My IBS

For perhaps three decades Mrs. Wolf complained about and suffered from what she called "my IBS."

Over this period of time the general symptoms were, on occasion, painful stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting.  Most of this time these symptoms would appear more or less randomly a few times a month.  Usually just one or two but occasionally all three.  It would appear and in a few hours be gone.

Being older it seemed as if this was just part of the "getting older" process until recently.

During the last half year or so a more systematic pattern began to develop.  Particular meals seemed to trigger the issue and it became more frequent and more severe reaching two or three times per week.

Also during this last year I began to notice she was struggling more physically and mentally.  Less likely to get up and do things, more likely to repeat herself.  Not good signs.  Getting up to do things was a chore.

Parallel to this Mrs. Wolf notices I as "deteriorating" as well.  Less active, fuzzier mentally, also not good signs.  During perhaps the last few month I began to have more and more stomach issues: gas, discomfort, nothing like "my IBS" but troubling.

For a while we thought "we're just getting older" and, not wanting modern medicine to kill us, we just decided to go with the flow.

But something very odd started to happen during the last six months.

Our symptoms began to synchronize.

This made zero sense at first.

Then we thought it might be food related.  We cleared out all kinds of products containing aluminum, various other things, no change.

But particular meals would trigger issues the next day for both of us.

There was also a sort of "cycling" where things would be better for several days and then a bout of misery.

Mrs. Wolf began to think about this.  Clearly we did not have any sort of "flu" and this went on for a long time. 

What could it be?

Eventually we began to suspect some form of parasite. Giardia first came to mind.  We've had dogs and chickens for years, perhaps...?

But the chickens weren't around three decades ago though the dogs were....

Then one Monday after a particularly bad morning episode Mrs. Wolf said: "I made some clove tea and I am going to try it..." (I later asked what triggered this? "Divine intervention" was the reply.)

Hmmmm... Okay.

The recipe: 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves, 1/2 teaspoon of oregano, 1 teaspoon of raw honey.  Stuff you have in your cupboard.  Make a tea, drink it every day.

She had tried lots of things over the years, nothing seemed to work so I didn't think too much would change.

I suffered along as always.

But Mrs. Wolf had no more symptoms.  Not on Tuesday, not Wednesday, not Thursday.

By Friday this was a significant change.

So I thought, what the hell, I'll give it a try as well...

My various symptoms diminished within a day or two.

But this wasn't the end... It was only the beginning.

After perhaps a week or so after I started, two weeks for Mrs. Wolf, things began to change dramatically.

Mrs. Wolf became significantly sharper mentally.  Gone were the troubling symptoms I described above.

Then she began getting up and doing things.  Things she hand not done in years: moving around the house, complaining about things and then making changes.  Physically moving things around, lifting heavy stuff, just way more active. 

Various leg and joint pains, muscle issues, all diminishing rapidly.

I was a week behind but I began to "improve" in a similar way.

Cutting the grass, a two hour effort with both a push mower and rider, was getting harder each year.  It took a few weeks to "get back into shape" each year.  A little longer year over year.  After a session I was tired and had to sit down and rest for the rest of the day.

Suddenly I could do this job and work outside for hours more.  Not just work, run the chainsaw for an hour, weed wack, do significant work. 

My mind became dramatically clearer.

We both had less anxiety.

Small tasks which just got put off were addressed.

Let's rebuild X, not problem, we now get up and just do it.

At this point we are a couple months in on the nightly "clove tea."

The house is being systematically reorganized, cleaned, processed, reworked.

The outside work is getting done in a vastly more efficient fashion with little "tiredness".

What's going on here?

For one thing cloves contain a eugenol.

Oregano contains carvacrol and thymol.  I have written about this many times in the past (https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2012/07/oil-of-oregano.html).

Both of us have used oil of oregano extensively and without cloves - oregano alone seemed to have no affect on Mrs. Wolf's IBS so likely the cloves are the main effector.

So the results could be summarized as follows:

Mental clarity - No more mental fog weird.  Long range thinking returned.  Planning and concentration significantly improved.  Significant day-to-day actions triggering anxiety no longer do so.

Return of physical agility - Able to now actively work at physical activities for hours instead of minutes without consequences.

Termination of IBS/gastric symptoms - For Mrs Wolf 100% gone. For me, probably still some parasitic issues remaining but significantly better and symptoms do not impact daily life as they were.

Vastly improved stamina - All of the physical improvements above but now we can do everything for much, much longer.

General reduction in urinary "urgency" and frequency, improved flow - For both us.  Less getting up at night to pee and, when you do, things are much more relaxed.

Bowel changes - For Mrs. Wolf: from IBS misery to text book normal 30 second sessions on the toilet.  Generally improved digestion.

Side effects?  None that we can detect.  And since there are decades of clove use it seems unlikely there ever would be.

But we presume some kind of parasites are now dead - or at least the eggs.  We both still have "gas" but its much different.  We suspect there are still entrenched parasites that the eugenol will need time (or some other product like green hull walnut) to get rid of.

These results mirror information and data published by people such as Hulda Clark (https://drclarkstore.com/ and https://www.amazon.com/Cure-All-Diseases-Many-Histories/dp/1890035017 - I have no economic affiliation with these) and cloves is an import part of her protocols.

Needless to say "conventional medicine" and "settled science" has nothing nice to say about the use of cloves or people like Hulda Clark.

Yet the direct results we experienced, and particularly the fact that problems and results were coordinated between us, clearly indicate more than a anecdotal result.  Nothing else we did changed.  We still eat the same foods, still do the same activities, so I doubt we unknowingly did anything else to improve our health.

The deterioration symptoms certainly matched things like fibromyalgia or alzheimers and, had we not started using cloves, we could have easily believed we were experiencing something like one of those. 

Vos Savant is wrong...

I've always found the Vos Savant answer to the "Monty Hall" problem troubling and wrong.  Not because I am ignorant of odds and probabilities, but because it does not really match reality and its always posed without a clear set of assumptions.

Here's why...

As far as I can tell this paper (image right) (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2683689) is the first reference to it.  (Though it's apparently a rehash of "The Three Prisoners Problem" appearing in Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Games column in Scientific American in 1959 - no direct link I can find but google "Gardner, M. (1959) Problems involving questions of probability and ambiguity, Scientific American, vol. 201, no. 4, pages 180–182.")

The table in the left column lays things out clearly.

Marylin Vos Savant in Parade magazine's 1990 answer to someone posing this question:

"Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?"

Is to switch doors and implicitly you choice of two doors after one is revealed is not 50/50.

Obviously if I stay in the "green room" unable to hear the show and walk out to see only a choice oftwo doors my odds are 50/50.  So the key is what information is conveyed by one door being already open (or at least so it seems).

There's a mostly correct refutation of Vos Vasant's analysis here (Don’t Switch! Why Mathematicians’ Answer to the Monty Hall Problem is Wrong Clive Rix, University of Leicester) write up here: https://cdn.ima.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dont-Switch-Why-Mathematicians-Answer-to-the-Monty-Hall-Problem-is-Wrong.pdf  By "mostly correct" I mean Rix's math is correct but the assumptions are not quite taken into account correctly.

The key element of this article is in Section 4 where Rix discusses how Vos Savant phrases the problem "the host, who knows what’s behind the doors and will always avoid the one with the prize" (Rix's emphasis). Rix goes on: "Vos Savant has done what all academics do when putting this problem to students (and I do when I am putting it to mine), she has turned a real problem that mathematicians cannot answer because they don’t know what the true probabilities are into one they can answer, by making plausible assumptions. Except that it is not clear in this case how plausible the assumptions are."

I have smelled bullshit for decades.

A recent argument made be work through the issues. Rix addresses some of it in section 4 under Assumptions.  But here I think he makes a mistake.  He writes about assumptions form a mathematicians perspective.

He should be writing from the perspective of "the House" - Monty's employer.

Rix's Assumption 5 is wrong:  Monty works for a show.  The show is part of a network. The show needs to make money for the network.  The money the show makes in advertising more than pays for the prizes (or the prizes are simply provided for free to the show for advertising).  Anyone who owned a business would know this.

Further, the show cannot have all winners (boring) or all losers (also boring).  The show has to be exciting to keep its ratings up.

The show has multiple sponsors competing for product placement on the show.  Can't give away more Ford's than Chevy's, more trips to Hawaii than goats, etc.

So "the House" as three basic options: 

1. Fairly prevent the contestant from winning to the extent possible.
   
   
2. Don't care if the contestant wins or loses (makes the show more exciting).
   
   
3. Allow (or possibly help) the contestant to win.

These options throttle profits and ratings.  The odds always favor the House.

So how Vos Savant phrases this ("the host, who knows what’s behind the doors and will always avoid the one with the prize") hand-waves away reality and replaces it with Selvin's "win/loses" table for only House option #1.

This is a bad business choice for the show.

And, as Rix says, no one can know how the show actually operated or why (in terms of profits, ratings, etc. and there for odds). Hence no one, no matter how smart they are (Vos Savant included) can "know" the true odds.

Having watched the show as a child Monty Hall could easily have offered to simply "buy" the box with the keys in it and not shown what's behind a door.  Or, if the contestant picks a losing box whipped up a huge, artificial frenzy around switching losing boxes.

So my real problem is the fact that Vos Savant creates an environment where you think she is addressing reality but has in fact neutered the problem to the point where its a simple math table tied to only part of reality.

Now take a look at the end of Selvin's "Monty Hall/Contestant" dialog:

Monty, full well knowing he has bosses, ratings and sponsors to manage, presents the odds to the contestant as 1/2.  Why 1/2?  Because only Monty or his bosses know the true configuration of how the contents is set up and why.  My guess is that somewhere there is a professional statistician under NDA that set all this up with the script writers.  Big 1960's TV networks were not manned by fools.

And the odds are 50/50 unless you remember that Vos Savant has quietly clipped out two thirds of the "House's" options.

Now if you look at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem) you see this:

You'll see that accepting the "standard assumptions" is required to accept Vos Vasant's answer.  Yet there are never clearly provided not vetted.  No one every prefaces the presentation of the problem with "assumptions" because that would make it clear they did not and could not really answer the problem.

Again, anyone who suggests that the you're an idiot if you don't believe in Vos Vasant's answer without providing an agreed upon set of assumptions is the true fool.

Erectile Malnutrition

I want to talk about the single, significant aspect of the "malnutrition" that plagues the US (at least, perhaps the world) and the catastrophic failure of modern medicine.

As I grew older I suffered from a gradually expanding case of erectile disfunction.

Mrs. Wolf, ever focused on making our lives better, was quick to isolate a number of nutritional aspects of this.  Potassium, magnesium and niacin being the initial suspects.  Horse chestnut was another candidate.

As we would add these supplements to my diet there were at least temporary and significant improvements.  But nothing that seemed to really address the problem fully.

The underlying cause is "too much" Phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) in your body.

Some studies:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15224127/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16387563/

Grok will provide numerous other links as a response to "provide links to studies discussion pde5 as a cause of erectile dysfunction".

Though attempting to track down exactly why this (erectile dysfunction and "too much PDE5" in general )  happens is not so easy.

In any case over time we came upon magnesium as the culprit.

The next element of resolving this was getting "enough" magnesium in the proper bio-available form.  There are many types of magnesium: -glycinate, -citrate (or "shitrate" if you use too much), -malate, -aspartate, -gluconate, -ascorbate, -taurate, -oxide, -lactate, -carbonate, -chloride -hydroxide, and -orotate.

Along the way horse chestnut and magnesium hydroxide monohydrate and oxide stood out.

Horse chestnut works to address the problem of "venus insufficiency".  You can read more here: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16872-chronic-venous-insufficiency-cvi.  In particular from the link: "Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) happens when your leg veins become damaged and can’t work as they should. Normally, valves in your leg veins keep blood flowing back up to your heart. But CVI damages those valves, causing blood to pool in your legs. This increases pressure in your leg veins and causes symptoms like swelling and ulcers."

Using this for me stopped a progression of varicose veins.

Supplements of magnesium hydroxide monohydrate and oxide (as well as others) work pretty well but are difficult to manage. In particular it's easy to take "too much" resulting in many trips to the bathroom.

The result of this was not only a solution for the erectile dysfunction but also a significant increase in the ability tolerate cold. (for example, I used to need heated gloves below about 20°F to walk the dogs for 20 minutes).  Now I can wear regular gloves to -5°F.

All this went along well until early in 2025.  Mrs. Wolf determined the local "tap water" to be poisonous.  She began to distill our water.  Since distillation removes minerals she purchased a supplement to add minerals back in.

(The truth in the "poisonous water" was revealed in the distiller as an unnatural "crust" left after each distillation.)

Despite the supplements of magnesium hydroxide monohydrate and oxide and horse chestnut the erectile dysfunction reappeared.  This created some confusion in large part because it was relatively abrupt.   At the time we did not see the relationship.

Further, Mrs. Wolf suffered from excessive tiredness and a distinct lack of motivation.

This went on for a period of months until Mrs. Wolf discovered a magnesium supplement which contained small amounts of all the common magnesium forms: "-glycinate, -citrate, -malate, -aspartate, -gluconate, -ascorbate, -taurate, -oxide, -lactate, -carbonate, -chloride -hydroxide, and -orotate."

Then, almost overnight (re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon), Mrs. Wolf perked up and began spinning though the house like a tornado regaining probably a decade of youth.  Less cold, energetic, enthusiastic and able to execute.

Observing this over the course of several weeks or a month I began to wonder what was going on (I did not know she was taking the 12-in-1 supplement).

So I thought hmmm, I should give this a try.

And, lo and behold, within days the ED problems vanished.  Plus I also had more energy, a nasty cracked heal skin problem began to resolve, cold was less cold and "age spots" began to disappear.

The real story is a bit more detailed but this covers the salient points.

So what does all this mean?

I think it means that:

The magnesium levels available in food today are shit - for sure in "processed foods" but probably in all foods healthy as well.  The soil has been over-harvested to the point minerals like magnesium are substantially depleted (fertilizers add missing nutrient but do they add enough or, like I have mentioned in the past about vitamin C and subclinical scurvy is "just enough" added to make the plant "appear" healthy but not have enough to nourish you?).

No doctor I have ever read about or seen related ED to Magnesium deficiency (hypomagnesemia) - they'd much rather prescribe one of the "blue pill" alternatives.  While these alternative address the PDE5 issue it is done artificially (by forcing the level down) rather than addressing the root cause of the issue.  Yet studies exists, e.g., "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36407550/" - from the link: "Conclusion: Increasing dietary intake of trace metals (magnesium, zinc, copper, and selenium) within the upper limit is beneficial in reducing the prevalence of ED."

The dramatic, and I mean dramatic, effects shown by both my self and Mrs. Wolf and the accidental triggering to too little and "enough" (whatever that means is still not entirely clear) makes it hard to believe there is any other factor involved.

 

Cube Pilot Cube Breakout Board

The Complexity of Jabbing Chrome

There were many reasons people refused to take the jab.  

I had my own which I am going to describe here.  I've been thinking a long time about how to describe the folly of the jab.  This is the best explanation I can come up with...

We can imagine that a human has some 3-4 billion base pairs in their DNA.  (All of this is simply google AI estimates - the exact details don't matter.) These base pairs make up 23 chromosomes with 50 to 100 million base pairs each.  Your DNA creates between 20,000 and 100,000 unique proteins.  All of this data (half from each parent) is combined by your conception and from the moment your are conceived this data (and perhaps other factors see: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-004385#:~:text=Epigenetic%20change%20can%20arise%20in,arose%20is%20termed%20'intergenerational') governs your "assembly" - which is spatial, electrical, quantum (for consciousness), chemical, mechanical, and much more.

An "assembled you" consists of a 3D structure comprised of 30 to 100 trillion unique cells.  A living organism that takes up .06 to .1 cubic meters (60 to 100 liters) of volume most of which is water which, as 3D machinery goes, doesn't do much.  The "assembling" takes perhaps 12 to 18 or so years and leaves your with a brain with perhaps 100 trillion neuron connections.

If we multiply out all the possible "arrangements" of the things which make up a human at any given moment in time: physical structures like mitochondria, neuron signals, fluid dynamics, physical locations of everything we end up and an incalculably large number: perhaps 10^24 pieces of information (I don't really know, no one does, but its a guess that probably matters little - just a lot of work for the Star Trek transporter to sortout I suppose).

Of course this is the amount of data representing things at one moment and ignores the outside environment (heat, light, bacteria, viruses if you believe, noise, gravity, etc.).  To simulate this human (and only the human) we must recalculate every what, 10ns, 100ns, 1ns, 1ps, again who knows.  So add more digits to the exponent.

One might say "infinitely complex" (of course ignoring any quantum activity in the microtubules).

Enter the DNA of Covid-19 (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/1798174254).  A measly 29,000 plus (or so) base pairs depending on the variant and time of day.  (Some clever 3D modeling here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/structure/?term=sars-cov-2.###).

To correctly characterize Covid-19 we have to understand that it is inserted into the larger human construct - it's not part of the human per se but instead "lives" in the 10^24 ever changing and evolving human structure (whatever "lives" means in this context).

It bounces around inside you "doing things" to your internals - whatever those things might actually be - but again, it really doesn't matter.  More infinite complexity - and lots of it.  Then add in millions or billions of the Covid-19 viruses (or viri if you prefer).

All this represents a staggering level of complexity.  Far beyond what a human mind can grasp.

And how do we know this?  Let's compare and imagine you are looking at the code of your google Chrome browser - all 32 million (or so) lines of it.  Even if you could read it all you'd still have a hard time grasping the full context of this technology.

And a small javascript program, like Covid-19, might "live" inside the browser - causing subterfuge, bugs or other problems.  Maybe it's a React program to calculate probabilities, or trajectories, or sexual genders.  Who knows...  But let's imagine it's about 29k bytes (or lines of code).  The details don't matter.

So let's generously say the "computational" complexity of "Chrome" (including all the GPU, spy-ware, etc., source code, java programs) is on the order of 10^5 (for comparison to humans) just to make up the number.

Chrome represents linear computations - multiple threads of 1D linear computations.  Not 2D drawings, and certainly not a 3D construct.  Yes it does run on a "computer" but the computational model is linear and "simple".  Yes it draws on a 2D screen.  But it's not human.

If you want 2D then you also have to think about what Chrome draws and the data it draws upon from the outside world (maybe).

Certainly a significant technical achievement...

But now consider the concept of the "jab".

The "jab" is essentially a small "program" that is designed to intercede between the Covid-19 "things" and the humans.  I am not sure even how to characterize the complexity involved.

Surely we "know" about a lot of biology, chemistry, physics and so on. But that's not the same thing as understanding the "complexity" involved.  And certainly not the same as accounting for it correctly doing some complex "edit".

I can perhaps figure out a "zero day" chrome bug to exploit in JavaScript.  But the jab isn't that.  It's more like another JavaScript program that inserts itself into Chrome and mitigates what the original program does in some useful way.  Of course, to really be similar one would have to not have access to the source of Chrome when writing this code.

As far as I know this is mostly beyond what technology can do today.  And even if we could do it's only 1.5D and ten orders of magnitude less complex that what the jab is supposed to do.

(Yes I understand the notion that there are millions or billions of man years of study of human biology but still we cannot cure the "common cold" so...)

So from my perspective the metric here is given some amount of unknown information in a given system you have to estimate how close you are to knowing whether or not you have enough knowledge to correctly anticipate what a change will do when inserted into that system.  This, of course, being much less than knowing what dynamic change might require in order to actually successfully do this.

I believe that this is simply modeled by the following: Given an arbitrary Turing machine (rules and tape, amount of data) how much of the rules, data and tape can remain unknown while still allowing you to make predictable  changes to what you can see (the known part).  

This is key.

If I have a simple Conway (Game of Life) blinker on a 10 x 10 grid and I can only see once cell how much can I figure out (correctly) about the effect of a blind change to the "code", i.e., can I somehow "read into" the code (say in this case the cells I can or cannot see) and make a change with predictable results.

Let's call this kind of a "Level 1^1" Complexity Matrix.  So by "matrix" let's pretend we make some kind of mathematical n x m matrix of numbers that, when we apply some function f to the matrix accurately represents the evolution of the system in question.  Mind you we don't know f nor do we know all the numeric cells in the matrix but we still have to do it anyway.

This is sort of the "puzzle fun" you get with brain teasers, etc.

This metric is how you think about this kind of complexity.  What's the chance that I actually know enough about what I am doing to pull this off...

If we apply this to Chrome the function f and the matrix become unimaginably large.  If I can debug Chrome than to some extent I can master the Chrome level (call it "Level 1^2") of complexity.

Again to make up numbers, I would say that all of the machines and computers on earth are typically represented in something like a "Level 1^5" Complexity Matrix and below.

So where does the complexity of a human fall?  I'd say in the range of a "Level 10^24".  Like the concept of infinity in mathematics there are different kinds of infinities and different kinds of complexities.

Injecting a "Covid-19" requires the "virus" to reliably and correctly and dynamically alter the matrix and f. 

Recently I completed a complex autonomous flight project which worked correctly at the customer site on the first day we brought it there (there was some miscommunication and details that had to be sorted out first but it worked).

This was, I don't know, 25k plus lines of code, a drone, various hardware, assumptions, lidar, etc.  Far different than Chrome/JavaScript work in the sense that it involves physical reality as well as multiple 1D program threads: accounting for 3D spatial activity, thrust, velocity, wind, batteries, motors, mechanical stuff, electronics, lidar noise, etc.

I would say this was more like a "Level 1^5" not because it's more code or more complicated than Chrome, but because it involves the "external physical world" which requires the code to account for physical reality - albeit Newtonian physics and not quantum physics like a protein molecule.  Chrome doesn't have to account for random particles from space altering its structure while running.

All this said my view of the jab was simple: There was no fucking way in hell anyone or anything could hope to account for the level of understanding, complexity, etc. etc. etc. required to make the jab work by at least 19 or 20 orders of magnitude. Especially not the first time our of the box.  

The jab only works if you don't understand complexity.

(Mind you triggering the bodies immune response is far more believable - if indeed it's actually doing what people imagine - than the concept of a piece of RNA clever enough to alter the effects of yet more RNA in an "infinitely complex" system.)

Sure we can do marvelous things.  But do we really understand the true consequences?

How may people working on fixing a Chrome but get that fix right the first time?  How long to get to the level of understanding to be able to do that?

These are the true "unanswered" questions about the jab.  

We must create a notion of "Complexity" that parallels "Infinity" in mathematics.  Just like the rationals and irrationals are different "levels" of infinity diddling up some random edit program for humans is the difference between the rationals and orders more infinite "Complexity" than the irrationals.

We are simply too arrogant to understand.

And finally it seems right to start asking why nobody saw this before?

Ivermedic Pasty Horse

Don't be fooled by knock-offs on Amazon.

We are approaching 1,000,000 views!

This blog has been around for almost twenty years at this point.  It's hard to believe.  It's been through sinuses, iodine, various health issues, vaping, Covid, technology, and everything in between.

Along the way Google took away it's ability to generate revenue, not that there ever was much, $80.00 US or so after seventeen years - at least something like that.  Probably because I wrote that banning gas stoves was nonsense.

There is much news on the health front - too much to cover in one post.

While the various processes I documented here for stopping sinus infections have worked flawlessly for both me and Mrs. Wolf I was never able to eliminate the on-going between-infection sinus pain.  It seemed like stuff was clogged up in my sinuses continuously.

About November of last year I finally bit the bullet and succumbed to the paste band wagon.  We've had chickens and dogs for some time and as the lady in the "Chicken Forum" stated "If you have dogs and chickens you have parasites."

Nothing could be truer.

Following numerous sources of information I decided on a "once a day pencil eraser sized" horse paste dose.  Using the 6.08g standard paste at 1.87% there is approximately 114mg per tube.  The "eraser sized" dose is probably 2-3mg.

Wonder of wonders within a week or so a number of changes occurred:

• Sinus problems completely vanished.  No more pain, no more infections requiring flushing, nada.
  
  
• Significant urinary improvements.
  
  
• Significant bowel improvements.
  
  
• Significant change in how my body handles cold.  In past years I had to wear heated gloves when walking dogs in temps below 20°F.  This year -8°F using standard gloves was no problem.

I personally did not notice any direct evidence of parasites.  However, Mrs. Wolf did.

Recently of Facebook - of all places - a variety of "forums" related to cancer treatment and parasites have popped up - as well as a number of other informational sources.  I will talk about this in the future.

Back to horse paste.

One of the dogs, Cookie, was diagnosed with an on-going case of anaplasmosis. Anaplasmosis is caused by Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and babesiosis - something similar - is caused by Babesia microti. There is no canine test (at least not cheap "at the vet" test) for babesiosis but there is for anaplasmosis. Cookie weighs about 45kg and ended up with a doxycycline dose of 400mg/day.  This dose should have been enough for either disease.

Cookie was somewhat "draggy" (taking careful steps) when walking - not running ahead, pooping out before the end of walk - more "quiet" than usual and we were suspicious, having lost another dog last year to what we believe was either anaplasmosis or babesiosis, that Cookie's lethargy was taking her down the same path.

One of the key takeaways in my view is the way the dogs walk, as in how they place their feet.  An "ill" dog will do what I call "taking careful steps" with their head down.  Almost as if they are looking for the best place to place their next foot or they are in pain (which may be the case) and they are attempting to pick the least painful place to step.  You have to watch this over time because on a daily walk of 1/2 mile or so on a steep 20° grade not everyone is 100% spunky the whole way every day.

We walk multiple dogs at once so the "lagginess" becomes somewhat apparent.  But again, all of them can lag from time to time so it's only important over a period of time, like weeks.

Cookie was also diagnosed two years in a row with anaplasmosis.

The diagnosis in and of itself is close to meaningless without other data.  We have a number of other dogs also with multiple years of diagnosis of both Lyme and anaplasmosis.  They seem totally unaffected.

In any case after a little less than a week in on the doxy Cookie was only "weakly" getting better.  Better but not as much as she should have been.

So six days in I added 10mg/day of Ivermectin to the doxycycline (both doxy and paste split into an AM and PM dose).

After three days Cookie is a new dog.  Within a day she perked up significantly.  Eyes were more alert, less lethargic (this is hard to tell on the way down - dogs kind of "slow" down very slowing in this situation - so much so that you barely notice the changes).  Cookie again leads the walk. She does slow  down still on the way back but then again Charity, her daughter, is laggy up the hill (Charity is a much heavier dog so she's always needed a "warm up").

Ivermectin is not a standard anaplasmosis treatment - so I suspect Cookie also has babesiosis which does react to ivermectin.

With out extensive, expensive tests its very hard to say exactly what was wrong or what we "fixed" in Cookies case.  

Regardless the Wolf family is now far better off health-wise than it was.

The revelation of what Ivermectin does and could do is well beyond one post.

More to come...

Fixing AI Stooopid

From the IEEE article

I have not posted for a long time for several reasons... Busy with life, etc.

This post from IEEE: "AI Mistakes Are Very Different Than Human Mistakes We need new security systems designed to deal with their weirdness" is simply beyond belief.

There have been numerous research articles, like "Apple’s latest study proves that AI can’t even solve basic grade-school math problems" (paper here), showing that if you train you AI with a bunch of kid stories, .e.g., "Little Johnny has $1.00 and Suzy is selling eggs for $.25..." you can ask questions about little Johnny and little Suzy but you can't ask the AI to infer what happens if the names change.

So the AI is just essentially doing a JPEG-style compression on the billions of parameters and making them into a google-like search environment.  No reasoning at all.

Consider the IEEE article in this context.

Of course the AI will make mistakes - it can't distinguish between Johnny and Frank - because it can't think and only mimics the input data weakly.

Either fix the AI or don't use it, but don't add another stupid layer of useless software on top of it to "fix it."

If you can just "fix it" why bother using the AI at all...?

Dog Hip Dysplasia and Nutrition

Found an interesting post here: (https://open.substack.com/pub/lonewolfblog/p/dog-hip-dysplasia-and-nutrition?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) - check out substack for more posts!

Miss Information: Girl Dinner and Malnutrition

From the Telegraph article linked below.

Miss information is back!

Today we are again going to make much deserved fun of MedPageToday.  As you may or may not know MedPageToday is a "top" site for true, clear, concise "medical" information - they never, never, ever publish "misinformation".  In fact, they despise all purveyors of "misinformation" - especially people like Meryl Nass (not, see: https://substack.com/@merylnass and https://merylnass.substack.com/p/paxlovid-given-license-inappropriately).

You can see MedPageToday's recent thoughts "misinformation" via this link: https://www.medpagetoday.com/search?q=misinformation.  They also despise lawyers taking their misinformation hating pals like Pfizer to court: https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/105484 (https://vsrf.ticketleap.com/covid-litigation-conference/). 

Now let's look at this fabulous case of "Tik Tok" misinformation at MedPageToday: "What's Wrong With Girl Dinner — Experts say the trend highlights the best and worst of social media's messaging on healthy eating" - https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/cultureclinic/105684?xid=nl_popmed_2023-08-04&eun=g1720904d0r

For some reason the words "misinformation" do not appear in this article?

I wonder why that might be?

So an example of a "Girl Dinner" is a "Tik Tok" influencer telling young, impressionable women that a great breakfast is "bread, cheese, grapes, and pickles".  MedPage "experts" deride this because "...these posts may promote unhealthy lifestyle and dietary choices."

But this apparently doesn't meet the criteria, whatever that might be, for "misinformation."

How interesting.

The article goes on to suggest a "social media" aspect: "It's not unreasonable today for primary care doctors to say, tell me what your habits are in terms of your use of social media," Fornari said. "I think that physicians need to be aware of the trend".

This is why the government needs access to your social media accounts - you might not be controlling things sufficiently for them.

And a "mental health" aspect: "'Girl Dinner' and Mental Health These posts would likely not have a negative effect on healthy people, but those who are more vulnerable to messages about body image issues might be influenced, Fornari noted. "Adolescent girls are more vulnerable to this because they're often feeling a sense of inadequacy and striving for perfection, which of course doesn't exist," he said. "So that's a population that I think is more at risk."

Again, manipulating impressionable young girls does not fall to the level of "misinformation..."

Hmmn...

So remember, at least as far as MedPageToday is concerned this is all perhaps a bit troubling but still, apparently, does not reach a level to be called "misinformation."

What does meet that level?

Let's take a look at what Vinay Prasad (see: https://substack.com/@vinayprasadmdmph) has to say (his background: @VINAYPRASADMDMPH at SubStack, THOUSANDS OF PAID SUBSCRIBER, Hematology Oncology Medicine Health Policy Epidemiology Professor).  He's also on youtube.

Here's one example: "The Cochrane Review on Masks is Damning - Masks have no good data to support them| - It is a religion, not a science" https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/the-cochrane-review-on-masks-is-damning

Another: "Randomized trials are the BEST way to test masking & other NPIs - Anyone who says otherwise is wrong" https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/randomized-trials-are-the-best-way

Old Vinay goes on quite a bit regarding the lack of randomized control studies.  Studies where one can gather unequivocal evidence as to whether something actually has an effect.

I wonder why no one at MedPageToday wants to hear from poor Vinay...?

Vinay, of course, is not alone (see my related article here: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2023/08/my-old-friend-scurvy.html as well as google folks like Dr. Peter McCullough in McKinney Texas).

Then there's this recent vegan genius: "Influencer who promoted virtues of fruit-only diet dies aged 39 'of malnutrition' - Zhanna Samsonova, a Russian blogger, was described as a ‘walking skeleton’ as she embraced increasingly restrictive regimen" (see: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/01/zhanna-samsonova-tiktok-instagram-vegan-diet-dies/).

Well, MedPageToday, "veganism" sure is a "thing" today...

But, apparently, no worries about sending Zhanna Samsonova's message to teen age girls.  No, no, that's not "misinformation."

No consistency problem here...

I hate to tell you, MedPageToday, that there is only "information" - the term "misinformation" is itself "misinformation".

When you have a society largely composed of idiots who cannot think for themselves for whatever reason, you need to make up terms like "misinformation" to control them.

In reality, it is up to the consumer of any "information" to decide on it's quality and value.

Only dictators try to force their ideas of what information should be consumed on others...

It seems like MedPageToday thinks that only government and big-pharma-blessed social media and talking points constitute "information" where as actual science does not.

How interesting...

My Old Friend Scurvy...

Discovering the "cure" for scurvy

About thirteen years ago I wrote about scurvy (see: http://just-got-lucky.blogspot.com/2010/11/ruinous-health-capital-spending.html).  I indicated that, due to the research of my Mrs. Wolf, I knew that large animals such as humans do not make enough vitamin C on their own (if at all) hence proper diet or supplementation is required.  But part of the story was not told...

Scurvy is a deficiency of vitamin C - if you don't know what it is you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy).

A long time ago (decades before the article) I had noticed two things: occasional bleeding gums and plaque on my teeth.  In those days these things were not uncommon.  The bleeding gums were always, at least at that time, attributed to a lack of trips to the dentist.  Ditto for plaque.  I figured I was healthy - I ran and exercised, at what was considered "good food" at the time.  What could be wrong...?

These symptoms would come and go for no reason or pattern I could see.

Over the years Mrs. Wolf's research came into play and I realized what was wrong: subclinical scurvy (see this JAMA article from 1934: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/247759).

Supplements solved the problem - I've been taking 2g per day for about fifteen years at this point.  (This amount has nothing to do with the US RDA which is completely wrong, inadequate and dangerous - 65mg/day - just enough so that the symptoms of scurvy don't show...)

What's interesting is, that in today's modern times, everyone should be "healthy" - at least in regards to nutrition and vitamin C - right...?  All the vegans eating great, nutritious, healthy food - no one should have this deficiency, should they?

Recently this MedPageToday article caught my eye: Fatigue and Pain Sent Her to the ED: Medical Mystery Solved — YouTuber and physician Siobhan Deshauer, MD, delves into the case (https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/popmedicine/105459).  From the article: "Meet Jennifer. She is a healthy, active 54-year-old woman, who is currently training for a 5 km run. Over the past few months she has been having increasing fatigue and some knee pain, but she figured it was from all the extra running she has been doing."

Like me... interesting.

Now let's go through the doctor's thought process and the steps taken in this situation (in order from the article).  Feel free to google the costs yourselves:

1. "swelling in legs" - Action: MRI of both legs - Cost $400-$12,000 - Side Effects: negligible
2. "the team ordered a CT scan of her chest, abdomen, and pelvis, which didn't show any signs of cancer" - CT Scan - Cost: $300-$3,280 - Side Effects: (see: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2012/06/ct-scans-known-cancer-cause-in-children.html)
3. "EMG [electromyography], which is the test that measures the electrical activity produced by a muscle" - Action: EMG Scan - Cost: $50-$500 per extremity - Side Effects: Unknown but probably negligible.
4. "low red cell blood count" - Action: reticulocyte count - Cost: $4-$59 - Side Effects: N/A
5. "skin biopsy" - planned but since the results would take days or weeks and Jennifer would need a blood transfusion before that this was not done.
6. "they noticed that Jennifer left a lot of food on her tray and she wasn't touching it" 

At point #6 (Jennifer is in the hospital, of course, so figure two days @ $2,800/day) Jennifer "explained that over the last 2 years she has been worried about allergies and intolerances to foods, so slowly she's been restricting her diet and cutting out foods that she suspected were causing her issues. At this point, she stopped eating all fruits and most vegetables without taking any new supplements".

(For those keeping score we are probably two days into it, adding a 1% chance of cancer from the CT scan, have spent about $7,500 - $22,000 depending on location and insurance.)

Little wonder it took so much money and time to figure this out given https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2012/07/md-no-knowledge-of-nutrition.html - yes, that's right, doctors don't learn about nutrition.  Perhaps there have been some changes since 2012 but I doubt it.

Mrs. Wolf, reading a $60 book on dog health and John Gault discussing it with her: Cost $60 w/no side effects.  Walmart vitamin C supplements (and others) $30/year.

Scurvy is not new.  "Limey's" - an American slang for British seamen was coined because the Brit's used limes and lemons to ward off scurvy during the British sea faring days (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limey).

What's new is ignorance.

Ignorance of health and what causes it.

(Image credit: https://www.thearmorylife.com/forum/threads/finding-the-cure-for-scurvy.6340/)

Lithium Doomsday Dreams...

Lithium Mining in South America

I remember standing at the gas pump around 1973 filling the family Pacer.  The newspapers reporting that the "end of oil" is a mere twenty years away.  Today, man is attempting to terminate societies use of the unlimited shale gas (recoverable U.S. [shale] gas from “traditional” resources, which include shale, conventional, tight sand and carbonate, jumped from 2016 by 21% to 3,218 Tcf [ trillion cubic feet]).

Marcellus shale alone "contains about 84 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas. Undiscovered resources are estimated using geologic knowledge, while technically recoverable resources may be produced using currently available technology"

So an error on perhaps an six or seven orders of magnitude in supply.

Oops...

It takes twenty two hundred metric tons of water to make one metric ton of lithium (see this).  Worldwide lithium demand is estimated at 900,000 Mt according to this.  So perhaps two trillion liters of fresh water per year.  Much of this mining occurs in South America and China.

I wonder how this lithium gets to the US?

I wonder what technology powers this shipment?

The US uses approximately 100 trillion liters of fresh water per year (see this).

By 2030 lithium demand is expected to reach (from this) 2,500,000 Mt.

Looks like the mining folks will be cutting substantially into the fresh water supply.

Where exactly the "waste water" goes from all this is unclear.  Much is presumably evaporated - though what non-water components does this evaporation carry with it into the sky...?

Rushing headlong into the lithium doomsday surely makes everyone feel good though.

Huntington Bank and ChatGPT: Statistically Not Reality

I recently chatted with ChatGPT.  What a stupid and sad program.

I asked it (https://chat.openai.com/chat) "So there is no correlation between your answers and actual reality ..."

"... my responses are generated based on statistical patterns in language data, and are not always representative of objective reality or truth. It is important to interpret and evaluate the information provided by an AI language model like myself with an appropriate level of skepticism and critical thinking."

So ChatGPT is basically a glorified spell corrector. 

It's remarkable that anyone would give a rat's ass about this thing.

It's neither an AI nor anything else interesting.

Fortunately I am not fooled by this nonsense but apparently everyone else is: in the Wall Street Journal, which should know better, spouts nonsense like this: "The AI Boom That Could Make Google and Microsoft Even More Powerful."

As I see it people are getting dumber and dumber - and this shit show simply adds to the speed at which this occurs.

The most basic flaws in even Google search (and YouTube) - the case where you search for something you don't like and google makes money selling your search results to people who then try to sell you the same products you don't like - have not been addressed (nor in fact can they). Why not you ask?  Because these tools have no real context.  If I search for "dogs" no AI or search engine will never know why unless I tell it or lie to it.

It's hard to imagine why any company, in this case "Huntington Bank", would buy ads this ridiculous:

Further, why would I - clearly not in the ad's demographic - would react in anything but a negative way when shone this add (often repeatedly about every few minutes or so on YouTube) - hundreds of times - each time more annoying than the last.

Even better is the quote shown in the ad: "That's kind of unbelievable - Rebekah, Pennsylvania".

Believability is a binary choice - either it is or is not believable.  Yet here we specify "kind of" - which offers nothing that relates to banking.

There's another ad just as dumb (from the video below)...

For whatever reason I only ever see these two.  We can see the nonsensical reasons the ads where created in this video:

So, Huntington Bank, and specifically Nikia Reveal, Brand Director (real name?) and Julia Tutkovics, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer - why is Huntington Bank buying ad time on YouTube for me?

Why are you wasting your money?  (Of course, I am sure you're paying some tiny fraction of a cent.  But that's not the point.  You are damaging your reputation with me (someone who has money in the bank).  Perhaps your plan is to fleece young people with "shiny, spinning toys"?)

YouTube knows I don't fit your demographic yet it takes your money to show me these inappropriate ads.

Nikia and Julia - I hope you realize that YouTube knows everything about me and, based on my history there as well as through my extensive use of Google and this Google-sponsored blog, have exactly zero interest in your ads.  In fact, I so despise them so much that I am writing this blog about them (at least in part).

The question is who is being fleeced by who here?

Mad Cow Science

I really loved being told when I was in a store without a mask that I was "killing people" or that I "didn't trust the science."

Unfortunately, the "science" is now out and there's some sad news...

"Emergence of a New Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: 26 Cases of the Human Version of Mad-Cow Disease, Days After a COVID-19 Injection"

Perhaps ironically, or even of irony poisoning according to https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/life-science-industry-mourns-death-astrazeneca-s-cancer-r-d-chief-jose-baselga "AstraZeneca's cancer R&D chief  José Baselga, M.D., Ph.D, passes away, as industry chiefs lead mourning - According to local reports from his native Spain, Baselga died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an incredibly rare and fatal condition causing brain damage that worsens rapidly over time."

AstraZeneca, of course, produced a Covid-19 vaccine.  According to https://www.astrazeneca.com/country-sites/thailand/press-releases/astrazenecas-and-mrna-vaccines-provide-equivalent-protection-against-covid-19-hospitalisation-and-deaths.html "The newly reviewed data makes it clear that both AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which is known as a viral vector vaccine, and ‘mRNA’ COVID-19 vaccines, offer equivalent protection against hospitalisation (91.3-92.5%) and death (91.4-93.3%), regardless of age, with no statistical difference"

Unfortunately for Mr. Baselga it looks like someone forgot to check for "side effects..." - I guess they forgot to follow the "science" of medicine that says "do no harm"...

Oh wait, I musts be wrong.  

It's all just a coincidence!

An "Insult to Stupid"

At the right you'll see the result of, as the content says, suggesting in a Facebook "dog forum" that, in fact, the female dog that birthed the puppies knows best how to raise them.  A violation of the rules.  

Wolves, and their successors dogs, have been around for a few hundred thousand years (see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_wolf). Humans, and dogs specifically, have been around for twenty (20,000) or more years.

Hundreds of thousands of generations without human help.  My guess is they probably have some idea what they are doing, or they would have gone the way of the Dodo.

If someone struggles to control their dog I suggested they should observe the dogs behavior in the same situation where the mother is involved.  Mother has a mouth, teeth and paws.  That's it.  No smartphone, no computer.  Yet mom, if raised in a normal environment (without human abuse) knows perfectly well how to manage the little cuties.

Is this "adverse"?  Of course not.  It's reality.

Here’s my personal research and background: thirty five years of un-neutered males and females (some but not all).  At least two dozen dogs - many puppies and many liters - dog shows (a hundred or so) up to Westminster (invitation only) - professional (only income) dog handlers including a Westminster winner.  Travels across the eastern US. National specialty shows.

Dogs fights: yes, males, now and then.   All dogs fight if not controlled.  Misbehaving puppies, of course.  All dogs raised by their mothers unless there is some specific reason not too.

No one we’ve encountered along the way, and I mean no one, not even little kids at a dog show would ever believe the no-alpha/alpha disproven stories or the "pandering to the dog" nonsense like this you find on Facebook.  

It’s not the dogs behavior that’s an issue.

Unfortunately, on Facebook, suggesting the dog's familial parents actually know what is going on is considered an "adverse method."

The problem, of course, is that these nimrods people believe that they know better than the dogs how to raise a dog.

Additionally in the same forum, we see the extensive promotion of drugs and spaying/neutering as a way to control dogs.  Not discipline, not you, the human, as the alpha (because the's been "disproven" supposedly).

Academia, the fount of all knowledge, clearly knows best and we should blindly follow.

Though I never seem to have run across any of these academics at dog events over the last four decades. 

I also must confess to laughing at idiots who can't control for these reasons.

(see this older post: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-parable-of-dog.html)

Gas Stoves Killing Children?

The "gas stove"  controversy takes stupidity down to new levels.

Here's a "study" provided by CNN (https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/75): "Population Attributable Fraction of Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma in the United States".  From the Abstract:

"Indoor gas stove use for cooking is associated with an increased risk of current asthma among children and is prevalent in 35% of households in the United States (US). The population-level implications of gas cooking are largely unrecognized."  (Note my underline of "associated" - we are not talking about causality...)

Simple fear mongering.  That's all this is...

What are we supposed to do, use an electric stove?  Wait, isn't that electricity (like the electricity for your electric car) coming from coal and natural gas burning power plants?

I did write about this twelve or so years ago.  These same morons pushing this crap told you that coal plants were killing you (see: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2011/04/10000-us-deaths-per-year-from-coal.html).  If coal plants are killing you why use electric cars?  Aren't these same coal plants creating your electricity to replace your gas stove killing children?  

Which is worse...?

When I bought my first house the remains of natural gas piping in each room was obvious.  Prior to probably the 1960s this was how a house was heated in an urban area.  Each room with a small gas heater.

Conveniently for this "controversy" it's very hard to find historical facts like this on the internet.  Even more inconvenient is the history of "childhood asthma" (at least in Europe where I could find stats back into the 1970s).  Sadly there wasn't any asthma to speak of in the olden days - right along with the in-room natural gas heaters.

(From https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/26/4/647):

This chart, from Europe, shows no rise in asthma until the 1980s.  Well after gas was used continuously in your home in your room to keep you warm.  

While there are more people today than 1981 when asthma starts to increase on the above chart it seems unlikely that a five percentage point jump is simply due to more gas stoves.  After all, the ratio of gas stoves to electric favors electric over the last decade or so (see: https://www.statista.com/statistics/295477/unit-shipments-of-electric-gas-cooking-appliances/):

Further studies like this clearly show asthma rates varying on their own (https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/26/4/647).  Asthmatics were a small minority in the olden days (before the 1980s).  And I suspect if gas heaters (which emit far more combustion products than a stove) were killing children in the 1940s someone would have noticed.

This is "controversy" is complete and utter nonsense.

It's designed to focus your thinking on something besides myocarditis and people falling over dead from heart problems.

Canadian Covid Tribunals: Recommendations not Laws

A few days ago I wrote "FDA: Liar, Liar Pants On Fire".

The gist of this is that the FDA claims its position on Ivermectin was only a "recommendation" and therefore the FDA is not liable for any lawsuits as a result of actions taken on behalf of these "recommendations".

Perhaps, I thought, this is just one lawsuit, one instance.  So perhaps I was mistaken.

Unfortunately for those impacted, there is now foreign confirmation of this.

I watched a portion of the live stream identified by https://substack.com/inbox/post/86378102. (Thanks to the Unconditional Jessica blog on substack for sharing the video link!)

"This Wednesday, November 23, 2022 at 9:00 am (Eastern Standard Time), there will be a tribunal hearing in the case of Drs. Phillips, Trozzi, and Luchkiw. In my expert opinion, the overwhelming weight of the peer-reviewed scientific literature shows that these are doctors that had incredible foresight and courage at a time when their views were considered unpopular by less critically thinking physicians. Their abilities to practice medicine have been restricted by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Personally, I am keen to observe if this will be a COVID-19-related legal decision that is made based on the weight of the scientific evidence. If so, it will be a conspicuously rare occurrence in Canada where COVID-19-related legal decisions have been made based on anything but the evidence. In this country, legal proceedings can be overseen by the public" [underline mine].

Below is a live feed from Ontario - not sure how long it will be on, or if there will be a recorded video after the hearing is over.

So what's important about this video?

The key takeaway here is that, in Canada, the defense of these doctors by their lawyer is that the Canadian health authorities (the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario above) did not and do not have the authority to enforce anything but the law.

And, as it turns out, the only thing the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario for Covid did was to make "recommendations."  Recommendations on how to treat Covid.

Thus, according to their lawyer, there is simply no case against these doctors because going against a "recommendation" is not illegal.  The lawyer made a persuasive case all the way up to the Canadian Supreme Court doctors have the freedom to treat patients as they see fit so long as they do not violate the law.

Therefore actions taken against the doctors to interfere with their practice of medicine are in fact the crimes.

I do not know when the "results" of these hearings will be made public but I hope it will be soon.

So, to my original post.

Indeed, the defense of the FDA and CDC will be they must made recommendations.

On the other hand, private and public agencies that interfered doctors treating patients (as well, I believe, private and public agencies interfering with business operations, food preparation and delivery, etc. etc.) are going to end up being liable for damages to these doctors, individuals and business.

Twitter: Bathroom Stall Wall of the World

As a young child born middle end of the twentieth century I vividly recall visits to public restrooms.

Malodorous, un-flushed remains, empty and vandalized toilet paper dispensers, runs of toilet paper strewn across the floor and into the urinals, horrifying uncleanliness, smashed and broken porcelain.  Something to be avoided at almost all costs...

But there was, almost always, a singularly interesting and even inspiring aspect: the messaging (or perhaps artwork) on the walls of the stalls.

"For a good time call Jennifer 999-9999" (No area code needed in those days.) 

Messages about bodily functions, broken heartedness, art, poetry and so on.

The most important aspect of this, with regard to Twitter, is of course, the "anonymous" aspect of it all.

Who was it, exactly, that had (perhaps biblical) knowledge of "Jennifier"?

Of course, you could never know.  

Sure, you might suspect someone, perhaps even a dear, close friend, of having the courage to deface your favorite stall by observing stall use and wall changes day to day.  But really, you never knew for sure who had written what or why they had written it.

Like the modern Twitter you were exposed to a variety of artwork, poems and other "free" content foisted upon you by legions of unknown "benefactors".

On day one of Twitter's creation I marveled at the shear genius of

• Limiting text to a mere 140 characters (just like the limit your Bic pen imposed if you tilted your pen from a seated position to write on the stall wall).  
  
  
• The cleverness of ensuring no one really knew who was writing what.  
  
  
• The implicit deniability associated with the fact that your phone or computer was never totally under you full control 24 x 7 365.  
  
  
• The obvious uses for clandestine messaging.
  
  
• And all without the danger of actual, physical excrement being in play at any point during the communication.

Indeed, the brilliance with which Twitter was able to capture the true essence of bathroom stall wall communications was unparalleled.

But, unlike the stall walls of old, Twitter, through clever use of computers created a virtual infinity mirror effect providing limitless stall walls for everyone in the world to see and use.

Today the history of bathroom stall communications (back even to Roman times) and Twitter pale in the light of what many "moderns" think about Twitter.

Now let's consider "Verified’ anti-vax accounts proliferate as Twitter struggles to police content".  This sad tome tells the woeful tale of how, without Twitter's crack (no pun intended) staff content moderators Twitter users will be exposed to "health misinformation".  They particularly lament the fact that your $7.99 USD "verified account" gives you absolute power over the minds of endless lemmings gathered to lap up content at the shores of the Twitter misinformation information sea.

From the link: “There’s a sense of legitimacy that comes with it [the $7.99 account],” said Barry. “By verifying this anti-vaccine account, they’re kind of verifying all of the misinformation it shares … it makes people think, ‘Oh, well, this is a verified account. This must be true.’”

Seriously?

"I saw it on the internets - must be true..."

No, dear Twitterati, no one but you, apparently, actually believes Twitter to be more than a clever simulation of a bathroom stall.

The article goes on and one about how "anti-vaccine" and "anti-science" posts, including, of course, those from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and other scientific publications.  See this BMJ link, as an example, covering "Myocarditis and pericarditis risk after covid-19 vaccination."  Indeed, the authors, Jing Luo, assistant professor and  Walid F Gellad, professor, seem to have not gotten the "misinformation" memo as they conclude "... a large body of reviewed studies continues to suggest that mRNA covid-19 vaccines are associated with a rare but heightened risk of acute myocarditis and pericarditis. These risks are highest in young males shortly after the second dose. ..."

Perhaps their Twitter accounts were suspended?

And did I find this article on Twitter?  No, of course not!

It came via "MedPage Today" - a popular medical rag that writes constantly about woes and misery of billion dollar corporations and government agencies and their failure to control everyone's thoughts, lives and health.

God forbid Eli Lilly's stock drops because someone thinks they now have a conscience or Robert F Kennedy Jr speak freely...

Certainly Elon Musk has his work cut out for him.

The only way Twitter can make its way out of the bathroom and on to some at least minimal legitimacy is to require actual verification of its users: driver license or other id. (Of course, it's easy enough to verify yourself the source or author of information, but I suppose this is beyond the reach of the average lemming.)

If you want true, verified content, demand actual links to sources, CVs, resume's, etc. turn on "child mode" and you'll be safe.

Just like you would expect from an actual, may they rest in peace, news organization.

If you want me to live in your "child mode" you can forget it...

There are far too many other "sources of truth" at this point to really care one way or the other about Twitter.  And that's the real problem Musk faces...

Perhaps Musk, like a modern Hercules, can flush out the modern Augean Stables of Twitter.

Only time will tell.

FDA: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Back in June, 2022 three US doctors (Robert L. Apter, M.D., FACEP, Mary Talley Bowden, M.D. and Paul E. Marik, MBBCh, M.MED, FCCM, FCCP) sued the FDA.  These doctors were disciplined over their use of Ivermectin to treat the Covid.  (Lawsuit here.)

According to these doctors the FDA said, at the time of the disciplining and still says on their web site as of this writing, that (see horse image right/below as well):

• The FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals. Ivermectin is approved for human use to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms and head lice and skin conditions like rosacea.
  
  
• Currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19. Clinical trials assessing ivermectin tablets for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in people are ongoing.
  
  
• Taking large doses of ivermectin is dangerous.
  
  
• If your health care provider writes you an ivermectin prescription, fill it through a legitimate source such as a pharmacy, and take it exactly as prescribed. 
  
  
• Never use medications intended for animals on yourself or other people. Animal ivermectin products are very different from those approved for humans. Use of animal ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in humans is dangerous. 

The FDA, according to the suit, also said a number of other similar things.

According to the doctor's lawyer on Epoch Times (link here):

From the linked FDA web page.

“The FDA has made public statements on ivermectin that have been misleading and have raised unwarranted concern over a critical drug in preventing and treating COVID-19,” Marik told The Epoch Times. “To do this is to ignore both statutory limits on the FDA’s authority and the significant body of scientific evidence from peer-reviewed research.”

Fast forward to today.  We are in Federal court.  Here's what the FDA attorney's have to say (source here):

“The cited statements were not directives. They were not mandatory. They were recommendations [underline mine]. They said what parties should do. They said, for example, why you should not take ivermectin to treat COVID-19. They did not say you may not do it, you must not do it. They did not say it’s prohibited or it’s unlawful. They also did not say that doctors may not prescribe ivermectin,” Isaac Belfer, one of the FDA.

Just a "recommendation" - right...  What you "should do".  That's a directive, not a request, especially when you are the biggest bully on the block...

How about this Mr. FDA for "consequences" of your "recommendations" (just a few of many):

https://www.abc27.com/news/top-stories/doctor-accused-of-mass-prescribing-ivermectin-hydroxychloroquine-fired-by-pa-hospital/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/pennsylvania-doctor-ivermectin-fired.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/26/us/covid-ivermectin-arkansas-doctor/index.html

(Note on the last one - it mentions the "FDA Warning" - hmmm - see how some interpret "should do" - I wonder what that exact warning was?)

Funny how, when under oath, things become a bit different clearer.

(Remember, we are following the science here...)

Jared Kelson, the plaintiffs attorney, told the court that informal claim “doesn’t explain the language they actually used: ‘Stop it. Stop it with the ivermectin.'”

The FDA’s posts, comments, and actions “clearly convey that this is not an acceptable way to treat these patients,” Kelson argued.

We also know the government, including the FDA, were in cahoots with Facebook and other big tech social media companies (see my post on this here).

Words and actions have consequences, Mr. FDA.

Today we also know, from situations like Honduras about which I reported here, that Ivermectin works in this context.

From this more recent Epoch Times article:

“Plaintiffs have also not shown that any of their claimed injuries are fairly traceable to defendants’ statements because their injuries were caused by independent third-party conduct that was not a predictable response to those statements,” Belfer, an FDA lawyer, said in response to Kelson.

Belfer noted that the FDA’s pages say people can use ivermectin if their health care provider prescribes it, argued the statements “did not bind the public or FDA, did not interpret any substantive rules, and did not set agency policy,” and said the FDA’s position could change in the future if new data become available.

“They also do not have legal consequences for anyone but simply provide nonbinding recommendations to consumers,” he said.

Just take a look at the FDA vaping media (see https://www.fda.gov/media/159410/download) and its consequences.  No more vaping, period.  Sure, the FDA is just "making a recommendation"... Destroying entire industries and increasing use of combustion tobacco - but no matter...

Attorney Kelson disagreed: “If the government is going to label ivermectin a horse medicine or a horse dewormer and promulgate the idea that it is only for animals, then the natural correlation is that doctors who prescribe it are horse doctors or quack doctors, which has played out,” he said. “That is enough of a harm to get into court,” or have the motion to dismiss rejected, he said.

“The government engaged in a singularly effective campaign here to malign a common drug that has been used for a very long time and has been dispensed in billions of doses. It’s one of the most famously safe drugs in the history of human medicine. And when people did exactly what the FDA said to ‘Stop it. Stop it with the ivermectin,’ I don’t understand how that would not be traceable back to the FDA,” Kelson said.

It will be interesting to see what the judge rules...