Lefty zine promoting right-wing pseudoscience protocols of an expensive concierge clinic?
One of the most important things individuals can do for public health is thoroughly review advice and information before deciding to pass on what may turn out to be misinformation.
This comic artist describes themselves as having “well-informed layperson’s understanding” on the pandemic and how to protect oneself from it, but they are giving out medical and public health advice, promoting dubious products like colloidal silver nasal spray, using right-wing pseudoscience laden with right-wing pandemic contrarian buzzwords and treatment protocols, while they quote a leftist podcast on the cover of their zine, and at least pay lip service to social justice issues.
They offer “advanced safety tips” as if there’s some secret special advanced knowledge. There’s no mystery here. We’ve known what to do to protect ourselves and each other from covid from the get go. The most effective measures are not even new. And “the layers of protection” do not involve any dubious unproven products, right-wing covid protocol supplements, telling people to eat supposedly medicinal health foods, nor advice to take some special combination of OTC medications.
Public health has been shouting it out for years. Wear a mask, get vaccinated, test, and stay home if you’re sick or test positive. There’s no secret knowledge. They acknowledge the People’s CDC has put out a Safer In-person Gatherings Toolkit,[1] for example. These basics would be doable by everyone if government policies were promoting and supporting public health. But some want you to believe there are secret advanced safety products that you can buy with money. That’s capitalism. And quick easy fixes are usually a con.
Is this lefty zine maybe unwittingly doing free advertising for pandemic profiteering? The author has not disclosed receiving payment for product placements that I could find on the website. Not all nations require bloggers, content creators, and internet influencers to disclose payments for promotions, and even when it is required, even big names like Kim Kardashian sometimes fail to disclose,[2] so I would not rely on small time content creators being caught if they don’t. But it’s also true that a lot of people do recommend products to others without a financial incentive, and just pass on what is essentially marketing material. That’s the dream of every corporate marketing team, that endorsement propagates by word of mouth, because it’s been known by professionals for a long time that interpersonal ties are key to spreading information.[3] It’s difficult to know where something originates these days, and what’s just passed on. So I don’t know what is the case in this instance. While it’s true some businesses do not want you worrying about contagious viruses,[4] other businesses target-market to people who are worried about it, that’s as true today as it was in March 2020.[5] And the target marketing nowadays can be unbelievably specific and intrusive, since there are data brokers selling mental healthcare data on consumers that not only reveal emails and social media accounts, but also home addresses.[6] And social media accounts are specifically created to serve niche audiences, and then sell those audiences.[7]
In the references for this zine on their webpage is a list of links of “Further resources” — and this includes links to unproven UV products with unproven safety profiles and lots of unanswered questions you should be asking before buying these things that could emit ozone, and have no long term studies for their supposed safety[8] and might still potentially damage corneas,[9] or up risks of skin cancer. The products that are being promoted are for use in the presence of humans. There’s a link on the zine’s webpage to a product page to spend over $300 on a product with unknown and unproven safety and efficacy. I often see handheld devices promoted by social media hotshots who are taking them on airline flights or to doctors offices. Some claim they’re “safe” wavelengths — but even those wavelengths haven’t been proven with any long-term studies, and even if they were, who has certified that the devices emit at that narrow range? It could be a counterfeit product — the dangerous wands[10] repackaged as whatever is being hyped nowadays. How does anyone know for sure? Counterfeits are sadly a big problem in online sales, even causing problems for vendors trying to sell authentic products.[11] And then once someone decides to use these products in public, they’re exposing other people to something that they haven’t consented to. This is not community minded, and it’s not public health.
The link to “Nasal Sprays and Reducing the Risk of Covid Reinfection” goes to a Youtube video of RTHM Health from September 2023, a clinic which is referenced in the zine itself as a Long Covid treatment clinic. It’s a telehealth clinic in the concierge startup model whose website says they’re serving less than 10 states at this time, with plans to serve more, and that boasts offering a range of treatments “based on the latest research” — which I guess seems to mean including remedies which have not been proven effective or not been proven safe. The link takes you directly to about 35 seconds into the video to a point where on the screen is a presentation slide with the words “colloidal silver” next to a screenshot of a PLOS ONE study titled “Evaluation of silver nanoparticles for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection in health workers”.
Jennifer Curtain, MD — self described on twitter as a physician, entrepreneur, and recovered from ME/CFS, and as having treated post-infection illness before the pandemic.[12] The doctor has 3 poor 1 star ratings on Vitals.com, all from late 2023, one is accusatory that a prior negative review was deleted, but these are all 5 months old and still visible.[13] Jennifer Curtain also has poor ratings on Healthgrades.[14] One person replying in a Reddit r/cfs thread complaining about GET and “brain retraining”, referred negatively in January 2024, to an experience they claim to have had with Jennifer Curtin at Center for Complex Diseases in 2019 prescribing them DNRS.[15] (I looked that up and I think it refers to “Dynamic Neural Retraining System” — some kind of brain training — which was the topic of the thread.)
In the Reddit r/covidlonghaulers someone posting about their dissatisfaction with RTHM Health since March 21, 2023, related a story of spending $500 per month for a subscription to the telehealth service and getting no responses between appointments after being instructed to get “5 figures worth” of lab tests. They claimed they got no prescriptions, but had been put on a bunch of supplements which they claim the clinic was getting kickbacks for at a rate of 30%. There’s nothing on the RTHM website about purchasing supplements through them, so I asked around and was told the clinic provides affiliate links (but without any discount to the patient). On March 21, 2023 the Redditor OP said, “That’s the saddest part; I don’t know where else to turn so I might just stick it out another month. I guess I just need to accept there are no treatments.” They related in January 2024 that they stuck it out a full year with RTHM and finally gave up after paying $12,000 to RTHM directly, perhaps another $2,000 on supplements (with the aforementioned “30% kickback”), and said their good health insurance paid for perhaps over $100,000 in labs and tests, with them spending about $7,000 on labs that were not covered by the insurance. They said they got such an “ungodly amount of blood tests” at Quest that they were familiar with the names of the children of the staff. They said they felt they were being experimented on with random stuff, and speculated that it was in hopes that someone would find some treatment to monetize.[16] But with that much money having already been spent, it sounds like there’s already been considerable monetization. And this person posted on another thread the very next day, in response to someone asking about the clinic, and suggested that they were resentful that the clinic is “charging a hefty monthly fee while dangling the hope of treatment” and that their primary care doctor has suggested “that their tests are a huge waste of money, blood, time, and effort” and this person has come to terms with the fact that “there is no secret cure” (their words).[17]
This disillusioned Long Covid patient’s other thread includes someone who seemed to be currently mostly satisfied with the service, and had gotten prescription medications, at the time they posted. There was also somebody who posted that they were in the onboarding process and thought well of it, and 2 months after that followed up to say they thought the service was “experienced” and it was going fine. 8 months after that someone upped the conversation, reported signing up with the service, and asked if that person recovered, and the person who said it was going fine in May 2023, reported in January 2024 that they had not been actively using the service in the prior 6 months, when asked why, there was no reply in the thread.[18] Another person posted a warning that thousands of dollars later they felt they had been misdiagnosed for years.
Another conversation in the same Reddit thread led to someone with a deleted account revealing that Dr. Jordan Vaughn’s long covid clinic referred them to Pierre Kory, and the OP had to ask who that was and what is he known for, and the deleted account explained that they should’ve all known who he is because of being the president of FLCCC[19] — FLCCC is the group that questions the safety of mRNA vaccines, promotes ivermectin for covid, and got money from the Brownstone Institute.[20]
Someone on Twitter in March 2024, advised people his experience soured him on the RTHM Health clinic, stating that he had a little “health coaching” and was instructed to take some supplements, but had to manage all the logistics around getting a lot of blood tests completed.[21] Another person on Twitter complained that they couldn’t get their questions answered at intake.[22] There are also people posting on social media who report being pleased with the service because they say this clinic is willing to try things other long covid clinics or their primary care doctors don’t, and that this clinic will try treatments based on the latest research, which is mentioned on the RTHM website specifically. Even some of these patients complain about the high cost.[23] There are people who post on social media saying they’re jealous of those who get into this clinic,[24] but some say they can’t afford it,[25] or it’s not worth it,[26] or their family won’t pay for it.[27] Others are more harshly critical, claiming the clinic is problematic or even manipulative, like someone on Reddit who said the clinic startup uses “tactics of trolling twitter for long covid treatments-of-the-week or topics to fear monger via their blog” and that they didn’t think it wasn’t clinically helpful.[28] There are various comments that the appeal of it is that they will prescribe antivirals or something called “triple therapy” that other doctors refused to do — but that’s not everyone’s experience, as clearly some have complained about just getting recommended supplements. One person in a reddit thread reported they thought it was worth it for the emotional support alone, of not feeling gaslit, but they reported they started in 2022 when the service was only $99 per month.[29] Now, it might be $1k per month,[30] possibly with a 3 month minimum commitment with no refunds.[31] Some fear they won’t be accepted because of long waiting lists, though I’ve not seen any evidence that there’s a waiting list, this isn’t mentioned on the clinic website, and in one Reddit post in January 2024 someone said they were told by the clinic that there was no waiting list and the person remarked that sounded “too good to be true” prompting them to ask about it on Reddit r/cfs.[32] So perhaps this idea of waiting lists is from word of mouth rumours online confusing it with other clinics.
Of course all of this is mostly anonymous hearsay on social media, and I don’t have the resources to verify much.
It’s true that private telehealth clinics often cater to an elite set of wealthy people who can afford to pay out of pocket for incredibly expensive personal attention medical services, such as the fancy concierge services which went on to employ Dr. Bill Lang, former military and White House physician, more famous for his participation in the leaked Red Dawn emails early in the pandemic.[33] And it seems like some of the patients were just disappointed that RTHM Health didn’t measure up to those kind of concierge expectations.
It’s also true that some notorious criminal scams have been perpetrated on wealthy people, such as investors being tricked by Theranos,[34] SBF,[35] and the earlier Bernie Madoff’s scheme.[36] While “you get what you pay for” might be a helpful bromide at times, there are clearly no guarantees, even with decent regulation, and we don’t actually seem to have strong enough regulation nowadays, and so you more often hear the phrase “It’s like the wild west!”
The link to that video about colloidal silver nose spray was in the cartoonist’s webpage, but there was also a half page of the printable zine dedicated to RTHM Health, essentially kind of like an advertisement in the zine, at least for the telehealth long covid clinic’s website, the link written out and within a QR code on the page. The zine page lists out a rather long list of supplements, unproven remedies including colloidal silver nasal spray, and OTC medications, including low dose aspirin. CIDRAP recently reported that there were scientists who cautioned against even the CDC giving general guidance to the public on OTC drugs for COVID-19, stating that healthcare providers ought to make clinical judgements on an individual case basis on the selection of OTC drugs to treat symptoms of covid.[37] Giving people a laundry list of supplements and OTC medications to take when they get infected, knowing nothing about the recipients, seems unwise practice, and the zine leaves it up to random readers to know they need to proceed to the webpage to get information about important caveats, even if you could assume that the products on the list were a good idea, which I don’t think you ought to assume that.
The zine author seems unaware that they’re posting this when the Test to Treat program is slated to end in 10 days, on April 16th 2024[38] — no mention of that in the zine. It’s like they have no interest in paying attention to political action on this, or corresponding pressure from groups like Mask Together America.[39]
Part of right-wing wellness culture is apparently specifically known for a tendency toward depoliticization.[40]
“They don’t express political aspirations because the industry is narcissistic. It doesn’t really point itself toward any kind of collective action or the difficult work of party politics. None of these people are interested in building coalitions. They want to have affiliate networks, but they’re not going to do deep canvassing and try to convince people to vote. They want people to buy their shit.”
“They’re part of a depoliticization project.”
— Matthew Remski, Conspirituality Podcast
“Early Treatment” is a right-wing buzzword which is tied directly to the right-wing covid contrarian marketing of hydroxychloroquine, colloidal silver, and ivermectin, from early in the pandemic. It’s being repurposed by the zine to refer to Paxlovid treatment, prescribed to be started within the first 5 days of a covid infection. {NOTE: The actual number is 7 — Paxlovid can be started on day 7 — according to the CDC[65] and the NHS[66].} I suppose 5 days in could possibly be considered “early” as opposed to 10 days in. But despite my big dive into the Paxlovid issue[41] and my attempts to advocate for science based prescribing of it,[42] I’ve not come across any documentation or doctors like Eric Topol[43] or Jeremy Faust[44] using the phrase “early treatment” when talking about Paxlovid. That’s probably because this phrase was heavily emphasized very early in the pandemic by right wing weirdos as the “key” to covid being no big deal, because, they claim, you just do “early treatment” with quack products, unproven remedies, vitamin supplements, or in some cases wellness influencer types telling you that you should just have “faith” in your immune system. There are numerous bogus assertions by anti-vax proponents that “early treatment was suppressed” in order to promote vaccination. Something called The Wellness Company posted that as recently as 2023 on Linkedin, to this day promoting a drug[45] that’s been shown to be ineffective for treating covid, but the anti-vax camp, including Peter McCullough and RFK Jr., continue to assert that lives were being saved by “early treatment” with repurposed drugs and vitamin supplements, despite this having been completely debunked and disproven through trials on those very products. “Early Treatment” was long the moniker of the right-wing politically motivated movement described by Allison Neitzel in May 2023 on Science-Based Medicine as coercively making it so Brazilian HMOs were “incentivized to “study” treatments for COVID with no proof of effectiveness.”[46] It would seem that there is no great reason to use the phrase “early treatment” in a legitimate way, and every reason to avoid it — unless someone deliberately wants to evoke the right-wing pandemic disinformation movement concepts.
In a tweet thread, the zine author does specify that colloidal silver overuse causes gray skin and so they use a different kind of nose spray. (The one they use also has no strong evidence of efficacy, but appears to have less known risks.) But the colloidal silver nasal spray is listed in their zine, plain as day. You can’t promote colloidal silver and a long covid clinic’s advice to use it, and then make like you were just kidding on that point on social media. This is on the pamphlet that you’re telling people to print out and spread around town — why even mention the colloidal silver in their own zine?
The correct references for colloidal silver would be to sources which make clear it’s not considered effective and explain the origins of silver’s use as an antiseptic that have led to claims it could do the same thing inside the body, even though now, according to infectious disease specialist Mark Crislip “it’s not even clear colloidal silver is that great” for even burn wounds, as had been thought in the past.[47] And the more compelling references for the other nasal sprays would show there isn’t a whole lot of strong evidence they are safe or effective as a virus prophylactic. Warnings have been issued to companies selling these products for making deceptive marketing claims,[48] that are outstandingly rosy considering the lack of evidence, and that regulators point out the lack of clinical data on safety, and that it’s not considered safe to put something like, for example ethyl alcohol, inside the nostrils.[49]
The zine cartoonist uses a bunch of study references, and I don’t have time to review them all, and I’m not a scientist, but I’ve asked doctors and scientists about most of the studies people use to promote nose sprays and mouthwashes before, and they are typically found wanting. Small studies funded by the companies selling the products in too many cases. Often the studies people link for promoting “prophylactic” nasal sprays don’t even back up the claims they’re making at all, they’re studies on treatment of hospitalized patients,[50] and in the past I’ve found instances of just straight up Fraudulent Appeal to Authority.[51] Sometimes it’s just PR and marketing material that sounds like science.[52]
Of course you can find whatever you want to find. If you decide you’re anti-government you can eschew NIH NCCIH (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health) which warns that “Silver has no known functions or benefits in the body when taken by mouth, and it is not an essential mineral.” and instead go to contributor page on Huffpost which will tell you the opposite, claim there’s compelling evidence, and erroneously say it’s perfectly safe to take it daily, even while the NIH NCCIH website clearly says there is a risk of permanent bluish-gray discoloration of the skin, poor absorption of some drugs including antibiotics, and “There is also some evidence that it can cause kidney, liver, or nervous system problems.”[53]
The zine author doesn’t mention the rat study, but the long covid clinic person on the video linked does, saying “I wouldn’t go around drinking gallons of this stuff” after referencing the rat brains. Yes, there was a study where rats used a silver nasal spray and were found to have an accumulation of silver in the brain.[54] The RTHM Health person on the video says that the study shows it’s a risk with excessive and prolonged use. The study was for 2 weeks with rats, and that is perhaps in some ways about the equivalent of one human year. However it’s unclear that there’s any set temporal calculation on this. The answer to “what is that in human time?” is: it depends.[55]
But let’s just say it’s a year, and that the study used a high concentration and really was excessive. The thing about this is that people who are using these nasal sprays in hopes of covid prophylaxis are often using them excessively, for obvious reasons, because they’re being exposed to covid excessively. Overuse is almost a given in many of the situations I’ve seen related in forums, on discords, on social media like reddit or twitter or from people telling me about conversations in facebook and zoom groups. We’re talking about people who can’t avoid exposure because they have no choice but to live in the same household with covid denying family members, or must share accommodations with people who just refuse to take precautions and repeatedly bring covid and everything else back to them over and over, even after they’re bedridden with Long Covid. So often people in these situations are using these products 24/7 in hopes that it’ll save them from misery or death. In some cases it’s young people who can’t afford to keep getting sick because they don’t have sick time at their jobs, but they still want to go out to bars and socialize “normally” or meet prospective mating partners and they don’t want to wait for someone willing to mask regularly, quarantine and test before unmasking together. They want so badly another “layer of protection” that doesn’t create the barrier they feel a mask does. In some cases I’ve heard people complain that even using HEPA air purifiers is just too noisy to socialize normally, or that they’ve even had family react poorly, calling them paranoid or crazy for using an air purifier. There are also people who live in places where their family think they’re “crazy” for masking even if they’re immunocompromised or undergoing chemotherapy, because the family members been propagandized by Qanon “plandemic” conspiracies. Some fear if they have their children mask at all, their relatives will get Child Services to remove their children or at the least cause trouble. So what do they do? They have the kids use nose sprays. Masks are not harmful for kids, despite the propaganda that’s been completely disproven and debunked, but these nose sprays might be quite harmful, we don’t know. But the selling point is that at least nobody can see the nasal spray, it’s invisible. That’s the enticing thing about these products — nobody has to know.
Most people I hear about who use these nose sprays are using them 3–5 times a day and many are getting sore throats from it, which would seem to indicate it might in fact irritate mucous membranes which can’t be good when it comes to infections. Many times these are parents with high exposure because their children go to in-person school or daycares that refuse to take even the most basic precautions, discourage masking, or even ban HEPA air purifiers. One upsetting story I heard was where someone was describing their being at their wits end because their child was crying and refusing to use the nasal spray they bought from overseas, because it was giving them a sore throat and they were frantic about getting the kid to use it before going to school. Sometimes the people in the forums talk about using it 5 times a day and they mention they are wondering about the safety of such excessive use. It’s definitely crossing their minds because of the sore throats, but they get no replies in most forums. In some groups I’ve heard if someone does reply warning people that it’s inadvisable to even use saline nasal spray that often, their posts get deleted by moderators, and in one case I heard of an actual doctor getting banned for raising safety concerns about products that were being advertised in a social media group.
Obviously some of these groups are run by people who are just true woo believers who are on every new wellness product bandwagon. But you don’t have to be a wellness guru groupie or anything like that to get tripped up by dubious product ads. A great many people have reported using some type of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) product or service. John Hopkins Medicine reports that 38% of American adults use some type of CAM. It includes practices often not viewed as particularly medicinal (which makes sense), such as massage, yoga, tai chi, or acupuncture.[56] It’s possible some people who partake of yoga classes for exercise and spiritual reasons might hesitate or feel awkward in criticizing other types of CAM, because of a false concern about hypocrisy. But it’s clear that the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health definitely differentiates between alternative approaches with something like meditation or yoga, which has been found to be safe for most people “when practiced appropriately” as opposed to dietary supplements which do not always have proven safety and efficacy, and may have possible drug interactions or the possibility of contamination.[57]
In some cases people may in fact be paid to promote products with affiliate links, “kickbacks” or just direct payments, and sometimes they are paid indirectly by intermediary means, such as industries hiring PR firms or troll farm operations, to direct sock puppet accounts to initiate subscriptions or botnets to artificially inflate views or likes.[58] I’ve tested this multiple times over the past couple decades, and if you have a blog with any traction in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), or a social media account with enough followers, you get offers for product promotions — or just suspiciously over enthusiastic fans liking content where certain phrases are mentioned. A content creator’s own metrics measurement tools can be gamed to prime anyone for potential inauthentic audience capture, as if straight audience capture wasn’t bad enough. I’ve heard it said on some infosec podcast at some point, about how something like just a half dozen modest Superchats can go a long way in the budget of a young Youtuber in the Midwest, and be a highly encouraging incentive to keep doing whatever got that to happen.
People interested in social justice and other progressive and left causes should be mindful of all this, and the potential for sabotage, and not distribute covid precaution pamphlets with well-known right-wing “protocols” because it’s just going to make covid precautions seem like right-wing nonsense. Many people have heard colloidal silver gossip from family, friends, and neighbors they’ve lost to MAGA Trumpism, because it was among some of the first false remedy claims the FDA started warning about in the earliest times of the pandemic.[59] Many sensible people are well aware of the connection between snake oil and right wing buffoonery, and the often deadly consequences of conservative rejection of science in the pandemic.[60] If I were someone with a business interest in undermining a public health movement by making a mockery of people who take legitimately needed precautions, and wanted to undermine the idea of precautions in general, I can think of no better psyops than to do a strawmanning operation on covid cautious lefties and paint them as just as much into nonsense pseudoscience as right-wing weirdos. I’m not saying that’s a conspiracy that’s definitely happening, though I wouldn’t rule it out given the history of crap operations like Maga3X,[61] Cointelpro,[62] and TigerSwan,[63] and witnessing the bizarre ongoing churn of social media food fights of the “zero covid” strawmanning vs. the ‘this is mild’ crowd who seem very invested in keeping these rivalries and hate follows going for the sake of polarization,[64] possibly to drive clickbait.
But let’s say that it’s all organic, and people are just innocently doing an own-goal here… Why screw up and do that to our own cause? I don’t doubt this content creator cartoonist probably has an earnest interest in encouraging others to make the world a safer place from disease spread. The implementation of that aspiration however, to say the least, leaves a LOT to be desired.
UPDATE Notes, April 12, 2024:
The cartoonist, updated the nose spray page of the zine to remove the colloidal silver that was on the original version. However, they did not remove it from the last page with the RTHM Health ad promoting silver nasal spray and mouthwash, and the link to the RHTM video promoting colloidal silver nasal spray is still on their webpage. Additionally, that doesn’t address the point that there isn’t good evidence of safety or efficacy for the other nose sprays, either. At least one company faced regulatory action based on deceptive advertising.[48] (And it contains capsicum — that’s pepper, up your nose?) Another included made it on the FDA import alert list for not having the safety and efficacy stated in marketing.[50] The nasal spray and mouthwash claims should absolutely be scrutinized. To reiterate, the claims are often easily shown to be weak, inaccurate, or based on problematic evidence. There was also another nose spray marketed for virus prophylaxis that was slammed by the FDA for not being safe for use inside the nostrils.[49] This seems to be a recurring theme, and should be seen as a red flag that prompts review.
This zine’s errors are not something that can be fixed with an asterisk and some light editing.
Several pages should just be removed altogether. If I have time at some point — I’ll take a red pen to the rest of the pages, because there are numerous points of problematic communication. I only hit the really egregious problems in this lengthy essay because I barely have time and capacity to deal with this update to just reiterate that nothing has changed.
One thing that’s also probably pretty importnat is that the zine also ignores the fact that there are no shortages of professionally made and certified HEPA air purifers subject to quality control manufacturing and industry standard testing, in favour of telling people to makeshift DIY air filtering. I think it’s worth noting that there are some online businesses making money by selling DIY kits and instructions, etc, that are less affordable than mass market certified HEPA air purifiers and replacement filters that I’ve been buying for years from reputable sources.
Update Note April 25, 2024
Added to note how it’s actually day 7 for Paxlovid, see the “early treatments” section and added footnotes 65 & 66 for references. I wouldn’t call 5 days in “early” and certainly not a week in! At least reasonable level of accuracy should prompt dropping that term in reference to Paxlovid, even if you don’t have a problem with the right-wing association.
References
1- People’s CDC — Safer In-person Gatherings — Published November 17, 2022 The Safer In-person Gatherings Toolkit was developed by a coalition of public health experts and grassroots organizations to help educators, parents, and communities advocate for safer, equitable schools, and separate fact from fiction about COVID-19 protections.
2- U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION — Press Release SEC Charges Kim Kardashian for Unlawfully Touting Crypto Security FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2022–183 Washington D.C., Oct. 3, 2022 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Kim Kardashian for touting on social media a crypto asset security offered and sold by EthereumMax without disclosing the payment she received for the promotion. Kardashian agreed to settle the charges, pay $1.26 million in penalties, disgorgement, and interest, and cooperate with the Commission’s ongoing investigation. The SEC’s order finds that Kardashian failed to disclose that she was paid $250,000 to publish a post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens, the crypto asset security being offered by EthereumMax. Kardashian’s post contained a link to the EthereumMax website, which provided instructions for potential investors to purchase EMAX tokens. “This case is a reminder that, when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, it doesn’t mean that those investment products are right for all investors,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “We encourage investors to consider an investment’s potential risks and opportunities in light of their own financial goals.”
3- Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. doi:10.1086/225469 Imagine, to begin with, a community completely partitioned into cliques, such that each person is tied to every other in his clique and to none outside. Community organization would be severely inhibited. Leafletting, radio announcements,or other methods could insure that everyone was aware of some nascent organization; but studies of diffusion and mass communication have shown that people rarely act on mass-media information unless it is also transmitted through personal ties (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Rogers 1962)
4- And Voila, An Anti-Mask Twitter Rando by Chloe Humbert on Medium, Apr 7 2023 I came across a particularly aggressive anti-mask account on twitter in early 2021. He made a ridiculous capitalist fever dream argument to justify duping people into unmasking and getting sick, and maybe dying, for business interests. It seemed so blatantly ridiculous. Tweet from @reubenR80027912 dated 1019 am May 7, 2021 says Main Street is Very simple. Do 3 things PSA campaigns that you won’t die if vaxxed. Remind people kids aren’t a risk. Remove masks everywhere so people don’t constantly live in fear. Voila. Roaring economy. Spending is about freedom from fear. Quote-tweet from same account on February 22, 2021 says There’s something to the Mad Men pilot and covid. Telling people they’re more likely to die in a car accident than covid doesn’t matter. Nor do vax stats. Happiness is freedom from fear, a billboard that screams whatever you’re doing is ok @ DKThomp
5- FDA — Coronavirus Update: FDA and FTC Warn Seven Companies Selling Fraudulent Products that Claim to Treat or Prevent COVID-19 For Immediate Release: March 09, 2020 “There already is a high level of anxiety over the potential spread of coronavirus,” said FTC Chairman Joe Simons. “What we don’t need in this situation are companies preying on consumers by promoting products with fraudulent prevention and treatment claims.”
6- Data Brokers and the Sale of Americans’ Mental Health Data. The Exchange of Our Most Sensitive Data and What It Means for Personal Privacy. By: Joanne Kim, February 2023, Duke Sanford Cyber Policy Program Data broker 4 advertised highly sensitive mental health data to the author, including names and postal addresses of individuals with depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety issues, panic disorder, cancer, PTSD, OCD, and personality disorder, as well as individuals who have had strokes and data on those people’s races and ethnicities. Two data brokers, data broker 6 and data broker 9, mentioned nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in their communications, and data broker 9 indicated that signing an NDA was a prerequisite for obtaining access to information on the data it sells.
7- TribalGrowth — 7 Best Marketplaces To Buy & Sell Social Media Accounts (Ranked). by John Gordon Social Tradia, Instagram. The Toronto-based firm boasts an easy-to-use website that categorizes accounts for sale based on niche and number of followers. One of the best things about this marketplace is that all transactions are carried out over well-established payment portals.
8- A Precautionary Path with Kaitlin Sundling, MD, PhD Safer air needs proven technology Don’t fall prey to misleading claims — proven methods of HEPA filtration and ventilation can reduce viral risk as part of a multilayered approach KAITLIN SUNDLING OCT 02, 2023 Don’t waste your money on Far-UVC devices — buy a HEPA air purifier or a better respirator instead. Here is my list of questions that I would need suitably answered before considering use of Far-UVC technology in any setting: How can a consumer tell that the device is working? How can a consumer tell that the device is safe? Is the device approved by the EPA or any other government agency pertaining to safety and efficacy? What organizations certify the safety and efficacy of the device? What professional medical or public health organizations have endorsed the device? What is the spectral power distribution (how much light is emitted at various wavelengths) of the device? How can a consumer verify the power of light emitted at 222 nm (Far-UVC) compared to the power of light emitted at other wavelengths? How does the safety and efficacy of the device change over time? Are ozone or other toxic byproducts generated during use (from the interaction of Far-UVC light and materials in the room) that would impact indoor air quality? How can consumers be sure they are not receiving a counterfeit device? Provide the peer-reviewed publications detailing the research data regarding the safety of the device regarding eye exposure (corneal damage and cataract development) and skin damage (sunburn and skin cancer risk). Have the results been independently verified in multiple, large-scale clinical trials? What was the length of follow up? So far, none of the devices I have come across pass muster.
10- FDA — Do Not Use Ultraviolet (UV) Wands That Give Off Unsafe Levels of Radiation: FDA Safety Communication Update: August 17, 2023 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers about the potential risk of injury associated with the use of certain brands of ultraviolet (UV) wands. Do not use these UV wands for disinfection because they may expose the user or any nearby person to unsafe levels of ultraviolet-C (UV-C) radiation and may cause injury to the skin, eyes, or both after a few seconds of use. The FDA is aware that some manufacturers are marketing unsafe UV wands to consumers to disinfect surfaces and kill germs in the home or similar spaces outside most health care settings. The FDA recommends that consumers do not use these products and consider using safer alternative methods.
11- Amazon inventory management causes authentic vendors to sell fakes — Amazon’s commingled inventory — What can brands do? — Last updated on: June 8, 2022 It works like this: Amazon has a single listing on its marketplace for each unique item. Different vendors may sell the same product, which all use this shared listing. However, these products are not simply lumped together on the website. In fact, the items from each seller using Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) are stored together physically in commingled containers. So, a customer goes to Amazon, and places an order through one store. But when the actual item is taken to be shipped to the customer, it could be picked from inventory provided by anyone also selling the product. So if nine vendors are each selling an authentic product, and one vendor is selling an counterfeit version of that product, then all ten of them will suffer the consequences if the counterfeiter is not stopped. Even Amazon has troubled determining where the product came from, once the customer sends it back.
12- Twitter bio page — Dr. Jennifer Curtin @jencurtinmd Physician. Entrepreneur. Nerd. YCW22. RTHM co-founder. Recovered ME/CFS. Treated infection assoc illness b4 Covid. Tweets/DMs are my own & not medical advice. Redwood City, CA rthm.com Joined August 2021 1,912 Following 3,450 Followers
13- Vitals.com — Dr. Jennifer Mary Curtin, MD — 1 star review September 1st, 2023: “Dr. Curtin clearly paid to have my review deleted. She is a negligent and incompetent doctor who misdiagnosed me. I could have died under her care. Stay away from her and the new clinic she has confounded RTHM.
14- Healthgrades — Dr. Jennifer Curtin, MD — 1.0 of 5 ratings
15- Reddit r/cfs — adrenalinsomnia January 14, 2024 “I recall Dr Jennifer Curtin who had just joined the Center for Complex Diseases in 2019 (now at RHTM) recommending DNRS to me. I was appalled especially since she claims to have had CFS and recovered from it. Let this be a warning to anyone who is considering consulting her.”
16- Reddit — r/covidlonghaulers RTHM telehealth warning March 21, 2023 princess20202020
17- Reddit — r/cfs — Can anyone share their experience as a patient at RTHM? princess20202020 • January 17, 2024 It’s been tempting for me to get angry at them for not curing me, but I’m coming to terms with the fact that this disease simply does not have a replicable treatment. So can I blame them for not curing me? No. Can I blame them for charging a hefty monthly fee while dangling the hope of treatment? Yes, I can. They have two benefits I can think of: They will run every test under the sun. If you are coming from a situation where your doctor won’t order tests and you are dying to know if there’s some simple test that’s been overlooked that could be the key to your recovery, their testing protocol could give you peace of mind. I probably got six figures worth of tests. Of course nothing really meaningful came up, as we know there is no test for CFS. But they found a few vitamin deficiencies, etc. Nothing that was a game changer. So you could argue that they are thorough or you could argue (like my PCP does) that their tests are a huge waste of money, blood, time, and effort. They will prescribe stuff. If you want to try a rare antiviral, they will prescribe it. You want to try blood thinners, they will prescribe it. You read about some treatment here on Reddit? They will prescribe it. You want an expensive and complex supplement stack? They will prescribe it. For me, this is why I cane to them. My PCP won’t prescribe anything off label and I wanted to be able to try things. Unfortunately none of the things I tried helped me, and god knows how much wear and tear I put on my liver and kidneys. So again this could be a pro or a con. You can have access to off label drugs. But you’re a Guinea pig for THE BENEFIT OF RTHM. If they find something that works, you know damn well they are going to monetize it. So they basically have a lot of desperate patients willing to offer themselves up for experiments, without any of the controls of a regulated drug trial. Initially I saw this as a positive because I was so desperate. Now I see that they are exploiting our desperation for their own financial gain. So bottom line those are the pros and cons. I certainly felt like my provider meant well. But the truth is there is no secret cure. If there were, we would know about it.
18- Reddit r/covidlonghaulers dsjoerg March 25, 2023 We’re going through onboarding right now and it looks really thorough. Invictus1 May 23, 2023 Any updates? How was the on-boarding experience? dsjoerg May 23, 2023 Totally fine! They are reasonable, caring and experienced with LC. Excellent-Share-9150 January 16, 2024 Have you recovered? I am in the process of signing up with them dsjoerg January 16, 2024 No. We haven’t been using them actively for the past 6 months or so. Excellent-Share-9150 January 17, 2024 How come?
19- Reddit — r/covidlonghaulers RTHM telehealth warning — philosophizn • November 21, 2023 I’d advise to stay away from Dr. Jennifer Curtin, she’s one of the cofounders. Misdiagnosed me for years leading to an unimaginable hell. Thousands of dollars later…
20- Important Context — Who is Funding the Brownstone Institute? New tax filings provide some clarity about the funders of the prolific COVID-19 conspiracy outfit. WALKER BRAGMAN JUL 24, 2023 For example, Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), a group that promotes quack COVID treatments like ivermectin and hypes up concerns about the safety of the mRNA vaccines, got $55,000. Last week, the group’s founder, critical care physician Dr. Pierre Kory, invited his Twitter followers to join him in celebrating “the millions of lives saved by ivermectin in Covid,” calling it “an uplifting story as well as a tragic one due to one of History’s most massive global Disinformation campaigns.”
21- twitter.com — Salvatore Mattera @SalvMattera 9:53 PM · Mar 22, 2024 Here’s a thread about my experience so far dealing with RTHM, a private long COVID clinic. In short, a colossal waste of both time and money. I would strongly encourage anyone trying to get care to look elsewhere. Hopefully others can learn from my frustrating experience:
22- twitter.com — @rhymeswithvery 2:39 PM · Apr 8, 2024 This was my issue with RTHM. The intake person couldn’t/wouldn’t answer a single substantive question. Maybe that money doesn’t seem like a lot to them, but it’s huge for most people, & being able to talk descriptively abt services & approaches, etc, seems a legitimate ask.
23- twitter.com — Pyke @Pyke_Wielder 3:55 PM · Feb 7, 2024 I’ve been w RTHM since shortly after they started up. My doc is excellent — always on top of the latest research & testing But RTHM is very [moneybag emoji] & since there are still no effective Tx for LC & I’m too cognitively impaired to figure out partial ins reimbursement, I’m quitting them · Would be more accessible to patients if they at least billed insurance even if they kept their pricing the same & patients paid the difference. I’m out $1–2K bc I lack the ability to figure out & manage filing w my insurance for partial reimbursement. Profit over care [weeping emoji]
24- twitter.com — Alina MSN, RN, CCRC @Alina_MSN_RN 9:09 PM · Dec 5, 2023 I’m so excited for you/jealous you get to do RTHM.
25- twitter.com — Olena ‘Olenka’ Sayko @coco_chatel 9:52 PM · Dec 5, 2023 I really wish it were more accessible to more people. The price they charge is so insane given that so many people with these chronic illnesses aren’t even able to work [crying a tear sad emoji]
26- twitter.com — Fanatic Hermitude (orthostatic.bsky.social) @hobbyhorrible 9:01 AM · Nov 9, 2023 No one’s out here saying that but the money RTHM costs just ruined my life for a couple months. Arguing with my family and then just realizing yeah actually you know 12k a year is not worth whatever the fuck they’re gonna do for me. Guess I’ll just die instead.
27- twitter.com — Amy @alexandrite113 1:03 PM · Feb 7, 2024 No, but we don’t qualify because my mom has plenty of money. She just doesn’t want to spend it on RTHM.
28- Reddit — r/covidlonghaulers • May 24, 2023 tahdoteee A quick note on my experience with RTHM in case anyone is considering I recommend using caution when evaluating signing up for RTHM. Their tactics of trolling twitter for long covid treatments-of-the-week or topics to fear monger via their blog do not translate super well into helpful, thoughtful clinical care. RTHM knows no more that your PCP. And, most importantly, RTHM’s subscription model does not incentivize them to actually make you better. My experience, which of course could differ from yours, did not match the service they promise at signup. After clinician visits, I did not get any follow up from my “care navigator” so any recommended treatments from the clinician were never actually provided. When I pointed this out and asked for a refund, they took payment and immediately deactivated my account, such that I could not respond. They also never provided a superbill for insurance. This is an extremely expensive service and I think it is reasonable to expect it to be prompt, thoughtful, and helpful. This was not my experience.
29- Reddit — r/covidlonghaulers — Best-Instance7344 July 19, 2023 If you have the $ and are not having your needs met by your current medical team, I highly recommend. I’ve been with them since May 2022. It was only $99/mo at that time. My symptoms have improved a bit, but I have a very tough case. The emotional relief of having a supportive and knowledgeable provider after 2 years of gaslighting and neglect makes it worth it for me, for now.
30- Reddit — r/covidlonghaulers — princess20202020 January 30, 2024 I think their current rate is $1000 per month which gets you one appointment per month included.
31- Reddit r/cfs — link886 January 17th 2024 I didn’t go for it due to the costs. Below is what they quoted me in Nov of last year. Note the 3 month commitment. Even if you hate it after the first visit, they’re still going to charge you 3 months , which is $2500 + $1000 + $1000. I specifically asked about this. There is no way to cancel before the 3 months Yearly RTHM Patient Membership • $12,500 for the first year (includes one-time onboarding fee) and $11,000 for subsequent years Monthly RTHM Patient Membership • $2,500 for the first month (includes one-time onboarding fee) and $1,000 for subsequent months. • Minimum 3-month commitment.
32- Reddit — r/cfs • January 17, 2024 SconeOn_MuffinMuch Can anyone share their experience as a patient at RTHM? They say they don’t have a wait list, which seems too good to be true. Reviews I’ve found online have been mixed.
33- Tubb & Lang, Email Subject RE Red Dawn Rolling, April 2020: Managers wanted the CDC to help them avoid liability for worker safety. Chloe Humbert · Mar 5, 2024 William L Lang MD, in 2020 was Chief Medical Officer for WorldClinic, where according to his Linkedin profile he was employed to lead a team of physicians for “an elite patient population” including providing “longitudinal virtual health care” — whatever that means. He’s a graduate of West Point, a veteran, worked as a White House physician in the 1990s and early 2000s, worked at the Department of Homeland Security in the late 2000s. And now he works for Crisis24 Global Medical Concierge Practice, “Crisis24 Private Strategic Group’s (PSG) exclusive Global Medical Concierge practice to the “who’s who” of the world.”
34- MarketWatch — The investors duped by the Theranos fraud never asked for one important thing Published: March 20, 2018 at 7:08 a.m. ET By Francine McKenna Conspicuously absent from the package that went to investors are income statements, balance sheets and cash-flow statements audited and signed by a qualified public accounting firm. Private companies are generally not required to pay for an outside audit until they’ve made a registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer debt or equity to retail investors. However, a company planning to eventually go public starts working toward the requirement of having at least two years’ worth of audited financial statements by the time it files for an IPO.
37- CIDRAP — Scientists caution about CDC guidance on over-the-counter drugs for COVID-19 News brief March 22, 2024 Mary Van Beusekom, MS “We believe that health care providers should make individual clinical judgments for each of his or her patients in the selection of OTC drugs to treat symptoms of COVID-19.” — Charles Hennekens, MD, DrPH
38- Test2Treat.org — Home Test To Treat Those enrolled may access free telehealth and treatment, if eligible, through April 16, 2024 for COVID-19 and Flu. After April 16, 2024, the program will end for all participants.
40- Conspirituality Podcast — 136: Virtual Strongmen (w/Ruth Ben-Ghiat) “They don’t express political aspirations because the industry is narcissistic. It doesn’t really point itself toward any kind of collective action or the difficult work of party politics. None of these people are interested in building coalitions. They want to have affiliate networks, but they’re not going to do deep canvassing and try to convince people to vote. They want people to buy their shit.” / “They’re part of a depoliticization project.” — Matthew Remski, Conspirituality Podcast
43- Ground Truths A Covid Update ERIC TOPOL DEC 16, 2023 I tested positive and started a prescription for Paxlovid soon thereafter. I had 2 days of marked fatigue, but was otherwise unaffected. Like most of you who have taken it, Paxlovid induced a bad metallic taste, but fortunately I didn’t experience other side effects.
44- Inside Medicine — Paxlovid or your statin? Patients on some medications are sometimes told they can’t take Paxlovid. Is that the right move? Jeremy Faust, MD Jan 5, 2024 First, if you take any statin other than lovastatin, simvastatin, atorvastatin or rosuvastatin, the answer is easy. If you have high-risk conditions for Covid, you can add Paxlovid on top of those other statins without concern for any unsafe interactions. But what if you take lovastatin (Altoprev), simvastatin (Zocor), atorvastatin (Lipitor) or rosuvastatin (Crestor)? Pfizer says that its drug Paxlovid can have drug-drug interactions with these medications, and that the combination could lead to unsafe muscle breakdown. That in turn could lead to kidney problems or even death (albeit that is exceedingly rare). Accordingly, the FDA advises patients to stop taking their lovastatin or simvastatin 12 hours before the first dose of Paxlovid, and to resume the statin 5 days after they’ve completed the 5-day antiviral course. For atorvastatin and rosuvastatin, the contraindication is less strong and the FDA says that clinicians should “consider” temporary discontinuation of these drugs, but only during the 5 days when Paxlovid is being taken.
45- The Wellness Company on Linkedin, Mon, 03 Jul 2023 02:16:40 GMT (UTC) The Untold Truths About COVID-19, Per Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough • Early treatment was suppressed to prepare the population for mass v. • Hydroxychloroquine has anti viral properties against SARS v’s.
46- Science-Based Medicine — Repurposed to Radical: How drug repurposing created a global right-wing market for COVID early treatment fraud. A condensed timeline of the events, people, and far-right global politics that repurposed science and medicine to promote fake miracle cures for COVID-19 and spread deadly disinformation with a focus on the United States, France, and Brazil. — Allison Neitzel on May 18, 2023 It shows the pressure and intimidation exerted on physicians by executives and politicians to prescribe hydroxychloroquine and other medications that were part of the “Early Treatment” of COVID. It also reveals the blatant violation of Article 35 of the Declaration of Helsinki and tactics used to coerce or deny a patient’s ability to provide informed consent. The harsh reality is that people died in these studies and that was covered up by leadership. The demonstrated chronological mismatch in the often-cited hydroxychloroquine paper from Prevent Senior reveal it was all an elaborate farce. The Prevent Senior study was never peer-reviewed, clearly politically motivated, and used to spread disinformation. While the paper only focused on Prevent Senior, it surfaces the uncomfortable reality that several of Brazil’s HMOs were incentivized to “study” treatments for COVID with no proof of effectiveness. Even more incriminating is the timing of when several of these same HMOs began ordering several of the “Early Treatment” medications. Such fervent embrace of unproven treatments for COVID in Latin America hindered drug trials done elsewhere, as discussed in an October 2020 Nature piece. If possible, this already disturbingly dystopian occurrence takes an even more bizarre turn when reviewing the timeline of events highlighted in Adam Roger’s article in Wired. Either two days before or the same day that Rigano and Todaro “published” their Google Docs white paper on hydroxychloroquine, an actual caring physician-scientist was approved to study the effects of hydroxychloroquine on COVID by the FDA.
47- Science-Based Medicine — It rises again! Bleach as an “early treatment” alternative to vaccines and a cure for COVID-19 Bleach…it had to be…bleach. Again. This time around, it’s being used to treat COVID-19, because of course it is. MMS is a slasher quackery. No matter how often it appears to have died, it always returns for another installment in its quackery franchise. David Gorski on March 7, 2022 Again, it is important to emphasize that a chemical that can kill bacteria and inactivate viruses on surfaces and in water will rarely be effective doing the same thing in the body, usually because of the required concentrations involved. Colloidal silver, for instance, is used as a topical antibacterial agent to treat wounds, particularly burn wounds. It works because it is possible to get a high enough concentration of silver on the surface of a wound for it to work without too much of it being absorbed into the bloodstream at toxic levels. (Unsurprisingly, colloidal silver has been touted as a cure for COVID-19 as well.) Even at nontoxic doses, prolonged use of colloidal silver can produce argyria and turn you blue. As infectious disease specialist and former SBM blogger Mark Crislip once noted as well, it’s not even clear that colloidal silver is that great a medicine for burn wounds.
49- ARS TECHNICA — doesn’t pass the sniff test — FDA slams alcohol-based nasal sanitizer some use for COVID prevention — There are a lot of COVID nasal sprays for sale, but little data to show they work. Beth Mole — 2/14/2024, 6:37 PM While ethyl alcohol is used in common topical antiseptics, like hand sanitizers, the FDA does not generally consider it safe for inside the nostrils — and the agency is unaware of any high-quality clinical data showing that Nozin is safe, let alone effective for what it says is a “new” use. The FDA also noted that, for general over-the-counter topical antiseptics, calling out specific pathogens it can fight off — like SARS-CoV-2 and MRSA — is not allowed under agency rules without further FDA review. Making claims about protection duration is also not allowed. The FDA’s warning letter is nothing to sneeze at; the letter threatens seizure and injunction for failing to adequately respond.
50- Jessica Burn Notice Chloe Humbert · Jan 22, 2023 The other product placed in the list is NOT the first hormonal birth control pill from the 1960s, though it shares the same name. The drug is a nasal spray that’s on a U.S. FDA import alert list as NOT known to be safe and effective as marketed. Also it’s only being studied as a potential treatment for covid — not a preventative — not even the people studying it view it to be like a vaccine or shield. But it has been heavily marketed on social media with a dishonest innuendo of prophylactic protection from transmission, something not even asserted in the study, but potentially appealing to those desperate to attend risky activities at a time when there’s a huge pressure campaign to unmask everybody. Even though this marketing has been expressly prohibited by the FTC.
52- Dr. David Michaels, The Triumph of Doubt, 2020 — “The corporations and their hired guns market their studies and reports as sound science, but actually they just sound like science. Such bought and paid for corporate research is sanctified, while any academic research that might threaten corporate interest is vilified.”
53- National Institutes of Health (NIH) — National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) — Colloidal Silver: What You Need To Know — Last Updated: April 2023 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that colloidal silver isn’t safe or effective for treating any disease or condition. Additionally, the FDA and the Federal Trade Commission have taken action against a number of companies for making misleading claims about colloidal silver products. Colloidal silver can cause serious side effects. The most common is argyria, a build-up of silver in the body’s tissues causing a bluish-gray discoloration of the skin, which is usually permanent. Colloidal silver can cause poor absorption of some drugs, such as certain antibiotics and thyroxine (used to treat thyroid deficiency). There is also some evidence that it can cause kidney, liver, or nervous system problems. Is colloidal silver effective? Silver has no known functions or benefits in the body when taken by mouth, and it is not an essential mineral. What is colloidal silver used for? Colloidal silver was used to treat infections and wounds before antibiotics became available. There is no clinical evidence supporting the use of colloidal silver to prevent or treat COVID-19. Furthermore, no alternative remedies or dietary supplements have been shown to prevent or cure COVID-19. A few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of colloidal silver nasal spray to treat chronic sinus infections, but they did not demonstrate meaningful improvements.
54- Liu N, Li Y, Liu L, Liu X, Yin Y, Qu G, Shi J, Song M, He B, Hu L, Jiang G. Administration of Silver Nasal Spray Leads to Nanoparticle Accumulation in Rat Brain Tissues. Environ Sci Technol. 2022 Jan 4;56(1):403–413. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.1c02532. Epub 2021 Dec 20. PMID: 34923819. Collectively, these findings provide evidence for the accumulation and transformation of Ag-containing particles in the rat brain, indicating a realistic risk to brain health resulting from the application of Ag-containing commercial products.
55- Agoston DV. How to Translate Time? The Temporal Aspect of Human and Rodent Biology. Front Neurol. 2017 Mar 17;8:92. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2017.00092. PMID: 28367138; PMCID: PMC5355425. One potentially important but largely ignored factor contributing to these fiascoes is the different biological timescales of rodents versus humans. Here, I compare the rodent and human timescales of major biological events and show that while the timescales of biochemical processes such as enzyme kinetics might be comparable, more complex biological processes such as gestation, sexual maturation, lifespan, etc., run on vastly different timescales in rodents compared to humans. These comparisons strongly indicate that a “rat hour” or “rat day” is also not equivalent to a “human hour” or “human day” — and vice versa — when it comes to clinically relevant complex pathologies, such as sepsis, or inflammation (5).
56- John Hopkins Medicine — Types of Complementary and Alternative Medicine In the U.S., CAM is used by about 38% of adults and 12% of children.
57- National Institutes of Health (NIH) — National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) Safe Use of Complementary Health Products and Practices Psychological and/or physical approaches such as meditation and yoga, for example, are generally considered to be safe in healthy people when practiced appropriately. Nutritional approaches such as herbal medicines or botanicals are often sold as dietary supplements and are readily available to consumers; however, there is a lot we don’t know about the safety of many of these products, in part because a manufacturer does not have to prove the safety and effectiveness of a dietary supplement before it is available to the public. Two of the main safety concerns for dietary supplements are: — The possibilities of drug interactions — for example, research has shown that St. John’s wort interacts with drugs such as antidepressants in ways that can interfere with their intended effects — The possibilities of product contamination — supplements have been found to contain hidden prescription drugs or other compounds, particularly in dietary supplements marketed for weight loss, sexual health including erectile dysfunction, and athletic performance or body-building.
58- BBC Trending (podcast) — Brazil’s real life trolls — Sun 23 Apr 2023 “Trolls are necessary and I’m going to explain why. We have a troll farm. A lot of them. What we don’t use are bots. Bots are different things. you can buy it in India and they give you 10,000 likes in a second. That doesn’t work because it’s not legitimate. What we do, for example with trolls, is to generate some kind of relevance within the social network’s algorithms. They have become very rigid about what they show and what they don’t. And that has to do with the relevance of the publication. So what trolls do is give relevance to a certain publication. Good publicity, so that it can be shown more than other publications.”
59- FDA News Release — Coronavirus Update: FDA and FTC Warn Seven Companies Selling Fraudulent Products that Claim to Treat or Prevent COVID-19 — For Immediate Release: March 09, 2020 The products cited in these warning letters are teas, essential oils, tinctures and colloidal silver. The FDA has previously warned that colloidal silver is not safe or effective for treating any disease or condition. The FDA and FTC requested companies respond in 48 hours describing the specific steps they have taken to correct the violations. Companies that sell products that fraudulently claim to prevent, treat or cure COVID-19 may be subject to legal action, including but not limited to seizure or injunction.
60- Dominik Güss C, Boyd L, Perniciaro K, Free DC, Free JR, Teresa Tuason M. The politics of COVID-19: Differences between U.S. red and blue states in COVID-19 regulations and deaths. Health Policy Open. 2023 Nov 11;5:100107. doi: 10.1016/j.hpopen.2023.100107. PMID: 38034472; PMCID: PMC10684792. Conclusion: While the duration of the pandemic and its outcomes are only now becoming clear, this study shows an apparent association between mitigation efforts and lesser negative outcomes due to COVID-19. Despite the hesitancy of many, this work’s key conclusion is that mass-behavioral changes prescribed through legislation do provide mass-scale dividends in areas that promote these strategies. In highlighting the political divide between COVID-19 legislative and mitigation efforts, researchers do not intend to proselytize one ideology to another but to expand on the notion that differences between dominant political affiliations are equally relevant to consider. Diseases have demonstrated no partisan allegiance, past or present. The individual role of citizens is not without consequence, but to ultimately lessen the aversive effects of COVID-19 and other viral threats in the United States, it is necessary to behave collectively. Given the compelling evidence of mass-behavioral mitigation efforts being successful in pandemic remediation, further legislation should focus on best communicating and implementing these strategies across political landscapes. Focusing on effectively implementing mitigation strategies across ideologies should be paramount if communities are to address disease-based threats with minimal loss and aversive outcomes.
62- ILoveAncestry.com — COINTELPRO against the Black Movement of the 1970s Government covert action against the Black Movement also continued in the 1970s. Targets ranged from community-based groups to the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika and the surviving remnants of the Black Panther Party. In Mississippi, federal and state agents attempted to discredit and disrupt the United League of Marshall County, a broad-based grassroots civil rights group struggling to stop the Klan violence. In California, a notorious paid operative for the FBI, Darthard Perry, code-named “Othello,” infiltrated and disrupted local Black groups and took personal credit for the fire that razed the Watts Writers Workshop’s multi-million dollar cultural center in Los Angeles in 1973. The Los Angeles Police Department later admitted infiltrating at least seven 1970s community groups, including the Black-led Coalition Against Police Abuse.
63- The Intercept — After Spying on Standing Rock, TigerSwan Shopped Anti-Protest “Counterinsurgency” to Other Oil Companies. More than 50,000 pages of documents were recently made public after the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline lost a court case to keep them secret. b y Alleen Brown, Naveena Sadasivam, April 13 2023 The released documents provide startling new details about how TigerSwan used social media monitoring, aerial surveillance, radio eavesdropping, undercover personnel, and subscription-based records databases to build watchlists and dossiers on Indigenous activists and environmental organizations. At times, the pipeline security company shared this information with law enforcement officials. In other cases, WhatsApp chats and emails confirm TigerSwan used what it gathered to follow pipeline opponents in their cars and develop propaganda campaigns online. The documents contain records of TigerSwan attempting to help Energy Transfer build a legal case against pipeline opponents, known as water protectors, using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a law that was passed to prosecute the mob.
64- Escandón, K., Rasmussen, A.L., Bogoch, I.I. et al. COVID-19 false dichotomies and a comprehensive review of the evidence regarding public health, COVID-19 symptomatology, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, mask wearing, and reinfection. BMC Infect Dis 21, 710 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-021-06357-4 The COVID-19 pandemic has been riddled with false dichotomies, which have been used to shut down or polarize debates while oversimplifying complex issues and obfuscating the accompanying nuances.
65- CDC — COVID-19 Treatment and Preventive Medication — Updated Apr. 16, 2024 Don’t delay: Treatments must be started within 5–7 days after you first develop symptoms.
66- NHS — How and when to take Paxlovid It’s important that you start taking Paxlovid within 5 days (or 7 days, if advised by a healthcare professional) of getting COVID-19 symptoms.
PDF form: leftyzinerightwingprotocols.pdf
