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Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist, has written more than a dozen bestselling books on psychiatry and the drug industry. He's frequently referred to as “the conscience of psychiatry” because he's been able to successfully reform the psychiatric profession, abolishing one of the most harmful practices, namely lobotomies and other experimental psychosurgeries.
He was the first to take a public stand against lobotomies as a young man, and was able to change the field as a result. He’s featured in Aaron and Melissa Dykes’ excellent documentary, “The Minds of Men.”1
Now 83 years old, Breggin has seen a lot, and in this interview, he shares his own evolution and experiences as a psychiatrist. His interest in psychiatry began at the age of 18, when he became a volunteer at a local state mental hospital.
“It was a nightmare,” he says. “It was like my uncle Dutch's descriptions of liberating a Nazi concentration camp. The place stank. People were sitting in these bare, barren concrete corridors.
They had a TV set that wasn't working … and bolted down tables and chairs so the people couldn't throw them at each other. No attention being given to them at all. Often just sitting there; some hallucinating, and somebody told me that the girl in the corner coiled up in a ball on the floor by a radiator had been a Radcliffe student ...
The doctors were callous, the aids were callous, there was just no love in the place at all. I could tell, even though I didn't really have much experience growing up with love, I could feel that what was missing was love, care, nurturing. It was so clear.”
Breggin eventually became the leader of that volunteer program. He and 200 other students painted the walls and took patients for walks. He asked the superintendent to assign one patient per volunteer aid, to build real relationships. The superintendent balked at the idea, but eventually gave in. Breggin tells this story in his book, “Toxic Psychiatry.”2
“We ended up getting almost every patient out of that hospital,” he says. “We got them placed in different places that were much better. We got some back with their families. It was so clear to me that this was the way to go …
I watched electroshock and insulin coma shock where people would come in and they'd give them overdoses of insulin to send them into coma. They'd be frothing at the mouth, unconscious, having seizures and getting ready to die, literally. Then they would give them orange juice or sugar water and they would become alert again.
It was so clear to me what was going on. People would come in full of energy — angry, depressed, anxious and often resistant … They'd get this injection of insulin to knock them out, killing them, basically, but when they came awake they were like puppies. They were grateful, they said ‘Thank you, I feel like you saved me.’ They'd be docile … There's no fooling about what this was. I knew exactly what it was.
I knew what shock treatment was … I've been fighting this, but we're still doing it … It's when they put electrodes on the forehead of the brain … You get a shock of a voltage … 10 times what you need to give convulsions … and it makes docility. It makes people out of touch with themselves. It makes people unable to complain … [Elevated mood] is the artificial euphoria [caused by] brain damage. This is very brain damaging.”
All of this is what motivated Breggin to go into psychiatry, in order to help reform the profession from the inside. Interestingly, as early as 1963, Jerry Klerman, who later became the highest-ranking psychiatrist in the federal government and a professor at Harvard, told Breggin there was no future in helping people strengthen their mental resilience.
The future, Klerman told him, was in drugs, and using computers to decide which drugs to use. After his first year at Harvard medical school, Breggin left and went back to the Upstate Medical Center (University) in New York, where he had already done internship.
“Then I went on to the National Institute of Mental Health … for two years. There I saw clearly what was happening. Psychiatry was leaving the psychosocial model behind.
My volunteer program had already been described by the last big Federal Commission on Mental Health. It's mentioned two or three times and described as one of the solutions to the vast mental hospital problems … Nothing about drugs, drugging and shocking people in it.
It was much more real, much more about what was really going on with human beings and human sufferings, spiritual, psychological. I could just see this writing on the wall and I was not sure what to do. I was invited to stay at the National Institute of Mental Health.
I accepted briefly, in the child division. I was very interested in helping children. Then I thought, I can't do this. I gave them warning without even having a job that I was leaving. I didn't know what else to do, so I went into private practice.”
Breggin focused on helping people without medication. “I learned very quickly that the most disturbed people would calm down and relate when somebody cared about them, wasn't afraid of them, was interested in them and made no pretense of being superior to them,” he says. Drugs, he explains, were simply stifling the patients. While they might ease some of the suffering, that relief came at the expense of brain damage.
Breggin goes on to tell the story of how he prevented the return of lobotomies and psychosurgeries — strategies in which the brain is purposely damaged through electric shocks, radium chip implants or puncturing the prefrontal area of the brain with an ice pick inserted next to the eyeball, for example.
Breggin refers to lobotomies as a rape of the soul, the permanent mutilation of an individual’s selfhood, as damage to one area of the brain will harm the integration of the whole brain. As noted by Breggin, you cannot “plop out aggression” like a pit out of an olive. The brain doesn’t work like that. It’s an integrated organ and mental processes arise from integrated processes involving many different areas of the brain.
He decided somebody had to stop the madness. And, while he received no support from any other well-known psychiatrist or professor, and came under vehement attack by the establishment, including threats of physical violence against himself and his family that at times necessitated the use of bodyguards.
Breggin eventually succeeded. It’s a fascinating story, so I highly recommend listening to the whole interview. When asked why he took on this formidable fight, he says:
“When I saw what was being done to people, I said ‘Somebody has to do this. I have no choice about this.’ I had no idea what I was up against. I had no idea that everywhere there would be enemies; that I'd be threatened with violence.
When I was invited to speak by Harvard Medical students, that people would rip down all the signs about the meeting; that there'd be blowback on the students and stuff like that. I had no idea what I was walking into.”
The end of lobotomies was brought about by a lawsuit filed by a young lawyer named Gabe Kaimowitz on behalf of a chronically hospitalized patient who had been promised release from the mental hospital if he underwent experimental psychosurgery. Breggin tells the story:
“[Kaimowitz] found out they were going to do a psychosurgery experimentation in the state hospital with a local university, Wayne's State. It was all set up to go. He intervened. In fact, the case is called by his name, which is unusual … Kaimowitz v. The Department of Mental Health Wayne State University.
A three-judge panel met about the case. This [patient] had been interviewed by the Commissioner of Mental Health. He had been chronically hospitalized and then allegedly had sexually assaulted a nurse or something, but there was no record of it and certainly no adjudication about it; no meetings about it. He was a lifetime patient.
The Commissioner told him he could get out if he underwent the psychosurgery. Well, the judges looked over his case and decided that, first, he was going to be discharged because he was being held illegally. They discharged John Doe. Then the state said, ‘Well, the case is over.’ They said ‘No. You guys have set up this whole thing. We're going to look at it.’
Well, I was the go-to person as … [Kaimowitz] brought me in. I couldn't testify the first day because they were filibustering me. They wanted to force me to stay overnight so that … they'd have the whole weekend to review the case with the surgeons. Follow me?
Of course, they're forcing me into testifying in the afternoon, filibustering in the morning. Gabe said, ‘This is really too bad because now they're going to have the whole weekend to talk about your testimony with the surgeons.’ I said, ‘No, no, no. We'll filibuster back. I'll testify on something else for the afternoon.’ He said, ‘How are you going to do that?’
I said, ‘Well, I'll talk about the history of psychiatry. I'm going to tie it into the extermination camps, which were very much modeled on state mental hospitals. Show the comparison and hopefully the judges will invoke the Nuremberg Code, which says that, of course, that man couldn't volunteer in a state mental hospital because he's in a total institution, just like the Nuremberg Code was applied to.
He said, ‘OK.’ I gave him a few questions and we went that afternoon and did that. Then on the following Monday, I started to talk about psychosurgery. They were so unprepared that all they could do was go through this 100-page paper that I had written …
We won the trial and it stopped, on the spot, all psychosurgery in the state hospitals in the federal programs. NIH stopped; VA stopped and all the state hospitals stopped. This was 1972-1973.”
It’s important to realize just how important this was, to put a stop to the return of lobotomies and experimental psychosurgeries. It was widely accepted as a practical solution for all sorts of problems, including race riots and behavioral problems among young children.
The beginning of the end of psychosurgery was the early 1970s. At that time, Breggin, who for most of his career struggled to get support, got the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, who could see the social consequences of psychosurgery being used on black children, as well as certain conservative Senators who thought it was immoral.
“I was the first person to criticize lobotomies in public, let alone the first psychiatrist. It was crazy. I still don't understand human beings. I work hard about it, but I keep falling short. I couldn't believe that I was so alone doing this,” he says.
Breggin also had a hand in getting the word out about the dangers of Prozac. In his 1991 book, “Toxic Psychiatry,” he briefly mentioned Prozac is likely to do a lot of harm, and that there were already reports of the drug causing violent aggression.
He was later asked to be the sole scientific expert to put together the science for several dozen lawsuits against Eli Lilly, in which patients or their families claimed the drug had caused violent episodes, suicide, homicide, mania or psychosis. The drama and intrigue surrounding this trial rivals any good spy novel, so for more details, listen to the interview.
As just one example, at the time of his deposition against Eli Lilly, he, his wife and daughter all developed severe illness. By chance, a plumber they’d called in to fix a problem in the basement discovered the stovepipe for the gas heater had been disconnected and was laying out of sight, as if purposely hidden, pumping gas into the house.
Before that, the family had received death threats, and Breggin had called the FBI. Agents claiming to be FBI had visited his family, but something obviously wasn’t right.
“When I called the FBI back, they said they had no record of coming to see me,” Breggin says. “It got very weird … We were in this strange world. People would get angry at me in the audiences. By the way, that never happens, anymore … I want people to know, the environment has changed completely.
So many people now know that drugs are dangerous and shock treatment is horrible. But, the power of psychiatry grows and the drug companies grow … and more and more people are being recruited by all the ads and all the fake science. It is all fake science. You can look at any of my books. If you want it quicker, look up my YouTube channel.”
In broad strokes, the Eli Lilly trial turned out to be fixed in Eli Lilly’s favor and Breggin was set up to fail in his investigation. The plaintiffs lost the case and Eli Lilly was cleared of charges. Eventually, however, evidence emerged showing Eli Lilly lawyers had bribed some of the plaintiffs and arranged for a secret settlement provided they lost the case.
A Supreme Court judge in Kentucky declared the trial a fraud and changed the verdict to “a secret settlement with prejudice.” When the judge decided to disclose the amount of the secret settlement, he was removed and replaced with another judge who decided the settlement amount was not to be disclosed as it might hurt Eli Lilly. The full details of this remarkable case can be found in Breggin’s book, “Medication Madness.”3
One psychiatric treatment Breggin has not been able to eliminate is electroshock treatment (ECT), which is actually starting to be used more and more. Breggin says:
“I've worked on denting shock treatment. Then finally, a class action suit was brought against the manufacturers. They lost against the first manufacturer. There are only two [manufacturers] in North America, and I wasn't involved. Then they called me in. Of course, they expected, again, to just get it thrown out of court.
I did a scientific brief for the judge on brain damage from ECT. The judge decided that there was sufficient evidence for brain damage to make it a jury question. This was huge. The judge focused on the single most important thing he could.
The drug company, within days, settled and put out a statement to the FDA that ECT can cause brain damage and severe memory loss. All that's up on my website, and I've written blogs about it … to show you the nature of what is definitely a conspiracy of people working together toward the same aim and being evil about it.
Within days, the FDA approved ECT for the first time for treatment-resistant depression, which means nothing. It’s used more and more. It's not less. I don't think we slowed it down with this, but we made a big gain. We now have a record of a drug company admitting to the FDA it causes brain damage and so on.
Then the FDA with all its power comes right back and then approves ECT for the first time. They had never approved it. They tried to and there was so much opposition they didn't do it. Then when the drug companies got hurt, it was within days that they approved it. Wow.”
Breggin also discusses the hazards of transcranial direct current stimulation and Neuralink, a transcranial implant designed by the Elon Musk Company. Elon is probably doing this because he’s concerned about the integration of artificial intelligence, which is coming.
He fears the human race could become subservient to artificial intelligence. He thinks one of the preservation strategies is to allow us to sort of keep pace with these advances. Breggin comments:
“This is the new cutting edge that I'm trying to get across to people. I have a new show. If you go to my YouTube channel and look at [my interview with] the Dykes … I did a show about this saying that this is worse than the psychiatry we have now. I'm focusing on all the electronics.
The FDA has approved electrodes on the heads of children to leave them on all night long to give them low voltage stimulation, which is going to go through the skin, back up the nerves, all the way to the frontal lobes in an entirely disruptive hammer-like, crushing way. It's going to blunt the kids. It's horrible. They studied it for four weeks and approved it, if you can imagine that.
It's low voltage, but we know it disrupts brain waves. It's bizarre that they approved this. I started to take this on and then, or actually through Aaron and Melissa, I found out about what was being done by Elon Musk. What's interesting to me is that while Musk is so brilliant, he's stupid about the brain. That's probably because the neurosurgeons and psychiatrists he consults are stupid about the brain.
I mean they're just stupid. He wants to put in multiple threadlike electrodes into the brain, into webs of neurons, and put in low voltage stimulation. This is insane. The brain can't tolerate this. He hopes to [be able to] communicate but there's not going to be any communication.
The brain isn't going to talk to these electrodes. That's not how the brain works. The brain talks to itself. It's not going to talk to Elon Musk [or anyone else] and he's going to disrupt the brain talking to itself. It's a terrible thing to do.
I wish somebody who knows Elon Musk would say, ‘You ought to talk to Peter Breggin. He says your consultants are stupid.’ He's already planning to try to get FDA approval for some neurological disorders and that'll be the beginning of the onslaught.
Here's the really deadly part — a part to really think about and close with — and that is that the defense department, DARPA, is funding Musk.
The Dykes found out that the machine is going to be used to sew in these electrodes … through the funding of DARPA and work through UCLA, which has always been murderers of the brain. We shut down programs at UCLA going way back. We shut down a lot of different kinds of programs in my anti-psychosurgery campaign.”
Dr. Mercola Interviews the Experts
This article is part of a weekly series in which Dr. Mercola interviews various experts on a variety of health issues. To see more expert interviews, click here.
Dr. David Brownstein, who has a clinic just outside of Detroit, has successfully treated over a hundred patients with what has become my favorite intervention for COVID-19 and other upper respiratory infections, namely nebulized hydrogen peroxide. He has published the results of his work in a study that you can download here.
Since I first wrote about it at the beginning of April 2020, I've received impressive testimonials of its effectiveness from friends and acquaintances who got severely ill and used it.
Brownstein is probably best known for his promotion of iodine and its supplementation. He was also an early adopter of vitamin D optimization and nebulized peroxide. He explains the background that led him to his current regimen:
"The history goes back about 28 years when I began practicing holistic medicine. Of course, we would see people with influenza and influenza-like illnesses every fall and winter, so I started searching for things that would help people's immune systems …
We initially started using vitamin C and vitamin D. I started to check vitamin D levels in 1992. What I found was the vast majority of my patients, well over 90%, were deficient in vitamin D, and those who had more chronic issues and were sicker in general, they usually had lower levels of vitamin D ...
Then I came across vitamin A. I originally read the research on how vitamin A helped third world countries when they had measles infections and helped … [patients] recover uneventfully if they had enough vitamin A, so I quickly added vitamin A to the regimen.
A few years later, I learned about iodine. Iodine has direct viricidal effects. It has immune system effects. It helps the white blood cells produce hydrogen peroxide to fight viral and bacterial infections, as well as thyroid effects. Iodine got added to the regimen, and so the original treatment of our patients was vitamins A, C, D and iodine at high doses for about four days.
What we found was our patients did not develop pneumonia, did not get hospitalized, did not die from flu and other influenza-like illnesses at anywhere near the rates that they should have when you looked at the published rates of problems with these illnesses."
While attending an oxidative medicine course, Brownstein learned about hydrogen peroxide. At that point, he and his staff started using nebulized hydrogen peroxide and intravenous (IV) hydrogen peroxide. That was back in the mid-1990s. So, he has been using nebulized peroxide clinically for 25 years now, which is longer than anyone I know of.
With each revision of his original protocol, patients seemed to fare better. Fast-forward another couple of years, at another medical course, he learned about the benefits of ozone.
"That was the latest addition to it. What we found over 28 years of using this therapy is that our patients did well. I never made a claim that this cured any influenza or influenza-like illness. What it does is it supports the immune system in multiple ways, and people get over it just like they've gotten over it for eons of time," Brownstein says.
"If we didn't get over these viral illnesses, we wouldn't survive as a human species, so it certainly makes sense we'd want a strong immune system in place when we get exposed to these pathogenic organisms.
When COVID-19 came around … we were warned that we're going to have millions of deaths, and this is going to be the biggest medical catastrophe in our lifetimes …
Everyone was on edge, and I had a meeting with my staff at the end of a work week. It was the last Thursday in February. And I told the staff that the first 28 years of our holistic practice was truly practice for this pandemic … And I said, 'I think we've got this covered.'
I said, 'I can't guarantee anyone anything, but we've treated coronavirus in past years' … Coronavirus is known to be part of the influenza-like illnesses … I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work for this illness as it has worked for the other viral/coronavirus illnesses that we've been treating.'"
Brownstein and the other physicians in his practice first started treating COVID patients in the middle of a Detroit winter under full social distancing and lockdown restrictions. As a result, he had to treat patients who were ill in a drive-through manner in his clinic parking lot. They'd stick their arm out their car window, and Brownstein and his colleagues would do an IV of hydrogen peroxide and vitamin C and intramuscular shots of ozone.
"I vividly remember the snow coming down on my face mask as I'm shaking my head like a dog in order to clear my face shield, trying to put the IV in," he says. "At the end of the treatment, we would do ozone. We didn't want to do IV ozone outside because the elements weren't good, so we decided to do intramuscular ozone.
People who were sick, who couldn't breathe, we'd meet them in the parking lot. At the end of the IVs, we'd open their car door and have them stick their rear end out the car door. We'd put ozone in each [butt] cheek and send them on their way.
We got them hooked up on a nebulizer too, nebulizing hydrogen peroxide and iodine. After they started the therapies, usually after the first nebulized treatment, their airways would open up, and they could breathe again. We ended up treating 107 patients that I wrote about in the published, peer-reviewed [paper]. We had one hospitalization, no ventilators, no deaths."
The case report,1 "A Novel Approach to Treating COVID-19 Using Nutritional and Oxidative Therapies," was published in Science, Public Health Policy, and The Law in July 2020. For a couple of months, Brownstein would post video interviews with his patients, in which they told their story.
He removed all of them after receiving a warning letter from the Federal Trade Commission, saying that because there's no established prevention, treatment or cure for COVID-19, any mention thereof falls in violation of FTC law.
"In their first letter to me, they said, 'Because there's no human clinical studies documenting what you say works, you need to remove it.' So, after we published the [case review], my lawyer wife sent the FTC a letter saying, 'Here's a published study. We'd like to put my study on my website without comment.' And they said, 'No, it's not a randomized. We want a randomized controlled study.'
So, we felt like we had punched the ball into the end zone, and then they moved the goal post back 30 yards, but that's where we stand right now with it. And we're still treating patients with it. The study was on 107 patients. We've probably treated 10 more patients since then, still with good success.
I wrote in the article that the reason I didn't do a randomized study was it's unethical for me to withhold that treatment from people when I'm as certain as I can be that the therapy was going to work. There's no way I could sleep at night if I was randomizing people to get the therapy, and others to not get the therapy.
COVID was a new illness. We had never seen it. Nobody had ever seen it. There were no randomized studies. There's no reason to. Too many people were dying. We've already had over 100,000 deaths. It's just tragic, and it's really going to be a stain on medicine when the final autopsy is written on this."
Interestingly, as explained by Brownstein, in addition to having direct viricidal effects, iodine also stimulates and supports the immune system. It increases the killing effect of hydrogen peroxide production in your white blood cells by improving white blood cell and thyroid function, which is one way our immune system works to kill pathogens. Vitamin C directly increases hydrogen peroxide production when used at high doses, he says, while vitamin A helps modulate your immune system.
"Perhaps instead of just relying on masks and social isolation, we should be talking about the immune system," Brownstein says. "How do we support it? And I'd like to throw out the question: Since when did talking about supporting the immune system become illegal? Since when do you have to be quiet about it?
Unfortunately, in this time and age, this is where we're at right now, and it's a sad time … I've been writing a book on a holistic approach to viruses. And in this book … I say that this illness is an example of what's wrong with our country.
The health of our country is in such decline, we finish last or nearly last in every single health indicator when compared to other Western countries, and this is why we've got hit so hard with this. And nobody talks about our health. All they're talking about is masks, social isolation and wait for a vaccine.
What about the next virus that comes around? What are they going to do about that one? And my comments on this warp speed vaccine to the world is, I hope it's safe and effective, but I don't think I'll be first in line getting this thing, not when it's bypassing all the safety studies …
What I'd be first in line with is trying to figure out how I'm going to support my immune system, so when I'm confronted with these different viruses — because after this one, there's going to be the next one — you're not going to depend on another warp speed project. You're going to depend on yourself to get over these things. We can do it."
Nebulized hydrogen peroxide is extremely safe. Brownstein has used it for 25 years with no ill effects being found. It's also incredibly inexpensive, and you can administer it at home, without a prescription. In my view, it is one of the absolute best therapies for viral infections like SARS-CoV-2 or even worse respiratory viruses that will likely be unleashed in the future.
You need to buy a desktop nebulizer (it needs to produce a very fine mist and desktop versions are stronger than handheld battery operated models). The one I use is the Pari Trek S Compressor Aerosol System, which is available on Amazon or less expensively on eBay. The large battery option is unnecessary as you can simply plug in the device to run it when you need it.
Please understand, though, that the Pari Trek S is designed to treat asthmatics and as such only comes with a mouthpiece. While this would get the peroxide in the lungs where it is needed, it does nothing to reach the sinuses, which are also likely infected. This is why it would be worth pick up some face masks on Amazon to use instead of the mouthpiece as they are only about $10.
It is important to acquire this BEFORE you need it, as the sooner you treat the infection the better your results will be, although the testimonials are unbelievably impressive even in late stage illness. It is not necessary to treat yourself preventively, but only if you are sick or exposed to someone who is.
While I've been using a 0.1% dilution, Brownstein uses an even lower concentration of just 0.04%. Neither Brownstein nor I recommend using commercial 3% hydrogen peroxide found in most grocery stores, however, as it has potentially toxic chemical stabilizers in it. Then take 3-5 ml and put that into the nebulizer and inhale the entire amount. You can do this every hour when you are sick until you start to notice improvement and then back down to every 4-6 hours and continue until you are over the illness.
Since you are not using full strength 3% peroxide and diluting it by 30 to 50 times, it is unlikely the stabilizers will present a problem, but to be safe it is best to use FOOD-GRADE peroxide. Also remember not to dilute it with plain water as the lack of electrolytes in the water can damage your lungs if you nebulize that. You will need to use saline or add a small amount of salt to the water to eliminate this risk.
Brownstein also dilutes the peroxide with sterile water and saline rather than distilled water. Using saline prevents the osmotic differential that can cause damage to lung cells. Brownstein dilutes the 35% food-grade peroxide as follows. When nebulizing, Brownstein also adds one drop of 5% Lugol's solution to the nebulizer as well.
Brownstein relates the case of a 67-year-old male patient. The man developed COVID-19 symptoms, and after seven or eight days could not breathe and went to the hospital where he was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia. After two days of treatment, which included oxygen, he felt only slightly better, but was released from the hospital due to a shortage of beds.
"They sent him home on oxygen and told him, 'Only come back if you can't breathe.' So he goes home, and he calls me on the phone, crying, 'I'm going to die. They sent me home to die.'
I said to him, 'You're not going to die. Do you have a nebulizer?' And he said, 'No.' And I'm like, 'We need to start nebulizing right away … Send your wife over. We'll put a nebulizer in the car and tell you how to do it.' So, we mixed up the solution for him, and she brought the nebulizer home.
I called him up at the end of the day. He had done three nebulizer treatments, and he said that after the second nebulizer treatment his lungs started to open up. He felt about 70% better and didn't feel like he was going to die at that point.
He was still coughing and short of breath, but not like he was. After the third treatment, he said he was even better … So, this nebulizer thing really does work.
The one thing I'd like your readers to know, the handheld nebulizers don't work as well. I had a handful of patients who were using a handheld nebulizer and trying it with the same solution.
They were calling me back saying, 'It's not working.' When they got a desktop model, a little stronger model, it worked. So, I encourage people not to use a handheld nebulizer. Use a desktop model. It's a little bit stronger."
This story echoes the experiences of personal acquaintances who have tried the treatment. After two treatments, they felt significantly better. After the third treatment, their breathing was restored and they were well on their way to a full recovery.
You'd be hard-pressed to find another treatment that works within hours. Brownstein agrees that this scenario is consistent with what he has encountered among his own patients.
"Usually, everything feels better within a couple of hours of starting nebulizing," he says. When asked about how others in the medical community have responded to his blog posts about the treatment, he replies:
"In the middle of the crisis as I was posting … I started hearing from doctors all over the country, especially in New York and New Jersey. They were hospital physicians … They didn't know what to do. The therapies weren't working.
No. 1, they want the therapy for their family, and No. 2, they want to help their patients. So, I was hearing from doctors. They were interested. I heard from a couple of local doctors who sent patients to us whom they couldn't help.
They had nothing to offer them ... and [those patients] got better … It was really the first time I got a bunch of emails, messages and phone calls from doctors saying, 'Hey, tell me how it works. Tell me what you're doing.'"
In my April 2020 article, "Could Hydrogen Peroxide Treat Coronavirus?" I reviewed some of the basic science of how hydrogen peroxide works, as well as some of the studies assessing its therapeutic potential.
The most relevant study2 was published in March 2020 in the Journal of Hospital Infection. They studied 0.5% hydrogen peroxide, and found it killed human coronaviruses, including the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS. Here are a few additional facts that explain how and why hydrogen peroxide works so well for respiratory infections:
1. Hydrogen peroxide freely crosses cell membranes and does not readily oxidize biological molecules, including lipids and proteins.3 It does however react with iron. The presence of free, unbound iron in high concentrations in pathogens is what allows them to be selectively targeted by hydrogen peroxide.
High concentrations of iron result in a rapid breakdown of hydrogen peroxide into hydroxyl radicals and water. The hydroxyl radical, a potent oxidizing agent, kills any pathogens present. (Under normal, healthy circumstances, hydrogen peroxide merely breaks down into oxygen and water.)
2. Peroxide is generated by activated phagocytes (pathogen-killing immune cells) at sites of inflammation.4 Phagocytes also contain high amounts of ascorbate (vitamin C), which directly donate electrons to peroxide to generate the pathogen-killing hydroxyl radical inside the infected cells. Vitamin C also helps generate increased amounts of extracellular hydrogen peroxide, which further boosts the elimination of pathogens.5
3. Hydrogen peroxide is continually generated inside all cells in your body, including the epithelial lining of your lungs. (Hydrogen peroxide is present in the air exhaled by healthy human subjects, and when inflammation is present, more peroxide is found in the exhaled breath.6) The presence of excreted peroxide on these surface cells in the airways is part of a healthy, at-the-ready immune response.7
4. Aside from its anti-pathogen properties, hydrogen peroxide is also recognized as an important signaling molecule, both intracellular and extracellular, influencing and modulating multiple metabolic processes.8
In summary, hydrogen peroxide sits inside and outside your cells in low levels, ready and waiting to be generated in greater amounts as soon as a pathogen is detected by the immune system by NADPH Oxidase (NOX).
Its presence in your human body (at varying amounts depending on whether infection is present), and the lack of toxic metabolites, are indicative of its safety and nontoxic nature.
Similarly, as noted by Brownstein, hydrogen peroxide is extremely safe to use and nebulize at the diluted levels suggested. It's also effective. All pathogens studied to date have been found to succumb to hydrogen peroxide, albeit at varying concentrations and for different amounts of exposure.
So, nebulizing hydrogen peroxide into the sinuses, throat and lungs is a simple, straightforward way to augment your body's natural expression of hydrogen peroxide to combat infection.
While individual sensitivities to inhaled peroxide vary, even very low concentrations (below 3%) have been shown to reliably kill most pathogens.9,10,11,12 Through trial and error, Brownstein found 0.04% was the lowest concentration at which patients report significant improvement, which is why he recommends that level of dilution.
To summarize, here's how I would treat myself or a family member:
The key is to have everything you need readily available. Have it in your possession before you need it. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so procure the nebulizer, peroxide and iodine before you get ill.
If you're exposed to someone who is sick, you can use the nebulized peroxide as a prophylactic, but if you're healthy, it's not recommended to nebulize daily. For prevention, also make sure your vitamin D level is above 40 ng/mL.
In the later stages of disease, NAC may be really useful. The MATH+ protocol developed by Dr. Paul Marik uses methylprednisolone, vitamin C, thiamine (vitamin B1) and heparin. Heparin is administered because COVID-19 is a blood disorder too. There are clotting complications, and the heparin seems to improve that.
NAC also prevents platelet aggregation and abnormal blood clotting. It also reduces oxidative stress and increases glutathione levels, both of which play important roles in this disease. In my view, quercetin, zinc, glutathione, vitamin D and nebulized peroxide is a home run.
"There are cheap and effective ways to treat [COVID-19], and we should be studying this," Brownstein says. "We should be allowed to report on it, and we should be allowed to study it. [If we were], we wouldn't have the travesty that's happened to our country."
Trade in a road run for this EMOM workout with pro runner Lanni Marchant.
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Join pro runner Will Leer in a foot and ankle mobility routine to help improve your lower body’s range of motion.
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Try this shoulder mobility routine with Under Armour trainer Monica Jones.
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Try this bodyweight only workout with Under Armour trainer Saman Munir.
The post 10 Minute AMRAP with Saman Munir appeared first on Under Armour.