A two-hander this week. First Ebola…
Healthy well-fed victims of Ebola who died: zero.
Undernourished, already-sick victims of Ebola who died: 2,461 to date.
Serious fatality: the truth.
Note that the rough figures released last week put total cases at around 6,500 and deaths at 2,200, that means it’s only about 30% fatal and NOT 90% as the US media keep screaming in their scare frenzy.
Four healthy, well-fed Americans have contracted Ebola and survived comfortably. As I told you a couple of weeks ago, the supposed savage image of this infection had more to do with the terrain it’s in, meaning among peoples who are shocked, overloaded with toxins, under-nourished and weary from decades of internecine wars.
But the manufacture of hysteria continues:
More than $1bn (£618m) is needed to fight the West Africa Ebola outbreak, WHO officials say. That’s 10x more than last week! (WHO officials work for Big Pharma, that much is clear from the response to the “flu pandemic” of 2009 that never happened but was billed by the UN as the greatest epidemic in our time).
World Health Organization (WHO) deputy head Bruce Aylward stated, “Quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, this health crisis we’re facing is unparalleled in modern times. We don’t know where the numbers are going on this.”
That’s true: they don’t. But that doesn’t stop exaggeration and manufacturing numbers out of the air.
Here’s a great jokey release by Andrew Saul, editor at the Orthomolecular News Service. I think it rather makes a valuable point!
To summarize: A major epidemic is looming on the horizon, largely due to hurried housewives, careless bachelors, lazy teenagers and slovenly college students. It is called Soiled Dishes Syndrome (SDS). SDS is caused by food particles, lipstick traces, grease, grime, milk rings and other culinary crud left on cups and cutlery by sloppy dishwashers in a hurry.
Suspected for decades by patrons of every Greasy Spoon restaurant on the planet, SDS is certain to spread an extraordinary variety of viruses and bacteria at a truly alarming rate. If you’ve ever shared a student apartment kitchen sink with way too many others, you have been exposed to SDS.
If you’ve ever eaten off plates and silverware that were not autoclaved for at least an hour, you are at risk of pushing up the daisies. If you’ve ever had your own kids do the dishes… well, words fail me.
What can be done? Absolutely, positively nothing. Even if you are a scrupulously careful dishwasher yourself, sooner or later you will eat off dishes that look clean but actually still have two or three (million) invisible bacteria on them. Then, over the lips, past the gums, look out stomach, here they come.
The situation is hopeless. Nasty microbes are simply everywhere. Dire problems are expected for babies who put their fingers in their mouths (Soiled Fingers Syndrome, or SFS), toddlers who put toys in their mouths (Toddler Toy Syndrome, or TTS), and adults who put anything but a brand-new toothbrush in their mouths (AWPABABNTBITM). Vaccinations for SFS, TTS, and especially AWPABABNTBITM are needed immediately. It is recommended that a million zillion tax dollars be granted to the pharmaceutical industry without delay.
Until a vaccine is developed, here are two ways to protect yourself:
- Don’t eat fresh food, because fresh food is not sterile. (UFS, Unsterilized Food Syndrome)
- Do not drink directly from a juice bottle, blow a whistle, or ever, EVER play a harmonica, trumpet or clarinet. (UEES, Unsterilized Everything Else Syndrome). We expect summer camp counselors and philharmonic horn and woodwind sections will soon be dropping like flies.
I hope you know that I am kidding.
Reference:
[Saul AW. Soiled dishes syndrome (SDS): An overlooked public health disaster in the making (J Overblown Med Anxiety. 1:1, Oct 2014.)]
I’m sure you get Saul’s point! [worth subscribing to the Orthomolecular News Service by the way]. Do so here.
Talking About Manufacturing Truth
Along similar lines, I report on this travesty of “science” and truth. It’s a huge flaw in the current system of science and reviews: researchers conducting a clinical trial usually keep the raw data to themselves, preventing independent outsiders from double-checking their findings.
A shocking new study, reported in the Sept. 9 2014 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association1, that as much as one third (1/3rd) of all published papers would change their findings completely, if subjected to a proper objective review. That’s beyond scary. One third of science is not just mistaken but COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE of what we have been told?
This can have dramatic consequences in the hospital, clinic or pharmacy, said study senior author Dr. John Ioannidis, Director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center. It may explain why over 100,000 deaths per year occur in the USA alone, due to “correctly prescribed” drugs at the correct dose. If the researchers have lied about what they found, doesn’t that make them guilty of culpable homicide?
The answer is to have researchers publish their raw data, so others can check their figures and findings. You will be astonished to know that this doesn’t often take place. In fact Ioannidis and his team found only 37 published re-analyses out of thousands of papers representing more than three decades of research.
When they reviewed the results of those reanalyses, the researchers found 35 percent of the follow-up reports came to different conclusions from those of the original trial.
In ordinary English, it means open season of lying and cooking your figures. Anybody can do it; nobody is checking!
Most of the time, the follow-up researchers came to different conclusions in their reanalyses because they used different statistical methods or applied new medical knowledge to reinterpret the old clinical trial data, Ioannidis said.
Thing is, knowledge moves on. But often the “accepted” scientific truth remains as it is. For example, for decades it’s been taught that testosterone causes testicular cancer. Yet when re-analyzed by Abraham Morgantaler, it turns out that the “evidence”, which has persisted for decades, was actually ONE case, plus somebody’s opinion, masquerading as fact! (yes, unbelievable, what passes for science).2
Even without intention to falsify results, there’s the matter of simple errors plus the all-too-obvious human bias. The brain is a pattern-generating tool, and it tends to want to generate patterns that come from previous experience.
Up to now, raw clinical trial data has been closely held by the original researchers, usually because the trial has been funded by companies who want to keep the basis of their marketing and sales a secret (any idea why?) Ha ha.
Fortunately, there appears to be an industry trend toward making the raw data available to outside investigators. While it may be difficult to free the data from past clinical trials, Ioannidis said data from all future trials should be made public.
“If data are not to be made available, researchers should have to make an argument, and it has to be a very convincing argument,” he said. “And I cannot think of any strong arguments.”
True: There are NO strong arguments for lying and B*S*.
References:
1. Sept. 9, 2014, Journal of the American Medical Association
2. Testosterone and Prostate Cancer: A Conceptual Revolution. Presentation at 20th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, Dec 13th 2012, Las Vegas.