Health & Fitness

Children may end up being among the greatest casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic — not because of the virus but due to the restrictions placed upon them over the last year, which have interrupted mental, social and emotional development in unprecedented ways. It became clear early on that children and teens are at very low risk from COVID-19, with a 99.997% survival.¹

Masking, social distancing and virtual schooling persisted nonetheless, even as experts sounded the alarm about their probable implications, including physical, psychological and behavioral adverse effects.²

Speaking at the Advanced Medicine Conference May 30, 2021, Leila Centner, chief executive officer and co-founder of Centner Academy in Miami, Florida, detailed many of the risks posed to children by COVID-19 school guidelines, along with the inconsistencies and lack of research behind their use.³

Centner made headlines in April 2021 after informing teachers that if they’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19 they can’t work at the school due to the unknown effects the experimental drug could be having on unvaccinated individuals.⁴

CDC COVID Guidelines May Be Harming Children

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s operational strategy for K-to-12 schools continues to recommend the “consistent use of prevention strategies, including universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing.”⁵

Any intervention, including mask usage, which may cause adverse effects, must have benefits that outweigh the risks, but no research has been done to ensure that universal masking of children is safe or effective. Despite this, one of the two key prevention strategies recommended by the CDC for schools to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is the requirement for “universal and correct use of masks.”

The Centner Academy did not require masks at any point during the pandemic, but did not have any hospitalizations from COVID-19. While they did have cases, most that occurred among students were asymptomatic, Centner said.

It’s important to note that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has flip-flopped on the usefulness and need for masks multiple times, from "Americans shouldn't be wearing masks because they don't work," to masks definitely work and should be worn by everyone, to you should wear not just one but two, for safe measure.

He's gone from promising a mask-free existence once the vaccine rolls out, to insisting mask-wearing is still necessary after vaccination because vaccine-resistant variants might pop up, to proposing we might need to wear masks every flu season in perpetuity. Yet, signs are increasing that masks do pose risks, including to children.

At the University of Witten/Herdecke in Germany, an online registry was set up where parents, doctors, pedagogues and others can enter their observations about mask wearing in children. Using data on 25,930 children,⁶ with an average mask wearing time of 270 minutes per day, 24 health issues were reported.⁷ A majority of parents (68%) reported impairments in their children due to wearing a mask. They recorded symptoms that:⁸

“… included irritability (60%), headache (53%), difficulty concentrating (50%), less happiness (49%), reluctance to go to school/kindergarten (44%), malaise (42%), impaired learning (38%) and drowsiness or fatigue (37%).”

They also found 29.7% reported feeling short of breath, 26.4% being dizzy and 17.9% were unwilling to move or play.⁹ Hundreds more experienced “accelerated respiration, tightness in chest, weakness and short-term impairment of consciousness.” The researchers concluded:¹⁰

“The frequency of the registry’s use and the spectrum of symptoms registryed indicate the importance of the topic and call for representative surveys, randomized controlled trials with various masks and a renewed risk-benefit assessment for the vulnerable group of children.”

Masks Cause Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Headaches and More

Centner’s presentation featured Dr. Jim Meehan, an ophthalmologist and preventive medicine specialist who has performed more than 10,000 surgical procedures and is also a former editor of the medical journal Ocular Immunology and Inflammation. He has conducted an evidence-based scientific analysis on masks, which shows that not only should healthy people not be wearing masks but they could be harmed as a result.¹¹

In the video, Meehan warned universal masking of children is experimental and the safety hasn’t been proven. Further, he says the official change in guidelines from first telling people to avoid mask-wearing to later mandating it in many places wasn’t the result of “new science” but rather was the result of lobbying.

In his practice, Meehan said he’s seen horrendous harm as a result, with dozens of children facing health problems including:¹²

Anxiety	Panic attacks	Struggling to breathe
Facial rashes	Infections	Dental problems
Oral ulcers	Cavities	Throat abscesses

Meehan previously compiled 17 ways that masks can cause harm, which include:¹³

Medical masks adversely affect respiratory physiology and function	Medical masks lower oxygen levels in the blood
Medical masks raise carbon dioxide levels in the blood	SAR-CoV-2 has a “furin cleavage” site that makes it more pathogenic, and the virus enters cells more easily when arterial oxygen levels decline, which means wearing a mask could increase COVID-19 severity
Medical masks trap exhaled virus in the mouth/mask, increasing viral/infectious load and increasing disease severity	SARS-CoV-2 becomes more dangerous when blood oxygen levels decline
The furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 increases cellular invasion, especially during low blood oxygen levels	Cloth masks may increase the risk of contracting COVID-19 and other respiratory infections
Wearing a face mask may give a false sense of security	Masks compromise communications and reduce social distancing
Untrained and inappropriate management of face masks is common	Masks worn imperfectly are dangerous
Masks collect and colonize viruses, bacteria and mold	Wearing a face mask makes the exhaled air go into the eyes
Contact tracing studies show that asymptomatic carrier transmission is very rare	Face masks and stay at home orders prevent the development of herd immunity
Face masks are dangerous and contraindicated for a large number of people with pre-existing medical conditions and disabilities

Centner also featured Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, a New York pediatrician, who warned that masks could be harming children’s brain development. By promoting fear, stress, panic and anxiety, it keeps children in the “fight or flight response” driven by the brain. This influences the capacity of development and higher functions of the brain.¹⁴

Children’s Mental Health Is Suffering

Rates of suicide in youth increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 compared to 2019. Significantly higher rates of suicide-related behaviors, including suicide ideation and suicide attempts, corresponded to times of increased COVID-19-related concerns, according to research published in the journal Pediatrics.¹⁵ Social isolation imposed during the pandemic has been cited as reason for pushing some children with mental health issues “over the edge.”¹⁶

Centner also highlighted a May 2021 announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which will make $14.2 million from the American Rescue Plan available to expand mental health care access to children.¹⁷ In a news release, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said:¹⁸

“Children are struggling with a range of emotional and behavioral challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those in families with lower incomes or who face other obstacles to health care.”

It’s estimated that 22% of U.S. children between the ages of 3 and 17 are suffering with a mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral condition.¹⁹

Dr. Peter Breggin, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, was also featured in Centner’s presentation. A former consultant at the National Institute of Mental Health, Breggin has called COVID-19 restrictions placed on children a “crime against humanity” and an experiment in social engineering aimed at creating docile pawns in a “global predatory system.” Speaking with Wilson County News, Breggin said:²⁰

“I was a kid during World War II, and I never saw anything like these even back then. Americans have never been docile like this, even in wartime. And the more you can mask a child, the less they can connect, and less they connect the more docile they become.

Similarly, the more that you teach them to do absurd humiliating things, the more they give in to anything you demand. Ultimately, the more freedom you take away from them as children, the more you can take away their freedom as adults.”

States Are Banning Masks in Schools

A number of states have now banned mask mandates in schools, often as the result of public outcry. An executive order prohibiting government entities from mandating masks in Texas took effect June 4, 2021.²¹

A similar bill was enacted in Iowa in May 2021, which also bans school mask mandates. In a statement, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds stated, “The state of Iowa is putting parents back in control of their child's education and taking greater steps to protect the rights of all Iowans to make their own health care decisions.”²²

In similar moves, Arkansas plans to ban mask requirements for schools by the end of summer 2021,²³ and South Carolina issued an executive order that allows parents to opt their children out of mask requirements at school.²⁴

A number of Wisconsin school districts have also lifted mask requirements,²⁵ while Florida’s education commissioner Richard Corcoran sent a memo to district superintendents stating face masks should be voluntary for the 2021-22 school year because “they serve no remaining good at this point in our schools.”²⁶

Indeed, even during the height of the pandemic, a CDC study found mask requirements for students had little effect on COVID-19 incidence at Georgia schools, while improved ventilation, such as opening a window, reduced cases more than mask mandates for staff and teachers.²⁷

Take a Stand for Health Freedom

If you’d like to get involved, Stand for Health Freedom, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting basic human rights, constitutional rights and parental rights, has a form you can use to ask your governor and department of education to lift harmful COVID-19 guidelines in your child’s school so students can return to normal, healthy learning environments.²⁸

They’ve also created the Putting Our Kids First presentation to take to your school board officials, which contains data and video testimony from doctors, parents and children about the harms of COVID restrictions in schools.²⁹ Many of the school districts that have lifted mask requirements have done so in response to requests from parents and the public, showing that every person has the ability to make a difference in their community.

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From October 2019 to October 2020, there were 91,862 estimated overdose deaths in the U.S., which represents a 30% increase in 12 months.¹ Certain states had an even higher year-over-year increase, including Kentucky, with overdose deaths increasing 53.1%, and West Virginia, with a 48.4% increase.

Opioids, including oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine, accounted for the majority of deaths — 68,399 — followed by synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and tramadol.²

Epidemiologist Chelsea Shover of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, speaking with BuzzFeed News, said, “Things were on a bad trajectory before, and now it has gotten even worse … I can’t think of a way the pandemic made things better. The simple fact that people are more isolated, and more likely alone when they overdose, means they can’t get help.”³

A study by Shover and colleagues reported that overdose deaths from synthetic opioids increased 10-fold in the U.S. from 2013 to 2018.⁴ Their research found fentanyl deaths increased 63% from 2019 to 2020, with a “fentanyl breakthrough” in western states driving the increases, which they fear will “dramatically worsen the nation’s already severe opioid epidemic in the long-term.”⁵

While U.S. overdose deaths were already on the rise prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shover’s study is among those that confirm the pandemic increased the deaths further as a result of the social and economic disruptions.⁶

Every US State Had a Spike in Overdose Deaths During Pandemic

An issue brief released by the American Medical Association June 1, 2021,⁷ confirmed, “The nation’s COVID pandemic made the nation’s drug overdose epidemic worse.” They cited a spike or increase in overdose deaths or other problems reported by every U.S. state during the pandemic.

Central Florida is one example, reporting a 70% rise in drug overdose deaths during the height of the lockdown compared to a year prior.⁸ Andrae Bailey, founder and CEO of Orlando-based Project Opioid, told the Orlando Sentinel:⁹

“This is an epidemic inside a pandemic. COVID-19 has caused an unprecedented mental health collapse in Central Florida, in Florida as a whole and across the country. People are emotionally, mentally and spiritually broken, and they are taking drugs that kill them at numbers we’ve never seen before.”

During the 11-week stay-at-home order in Chicago, which stretched from March 21, 2020, to May 30, 2020, opioid overdose fatalities nearly doubled, rising from 23 deaths per week to 44.¹⁰ When the lockdown was lifted, the number of weekly deaths quickly declined and then began to creep up again near the end of the 29-week period, settling at 32.7 deaths per week.

Similar increases have been reported across the U.S. In Philadelphia, 2020 marked the highest number of drug overdose deaths since 2017,¹¹ while drug-related deaths in Honolulu hit a five-year high in 2020.¹²

A Perfect Storm for Worsening the Crisis

Psychological distress associated with economic recessions and unemployment is a significant factor in increasing drug use among adults.¹³ This, coupled with social isolation and disruptions to treatment, created the perfect storm for worsening the opioid crisis.

Closure of substance use treatment clinics during lockdown kept some people from accessing lifesaving care.¹⁴ Disruptions of care during stay-at-home mandates are a major concern for people with opioid use disorder, who depend on regular face-to-face health care. Access to medications for addiction treatment was also restricted.

A report by the Well Being Trust and the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care estimated that up to 75,000 people may die during the COVID-19 pandemic from drug or alcohol misuse and suicide. These “deaths of despair” were exacerbated by:¹⁵

• Unprecedented economic failure paired with massive unemployment
• Mandated social isolation for months and possible residual isolation for years
• Uncertainty caused by the sudden emergence of a novel, previously unknown microbe

John Kelly, a professor of psychiatry in addiction medicine at Harvard Medical School, further told STAT that people with substance use disorder are hypersensitive to stress while being less able to experience rewards at normal levels — a particularly challenging combination during the pandemic.¹⁶

Some people who lost their supply of drugs due to the pandemic may have seen their tolerance fall rapidly, which could lead to overdose if the they attempt to consume the same amount after a pause.

Social Isolation Was a Killer

The loss of social support and isolation, however, was likely a major driving force in the sharp rise in deaths. If a person overdoses while alone, there’s no one to call for help or to administer naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug.

There are even reports of stigma and discrimination, according to Dr. Peter Grinspoon, who recovered from opioid addiction and teaches medicine at Harvard Medical School.¹⁷ He said in April 2020, “There are reports surfacing of police departments across the country that are refusing to offer naloxone to patients who have overdosed, on the pretext that it is too dangerous because the ‘addict’ might wake up coughing and sneezing coronavirus droplets.”

Those struggling with addiction were also likely to find social isolation particularly daunting, as drug use accelerates in privacy. Speaking with STAT, Dr. Carla Marienfeld, a psychiatrist at UC San Diego Health, said:¹⁸

“People can’t be around friends, go outside to gyms and restaurants, all of those everyday activities that might mitigate anxiety and depression. Addiction thrives in secrecy and in the pandemic, you have more people alone and not accountable to friends and family.”

Mental Health Took a Serious Hit

Even among a survey of 2,000 U.S. adults without a history of drug use, 88% reported at least one symptom that’s indicative of mental health trauma in 2020, including:¹⁹

• Little interest or pleasure in doing things (52%)
• Having trouble falling or staying asleep (52%)
• Feeling down, depressed or hopeless (51%)

Among U.S. young adults aged 18 to 30 years, high levels of depression, anxiety and PTSD symptoms were also reported from April 13 to May 19, 2020,²⁰ which is about one month after a state of emergency was declared in the U.S. due to COVID-19 and when heavy restrictions were in place in most areas. Another team of researchers looking into the psychosocial impact of COVID-19 similarly reported:²¹

“Disease itself multiplied by forced quarantine to combat COVID-19 applied by nationwide lockdowns can produce acute panic, anxiety, obsessive behaviors, hoarding, paranoia, and depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the long run.”

The full mental health fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic won’t be clear for years, but by September 2020 researchers had revealed that the prevalence of depression symptoms increased by more than threefold — from 8.5% before COVID-19 to 27.8% during the pandemic.²² All of these circumstances — mental health trauma, anxiety, panic, depression and PTSD — have the potential to increase drug use and overdose.

Worsening Pain Could Further Opioid Addiction

Another avenue of harm during the pandemic is worsening chronic pain. One woman told The Washington Post that her chronic pain, which stems from injuries she sustained inside the Pentagon during 9/11, became unmanageable during the pandemic, when her treatment strategies, which included physical therapy, acupuncture, electrostimulation and non-opioid medications, were disrupted.²³

It’s well known that social isolation worsens chronic pain,²⁴ which could lead people to seek out more powerful treatment options. As Linda Porter, director of the Office of Pain Policy at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told the Post:²⁵

“Chronic pain can be incredibly burdensome. It seems to have become a bigger problem during covid than before covid. Isolation makes your pain worse. People couldn’t get where they needed to go for care. Also, the pain cycle often includes depression and anxiety and all of this taken together has really, really affected peoples’ lives.”

Using opioids for as few as five days increases the risk of long-term use,²⁶ and many people who started out taking the drugs for back pain or other chronic pain end up addicted.

An estimated 21% to 29% of people prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuses²⁷ them and 8% to 12% develop an opioid use disorder. Many also transition to using heroin; an estimated 80% of heroin users misused prescription opioids first.

Publicis Accused of Illegal Opioid Advertisements

Publicis, a partner of the World Economic Forum, which is leading the call for a Great Reset, is accused of placing illegal advertisements for OxyContin in the electronic medical records of patients and creating training materials for Purdue Pharma — the maker of OxyContin — sales reps on how to combat doctor’s objections to the drugs.^28,29

Publicis also developed strategies to counter opioid guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and created “patient vignettes” to “humanize” the OxyContin brand and counter negative press about addiction risks.

At the beginning of May 2021, the Massachusetts attorney general filed a lawsuit against Publicis,³⁰ which also claims the company was responsible for creating and sending thousands of deceptive emails to doctors, encouraging them to not only increase patients’ dosages but also to prescribe the drug to patients who were already on less dangerous pain meds.³¹

Publicis appears to be playing an important role in the global censorship of information relating to COVID-19, and Publicis Health admitted its involvement in this agenda in an April 2021 tweet, in which the they announced its partnership with NewsGuard, “to fight the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.”³²

NewsGuard previously classified Mercola.com as fake news because we reported the SARS-CoV-2 virus as potentially having been leaked from the biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory in Wuhan City, China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. Now Publicis is being sued for its role in creating Purdue’s deceptive marketing for OxyContin, which is described as the “crime of the century.”

Help for Opioid Addiction

If you or a loved one is struggling with opioid addiction, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration³³ can be contacted 24 hours a day at 1-800-622-HELP. I also urge you to listen to my interview with Dr. Sarah Zielsdorf, in which she explains how low-dose naltrexone (LDN), used in microdoses, can help combat opioid addiction and aid in recovery.

Using microdoses of 0.001 milligrams (1 microgram), long-term users of opioids who have developed a tolerance to the drug are able to, over time, lower their opioid dose and avoid withdrawal symptoms as the LDN makes the opioid more effective.

For opioid dependence, the typical starting dose is 1 microgram twice a day, which will allow them to lower their opioid dose by about 60%. When the opioid is taken for pain, the LDN must be taken four to six hours apart from the opioid in order to not displace the opioid’s effects.

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In a discovery that challenges long-held dogma in biology, researchers show that mammalian cells can convert RNA sequences back into DNA, a feat more common in viruses than eukaryotic cells.

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