to 20 mls of water) and a 5 percent (30 drops of oil to 20 ml of water) dilution.

Stronger oils like cinnamon may need to be more dilute; lighter oils like citrus less so. Intermittent diffusion — 30 to 60 minutes on and 30 to 60 minutes off — is thought to be more effective than continuous diffusion.

Stress Management

Even the normally stoic CDC recognizes that coronavirus is escalating feelings of anxiety and stress.⁵⁶ When we are stressed, the immune system's ability to fight off infection is reduced.⁵⁷ Stress also promotes inflammation.⁵⁸

The effects of stress are direct, e.g., the hormone corticosteroid, released when we are stressed, can suppress an effective immune response by lowering the number of infection-fighting lymphocytes circulating in the body. But they can also be indirect, e.g., by interfering with sleep, or prompting unhealthy behavioral coping strategies such as snacking, drinking and smoking.

Another effect of prolonged stress is its ability to activate latent ('hibernating') cytomegaloviruses (CMV) which many of us unknowingly carry.⁵⁹ Viruses in the CMV family cause diseases like herpes and chickenpox but also fever and flu-like symptoms. As with coronavirus, there is no current treatment. Combined with coronavirus, a secondary infection like this may be particularly risky for the elderly, pregnant women and those with pre-existing conditions.

Relaxation techniques are an important therapeutic strategy⁶⁰ for stress-related diseases. One recent randomized controlled trial concluded⁶¹ that those who exercised or meditated had fewer severe acute respiratory illnesses than those that did neither.

Relaxation works for kids, too. In one clinical trial⁶² of children between ages 8 and 12, guided relaxation therapy decreased frequency of colds. Relaxation therapy was shown to increase levels of secretory immunoglobulin-A, one of the molecules responsible for protecting mucosal surfaces, like those on the lungs, from infection.

You don't need a therapist to relax. Meditate, read, listen to music, engage in an absorbing hobby, talk to friends — even if it is across the internet — do the crossword, walk when you can get out in a green space, do yoga — whatever engages you fully and takes you out of your head for a while counts as relaxation, so find what works for you.

With coronavirus, a multifaceted approach to health and care is absolutely warranted. The 4 out of 10 of us who wish to use alternative treatments for uncomplicated self-care should feel confident to do so.

Google may not help you find the best — or any — CAM information, but in addition to Mercola.com, the following websites are a good place to start if you want to know more:

• Organic & Natural Health Association
• Natural Health News UK
• Mind Body Green
• American Botanical Council

Pat Thomas is a journalist and author of several books on health and environment including "Complete Wellness and What Works, What Doesn't — The Guide to Alternative Healthcare." She is also the editor at Natural Health News in the U.K. See more on her website at howlatthemoon.org.uk. Thomas frequently writes for the Organic Consumers Association. You can sign up here for OCA's news and alerts.

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