2210 replies to this topic

[riseabovethought]

Yea, I was just laughing about that one too!  It sure gives it a whole different perspective real quick.  Must not be that bad, really.  

Edited by riseabovethought, 13 May 2022 - 10:55 AM.

[bezevo]

i am eligible for third shot . what are opinions on ether if  it's  worth it or how beneficial is the 3rd booster possibly is ?

 

BEZ

[shiftingshadows]

one concern is:

not aspirating injections

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aspirating+injections&t=h_&ia=web

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aspirating+injections%2C+dr.+John+Campbell&t=h_&ia=web

other considerations may be addressed here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching/videos

 

 

I did get a third, but am not presently interested in a 4th.

 

Seems everyones' vulnerabilities and health varies, and that statistics, often do not match expected outcomes, ie. it's all sort of a 'crap shoot'.

 

Anyway I still mask when shopping.

Edited by shiftingshadows, 07 May 2022 - 01:17 PM.

[riseabovethought]

Obviously, after getting vaccinated, there are still a few other things one could do, such as consume things that help protect us.  Here's a study wondering if mushrooms are relevant to the pandemic.

 

Early Trials Underway to Test Mushrooms as COVID Treatment

By Marcia Frellick

 

 

Nov. 9, 2021 -- Early trials are under way to test medicinal mushrooms and Chinese herbs to treat COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms.

 

The first two phase 1 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have begun at UCLA and the University of California San Diego to treat COVID-19 patients who were quarantining at home with mild to moderate symptoms. A third trial is investigating the use of medicinal mushrooms given after COVID-19 vaccines.

 

The researchers have also launched a fourth trial testing the mushrooms against a COVID booster shot alone. It looks at the effect in people who have underlying conditions that would reduce their vaccine response. An article in JAMA last week described the trials.

 

The two mushroom varieties being tested — turkey tail and agarikon — are available as over-the-counter supplements, according to the report. They are a separate class from hallucinogenic or "magic" mushrooms being tested for other uses in medicine.

 

"They are not even as psychoactive as a cup of tea," Gordon Saxe, MD, PhD, MPH, principal investigator for the trials, says.

 

For each trial, researchers plan to recruit 66 people who are quarantined at home with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms. Participants will be randomly assigned either to receive the mushroom combination, the

Chinese herbs, or a placebo for 2 weeks, according to the JAMA paper.

 

D. Craig Hopp, PhD, deputy director of the Division of Extramural Research at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, told JAMA in an interview that he was "mildly concerned" about using mushrooms to treat people with active coronavirus infection.

 

"We know that a cytokine storm poses the greatest risk of COVID mortality, not the virus itself," Hopp said. "The danger is that an immune-stimulating agent like mushrooms might supercharge an individual's immune response, leading to a cytokine storm."

 

Stephen Wilson, PhD, an immunologist who consulted on the trials when he was chief operating officer of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, says in the JAMA article that a cytokine storm is unlikely for these patients because the mushroom components "don't mimic inflammatory cytokines." Wilson is now chief innovations officer at Statera Biopharma.

 

"We think the mushrooms increase the number of immunologic opportunities to better see and respond to a specific threat. In the doses used, the mushrooms perturb the immune system in a good way but fall far short of driving hyper or sustained inflammation," Wilson said.

 

Saxe said the FDA process was extensive and rigorous and FDA investigators also asked about potential cytokine storms before approving the trials.

 

Cytokine storm is not an issue with a healthy response, Saxe pointed out. It's a response that's not balanced or modulated.

"Not a Crazy Concept"

 

Saxe pointed out that one of the mushrooms in the combo they use — agarikon — was used to treat pulmonary infections 2,300 years ago.

"Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, used mushrooms," he said.

 

"Penicillin comes from fungi. It's not a crazy concept. Most people who oppose this or are skeptics — to some extent, it's a lack of information."

Saxe explained that there are receptors on human cells that bind specific mushroom components.

 

"There's a hand-in-glove fit there," Saxe said, and that's one way mushrooms can regulate immune cell behavior, which could have an effect against the coronavirus.

 

Daniel Kuritzkes, MD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, , who was not part of the study, says he wasn't surprised the FDA approved moving forward with the trials.

 

"As long as you can demonstrate that there is a rationale for doing the trial and that you have some safety data or a plan to collect safety data, they are fairly liberal about doing early-phase studies. It would be a much different issue, I think, if they were proposing to do a study for actual licensing or approval of a drug," Kuritzkes says.

 

As yet unanswered, he noted, is which component of the mushrooms or herbs is having the effect. It will be a challenge, he said, to know from one batch of the compound to the next that you have the same amount of material and that it's going to have the same potency among lots.

 

Another challenge is how the mushrooms and herbs might interact with other therapies, Kuritzkes said.

 

He gave the example of St. John's Wort, which has been problematic in HIV treatment.

 

"If someone is on certain HIV medicines and they also are taking St. John's Wort, they basically are causing the liver to eat up the HIV drug and they don't get adequate levels of the drug," he said.

 

Though there are many challenges ahead, Kuritzkes acknowledged, but added that "this is a great starting point."

 

He, too, pointed out that many traditional medicines were discovered from plants.

 

"The most famous of these is quinine, which came from cinchona bark that was used to treat malaria." Kuritzkes said. Digitalis, often used to treat heart failure, comes from the fox glove plant, he added.

 

He said it's important to remember that "people shouldn't be seeking experimental therapies in place of proven therapies, they should be thinking of them in addition to proven therapies."

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20211109/testing-mushrooms-as-covid-treatment

Edited by riseabovethought, 21 May 2022 - 11:27 AM.

[shiftingshadows]

"Hope springs eternal (in the human breast)."

[Juthro]

"Hope springs eternal (in the human breast)."

 

I tried to look for some hope one time, but she slapped me.

 

(sorry, couldn't help myself)

[shiftingshadows]

https://duckduckgo.c...7e69e63de2a.jpg

[riseabovethought]

More relevance
Doctors Will Be Given 'Magic' Mushrooms for Pandemic Burnout: Study (insider.com)

 

Essential healthcare workers utilizing mushrooms for stress management from Pandemic.
https://www.miamiher...e256623961.html

Edited by riseabovethought, 25 May 2022 - 01:06 PM.

[Myc]

Still on topic (I think). I watched this series on n-flix recently and I highly recommend giving it a review:

[Direct Link]

 

The video goes a long way to explain the seeming disconnect between big government and The People. It also avoids being overly biased. I found the video to be quite even-handed.

Added bonus:

There is also a suggested path by which we (The People) can begin to effect more change in leadership and legislation. Start at the local level by participating in municipal, county, and state government.

 

 

[rockyfungus]

[Direct Link]

[TVCasualty]

Here's a handy resource for following the still-ongoing pandemic: https://charts.medriva.com/us

 

 

Screen shot of map of current week-to-week trend in new confirmed cases:

 

There is a lot of constantly-updated info in that link.

 

 

In other news, I really hope "monkeypox" doesn't go viral, so to speak, since the fucked up COVID response has primed a lot of people to completely ignore the next outbreak of anything even if the fatality rate is considerably higher, though at least it will be very hard for most diseases to match the extreme contagiousness of recent COVID variants.

 

 

[shiftingshadows]

....

 

 

In other news, I really hope "monkeypox" doesn't go viral, so to speak, since the fucked up COVID response has primed a lot of people to completely ignore the next outbreak of anything even if the fatality rate is considerably higher, though at least it will be very hard for most diseases to match the extreme contagiousness of recent COVID variants.

May 31, 2022 update  ... unbelievable .... more lies out of China

 

as if Global "Warming" & Putin's reckless war wasn't enough ...

 

"NIH, Wuhan were working on monkeypox"

 

[Direct Link]

Edited by shiftingshadows, 01 June 2022 - 03:08 PM.

[TVCasualty]

I'm getting pretty tired of this pandemic, but it's not done with us yet.

 

I'm trying to at least stay current and what I've been reading about the long-COVID that people are getting from the recent variants is concerning, like how a lot of people who had what they reported to be mild cases of COVID turned out to have undetected myocarditis.

 

That risks severely damaging their heart (or inducing cardiac arrest) when they engage in strenuous activity too soon (exercise, work) without realizing they needed to be taking it easy for much longer as their heart recovered.

 

It's hard to take time to heal when you didn't know you needed to. It's pretty insidious.

 

 

Anyway, here's where we're at with the latest variants:

 

 

The following excerpts are all taken from the following Substack article from 6/27/22 by Dr. Eric Topol:

 

https://erictopol.su...p/the-ba5-story

 

The BA.5 story

 

The takeover by this Omicron sub-variant is not pretty

 

 

The Omicron sub-variant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen. It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen (including BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, and BA.4). You could say it’s not so bad because there hasn’t been a marked rise in hospitalizations and deaths as we saw with Omicron, but that’s only because we had such a striking adverse impact from Omicron, for which there is at least some cross-immunity (BA.1 to BA.5). Here I will review (1) what we know about its biology; (2) its current status around the world; and (3) the ways we can defend against it.

...

 

 

 

The question of course comes up as to whether BA.5 is more virulent or pathogenic, capable of inducing worse disease. We only have one experimental study on that so far and it was shown that BA.4 and BA.5 induced worse disease in the Syrian hamster model and more efficiently spread in lung cell cultures.

 

Do the current vaccines work against BA.5? The new UKHSA report started to address this question, looking at symptomatic infections and severe disease, but it’s unclear. With the extent of BA.5’s immune evasion and the recent trends of lowered vaccine effectiveness vs severe disease (from 95% vs Delta with a booster to ~80% vs Omicron BA.1 or BA.2 with a booster) it would not be at all surprising to me to see further decline of protection against hospitalizations and deaths.

...

 

While initially seen in South Africa soon thereafter in Portugal, BA.5 has been detected throughout the world. It led to a marked rise in hospitalizations in Portugal where it rapidly became dominant, and is now having such an effect, to a variable extent, in many European countries and Israel. It is frequently masked since the rise of BA.5 is occurring at the same time as the decline in BA.2 in several countries, and the magnitude of the BA.2 wave was different between countries.

 

 

But it’s not just these countries that are seeing the rise of BA.4 and BA.5—it’s around the world and it has happened very quickly.

...

 

It will very soon be the dominant (>50%) variant in the United States. BA.5 was ~37% as of June 25th. The risk of reinfection with BA.5 has substantially increased because prior infections are far away (antigenically) from an aligned immune response.

...

 

Obviously, the non-pharmacologic mitigating measures that include high-quality make (N95/KN95), physical distancing, ventilation and air filtration would help, but pandemic fatigue has led to very low level of adoption. Boosters would help, and it is noteworthy that for people age 50+ there is a substantial (14-fold) reduction for mortality as recently documented by the CDC for a 4th shot (previously published by the Israel investigators in multiple observational studies). That is 99% reduction in mortality for 4-shots vs 86% for 3 shots. But only 1 in 4 Americans age 50+ have had a fourth shot!

 

 

The big question now is whether an Omicron booster, directed to BA.1, will help when that variant is no longer with us, and we will be close to 100% BA.5 within a matter of weeks. And no doubt there will be further troublesome variants that lie ahead, be they more in the Omicron family or in a whole new lineage.

...

 

 

The issues that are being confronted at the FDA Advisory Committee center around whether an emergency authorization for a BA.1 booster is worthwhile now that the virus has moved onto a substantially different variant. The sad truth is that we can’t even get 75% of high-risk people to get a 4th shot (original vaccine) with a proven survival advantage. (Side note: million of these shots will soon expire, a profound waste, which should be made available to all people, age <50, who seek added protection).

...

 

My recent posts about our Covid capitulation and the risk of reinfection have tried to hammer home the imperative of next-generation vaccines (pan-coronaviruses, as described above, and nasal) but the frustration keeps mounting as we now confront unsatisfactory deliberations on variant chasing. Meanwhile, new versions of the virus (think: the time it took from Omicron BA.1 to get to BA.5) are accelerating and we’re not done yet, by any stretch. It’s frankly sickening to watch this virus continue to outrun us, knowing we are so damn capable of getting ahead of it.

 

 

 

 

 

[shiftingshadows]

" knowing we are [WERE] so damn capable of getting ahead of it."
IMO it's evolving faster now, than the vaccine makers best efforts can hope to,
and quite possibly the vaccines we did have for 'delta', were never properly tested, due to the deadly nature of the delta variant, understandably urging haste.

I am just getting over a nasty case of the flu,
about 3 weeks of disgusting mucus, etc.
Yes I did a test at home, and surprisingly
my breathing was not effected.

Long covid must truly be devastating, as you say.

I'm now reading the links you posted. Perusing is more accurate.

In spite of the new variants, mask wearing is now way down, where I live.

But I agree with you & Eric that it ain't over.

 

The fact that reinfection seems to be a big issue now with variant 5, seems to me to cast further doubt on vaccine effectiveness going forward.

 

I used my illness as an opportunity, to clean up my diet. My digestion is somewhat better. Long term who knows?

Edited by shiftingshadows, 10 July 2022 - 09:54 AM.

[shiftingshadows]

I watched some of this on Youtube, and then started reading the book, which covers in great detail  how 'big pharma' knowingly lied about the ineffectiveness of anti depressants, while pocketing what must be billions of $s over decades. The book is copyright 2018, and was a 'New York Times bestseller'; so the knowledge that 'big pharma' is a heartless monster ** predates covid.

And helps explain suspicion when it comes to vaccines.

 

video @ youtube.com/

Johann Hari - Depression: The Real Causes (& Unexpected Solutions)

115,758 views  Feb 17, 2019

[incidentally a great (IMO) video in its own right]

[Direct Link]

 

book

"Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope" 

Hardcover – January 23, 2018

by Johann Hari (Author)

 

see also [if interested]

"The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth" --2010

Irving Kirsch Ph.D.

 

**…“Some people said to Irving—so what? Okay, so say it’s a placebo effect. Whatever the reason, people still feel better. Why break the spell? He explained: the evidence from the clinical trials suggests that the antidepressant effects are a largely a placebo, but the side effects [“sexual dysfunction [“made sex painful”] & weight gain, increase the risks of suicide, increases the risk of death from all causes”, etc. ...]

Edited by shiftingshadows, 10 July 2022 - 03:32 PM.

[shiftingshadows]

In this video Campbell interviews & discusses with With Professor Robert Clancy, (consultant physician, scientist, researcher, academic, author, teacher).  Some dense science.  At around 37 - 38 minutes in Prof. R Clancy & John talk about how there are 2 types of vaccines, and how in the case of covid, boosters are now counter productive, and why this is so. This was new to me and worth knowing and understanding.

 

around 37 - 38 minutes in

 

 

[Direct Link]

Edited by shiftingshadows, 16 July 2022 - 12:14 AM.

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

 

I watched some of this on Youtube, and then started reading the book, which covers in great detail  how 'big pharma' knowingly lied about the ineffectiveness of anti depressants, while pocketing what must be billions of $s over decades. The book is copyright 2018, and was a 'New York Times bestseller'; so the knowledge that 'big pharma' is a heartless monster ** predates covid.

And helps explain suspicion when it comes to vaccines.

 

video @ youtube.com/

Johann Hari - Depression: The Real Causes (& Unexpected Solutions)

115,758 views  Feb 17, 2019

[incidentally a great (IMO) video in its own right]

[Direct Link]

 

book

"Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope" 

Hardcover – January 23, 2018

by Johann Hari (Author)

 

see also [if interested]

"The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth" --2010

Irving Kirsch Ph.D.

 

**…“Some people said to Irving—so what? Okay, so say it’s a placebo effect. Whatever the reason, people still feel better. Why break the spell? He explained: the evidence from the clinical trials suggests that the antidepressant effects are a largely a placebo, but the side effects [“sexual dysfunction [“made sex painful”] & weight gain, increase the risks of suicide, increases the risk of death from all causes”, etc. ...]

 

 

There are a couple of things that go off the rails when you allow the free market to step in. I always said things like Prisons and Medicare, where the product is the people should not be totally free market. This fosters an environment for malicious money making endeavors that end up hurting the people they are supposed to be treating or whatever. Corruption is part of human nature so all we can really do at this point is try to create systems with checks and balances that at least make it more difficult to turn to the dark side

 

I like to believe in the points he made about drug addiction and a stronger link to environment rather than a chemical dependence or deficiency. Since they often go hand in hand. I would assume he takes a similar stance and finds that in order to help with depression you may need to change your life not your chemical balance?

 

While on the subject of big pharma fuckery anyone watch the documentary Crimes of the century? It is unbelievable stuff to the point that you almost feel like a little kid being told there is no Santa Clause. Turns out the image of society in the mirror is ugly as hell and it leaves one with a feeling of wanting to turn it off due to depression. Like the housing crisis crime that was committed back in the 2008's when you see how corrupt it can get on such a massive scale, with so many players in the game, you can't help but wonder what else is going on out there.

 

 

 

edit: Oh ya forgot to mention the news tells me that the Canadian health care system is collapsing. Staff shortages were apparently high pre pandemic and now of course even worse post pandemic as workers left for various reasons. They are showing ER's with closed signs it is hard to tell how wide spread it is but certainly doesn't sound good for the long term.

Edited by FLASHINGROOSTER, 18 July 2022 - 11:05 AM.

[shiftingshadows]

Yes corporate capitalism poisons everything it touches.

[Which as regards covid, explains some of the vaccine resistance during the delta days, when they were useful, unlike today with BA.4, BA.5, & BA.2.75]

 

the real causes of depression according to the book are:

 

From: Johann Hari. “Lost Connections.” 

 

“Contents

 

Prologue: The Apple

Introduction: A Mystery

Part I: The Crack in the Old Story

 

  1: The Wand

  2: Imbalance

  3: The Grief Exception

  4: The First Flag on the Moon

 

Part II: Disconnection: Nine Causes of Depression and Anxiety

 

  5: Picking Up the Flag (An Introduction to Part Two)

  6: Cause One: Disconnection from Meaningful Work

  7: Cause Two: Disconnection from Other People

  8: Cause Three: Disconnection from Meaningful Values

  9: Cause Four: Disconnection from Childhood Trauma

10: Cause Five: Disconnection from Status and Respect

11: Cause Six: Disconnection from the Natural World

12: Cause Seven: Disconnection from a Hopeful or Secure Future

13: Causes Eight and Nine: The Real Role of Genes and Brain Changes

 

Part III: Reconnection. Or, a Different Kind of Antidepressant

 

14: The Cow

15: We Built This City

 

16: Reconnection One: To Other People

17: Reconnection Two: Social Prescribing

18: Reconnection Three: To Meaningful Work

19: Reconnection Four: To Meaningful Values

20: Reconnection Five: Sympathetic Joy, and Overcoming Addiction to the Self

21: Reconnection Six: Acknowledging and Overcoming Childhood Trauma

22: Reconnection Seven: Restoring the Future

Conclusion: Homecoming

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

A Note on the Author”

[shiftingshadows]

Meanwhile:

 

from:

 Michael Worobey @MichaelWorobey

Viruses. Pandemics. Professor and Head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. 

https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey

 

https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen

https://angelarasmussen.org/

Dr. Angela Rasmussen @angie_rasmussen

 

The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic       

 

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abp8715

 

The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2

 

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abp8337

Edited by shiftingshadows, 26 July 2022 - 04:35 PM.

[Alder Logs]

https://odysee.com/@...sent-1600kbps:e