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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Transgender Hormones Increase Heart Attacks and Strokes, but the Left Still Pushes Them on Kids By Kevin Downey Jr.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2023/02/23/trans-meds-increase-heart-attacks-and-strokes-sevenfold-but-the-left-still-pushes-them-on-kids-n1673171

What happens when men hoover up estrogen and women scarf testosterone? Aww, you know!

Specialists at Pennsylvania’s Mercy Catholic Medical Center are reporting that transgendered people taking hormones face serious risks of heart attack, stroke, and myocarditis.

The study compared transgender people who do and do not take hormones, hormone blockers, or any other medication associated with those looking to “change their gender.”

Those transgendered people — many of them teens — who take the drugs are facing a handful of bad news, including:

They are seven times more likely to have a stroke.
They are six times more likely to have a myocardial infarction.
They have a five-times higher risk of pulmonary embolism, which blocks the arteries in the lungs.

“It’s all about risks and benefits,” Dr. Ibrahim Ahmed, lead author of the study, reported. “Starting transitioning is a big part of a person’s life and helping them feel more themselves, but hormone replacement therapy also has a lot of side effects.”

Congress To Probe COVID Vaccines — And It’s About Time

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/02/23/congress-to-probe-covid-vaccines-and-its-about-time/

One of the key functions of Congress is to oversee how our government’s many branches do their jobs. It’s a central part of holding those in power accountable. That’s why it’s good news that the new Republican House has decided to investigate the COVID-19 vaccines, which turned out to be deadlier, and far less effective, than promised.

This is not one of the “gotcha” committees, such as the ones run by the Democrats during the last session of Congress that amounted to little more than political sideshows with no real serious intent of reform or improving government.

Instead, as reported by The Epoch Times, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will investigate possible side effects of the vaccines, how and why they were approved by government regulators, and why they were forced on the public. The previous Democratic Congress was too busy investigating President Donald Trump and spending trillions on “stimulus” to do the job.

Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Weeks said the investigation’s goal is to prepare for future similar pandemics, “and that includes perfecting our vaccine development. In order to do so, we must have complete transparency in vaccine research, clinical trials and adverse reactions, and manufacturing.”

She added, “I expect our oversight hearings will shed light on the FDA approval process, the potential for side effects, and ultimately the success rate and safety of the vaccine — each of which will help us to navigate future global health emergencies.”

To which we say, it’s about time.

As others, we’ve been shocked by recent revelations from peer-reviewed studies that show the mRNA vaccines were less effective and possibly even harmful for large groups of people, while the almost-fetishized forced-wearing of masks had basically zero effect on the spread of the disease.

The Covid Lockdown Disaster: Three Years Later Beginning in March 2020, many bad decisions were made that will impact untold numbers of young people for the rest of their lives. by Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-covid-lockdown-disaster-three-years-later/

There has been nothing but awful news about the unnecessary Covid-related shutdown of American schools. Study after study and a mass of anecdotal evidence show the harm done by the forced lockdowns.

Yet more research, released in January, extends the grim scenario. A meta-analysis of 42 studies across 15 countries assessed the magnitude of learning deficits during the pandemic, and finds “a substantial overall learning deficit…which arose early in the pandemic and persists over time. Learning deficits are particularly large among children from low socio-economic backgrounds.”

The analysis finds the losses are larger in math than in reading and in middle-income countries relative to high-income countries. The learning progress of school-aged children slowed substantially during the pandemic and overall, students lost about 35%, of a school year’s worth of learning. One of the studies included in the analysis found that the average public school student in third grade through eighth grade lost half a year of math learning and a quarter of a year in reading.

Two countries, Sweden and Denmark, managed to avoid the upheaval. Swedish children experienced no learning loss because they were not subjected to mass school closures during the pandemic. While Denmark did have closures, it is theorized that the lack of learning loss could be attributed to the country’s “reliable digital infrastructure with Denmark being one of the absolute top-scorers in digital skills, broadband connectivity, and digital public services in Europe.”

The CDC’s Long-Covid Deception A recent study exaggerates the incidence of postviral symptoms among young adults and deflects attention from misconceived pandemic policies By Allysia Finley

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cdcs-long-covid-deception-depression-anxiety-vaccine-mandate-university-gwu-testing-mental-health-48bdd11b?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Many liberals label themselves “pro-science” as if that’s a political position. Then again, so many putatively scientific studies seem intended to promote progressive policies rather than advance scientific knowledge. Such studies then get amplified by the media and self-appointed experts on social media.

Consider a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that claims to find that nearly 36% of Covid cases among students, faculty and staff at George Washington University resulted in “long Covid.” The study suggests that young, healthy people face a high risk of chronic debilitating symptoms after infection despite being at low risk of getting severely ill with the virus.

The study also finds that the unvaccinated were at more than twice as high a risk of developing long Covid as those fully vaccinated who had gotten boosters. This sounds plausible. But drill down, and it becomes clear that the evidence is too thin to draw any conclusions.

Like many colleges, George Washington University held classes online during the first year of the pandemic even as some students returned to campus. Those on campus were required to undergo weekly Covid testing. During the 2021-22 school year, classrooms reopened but students were required to be vaccinated and later boosted.

The college recorded 4,800 Covid cases between August 2020‒and February 2022. Those who tested positive were later asked to complete 15- to 20-minute surveys about their health and behavioral changes. Only one-third completed the surveys, and those who did might have been more likely to report lingering health problems—a phenomenon known as nonresponse bias.

The study suffers from two other major methodological problems. First, it doesn’t include a control group of students and faculty that weren’t infected. The finding that nearly 36% reported long Covid symptoms is meaningless without such a sample to determine how common such symptoms were among people who never had Covid.

1 in 45,000 That was the (pre-vaccine) Covid death risk for people under 50 – not 30, 50, and including people with severe comorbidities. Aren’t you glad we shut down the world! Alex Berenson

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/1-in-45000

We have known almost since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic that young people face much lower risks from Covid than the elderly.

But Dutch researchers now have offered what should be the last word on the issue, using data from a national registry to show that even people in their thirties and forties have a risk from Covid almost too low to measure.

The researchers compared the results from a nationwide sample of Covid infections in the Netherlands at several points in 2020 and 2021 to nationwide excess death totals. To determine the Covid death rate, they assumed all the excess deaths resulted from Covid infections.

This method likely overstates Covid deaths. Some extra deaths were likely drug overdoses, suicides, or untreated heart attacks and other lockdown-related health problems. In addition, the sampling technique they used may have understated infections.

Put those issues aside, since they don’t change the most important finding. The researchers determined the death rate from Covid infections was about 1 percent overall in the Netherlands during 2020. (Again, that figure almost certainly is high.)

The researchers then did what governments and Covid hysterics have tried not to do for three years. They explicitly stratified deaths by age, from under 10 to over 80.

The results are… enlightening.

The chart below measures infections, hospitalizations, and deaths from the second Covid wave in the Netherlands, in fall 2020. That stretch probably marks the truest measure of Covid’s lethality. It occurred after the ventilator and nursing home catastrophes of the first wave but before the short-lived happy vaccine valley of spring 2021, when the mRNAs sharply reduced infections.

Medical Tyranny! The Feds Are Tracking the Unvaccinated, and You Won’t Believe ‘WHO’ Is Telling Them to Do It By Kevin Downey Jr.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2023/02/15/medical-tyranny-the-feds-are-tracking-the-unvaccinated-and-you-wont-believe-who-is-telling-them-to-do-it-n1670857

Some of you may recall that I previously referred to the COVID-19 lockdowns — and various other responses to the bat stew flu — as a “dress rehearsal for communism.”

I was wrong; it’s showtime!

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) — at the behest of the World Health Organization (WHO) — is now tracking Americans who have chosen to dodge the ineffective vaccine and those who are partially vaccinated.

FACT-O-RAMA! The WHO is an unelected, gloabalist commie-dominated group supposedly dedicated to tackling worldwide health situations. It has ties to the United Nations and is completely beset by the Chinese commies.

How do we know the Chi-comms have infiltrated the WHO?

The WHO echoed China’s nonsense that COVID can’t be transferred from person to person.
It also snubbed Taiwan’s request to join the WHO as an observer.

World-renowned Dr. Robert Malone, who was “canceled” for sounding the alarm about all things COVID, reported that the no-longer-secret surveillance program that the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) — which is a part of the CDC — originated has begun not only tracking those who have been partially or completely unvaccinated. But why?

Doctors working at hospitals and clinics are now expected to ask patients if they’ve been vaccinated — and if not, why not — and report the answers to the NCHS. The only doctors who aren’t expected to comply are the ones who are in private practice and do not accept insurance.

The Morning Briefing: The Physician of the Future — Dumber, Woker, and More Likely to Kill You By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/02/14/the-morning-briefing-the-physician-of-the-future-dumber-woker-and-more-likely-to-kill-you-n1670332

A couple of stories have popped up recently that don’t inspire hope for the competency of the next generation of American physicians. As if we already didn’t have enough about the future to make us worry.

The first that caught my eye was a video that Ben shared at the beginning of the month in a post titled: Medical Schools Sacrifice Entry Standards at Altar of Racial Equity.

Prominent law and medical schools are throwing standardized entrance exams and merit out of the window to keep affirmative action alive long past its expiration date.

Leftists will no doubt say I object to this because I’m a knuckle-dragging conservative racist. While it’s true that I’ve never bought into the whole “standardized tests are culturally and racially biased” canard, it’s because I think is actually more racist than the racism it purports to be highlighting.

I’m just saying that an across-the-board lowering of entrance standards for medical school MIGHT be fraught with unpleasant consequences. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think it should be more difficult to become a physician, not easier.

Yeah, I have trust issues when it comes to the medical profession. Ben has some interesting comments on the overall state of healthcare in the United States at the end of his post. I highly recommend reading them.

So many people recently ‘died suddenly’ – What’s going on? By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/so_many_people_recently_died_suddenly__whats_going_on.html

A new and increasingly popular Twitter hashtag is “#diedsuddenly” in response to a surge of sudden unexplained deaths among mostly young and healthy individuals, including athletes, occurring over the past 2 years. Here are but a few recent news stories.

In Australia, “Fit and healthy 21 year old son dies suddenly in his sleep.” From the University of Arizona, “A recent member of Arizona’s men’s swim team has unexpectedly passed away.” In Detroit, a high school basketball player suffered a cardiac arrest during a basketball game. While they restarted his heart, he hasn’t woken up.

Or this athlete in his early 20’s, “A former Florida Gators offensive lineman died suddenly on Thursday night according to multiple media reports.” From the US Army, “A soldier stationed at Fort Stewart died Tuesday while traveling to California for a training exercise.” Is this some type of black magic? Not likely, “America’s Got Talent magician suddenly dies at just 52.”

Let’s not forget Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin going into cardiac arrest after an unremarkable tackle during a January NFL game. These are anecdotes, and while compelling are not the same as collected data.

Several brave researchers recorded these “sudden” and “unexplained” deaths, as they are described in the media. Here is one report, “An investigation of official statistics has found that the number of athletes who have died since the beginning of 2021 has risen exponentially compared to the yearly number of deaths of athletes officially recorded between 1966 and 2004.”

This trend was quite worrisome, “So much so that the monthly average number of deaths between January 2021 and April 2022 is 1,700% higher than the monthly average between 1966 and 2004.”

It’s Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives Kevin Bass

https://www.newsweek.com/its-time-scientific-community-admit-we-were-wrong-about-coivd-it-cost-lives-opinion-1776630

As a medical student and researcher, I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities when it came to COVID-19. I believed that the authorities responded to the largest public health crisis of our lives with compassion, diligence, and scientific expertise. I was with them when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters.

I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.

I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

But perhaps more important than any individual error was how inherently flawed the overall approach of the scientific community was, and continues to be. It was flawed in a way that undermined its efficacy and resulted in thousands if not millions of preventable deaths.

What we did not properly appreciate is that preferences determine how scientific expertise is used, and that our preferences might be—indeed, our preferences were—very different from many of the people that we serve. We created policy based on our preferences, then justified it using data. And then we portrayed those opposing our efforts as misguided, ignorant, selfish, and evil.

We made science a team sport, and in so doing, we made it no longer science. It became us versus them, and “they” responded the only way anyone might expect them to: by resisting.

We excluded important parts of the population from policy development and castigated critics, which meant that we deployed a monolithic response across an exceptionally diverse nation, forged a society more fractured than ever, and exacerbated longstanding heath and economic disparities.

Not Seeing Clearly The VA wants to allow optometrists to perform some surgical procedures on veterans. Henry I. Miller

https://www.city-journal.org/veterans-admin-unwise-laser-eye-surgery-policy

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the federal government’s second-largest department. As of 2021, it operated approximately 1,600 health-care facilities, 144 medical centers, and 1,232 outpatient sites, of varying complexity. The VA has long been plagued by a wide spectrum of problems, including long delays in scheduling appointments, substandard care, and years of trying to get a $10 billion electronic system to work effectively.

As a veteran myself (I have never received medical care through the VA, though I did numerous medical school clinical rotations at a VA hospital), I know that veterans deserve better. And yet, the VA seems to be committed to a change in policy that would further degrade the quality of their care—specifically, by allowing underqualified practitioners to perform laser eye surgery.

Last September, the VA modified its eye-care guidelines for treatment from community providers by letting optometrists, who are neither medical doctors nor surgeons, perform some surgical procedures. Without soliciting input from the public or medical community, it removed language from the Community Care guideline, which had ensured that “only ophthalmologists can perform invasive procedures, including injections, lasers and eye surgery.” This change would permit optometrists to perform surgical procedures such as laser trabeculoplasty—an operation on the eye to treat glaucoma—rather than restricting them to ophthalmologists (who are highly trained, experienced, qualified surgeons), as had been the policy. The change would be felt immediately in a small number of states that already allow optometrists to perform laser surgery. But the VA is considering a broader policy change that would make it possible for optometrists in all VA facilities to perform these procedures.

The differences in the amount of training and the scope of competence between optometrists and ophthalmologists are vast. Ophthalmologists log over 17,000 hours of clinical experience in general medicine, surgery, and emergency management during medical school and specialized postgraduate training.