Subverting Prepfar

Prepfar has saved millions of Africans. This program was started by President Bush and aimed at giving (expensive) drugs to people to slow down the evolution of the HIV infection.

A lot of people hated it because they claimed it took money from other disease, or that it encouraged local docs and nurses to work for Prepfar instead of other programs (reality: without a decent salary a lot of these people would have emigrated to get a better job, but the argument sounded good for Bush haters).

Well, anyway, this program was accepted by Africans, and ended up saving millions of lives. But Bush was Republican so of course few in the USA or Europe ever heard about it.

But now Biden seeks to subvert this popular program to push birth control and abortion on Africans.

Like the Biden State Dept etc who pushes gay rights on countries by linking this policy to aid given to these governments, subverting Prepfar, which saves lives, with organizations who openly push the idea that there is a need to stop Africans from having children will be seen as a racist plot to stop Africans from having babies because of racism.

and if you don't think China notices this and quietly points this out to the leaders of these countries, then you are naive.

ah but the western press will pretend this is about evil Republicans opposing Prepfar because racism, and ignore that this policy is being changed by Biden, and will become part of the long crusade to limit African births.

 

essentially this will let them hijack the funds to go from those saving lives by giving out HIV drugs to NGOs whose object is to push birth control and abortion, and worse, to pressure these countries to change their laws.

When I worked in Africa, every village had a "pill lady" to give out birth control, because we did the public health for the area, and as a Catholic hospital we did not give out birth control

however, although we had pill ladies, a lot of these villages had no wells for drinking water etc.

The sisters started a program for villagers to dig shallow wells, line the holes, and then we got funds to cover the well with concrete and a simple pump. True, this water was not always clean (we still urged them to boil it or use filters for dringking water) but it enabled them to wash and clean. Before this, often the only water in the dry season would be from rivers which might mean walking a long distance and carrying the water home.

We also funded village health workers, who could give out simple Rehydration fluid for diarrhea (a simple rememdy that can cut the rate of death up to 90 percent), teach basic hygiene and nutrition, and monitor children for malnutrition, care for minor wounds etc. Abd we started a nutrition village to feed up children whose weight was going down, and we sponsored programs for chicken raising for eggs etc.

As for Prepfar: I predate HIV....We probably had cases when I worked there (people dying of minor infections, two cases of Kaposi sarcoma) but it was not a known disease so no, I didn't know about it until I got home and heard in my National Guard unit about this mysterious STD that was fatal.

However, the hospital where I had worked in Africa, and some of the sisters became active with Prepfar to save lives, and several of our nurses reported family members whose lives were saved by this program.

So again I stress: By diverting the funding to birth control and pushing sexual policies to limit population, the danger is that people will no longer trust these caregivers: They might see them as part of the evil west trying to stop Africans from having babies because of racism.

and of course, such ideas won't just be pushed by locals who remember colonialist racism, but will be believed by religious leaders (Bishops and Muslim leaders). And of course, China will quietly push this idea. Already the Biden administration and the EU is pushing their sexual agenda (gay rights, encourage teenage sex by sex education), and pushing countries to change their local laws.

By the way: African women who have jobs might indeed want to space their babies, and this should be available: But as I pointed out, these organizations have been busy for years, and of course now Mrs Gates is using oodles of money for it.

However, most women in the villages might merely want to space their children. In the past this was done by taboos against genital sex while breast feeding and prolonged breastfeeding. Alas, in urban areas, women working outside the home might find this difficult, hance the need for birth control... however, hormonal birth control leads to decreased breast milk. The birth control shot increases breast milk, but causes vaginal dryness that increases the risk of HIV and other STDs. IUDs result in infections. And local barrier methods are often not used because they are not culturally friendly.

So anyway: You might want to ask yourself why the Biden administration is willing to become unpopular by pushing this type of policy that caused sexual anarchy and destruction of the family on poor countries where families are literally the basis of society and necessary to survive.

measles deaths

 from the CDC: 

During 2000–2019, estimated coverage worldwide with the first dose of measles-containing vaccine (MCV) increased from 72% to 86%, then declined to 81% in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, representing the lowest coverage since 2008. In 2022, first-dose MCV coverage increased to 83%. Only one half (72) of 144 countries reporting measles cases achieved the measles surveillance indicator target of two or more discarded cases per 100,000 population in 2022. During 2021–2022, estimated measles cases increased 18%, from 7,802,000 to 9,232,300, and the number of countries experiencing large or disruptive outbreaks increased from 22 to 37. 

Estimated measles deaths increased 43% during 2021–2022, from 95,000 to 136,200. Nonetheless, an estimated 57 million measles deaths were averted by vaccination during 2000–2022. .....

 Since 2000, measles vaccination has averted an estimated 57 million deaths worldwide; however, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global vaccination activities, which in 2021 resulted in the lowest MCV1 coverage levels since 2008.

War Nursing: Student nurses in Okinawa cave hostpials

Leishmaniasis: Sand fly infection

I ran across two articles on Leishmaniasis, 

this article is about the spread of leishmaniasis.
From unscreened migrants? 

yes and no. 
The cutaneous form is coming in with migrants from South America.

The rest of this essay is my checking out data to learn about the disease, so it is not a well written essay but my notes on what I am learning.

The one they are worried about is visceral leishmaniasis, which is found in the Middle East.

Another potentially life-threatening form of the disease, visceral leishmaniasis, affects the spleen, liver and bone marrow, and a new study suggests this form may be gaining a foothold in U.S. sand flies when they feed on infected dogs brought into the country by well-meaning dog rescue organizations.

the dogs are rescued from Turkey by animal lovers and then placed in other countries.

hmm... wonder how many of them have rabies?

and right on cue, this expert blames global warming.

"As our weather gets more erratic and the planet as a whole gets warmer and wetter, it becomes a much better place for these bugs to live and create disease," said study author Christine Petersen, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa. "We need to up our game and remember these tropical diseases aren't going to be so tropical anymore due to global warming," she added.

uh, malaria was rampant in Europe and in much of the USA in the past. And of course, yellow fever epidemics killed thousands, not just in the Missisipi delta but upstream, and don't forget the epidemic of Philadelphia in 1790.

Yellow fever is endemic in Brazil, and an epidemic in Angola spread to China via their workers in that country.

article here....ironically yellow fever was not reported in China in the past LINK...NATURE WONDERS WHY

The reasons explaining this absence (e.g., transmission barrier resulting from low compatibility between mosquito and virus genotypes2,3, limited duration and low viraemia in humans, absence of a sylvatic cycle4,5, competition with well-established flaviviruses as dengue and Japanese encephalitis viruses6) are still poorly explored, making the possibility of an epidemic unpredictable.

actually other studies doubt that part about mosquitoes.

back to leishmaniasis.

How is it controlled?

the treatment varies (partly because there are different versions of the disease and parasite. And also because of drug resistance. CDC Page here.

I am familiar with many of these drugs because we use them against fungus infections. 

They have few side effects, except for the main one for serious disease: Amphotericin B.

One parenteral agent, liposomal amphotericin B (AmBisome®), which is administered by IV infusion, is FDA-approved for treatment of visceral leishmaniasis (the approved indications do not include cutaneous or mucosal leishmaniasis). This approval for visceral leishmaniasis dates back to 1997.

I used that on a patient who had cerebral blastomycosis (a disease that usually infects dogs but we had a few cases in the north woods of Minnesota). That drug is toxic: The patient with recurrant cerebral blastomycosis had to be treated with IV Amphotericin, and it destroyed his kidneys, and shortly after we stopped treatment because his kidneys were failing, he died of a stroke from high blood pressure from his bad kidneys. Sigh.

One dirty little secret about the soldiers returning from Iraq etc. is that many of them have been exposed to leishmaniasis.>{

LINK

Among American troops serving in Iraq, 653 cases of cutaneous and 2 cases of visceral leishmaniasis were reported by the end of March 2004. According to the U.S. sources, the number of infected American soldiers could have been higher, from 750 to 1250 or even more, what made up to nearly 1% of U.S. troops serving in Iraq in 2003-2004.

US ARMY FACT SHEET PDF

Sand flies are usually found in small pockets around rodent burrows, and are not spread evenly across sites. They typically bite at night while people are sleeping, and the bites are not found until the following day. Sand fly bites can quickly become numerous, painful, and very distracting (see photo to right). Follow these precautions to help prevent sand fly bites that can lead to leishmaniasis and other diseases such as sand fly fever: • Limit outdoor activity between dusk and dawn when sand flies are most active. Avoid sleeping in the open. If possible, personnel should sleep in sealed, air-conditioned buildings or tents, or employ window screens or other barriers to help keep sand flies from entering. However, since sand flies are much smaller than mosquitoes (approximately one-third the size), they can oftentimes work their way through standard window screens (16-18 mesh/in2 ) and even standard military bed netting (25-27 mesh/in2 ). • Sand flies bite both indoors and outdoors. Although generally nocturnnocturnal, they can also feed during the day. Personal protective measures should be used at all times. • Use the DoD Insect Repellent System for maximum protection from sand fly bites. This system incorporates a properly worn, permethrin-treated uniform; DEET, picaridin, or IR3535 repellent on exposed skin; and sleeping inside a permethrin-treated bed net. To keep sand flies on the outside of your clothing, tuck pant legs inside boots, and fasten your cuffs snuggly at the wrist.

hmmm...essentially the same way you protect yourself against malaria, yellow fever, tick borne diseases, etc.

so what about vaccines? LINKyup. It's a lot of stuff about T cells:

The generation of immunological memory is a requirement of effective vaccination. Studies on the generation of effector and central memory CD4+ T cells indicate that central memory T cells mediate long-term immunity to L. major infection, even in the absence of persistent parasites

so is there a vaccine? Well, the Russkies had one in the past:

An effective vaccine against leishmaniasis has existed in the past. This involved inoculation with live, virulent parasites, in a process called leishmanization. It was practiced successfully in the former Soviet Union, Middle East and Israel.30, 31 However, it was abandoned in most countries because of logistical problems and safety concerns, due to some individuals developing non-healing lesions and immune suppression.

and giving dead parasites gave partial immunity.but ran into problems of keeping the vaccine potent due to storage problems and other logistical problems

However, concerns remain regarding the feasibility of developing killed, whole-parasite vaccines, including the variation in results obtained from different field and clinical trial sites in the past, and potential difficulties in producing such a product to good clinical manufacturing standards.

attenuated parasites in vaccines seems to be a good commpromise (i.e. a parasite treated to make it weaker).

and then they are trying a vaccine that only uses part of the parasite to induce immunity>

then there are DNA vaccines that have been tried since 1992

. despite many years of effort in identifying immunogenic parasite antigens and advances in vaccine technologies, there does not yet appear to be a vaccine candidate capable of delivering the level of protection needed for a disease elimination program.

this would be a place for using mRNA technology. LINK

long discussion. Like Covid, or like Tuberculosis, you can't just make an antibody: You have to persuade the T cells to kill the germ.

and although these vaccines work on experimental animals, they just don't work well in primates. so there is dog vaccine but none for humans...

tge o=problem?,P>In contrast to the relative ease in generating responses in mice (where even naked RNA can generate immunity if larger enough doses are provided), several formulation strategies have failed upon evaluation in primates and humans [49]. Thus, although many candidates may appear valid in small animal models this “primate barrier” represents a critical hurdle to clinical use of RNA vaccines.

this article discusses problems of mRNA theraputics. too bad because that would be a good way to get rid of the disease, in both animals and in humans... Sorry I will have to read up on this.

Here is a video about the disease.

And here is a video to scare you about the disease:

Gun control rhetoric ignores the reality

 Homicide rates vary by race.

During 2022, the national firearm homicide rate decreased for the first time since the sharp increase from 2019 to 2020. Nonetheless, the rate in 2022 (5.9 per 100,000) remained substantially higher than the 2019 rate....

The annual rate among Black persons during 2022 (27.5) was lower than that in 2021 (30.4) or 2020 (28.3) but was still substantially higher than in 2019 (20.5). Among AI/AN persons, the rate during 2022 (9.3) exceeded the rates in both 2021 (7.7) and 2020 (7.9). During 2022, the rate among Hispanic persons leveled off (5.5) but remained higher than that in 2019 (3.8). Rates among non-Hispanic White and A/PI persons, although lower, also increased from 2019 to 2021, followed by a decrease in 2022..

graph

FYI: the rate of gun homicides in Europe are about 1.

Black lives matter.

This is a danger in the inner city: and it is a threat to the teenagers trying to be good. and it often overlaps other crimes.

Not that race is always accurate of course.

and they lump Black Americans together: not separating the more recent immigrant groups from those who were descended from slaves.And one suspects the homicide rate would be higher among Somali immigrants because there is a gang problem, than among those from Africa or the West Indies. 

and a lot of this is connected with drugs: Either by gangs selling drugs, or by people who are chronic users of drugs..

and the dirty little secret is that not all deaths by firearms are homicides:

Again I turn to the Minnesota data

Homicides and homicide rates spiked in 2020—a trend also observed nationally—while other manners of violent death did not.

 what does that mean? car accidents I presume are considered by them as violent deaths? Falls? drownings>

ironically not all firearm deaths are homicides:

Firearms were used in 45% of suicide deaths, 65% of homicide deaths and 54% of inter-personal violence homicide deaths.

Most firearm deaths, 75%, were suicide. 

Minnesota has large racial disparities in suicide and homicide rates. Suicide rates in Minnesota are highest among the American Indian population, more than 70% higher than for the white population.

yes. The Indian Health Service has an aggressive outreach to fight the suicide problem on the reservations, which is often associated with drug or alcohol abuse problems.

Most people think of the reason they need gun control in the USA is mass shootings, but they are wrong.

The problem is gangs and suicide.

Many people understandably assume the high number of gun deaths in the U.S. is due to mass shootings, which receive frequent attention from the media. In truth, mass shootings account for only a small percentage of gun deaths in the United States. Rather, nearly two-thirds (63%) of gun deaths in the US in 2019 were suicides.

Again, back to the Minnesota data on gun homicide:

Homicide rates in the state are highest among the Black or African American population and the American Indian population, more than 10 times the rate of the white population.

Presumably poverty, except it is lower among the Hispanics, who tend to be poorer than these groups. Perhaps the culture of strong family connections in  Hispanic culture. 

Then we come to the anti depressant hysteria that is pushed every time a person goes amok and it is found they were on treatment. Of course, mentally ill people get treated, so is it the drugs or the mental illness? (some drugs like Prozac can exacerbate mania in bipolar people and people coming out of a depression often turn their self hatred outward and kill themselves, or attack others who the therapist assure them were the cause of their depression).

this was a problem even before modern Anti depressant medicines were available. And indeed the statistics make one wonder if it might be not enough got antidepressant treatment.

Antidepressants were found in the systems of 29.8% of females who died by suicide, compared to 12.1% in males.

Then we come to the obvious: if it is not gang or drug dealing related, it is anger within the family:

Spouses were suspected as the perpetrator in 21.1% of homicide cases where the victim was female. The victim’s boyfriend or girlfriend was suspected in an additional 15.5% of cases.

what is left out of this is a discussion of drug or acohol use that exacerbated homicides.

Drug use is behind a lot of gang murders, drug and alcohol use is a major factor in car accidents, and don''t forget the 100 thousand fentanyl deaths a year thanks to China and the Mexical cartels and the open border policies that make smuggling easy.

the problem of suicide in alcoholics has long been known.

and don't forget the problem of drug and alcohol  deaths from accidents, most commonly car accidents.

Sigh.

 

 

a summary of the shennanigans to cover up Covid's origin.

..............Rumble link in case they remove it from youtube.

follow the money: transgender stuff is big money

 

When I took the gnrh antagonist to shrink my endometriosis, got severely depressed. another time when it returned, I took a medicine with testosterone side effects and it made me hyper, hairy and horney.

long term the danger of gnrh antagonists is osteoporosis, and the side effect of hormones is heart disease. We stopped using estrogen to shrink prostate cancer because too many men got heart disease, and there are also reports of men getting breast cancer from the estrogen .

and if I am sceptical of Johns Hopkins, it is because their sex clinic were the ones behind telling the Catholic bishops not to fire their gay priests who preyed on boys, but to treat them.

is big pharm overcharging for vaccines?

 AlJ has a post about South Africa complaining that big pharm overcharged them for the covid vaccine. 

LINK 

very single contract – there were a total of four that were revealed, with Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Pfizer, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi), and the Serum Institute of India – turned out to overwhelmingly favour Big Pharma and demand South Africa pay much more than its more powerful counterparts to protect its citizens from the worst of COVID.

I know the Philippines was bullied to sign a pfizer paper saying that they wouldnot allow people to sue for liability if something went wrong, and so it was not signed in Jan and we didn't get the Pfizer vaccine for another six months.

dengue and vaccine in the Philippines

This Lancet article from last year discusses Dengue in the Philippines.

Yes, the government was doing programs to try to stop it, but they ran into problems:

One significant barrier to its success is the lack of empowerment among the stakeholders in taking responsibility for dengue prevention

unclear who they are pointing fingers to. Those in charge of the Barangay, or poor people?

This might show part of the problem:

Another problem encountered was the challenge of eradicating local breeding sites, which are primarily water-holding containers. In areas with unreliable piped water, residents store water in such containers. Further, miscellaneous containers are commonly kept by residents as these can be used for other purposes or even sold for income. Lastly, inefficient garbage collection services may result in scattered trash that can accumulate rainwater.

Yes! these are problems that contribute to the spread of Dengue. I mean, you know you have to change the dog's water because if you don't do it every day, you get wrigglers floating in the dish

Now imagine it is a puddle from the rain that didn't dry up, or garbage that collects water (i.e. plastic cup discarded), etc. And since we got a new mayor (the sister of the previous one) we haven't had the streets cleaned regularly, although we do have garbage pickup weekly

but the government program gave 8oo thousand kids a dengue shot: the problem? If you never hda dengue before, the shot could cause a secondary immune problem. The rest of the article is about if they should introduce Wolbachia infected mosquitoes.

Lancet article on the severe dangue cases .

The risks associated with Dengvaxia must be put into perspective. First, many cases of hospitalisation and severe dengue following vaccination are likely to be attributable to vaccine breakthrough cases in seropositive vaccinees because a high proportion of vaccinees are dengue seropositive, in whom the vaccine protects but does not give total protection.

 italics mine. But I thought you were only supposed to give the vaccine to those who had had dengue in the past.... if they didn't have dengue in the past, getting the vaccine led to an increased chance of getting severe dengue or something.

I admit I am confused about this.

But did the vaccine help? It appears yes.

Second, in all children vaccinated, the overall incidence of hospitalised dengue is likely to be substantially lower in the 5 years following vaccination than would have been the case had no one been vaccinated.

italics mine. 

On a population level, in highly endemic regions, like the selected regions of the Philippines, the number of dengue cases averted by Dengvaxia is likely to substantially outweigh the number of vaccine-induced cases, and vaccination with Dengvaxia has an overall net benefit to the population.

I agree. But like the kerfuffle over covid shots, if it is your kid who dies, well maybe you might object to that cold hearted analysis. 

Vaccinating only those testing seropositive would be the preferred strategy for future use of the vaccine, but this depends on the development of sensitive and specific rapid point-of-care tests to identify this group.

 

Malaria vaccine being hyped is not very good

The WHO has recommended a second malaria vaccine for children which is already approved for use in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria https://t.co/YsWvRE8BRe pic.twitter.com/Rii4hXGgHj

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 2, 2023

,,,,,,,,,,

AlJ article:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a second malaria vaccine, a decision that could offer countries a cheaper and a more readily available option than the world’s first shot against the parasitic disease. The R21/Matrix-M, developed by Britain’s Oxford University, can be used to curb the life-threatening disease spread to humans by some mosquitoes, the WHO said on Monday.

Oxford University developed the new three-dose vaccine with help from the Serum Institute of India. Research has suggested it is more than 75 percent effective and protection is maintained for at least another year with a booster.

Lancet article Sept 2022:

vaccine efficacy against clinical malaria was 36% in infants aged 5–17 months and 26% in infants aged 6–12 weeks after four doses of the vaccine.

other questions about the approval: This study was done on a very small number of children.

Between June 2, and July 2, 2020, 409 children returned to receive a booster vaccine. Each child received the same vaccination for the booster as they received in the primary series of vaccinations; 132 participants received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 25 μg Matrix-M, 137 received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 50 μg Matrix-M, and 140 received the control vaccine.

so where does that 75 percent come from? It was in kids after the series and a high potency booster:

Between June 2, and July 2, 2020, 409 children returned to receive a booster vaccine. Each child received the same vaccination for the booster as they received in the primary series of vaccinations; 132 participants received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 25 μg Matrix-M, 137 received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 50 μg Matrix-M, and 140 received the control vaccine.

so the efficency was judged how?

Vaccine safety, efficacy, and a potential correlate of efficacy with immunogenicity, measured as anti-NANP antibody titres,

oh. antibody titers.

this article seems to be about the booster. not a large number.

In the high-dose adjuvant group, vaccine efficacy against multiple episodes of malaria was 78% (95% CI 71 to 83), and 2285 (95% CI 1911 to 2568) cases of malaria were averted per 1000 child-years at risk among vaccinated children in the second year of follow-up

those were not actual numbers but extrapolated from the 400 in the study?

In the high-dose adjuvant group, vaccine efficacy against multiple episodes of malaria was 78% (95% CI 71 to 83), and 2285 (95% CI 1911 to 2568) cases of malaria were averted per 1000 child-years at risk among vaccinated children in the second year of follow-up

statistical tables show 24 percent of the kids got malaria, vs 63 percent in control groups.

Efficacy was further assessed at 24 months (range 660–731 days) following the primary series of vaccinations, where 280 participants had at least one episode of clinical malaria. All of these participants received a booster dose before the second malaria season, approximately 12 months following the primary series of vaccinations. These malaria episodes were recorded in 82 of 132 participants in group 1, 70 of 137 in group 2, and 128 of 140 participants in group 3 (the control group)

Three serious adverse events were reported in participants (appendix 2 p 5) after the booster vaccination up to 12 months follow-up. All were deemed unrelated to vaccination. These serious adverse events all resolved and comprised severe malaria with pneumonia, severe malnutrition with anaemia, and bacterial meningitis.

severe malnutrition? One wonders if maybe starting a nutrition program might be needed.

I should note that they had lots of nice data about using mosquito nets, spraying and taking medicine in the groups so these things were not neglected

the malaria they are talking about is the Falciparum type, which is more virulent and kills people via cerebral malaria. Alas, this germ has developed resistance to anti malarial medicines so there is a need for a vaccine.

The problem? This is not a good vaccine.

And in an area with a high childhood morality from other things (diarrhea, respiratory diseases) one looks in vain for the number of kids who died during the study these other diseases.

smallpox and monkey pox vaccine information

 Like the previous posts, this is my taking notes about a clinical problem that I want to learn about, so exuse the lack of well written essay.

when 911 happened, a lot of people were worried that terrorists would get hold of smallpox from rogue scientists, so they did restart the vaccination program.

I am old enough to remember when we all got this, and we had people who developed generalized vaccinia which can be rarely fatal.

So what happened in 2001?

JAMA:

Subjects US service members and DoD civilian workers eligible for smallpox vaccination. Main Outcome Measures Numbers of vaccinations and rates of vaccination exemptions, symptoms, and adverse events. Data were collected via reports to headquarters and rigorous surveillance for sentinel events. Results In 5.5 months, the DoD administered 450 293 smallpox vaccinations (70.5% primary vaccinees and 29.5% revaccinees). In 2 settings, 0.5% and 3.0% of vaccine recipients needed short-term sick leave. Most adverse events occurred at rates below historical rates. One case of encephalitis and 37 cases of acute myopericarditis developed after vaccination; all cases recovered. Among 19 461 worker-months of clinical contact, there were no cases of transmission of vaccinia from worker to patient, no cases of eczema vaccinatum or progressive vaccinia, and no attributed deaths.

of course that was in low risk people, so in a general population it would be higher (immune problems from HIV or cancer predispose to generalized vaccinia)

I could be wrong (will have to check it later) But they were using the old 1931 vaccine, but I seem to remember they were using a newer vaccine for high risk first responders, a vaccine that had fewer generalized vaccinia side effects but it was stopped because it caused myocarditis, and after a few months the realized Saddam wasn't going to spread smallpox to the USA.

so anyway, fast forward and voila, monkey pox. Something that is not very infectious but no one wants to discuss the activity in homosexual gatherings that was spreading this to the US and Europe. So these gatherings were not shut down, but the affluent white gay community spread the word to each other about the disease and the need for the vaccine. Alas, the the average non affluent bisexuals in the minority communities warned that they were at risk, so most of the deaths were in minorities.

So anyway, the present Smallpox vaccine is JYNNEOS vaccine, approved in 2019 for both smallpox and monkey pox.

Smallpox/monkeypox vaccine (JYNNEOS™) can help protect against smallpox, monkeypox, and other diseases caused by orthopoxviruses, including vaccinia virus...

Some people continue to be at risk of exposure to the virus that causes smallpox, including people who work in emergency preparedness and some laboratory workers.,,..

Smallpox/monkeypox vaccine (JYNNEOS™) is made using weakened live vaccinia virus and cannot cause smallpox, monkeypox, or any other infectious disease. JYNNEOS™ is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for prevention of smallpox and monkeypox disease in adults 18 years or older at high risk for smallpox or monkeypox infection...

more here.

there are scattered reports out there about it's efficiency, and if you get two doses it does give good protection, so you can ignore that the basic public health shut down of places where high risk behavior goes on was never done.

here is the report of how well it worked to stop monkeypox:

apparantly there was a lot more MPox out there than I knew about: But maybe it was because it was a localized disease, in certain states and in high risk groups

During May 12, 2022–May 18, 2023, a total of 5,765 persons with mpox and 250 (4.3%) mpox-associated hospitalizations were reported among California residents

Overall, 233 (5.0%) Monkeypox virus infections occurred in persons who received 1 JYNNEOS dose, 79 (1.7%) in those who received 2 doses, 457 (9.9%) in persons who received PEP,¶ and 3,845 (83.4%) in unvaccinated persons. A total of 250 (5.4%) mpox patients were hospitalized, including four (1.6%) who received 1 JYNNEOS dose, one (0.4%) who received 2 doses, 12 (4.8%) who received PEP, and 233 (93.2%) who were unvaccinated. Compared with unvaccinated mpox patients, the odds of hospitalization among persons with mpox who received 1 dose, 2 doses, and PEP were 0.27, 0.20, and 0.42, respectively (Table 2).

PEP means pre exposure vaccination

and they gave out a lot of vaccines:

Approximately 300,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine have been administered to California residents since May 26, 2022.** During this time, an estimated 64% of California’s at-risk population†† received 1 dose and 40% received 2 doses (10). Messaging to persons at higher risk for Monkeypox virus infection and persons with HIV infection should encourage completion of the 2-dose JYNNEOS vaccination series to limit virus transmission and mitigate disease severity.

Vaccine controversies

 Dr C discusses how the US CDC is telling everyone, even toddlers, get the new booster. And points out the side effects are more common than the risk of the disease, which is why the UK only recommends boosters for those over 65.

....................

In other news, the court case against officials who approved of the Dengue Vaccine might finally come to court Manila Standard article.

Science magazine lamented that these people were charged back in 2019...

full background in the Wikipedia page (although it is controversial of course so might not be accurate).

SciAmerica has another article discussing the scandal.

follow the money? The price tag was huge for a cash strapped country. And although dengue is a major problem, other diseases kill more people.

At three billion pisos ($57.5 million) for procurement alone, the Dengvaxia campaign would cost more than the entire national vaccination program for 2015, which covered pneumonia, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps and rubella. It would reach less than 1 percent of the country’s approximately 105 million residents. And although dengue was reported to kill an average of 750 people annually in the Philippines, it was not even among the top 10 causes of mortality. Among infectious diseases, pneumonia and tuberculosis took a far heavier toll.

the increased mortality was pointed out to the DOH, but if you read down in the article, note that the WHO pooh poohed the problem<P>

In retrospect, it did not surprise Dans and Dans that the authorities chose to ignore their concerns. “It was either believe us or believe the WHO,” says Antonio Dans. “If I were them, I’d believe the WHO. I mean, who were we? We were just teachers in a small medical school.” Filipino authorities were apparently so confident about Dengvaxia’s safety that they did not oblige Sanofi Pasteur to submit results from so-called pharmacovigilance trials that would usually test the safety of a new drug or vaccine in local conditions.

The induction of a new pharmaceutical product into the national program typically took three to five years, says Anthony Leachon, a former president of the Philippine College of Physicians, but the dengue vaccination program began right away, in April 2016.

it wasn't until late in 2017 that the drug company admitted that there was a problem.

The dengue saga also raises difficult questions about how pharmaceutical companies and regulators should proceed in the context of evolving scientific knowledge and imperfect vaccines. Is it ethical to endanger a minority in the interest of protecting a majority, as the WHO’s September 2018 advisory on Dengvaxia implies? Who should be making these difficult decisions: global bodies of experts, national health authorities, fully informed parents and doctors, or some combination of these? And who should be held accountable when things go wrong?

medical ethics

 

Downs syndrome and the human ity of unborn children.

Doctors routinely advise moms expecting a baby with Downs syndrome to abort the child: often they insist that the child will never grow up, never be able to care for himself, or read or write. ,

in reality, the IQ is usually 40 points lower than the parents, so this is not always true.

So I am seeing Netflix had a series about adults with Down's syndrome facing dating, adulthood, etc.

this mother of a Down's syndrome baby is a bit sceptical of the series for ignoring that alas they are overestimating the challenges for these people, and the challenges that their parents face.

and few realize the medical problems that these children face: in the past, most died because of immune system problems, but now live thanks to antibiotics. But they also have an increased chance of developing leukemia, hypothyroidism, and develop Alzheimers at an early age.

thanks (/s) to abortion, it is rare to see a child with Down's syndrome in the USA, but we have one here who is an altar boy in our Catholic church, and one young woman who used to beg all the time and was living with family was moved to a home when her parent died.

when I was in medical school they were not sure what caused the problem: Until a doctor Jreome LeJeune discovered it was due to an extra chromosome.

his realization that his discovery might not benefit these children, but be a way to destroy their lives, horrified him. Indeed, as this film review notes:The meteoric rise of this young French scientist will be be stopped in a flash in 1969. While receiving the William Allen Award in San Francisco, the highest award in genetics, he delivered a speech defending the human dignity of the embryo, causing an earthquake in the scientific sphere. A few months before, he realized that his discovery would be used against his convictions, by opening the door to abortion of embryos with genetic abnormalities

since then, of course, not only is screening and aborting imperfect children become the norm, but now there are experiments with fetal part, using fetal tissue to make stem cells for vaccines, and manipulating embryos: all of which do not see an unborn child as a person recognized and love by God, but just a bunch of cells to be manipulated for the good of mankind ( or actually out of scientific curiosity by amoral scientists). It says a lot about stem cells that it was a non Christian Japanese scientist who started worrying about destroying life in these experiments, so he found a way to use adult stem cells to do the same thing.

Ethics? No. Because bioethics is merely a way to justify what they want to do.

well, anyway, Vaticanista reporter Magister notes that LeJeune warned John Paul II and the Vatican about the implications of his discovery: but that in more recent years, although Pope Francis does mention the problems, it is no longer a priority.

I mean, hey who cares if damaged children are killed in the womb, or aborted baby parts are sold, or if fetal tissue from children killed in early gestation is used to make or test vaccines, or if assisted reproduction not only ignores the philosophical implications of a child as a fruit of love, but also results in hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos who will never be given a chance of life, not to mention outsourcing babies for the affluent: some are volunteers, but most of these are third world poor women who will carry them to term for the affluent first world moms who are either infertile or can't be bothered to do this.

Magister includes his talk in\warning of this:

(From “Jérôme Lejeune. The freedom of the scientist,” pp. 386-393)

the cutting edge back then was IFV, where embryos are made outside the womb and replanted into a woman who is infertile and wants a baby. Babies are good, aren't they? But no one wants to see the problem: It makes the embryo a commodity to be discarded if imperfect or not needed, and it destroys the idea that a child is a product of love making: and this is at a time when the pill already made having children an enemy of sexual freedom.

A number of journalists continue to ask Jérôme about the instruction, and his replies include the following [...]: “Cardinal Ratzinger, with ‘Donum vitae,’ is telling men the moral truth in an attempt to protect them from a formidable abuse of technology capable of leading to a total collapse of conduct. Reread Huxley’s Brave New World, reread Goethe and the second Faust and you will see the immense need for the appeal of ‘Donum vitae’.” “You who are for the family will be laughed at. The specter of science, apparently gagged by an outdated morality, will wave against you the tyrannical flag of relentless experimentation. Bishops, have no fear. You have the words of life.”

Magister \notes that although the present Pope Francis does condemn these things, he does so quietly and it is not his priority.

xeno transplantation

 The Inquirer has an article about China growing organs in pigs.

you can go and read the entire article, which sounds more like propaganda than science and if you look beyond the headlines, it is a very preliminary experiment.

Chinese scientists made a world record for growing the first-ever humanized kidneys in pigs. In other words, they have figured out how to create organs in pigs, potentially helping those who need transplants.

We could use this method to produce vital body parts instead of waiting for donors. Still, the project requires further research and development for real-life applications.The experts admitted their experiment has several flaws, but it may pave the way for better healthcare.

This is a very preliminary experiment, and the article goes into the details.

But should you worry?

yes. Because an organ grown in a pig will pick up pig viruses, and the person getting the organ will be exposed to these viruses. And it will increase the chance of the viruses mutating to a fully human version that could kill people.

Am I being paranoid? Well, read this article in the New England journal of Medicine

except of course it is behind a paywall. Sigh

a similar article on the Wiley library site from 2018: and they deny that any of these viruses could affect humans so no problem

Swine herpesviruses including porcine cytomegalovirus (PCMV) and porcine lymphotropic herpesvirus (PLHV) are largely species-specific and do not, generally, infect human cells. Human cellular receptors exist for porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV), which infects certain human-derived cell lines in vitro. PERV-inactivated pigs have been produced recently. Human infection due to PERV has not been described. A screening paradigm can be applied to exclude potential human pathogens from “designated pathogen free” breeding colonies.

The available data suggest that risks of xenotransplant-associated recipient infection are manageable and that clinical trials can be performed safely. Possible infectious risks of xenotransplantation to the community at large are undefined but merit consideration.

this article is from a vet journal

Porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) are integrated in the genome of all pigs, and some of them are able to infect human cells. Therefore, PERVs pose a risk for xenotransplantation, the transplantation of pig cells, tissues, or organ to humans in order to alleviate the shortage of human donor organs. Up to 2021, a huge body of knowledge about PERVs has been accumulated regarding their biology, including replication, recombination, origin, host range, and immunosuppressive properties. Until now, no PERV transmission has been observed in clinical trials transplanting pig islet cells into diabetic humans, in preclinical trials transplanting pig cells and organs into nonhuman primates with remarkable long survival times of the transplant, and in infection experiments with several animal species. Nevertheless, in order to prevent virus transmission to the recipient, numerous strategies have been developed, including selection of PERV-C-free animals, RNA interference, antiviral drugs, vaccination, and genome editing. Furthermore, at present there are no more experimental approaches to evaluate the full risk until we move to the clinic.

MIT Tech review notes that a pig heart recipient did get infected:The gene-edited pig heart given to a dying patient was infected with a pig virus The first transplant of a genetically-modified pig heart into a human may have ended prematurely because of a well-known—and avoidable—risk.

The presence of the pig virus and the desperate efforts to defeat it were described by Griffith during a webinar streamed online by the American Society of Transplantation on April 20. The issue is now a subject of wide discussion among specialists, who think the infection was a potential contributor to Bennett’s death and a possible reason why the heart did not last longer.

but they deny it spread to the patient (it destroyed the heart but not the patient)

the real problem is mutation of a virus.

PBS FrontlineIt is known that infectious viruses, including the Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus, can be transmitted during allotransplants -- transplants involving individuals in the same species. Therefore, many worry that animal-to-human cell, tissue or organ transplants may make it easier for viruses to cross the species barrier.

and they list a few.

but maybe the worst ethical experiment is this report: They put pig organs into "brain dead" patients.

Ah but were they brain dead, or merely in a deep coma?

destroying Prepfar by political types

 link

the holier than thou types are trying to destroy it for some reason, which would let the Biden's push their agenda with all that lovely money.

We share the report’s concern over the Biden administration’s new guidance and are hopeful that they will, like all prior administrations, resist destroying the careful compromises of 2002. Those compromises include such important guidelines that conservatives fought for, such as the ABC (Abstinence first, Be Faithful and then Contraception when needed) approach to prevention efforts.

While we sympathize with some of the concerns raised by our fellow conservatives, without a clean authorization, there will be no reauthorization. That means the administration will have a free hand to do what it wants with the money appropriated. The right solution is to do what the Trump administration did with fanfare, pass a clean extension and leave the compromises in place for now.

 We share the report’s concern over the Biden administration’s new guidance and are hopeful that they will, like all prior administrations, resist destroying the careful compromises of 2002.

Those compromises include such important guidelines that conservatives fought for, such as the ABC (Abstinence first, Be Faithful and then Contraception when needed) approach to prevention efforts.

While we sympathize with some of the concerns raised by our fellow conservatives, without a clean authorization, there will be no reauthorization.

That means the administration will have a free hand to do what it wants with the money appropriated. The right solution is to do what the Trump administration did with fanfare, pass a clean extension and leave the compromises in place for now.

the coverup is in the open but don't expect anyone to point fingers.

,

....

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

notice the information was denied because they hated Trump for pointing to China for being the source of the virus.

Thank you for dying (and lowering the federal budget)

 It's not just those bioethicists who are pointing out that if you kill the sick it saves money.

Apparently a lot of old folks with chronic illness died of covid, so surprise surprise they won't have to spend so much on Medicare.

The origina NYTimes article  is behind a paywall, but theFiscal Times site discusses it.

they start by saying it was those budgetary cuts to hospitals etc from Medicare

Something strange has been happening with Medicare, The New York Times reports: “Instead of growing and growing, as it always had before, spending per Medicare beneficiary has nearly leveled off over more than a decade.” If Medicare’s spending per beneficiary had continued along the trajectory it had been on two decades ago, the program’s spending from 2011 until now would be some $3.9 trillion higher and deficits would have been more than a quarter larger, according to an analysis by The Upshot, part of the Times site.

“Without a doubt, this is the most important thing that has happened to the federal budget in the last 20 years,” David Cutler, a professor of health policy and medicine at Harvard, told the Times. Cutler helped the Obama White House develop the Affordable Care Act, which appears to be one reason for the shifting trendline.

The Trend downward started in 2010...

But AnnAlthouse's blog notes something else in the NYTimes article:

"Medicare may even wind up saving money because of Covid-19 — because the older Americans who died from the disease tended to have other illnesses that would have been expensive to treat if they had survived...."

that graph is not total spending but per capita spending.

one comment noted that 2010 was the start of Obamacare, but would this impact Medicare?

another commenter noted:

Yahoo Finance article from August 2021: COVID-19 didn't hurt Social Security or Medicare as much as experts feared, report finds Money quote from the article: "On the other side, a senior administration official described increased deaths from the pandemic as helping the program's bottom line. It had a "small effect in the other direction" compared to the drop in revenue from fewer workers paying into the system. The sad result of the hundreds of thousands of additional deaths meant that fewer older Americans were available to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits."

another comment noted the decision to put covid patients into nursing homes might have had something to do with this, as do DNR orders/living wills

economics is not my strong point but I might point out that the budget cuts stopped a lot of defensive mediicne and excess testing so we didn't get sued.

But I have been living in the Philippines for 18 years so am not up to date with all this.

are drug regulators for hire asks Dr C

 

....,,,,............']

  Bmj article here

.

]From FDA to MHRA: are drug regulators for hire? BMJ 2022; 377

 

 

(Published 29 June 2022)

 

Patients and doctors expect drug regulators to provide an unbiased, rigorous assessment of investigational medicines before they hit the market. But do they have sufficient independence from the companies they

are meant to regulate? Maryanne Demasi investigates Over the past decades, regulatory agencies have seen large proportions of their budgets funded by the industry they are sworn to regulate. In 1992, the US Congress passed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), allowing industry to fund the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) directly through “user fees” intended to support the cost of swiftly reviewing drug applications. With the act, the FDA moved from a fully taxpayer funded entity to one supplemented by industry money. Net PDUFA fees collected have increased 30 fold—from around $29m in 1993 to $884m in 2016.1 In Europe, industry fees funded 20% of the new EU-wide regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), in 1995. By 2010 that had risen to 75%; today it is 89%.2 In 2005 in the UK, the House of Commons’ health committee evaluated the influence of the drug industry on health policy, including the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).3 The committee was concerned that industry funding could lead the agency to “lose sight of the need to protect and promote public health above all else as it seeks to win fee income from the companies.” But nearly two decades on, little has changed, and industry funding of drug regulators has become the international norm.

note this article is one year old. 

 

so how bad is the new covid varient?

 we are hearing about a new covid varient that has poppe dup that the previous vaccines won't stop and President Biden announces he will have a new vaccine and you will take it and like it.

Or maybe not. The government here can't give away the previous bivalent vaccine (I have even seen ads on youtube pushing it).

And we are also supposed to get influenza and the new RSV vaccines. 

Well, those illnesses are nasty but those vaccines are unproven: Give monoclonal antibodies to babies, or vaccinate their moms when pregnant? I will have to look into this. RSV in babies is nasty and can kill and some develop repeated chest infections as toddlers and live in your office with repeated infections, but a previous vaccine caused lymphatic hypertrophy in the intestines that caused intrasusseption and killed kids so was taken off the market. So I will have to look into this.

But although lots of hype about the newest covid varient, there isn't much hard data out there about if it is fatal like the original covid or just a bad cold like Omicron.

And yes I know they are saying the percentage more of illness out there, but without numbers and when a lot of folks are no longr testing, you don't know what this means.

August 9 (GMT) Updates 132 new cases and 3 new deaths in the Philippines

so no big surge in deaths.

Dr. C. discusses.

the problem? The observation that vaccine makes you more prone to get another infection. Dr. C also has taught physiology so here he explains why this is happening.

the comments on the video:

BA.2.86 may be more capable of causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received COVID-19 vaccines. ? stimulation of T suppressor (regulatory) cells ? stimulation of IgG4 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s... No evidence BA.2.86 causing more severe illness. Updated vaccines will be available as early as mid-September What can you do to protect yourself and others as we learn more? Get your COVID-19 vaccines, as recommended''CDC Report COVID-19 Vaccines Are Safe, Effective, and Free Everyone 6 months and older should get an updated COVID-19 vaccine. BA.2.86 https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158... Many spike protein changes (explain vaccine immune escape) Could out compete common EG.5 (Latest COVID-19 booster vaccines are based on XBB.1.5) Jesse Bloom, viral evolutionary biologist, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center Seattle, Washington “I don’t think anybody needs to be alarmed by this,” “The most likely scenario is that this variant fizzles out, and in a month nobody other than people like me even remember that it existed.” Even if BA.2.86 does becomes widespread, and proves adept at dodging neutralizing antibodies,

 I got the AZ vaccine, which gives blood clots especially in the young, and he notes it doesn't seem to be affecting the immune system this way. So I am safe, sort of.

The Science article discusses the immune part:

In a recent paper published in Science Immunology, Irrgang et al. (1) showed that administering three doses of an mRNA vaccine encoding the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike antigen eventually results in an increased proportion of antigen-specific antibodies of the immunoglobulin G4 (IgG4) subtype, but IgG4 antibodies were not induced after an adenoviral vector vaccine. Similar results were observed in a separate, contemporaneous study (2). These results provoke a reconsideration of some fundamental immune mechanisms unique to the human immune system but also raise issues that may (or may not) have practical relevance in terms of vaccinology and public health.

...We now know that structural differences in a loop in the CH2 (second constant heavy chain) domain of IgG4 (when compared with IgG1) impair its binding to C1q and to most activating Fc receptors. This has led to the view that IgG4 may have evolved to dampen inflammation and functions essentially as an antigen sink.,,,

fab arm exchange is discussed here;

the title of the paper:Is it bad, is it good, or is IgG4 just misunderstood?

I downloaded a bunch of stuff about immunology which wasn't around when I studied in medical school 50 years ago, so watch Dr. C for details

but the important question is not answered in detail: apparently the summary is:

No evidence BA.2.86 causing more severe illness.

since a bad ordinary chest cold could kill me, that could be a problem.

So now answer this question: Will Ivermectin treat or prevent that new varient? Anyone? Anyone?

sickle cell disease

Scitech has an article that notes the actual mortality from sickle cell disease is much higher than reported because it is the underlying problem of the stroke etc.

It is also, by the way, one reason that in the US we see a higher mortality in black patients, especially children.

When other sources of data on prevalence and birth incidence were combined with mortality data in epidemiological modeling, in 2021, the “total mortality burden” of sickle cell disease was 373,000 deaths, compared to 34,600 sickle-cell-only deaths, or “cause-specific deaths.” The increase was especially pronounced in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where the fatality figures were 67 times higher and nine times higher, respectively.

south asia?

maybe they mean all forms of hemoglobinopathies, including sickle trait and thalessemia?

n 2021, half a million babies were born with sickle cell disease, and more than three-quarters of these births were in sub-Saharan Africa. Under the analysis of total mortality burden (including secondary conditions), sickle cell disease was the 12th leading cause of death globally for children under the age of 5 years. However, total sickle cell disease mortality burden was among the top three causes of death in Portugal, Jamaica, Libya, Oman, and San Marino.

original article in Lancet Hemotology. 

and yes it does include varients including Thalessemia.

We see a lot of sickle cell disease in the USA (our next door neighbor's cousing died of it alas at age 32).

But we only had one case when I worked in Zimbabwe, because we didn't have malaria in the high veldt. The case was a child of a miner from Malawi and I had to instruct the lab how to do the test to see the sickle cells under the micrsoscope because doinga  hemoglobin analysis was not available in our rural hospital and too expensive even if it was.

When I worked in Massachusetts we had a lot of Portuguese patients due to the fishing industy and yes when we saw microcytic anemia we checked for this.

trust to mistrust in authority

Covid, Zika and... Dengue?

the scandal: This was stopped by propaganda and actually punishing docs and families who tried to use it, but other expensive and new anti virals that had a similar success rate (i.e. not very good) were used.

yet the side effects of ivermectin are few (unlike HCQ, which can kill you if you overdose, which is why the mortality in Brazil was higher when this was used: They used too high a dose and it affected people with heart disease).

I only used Ivermectin once for a chest cold just in case it was covid. I get these infections once or twice a year normall, and I had three such infections in the lockdown time for Covid ...for the first two I used my regular steroids and antibiotics; the third time we had bought some ivermectin because Duterte refused to ban it, saying you could take it if your doc prescribed it. 

But you know, I was not aware of that it might help Dengue too:  that it has been used experimentally for Dengue, zika and other viruses,.

Nature magazine:journal of antibiotics:June 2020.

Abstract Ivermectin proposes many potentials effects to treat a range of diseases, with its antimicrobial, antiviral, and anti-cancer properties as a wonder drug. It is highly effective against many microorganisms including some viruses. In this comprehensive systematic review, antiviral effects of ivermectin are summarized including in vitro and in vivo studies over the past 50 years. Several studies reported antiviral effects of ivermectin on RNA viruses such as Zika, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, Hendra, Newcastle, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, chikungunya, Semliki Forest, Sindbis, Avian influenza A, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, Human immunodeficiency virus type 1, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Furthermore, there are some studies showing antiviral effects of ivermectin against DNA viruses such as Equine herpes type 1, BK polyomavirus, pseudorabies, porcine circovirus 2, and bovine herpesvirus 1. Ivermectin plays a role in several biological mechanisms, therefore it could serve as a potential candidate in the treatment of a wide range of viruses including COVID-19 as well as other types of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses. In vivo studies of animal models revealed a broad range of antiviral effects of ivermectin, however, clinical trials are necessary to appraise the potential efficacy of ivermectin in clinical setting.

here is the part about Dengue: 

Dengue virus, yellow fever virus (YFV), and West Nile virus (WNV)... It may be concluded that ivermectin could be effective in the early stages of infection and maybe a recommended drug for the prevention or treatment of early stages of viral infection, rather than advanced forms. Of course, confirmation of this statement requires further human studies and clinical trials

link2: shows one problem with the medicine: poor water solubility means that oral medicine might not give a high enough dosage.

One reason I didn't think I had dengue was lack of headache and muscle pain.

My Dengue was atypical, mainly severe weakness, and fever, no pain no cough so I didn't think I had covid, and of course my covid was negative test but the low wbc and a dropping platelet count suggested dengue, and the igM of Dengue was positive on the third day.'

We have a lot of dengue in the area, and most cases are treated at home, usually with antibiotics, which don't help Dengue of course but hey when your wbc goes down to 2000, it means your body can't fight off bacterial infections. LINK.

The clinical course of a viral infection can be adversely affected by bacterial coinfection.6–8 However, bacterial coinfection can be easily overlooked in dengue-endemic or -epidemic settings. A simple clinical rule for the identification of concurrent bacterial infection in dengue patients would be pivotal for triggering timely antibiotic therapy within the usual context of supportive management.

Of 2,065 patients, 83 (4.0%) patients had 110 instances of bacterial coinfection marked by positive blood culture (25/110; 22.7%), positive urine culture (43/110; 39.1%), or physician-diagnosed bacterial pneumonia (42/110; 38.2%).

so low rate of secondary bacterial infections but if the patient is sick you might want to treat them just in case.

APOLOGISTS FOR DEATH

 Thirty years ago, civil libertarian expert Nat Hentoff called the bioethics community (which had been hijacked by the PC idea that killing was okay) apologists for death.

And he warned that a centralized health care law would lead to doctors and committees of these type of people deciding who should die, and if you should receive treatment at all, or, in the words of one doctor who was filling in at Pine Ridge and was asked to check the feeding tube of a Lakota lady with a stroke: Why don't you just give her morphine, ha ha.

Which is why most of my patients in the IHS system would not sign living wills or DNR orders, even though they sometimes turned down treatment.

So who dares to point the finger saying The Emperor has no clothes? 

Cue Dr. C, who is a PhD doctor but also a nurse with extensive experience in psychiatric nursing and public health teaching:

This is not about compassion you know. It is about money. It's cheaper to kill a disabled person than enabble them to live in dignity, and of course if a mom aborts her kid and then finds it lived, well, she would be upset so let's kill the kids.

John Paul II warned of this thirty years ago in his encyclical the Gospel of Life.

Back in the early 1990s, the NEJM and bioethicists were going full force in pushing killing of the terminally ill, citing the success of this in the Netherlands. I wrote at least half a dozen identical letters to the NEJM pointing out that very good reporting in the press and in a Hasting center article (a bioethics journal) showed that most cases were indirect, hidden, and not reported, and the actual numbers were much higher than the official letters. None of these letters were published, and when I wrote a letter asking why, I received a nice letter back from their editor saying that these articles were opinion pieces and did not have to be scientifically accurate.

Ironically, Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical about this danger, but of course with Pope Francis, this growing problem has disappeared into a black hole, and the pro life movement in the US is still stuck in abortion in a way that ignores the big picture of the culture of death.`

Sigh.

Since then, the practice has been pushed in movies, TV, novels for young women, etc. as desireable.

sigh.