RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/08/23/we-wont-be-masked-again/

A summer surge of COVID-19 has some wondering aloud if we should return to mask mandates. For now, the official line, despite the media effort to rekindle coronavirus hysteria, is that it’s unlikely. But we heard that before, in 2020, right before public health officials dropped their mask tyranny on us. If they do it again, we have an obligation to say no.

Are we calling for civil disobedience? Are we suggesting that Americans resist orders that are not laws but are instead decrees issued by despots? Absolutely, and without reservation.

Masks are dehumanizing. When we cover our faces, we no longer look like people. We look like monsters, freaks from bad science fiction movies. Half-blank faces stare back at us as our ability to communicate is skewed. A masked society is a hideous society.

When we wear masks because we are told to, we subjugate ourselves, surrender our agency to others. We symbolically kneel before abusive authorities that should have no authority over us. Are we free people or are we subordinates to politicians and an administrative structure that has accrued illegitimate power?

Masks project fear. Who wants to live in a world that is frightened, driven by panic, hiding behind a facade of protection? It was demoralizing to see the extremes that people went to to cover their faces during the pandemic. (Some of those in the video referenced here were clearly using caricatures to spoof the mandates, but we don’t need those again, either.)

https://pjmedia.com/culture/catherinesalgado/2023/08/16/mayo-clinic-offers-course-in-racial-equity-structural-racism-and-anti-blackness-n1719778

Your doctor might not know how to make you feel healthy, but he can make you feel guilty… for having “white fragility.” The Mayo Clinic, which has a high medical reputation, is offering a course on “racial equity” to healthcare professionals, with race-obsessed Robin DiAngelo as a guest lecturer.

For a mere $495 for doctors, or $265 for nurses, retirees, and staff (I guess racial equity isn’t related to financial equity), Mayo Clinic’s employees can learn critical race theory (CRT) — which is, somehow, a super important skill for doctors and nurses?

The course, “Developing Anti-Racism Leadership Competencies to Achieve Inclusive Practices and Health Equity 2023,” will run from September 12 to October 4 through Mayo Clinic’s School of Continuous Professional Development. “This course is an essential starting point for anyone seeking to expand their knowledge on the complexities of race, gender, and class,” the website brags.

Below are the course’s learning objectives.

Develop foundational knowledge of the historical and societal foundations of structural racism and anti-Blackness in America.
Identify modern-day impacts of the historical, cultural, legal, and social foundations of structural racism and anti-Blackness in America.
Describe tools and resources to operationalize knowledge through analysis of present day health, wellness, and economic outcomes.
Examine the impact subjective bias has on all systems, decisions, and outcomes.
Review the roles each of us play in upholding or disrupting systems of inequity and exclusion.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-hospital-deaths-bacterial-pneumonia/

Hospitals sticking to the strict hand-me-down, highly profitable “COVID protocol” may have doomed a majority of admitted COVID-19 patients to death due to a perfect storm of institutional failure, a new study shows.

Hospital protocolists sticking to the strict hand-me-down highly profitable “COVID protocol” may have doomed a majority of admitted COVID-19 patients to death due to a perfect storm of institutional failure.

I first warned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in early 2020 that because the commercial kits did not use internal negative controls there would be arbitrarily high COVID-19 false positive rates due to the abuse of non-quantitative PCR.

The majority of “cases,” I pointed out, would be false because the test was to be used as a screening device — and when you screen with an imperfect test when prevalence is low, you end up with more false positives than negatives in the set of positives.

Knowing that people who were symptomatic for respiratory infections would be among the most tested population and that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s medical approach to COVID-19 was to tell people to go home and get as sick as possible, it was readily clear that people would be dying due to lack of treatment for treatable conditions, like bacterial pneumonia and fungal infections in the lung.

Now a study from the National Institutes of Health-funded researchers in Chicago has found that unresolved respiratory infections — not necessarily those involved in SARS-CoV-2 — were present in people who failed to “respond” to mechanical ventilation.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/second-thoughts-on-gender-affirming-care-american-academy-pediatrics-doctors-review-medicine-a7173276?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

The American Academy of Pediatrics said last week that it will commission a systematic review of the evidence for pediatric sex-trait modification, known euphemistically as “gender-affirming care.” This marks a turning point in the battle over the controversial medical protocol. To those who favor evidence-based rather than eminence-based medicine, it is a step in the right direction.

But it is a small step. Two key questions: Will the systematic review follow a transparent, impartial scientific process? And what should the AAP do in the meantime?

In explaining the decision to commission a systematic review, the AAP’s CEO, Mark Del Monte, said that the academy’s board “has confidence that the existing evidence is such that the current policy is appropriate. At the same time, the board recognized that additional detail would be helpful here.”

If the AAP’s position is that it is “confident” the systematic review will vindicate its position and merely add “additional detail,” that raises suspicions about the honesty and independence of the process and shows the need for strong guardrails against AAP influence over the inquiry.

The AAP is, first and foremost, a trade union. “Professional medical association” is a less apt description than “association of medical professionals.” Teachers unions care about education but give their own and their members’ interests priority over those of students. So too the AAP has strong incentives to defend its own interests and those of member doctors—especially those who have publicly endorsed or facilitated sex-trait modification—even when that is harmful to patients.

The AAP and prominent members have consistently assured policy makers and judges that sex-trait modification is safe and effective and based on strong science. Insurance companies have based their coverage decisions on these claims. Democrats have used them to cast opponents as bigots. The Biden administration regularly cites the AAP in its efforts to guarantee minors unfettered access to hormonal drugs and life-altering surgery. Parents have accepted AAP claims and agreed to allow doctors to disrupt their children’s natural puberty, flood their bodies with synthetic hormones, and amputate their healthy breasts.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/san-diego-state-universitys-dei-litmus-test

Last year, San Diego State University conducted a search for a cancer biologist as part of an initiative focused on increasing faculty diversity. While ideal candidates’ expertise could be in tumor biology, cancer immunology, or other areas of hard science, they would also be expected to demonstrate a focus on health disparities and a commitment to diversity. SDSU required each applicant to fill out a form describing their contributions to “building inclusive excellence”—their version of the now-ubiquitous “diversity statement.”

Through a public-records request, I have acquired SDSU’s “building inclusive excellence” form. It symbolizes a remarkable statement of the university’s priorities and demonstrates how even the most high-stakes areas of scientific research must now genuflect to social justice.

The form, published on the National Association of Scholars website, requires candidates to describe their “inclusive excellence” contributions across eight categories, which include “demonstrated knowledge of barriers for underrepresented students and faculty within the discipline,” “demonstrated commitment to teaching and mentoring underrepresented students,” “demonstrated commitment to integrating understanding of underrepresented populations and communities into research,” and “research interests that contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education.”

Far from being merely a symbolic nod toward diversity, these criteria have teeth. Per SDSU’s hiring guide, the chief diversity officer appoints separate “Building Inclusive Excellence” screeners, who examine candidates’ “inclusive excellence” contributions. Screeners won’t advance candidates to the final stage unless they meet two criteria. Departments can appeal a screener’s decision, but only with the approval of both the chief diversity officer and the provost. In other words, even cancer biologists now risk limiting their job prospects unless they demonstrate a commitment to DEI.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/02/gender-confirmation-surgery/

“Accredited medical professional groups agree that gender-affirming care is medically necessary, safe, and effective for trans and non-binary youth,” proclaimed Admiral Rachel Levine last October. Back in March, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health ramped up that claim.

“President Biden supports you. I as the Assistant Secretary for Health will support you and I talk about this topic, everywhere I go, to get the word out,” said Levine, a Harvard grad and medical doctor. “I am positive and optimistic and hopeful that the wheel will turn after that and that this issue won’t be as politically and socially such a minefield.”

That endorsement invites a closer look at “gender affirming care,” which as NBC noted, “commonly includes cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and gender reassignment surgeries.”

Dr. Maddie Deutsch, Associate Professor of Clinical Family & Community Medicine at the University of California – San Francisco (UCSF), and Medical Director for UCSF Transgender Care, reviews the “choices, risks, and unknowns associated with feminizing hormone therapy.” Taking higher doses of hormones, “will not necessarily bring about faster changes, but it could endanger your health.” Those pondering the hormone therapy might wonder what form the endangerment could take.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/censorship-and-the-public-health-establishment

Perhaps symbolically, on July 4 a federal judge in Louisiana enjoined a long list of federal officers, including White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, from communicating with social media companies in efforts to suppress speech. The government’s machinery for working hand-in-glove with Google, Meta, and (pre-Elon Musk) Twitter to determine jointly what facts and messages can be shared with the public concerning the Covid-19 pandemic came to a dead stop.

Not unexpectedly, after days of Beltway insiders describing the ruling as the reckless product of an uninformed rural judge, the Biden administration asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the injunction, which it has done. For the White House and executive agencies, the ability to control speech online is apparently too great a political tool to give up without a fight.

Judge Terry Doughty’s injunction had determined that the plaintiffs in the case were likely to show that public health officials had conspired with social media platforms to censor empirically established facts about Covid-19: its origins, how it spread, what individuals could do to protect themselves, and the efficacy and dangers of the vaccines. In doing so, those officials impinged on Americans’ right to expect the truth from their government.

From virtually the beginning of the pandemic, the federal government adopted a “take no prisoners” strategy on controlling information about Covid. When Francis Collins, then head of the National Institutes of Health, and Anthony Fauci, chief Covid advisor to Presidents Trump and Biden, found their mistaken belief that everyone was equally susceptible to Covid challenged, they set out to silence dissent.

Scientists who argued that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should focus its preventive efforts on more vulnerable populations, including those over 65, found their posts removed from social media platforms by nameless operatives prompted by government liaisons, several of whom are named as defendants. The justification, without any evidence or explanation, was that their views constituted “misinformation,” an Orwellian characterization encouraged by federal officials, according to Judge Doughty.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/faucis-unlawful-tenure/

Xavier Becerra, Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary, failed to reappoint 14 National Institutes of Health directors, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), charges a July 7 letter from the House Energy and. Commerce Committee. The failure could have “grave implications” for the actions of Dr. Fauci during his “unlawful tenure.”

According to Section 2033 of the 21st Century Cures Act, titled “Increasing Accountability at the National Institutes of Health,” Fauci’s five-year term expired on December 21, 2021. Fauci continued as NIAID boss until retirement on December 31, 2022 and, “if Dr. Fauci was never reappointed, every action he took is potentially invalid.” (emphasis added)

During that time, Fauci served as Biden’s chief medical adviser and “regularly attended high-level meetings” with policy makers “including the National Security Council and the intelligence committee.” Fauci “awarded a new grant to EcoHealth Alliance” despite unanswered concerns about possible double billing of USAID and NIH for the same research.

Fauci also failed “to produce laboratory notebooks and other records from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” the Chinese lab Fauci funded to perform gain-of-function research that makes viruses more lethal and transmissible. That Fauci “exercised and amassed all of this authority and influence without being duly reappointed. . .  demonstrates how ineffective HHS is a managing its component agencies and how little accountability currently exists.”

According to the committee, the failure to reappoint Fauci and the 13 others “jeopardizes the legal validity of more than $25 billion in federal biomedical research grants made in 2022 alone.” All told, the losses are far more extensive, and Dr. Fauci was kept in a position he never should have had in the first place.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/07/20/fdas-approval-of-a-new-alzheimers-drug-is-a-real-but-very-modest-advance/

The Food and Drug Administration on July 6 granted full approval to the first therapy for Alzheimer’s that slows the cognitive decline associated with the disease. That “first” is good news, because it validates a therapeutic approach that has long been in doubt, but more important, it benefits patients afflicted with a terrible disease. 

The approval is hardly a breakthrough, however: The benefits of the drug, Leqembi (lecanemab) are meager; it does not restore lost function; it is expensive and administered intravenously every two weeks; and there are occasionally severe side effects. Nevertheless, my neurologist friends tell me that they’re being inundated with inquiries about Leqembi from Alzheimer’s patients and their families.

Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that afflicts more than 6.5 million Americans. It slowly destroys memory and cognitive skills and eventually, the ability to perform even simple tasks. Although the specific causes of Alzheimer’s are not fully understood, it is characterized by changes in the brain, including the formation of various abnormal structures that result in loss of neurons and their connections. 

The FDA had previously granted Leqembi accelerated approval based on a “surrogate endpoint” short of demonstrated clinical benefit, based on its ability to reduce amyloid plaques, or clumps, in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. As a postmarketing condition of the accelerated approval, the drug manufacturer, Eisai, was required to conduct a clinical trial to confirm the anticipated clinical benefit of Leqembi.  Safety and efficacy were evaluated in a Phase 3 multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial that included 1,795 patients.

That confirmatory trial, which was reported earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that in patients in the early stages of the disease, the drug slowed cognitive and functional decline modestly – perhaps by about five months – over 18 months compared with placebo.